Tag: Bill Lee

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Tougher State Sentencing Laws Likely to Push Profits at Private Prisons

Tennessee lawmakers on the Joint Ad Hoc Committee to Review the Adequacy of the Supervision, Investigation, and Release of Criminal Defendants review prison release and sentencing policies at October 6 hearing (Photo: John Partipilo)

This article was originally published by The Lever, an investigative newsroom.

As states across the country adopt harsh new sentencing laws, private prison companies are celebrating, telling investors that they soon expect more people in their prisons — and even higher profits.

From Mississippi to California, many states have taken a decided “tough on crime” tack over the past two years in a strengthening backlash to criminal justice reform efforts in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020. This year, Louisiana passed a package of harsh sentencing laws that will keep some people in prison for years longer. A new parole board in Mississippi is keeping people in prison for longer terms by denying early release. In March, Washington, D.C. enacted a sweeping anti-crime package.

These laws, advocates warn, threaten to reverse years of progress in the fight against mass incarceration. Instead, they would again trap people in prison for lengthy terms, ripping apart communities and exacerbating racial and socioeconomic inequality — while enriching the private firms that manage prisons and their shareholders.

Perhaps no state is more emblematic of the recent sentencing crackdown — and the private interests that stand to benefit — than Tennessee, where one of the world’s largest prison companies is headquartered.

Since 2022, lawmakers in Tennessee have fought to enact a slate of harsh sentencing laws that are expected to increase the state’s spending on incarceration by tens of millions of dollars annually. The key power brokers behind the legislation are also some of the top recipients of private prison company cash, The Lever found.

On May 28, Gov. Bill Lee signed the latest of these proposals into law, a bill that will end the use of so-called “sentence reduction credits,” which allow people incarcerated in Tennessee to serve shorter sentences as a reward for a clean record in prison. The law, which will only apply to future offenses, is projected by the state to result in a “significant increase” in spending on incarceration.

For the people locked up in Tennessee’s prison system, who are disproportionately poor and Black, this will mean, in some cases, they will spend years longer in a prison cell. There’s little evidence that longer sentences deter crime.

But the law does have at least one key beneficiary: Tennessee’s private prison contractor, CoreCivic, formerly the Corrections Corporation of America, one of the world’s largest prison companies, which will almost certainly see new profits as a direct result of the legislation. The company, which spends millions of dollars a year lobbying both in states and on a federal level, has begun telling its investors that harsh sentencing laws across the country will soon translate to bigger profits from the 70-plus prisons it runs nationwide.

“There has been a fair amount of activity both this year, and really the last two years, within state legislatures on adjustments to sentencing reform,” Damon Hininger, CoreCivic’s CEO, who has political aspirations in Tennessee, said in an earnings call last month.

Hininger said he expected this development to lead to “pretty significant increases” in prison populations — good news for the prison company, which is often paid by how many inmates are housed in prison at a given time. Already, he said, higher occupancy rates in CoreCivic-managed prisons had led to, in turn, “strong financial results” for investors.

Bianca Tylek, the executive director of Worth Rises, an advocacy organization that focuses on the harms of prison industries, called Hininger’s comments “brazen” and proof that the companies “don’t think people are listening.”

“It’s a real travesty that we’re allowing industry to shape what our carceral system looks like,” she said.

State set to extend CoreCivic contract despite prison deaths

Tennessee Lookout

Increased the sentences tremendously

David Raybin, a criminal defense attorney in Nashville, has been fighting for sentencing reform in Tennessee since the 1970s. He has witnessed decades of ebbs and flows in sentencing policies. Yet the crackdown that Tennessee lawmakers have launched over the last two years is like nothing he’s ever seen before.

“Over time, it will have an enormous effect,” he said.

In 2022, the Tennessee legislature passed a “truth in sentencing” bill, a sweeping law that essentially rewrote sentencing practices in the state, requiring people to serve, in some cases, up to 10 years longer for certain felony crimes.

“It just absolutely increased the sentences tremendously,” Raybin said.

The 2022 law was just the beginning of Tennessee’s draconian sentencing crackdown. Last year, lawmakers proposed a “three-strike” bill requiring even harsher sentences for people with prior convictions. The legislation passed a key House committee last year but did not reach the governor’s desk, though it has continued to move forward in the Tennessee Senate this session.

Should the three-strike bill ultimately pass, it will require an entirely new prison to be built in Tennessee to house 1,400 more inmates, costing taxpayers at least $384 million.

In May, ignoring the outcry of criminal justice advocates around the state, Lee signed a bill that will largely end early release from prison, which inmates were able to earn through participation in educational programming and maintaining a clean record in the system.

Now, people in Tennessee’s prisons will only be released early on parole, which in the state is rarely granted. The effect will be to “keep people incarcerated longer,” said Matthew Charles, a Nashville-based policy advisor with Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a nonprofit that advocates for more just sentencing reform.

Lee also signed a new law this spring that will impose adult sentences on teenagers after they have served a juvenile sentence, which criminal justice reform advocates say will have “alarming” repercussions for youth in the state.

It will take several years before the full impact of the laws becomes clear as new cases wend their way through the courts.

“It’s not immediate,” said Dawn Deaner, the executive director of the Nashville organization Choosing Justice Initiative. She estimated that it would take more than five years to start to see the full effect of the new sentencing laws.

“But we’re going to see the prison populations grow,” she said.

The people that have the money

Tennessee is an important state for CoreCivic, as evidenced by the company’s significant lobbying expenditures in the state. The private prison company is headquartered in Nashville, and it has long been one of the state’s biggest political spenders. Since 2009, the company has spent $3.7 million on lobbying and campaign donations in the state, a Lookout analysis found.

In response to a request for comment from The Lever, CoreCivic spokesperson Brian Todd wrote the company “supports candidates and elected officials who understand the limited but important solutions our company can provide,” and noted that it employs 1,200 people at its prisons in Tennessee.

Although a Tennessee law from the 1980s mandates that the state have only one privately run prison, CoreCivic has carved out a loophole after years of attempts to rewrite the law entirely. The company now runs four of the state’s fourteen prisons by routing contracts through counties rather than the state. Together, the value of those four contracts exceeds $200 million.

Lobbying records from last year indicate that CoreCivic has a small army of eight lobbyists working on its behalf in Tennessee’s state house. According to state campaign spending data aggregated by FollowTheMoney.org, Lee, Tennessee’s current governor, has received the most money from the private prison company of any politician in the nation: $65,400 over the last two election cycles, including donations from company executives, making the company one of his largest donors.

This year, Hininger, CoreCivic’s CEO, who is said to be considering a run for Tennessee governor in 2026, chaired a fundraiser dinner for the state Republican Party and personally gave each attendee a souvenir glass emblazoned with the state’s Republican Party logo. Hininger himself has donated more than $100,000 to politicians in Tennessee over the years.

Meanwhile, lawmakers who have pushed the slate of harsh sentencing laws in Tennessee have been rewarded.

House Republican Majority Leader Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland), a former county prosecutor, has spearheaded the sentencing bills in the state, championing the sweeping 2022 law and sponsoring the more recent bill that did away with early release.

“He’s been very active in trying to pass harsher sentencing laws,” said Deaner of the Choosing Justice Initiative.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton, center, with House Majority Leader William Lamberth at left and Republican Caucus Leader Jeremy Faison. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Lamberth is also one of CoreCivic’s biggest beneficiaries in Tennessee, receiving $8,500 from the company. So, too, are other Republican champions of the sentencing bills, including Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge), who has received $7,500 from CoreCivic, House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) ($10,000), and Rep. Jerome Moon (R-Maryville). ($3,000).

The money is “absolutely” having an impact on policy, Deaner said.

“Who are the people that have the money in Tennessee?” she said. “Particularly in rural places, there’s not a lot of wealthy donors.”

In the absence of other campaign funding sources, this state of affairs has allowed CoreCivic to wield an especially significant influence with state lawmakers, she said.

Driven by greed

CoreCivic regularly claims it does not lobby on sentencing-related bills — in Tennessee or elsewhere — and did so again in response to questions from The Lever.

“CoreCivic does not lobby or take positions on any policies, regulations or legislation that impact the basis for or duration of an individual’s incarceration,” said Todd, the company spokesperson.

But it’s clear from executives’ statements to investors that they are, at the very least, monitoring these laws closely.

“Going forward, the next three years to five years, a lot of states are looking at pretty significant increases [to prison populations] because, again, of changes, maybe, in sentencing reform,” Hininger said in the May call.

For the first time in a decade, prison populations across the country are rising after a dramatic drop in 2020 during the pandemic, when court backlogs and early releases due to COVID-19 lowered the number of people in prisons. The majority of states have reported an increase in the number of people incarcerated in their prisons over the last two years, according to a study published by the U.S. Department of Justice last November. According to the report, there were currently more than 1.2 million people behind bars — raising the country’s already sky-high incarceration rate.

A significant part of this incarceration surge is the return of normal court systems as judges worked through case backlogs that had persisted through the pandemic. But tough sentencing laws, criminal justice reforms say, also appear to be playing a role. Prison executives agree.

“In conclusion,” Hininger said in May. “The macro environment in which we operate continues to improve.”

The agency found Tennessee is seeing one of the country’s sharpest increases in its prison population — a reported 8 percent surge between 2021 and 2022. Colorado, Montana, and Mississippi all reported incarceration rates growing at 8 percent or above, and another 42 states reported some growth in their prison populations.

Many of CoreCivic’s prison contracts, including in Tennessee, are paid on a “per inmate, per day”  basis, meaning that these fluctuations in prison populations directly impact the company’s bottom line. Many of the company’s facilities, its financial statements show, are not at full occupancy levels — and laws that could change this would put money directly into the pockets of prison companies.

CoreCivic’s “unholy alliance,” in the words of one state Democratic lawmaker, with the state of Tennessee illustrates just how greatly private interests are profiting from rollbacks to criminal justice reforms — whether that’s prison companies raking in cash from harsh sentencing laws or the bail industry’s success in Georgia, which reimposed cash bail requirements after experimenting with bail reform, a move that will benefit bail bond agents and insurers.

“This moment is revealing exactly what we’ve known about the carceral system,” Tylek of Worth Rises said. “The expansive use of incarceration as a solution to social failures is driven by greed.”

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and X. For more information on The Lever, go here.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

GOP Candidates Quiet On School Vouchers in Election Season

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

While Gov. Bill Lee’s universal school voucher proposal is clearly a key issue this election year, there is less agreement on where Tennessee voters stand on the contentious education policy, incentivizing many state legislative candidates to avoid discussing the matter.

Numerous voter polls have generated wildly different results this year, depending on which organization was behind the survey and how the questions were asked.

As a result, rural Republican candidates, whose legislative votes would be pivotal in deciding the issue, aren’t generally trumpeting their positions on what would amount to a major policy change.

And when they do comment, the candidates are choosing their words carefully by using the language of “school choice” over “vouchers,” even though they’re essentially the same thing when it comes to letting parents use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools.

The divergent poll results, based on representative samplings of voters, underscore that vouchers remain a hot-button education issue as Tennesseans try to understand a complex idea that was the most divisive of the recent legislative session.

Supporters say the statewide voucher proposal, which the governor vowed to bring back to lawmakers next year after it failed to reach the Senate and House floors in April, would put parents in charge of their children’s education by giving them more choices. Critics say it would destabilize public education, bust the state’s budget, and further segregate schools by race, income, and students with special needs.

Now in his second term, Lee has characterized GOP support across Tennessee as solidly favoring his proposal, which is especially important in a red state where the winner of the Republican primary typically wins the general election.

The Republican governor, who campaigned on the promise of giving parents more education choices for their children, recently told Fox News that school choice is “a very popular idea among Republican primary voters.” He added that voters support it “by an overwhelming margin.”

“Legislators understand that; they know their voters want this,” Lee said.

But while vouchers have steadily gained support through the years, surveys of voter attitudes don’t necessarily bear out Lee’s claim.

Three pro-voucher groups — The Beacon Center, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Federation for Children — released findings early this year declaring broad support for expanding school vouchers in Tennessee as they sought to build momentum ahead of critical voucher votes in the General Assembly.

During the same period, the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teachers organization and a voucher opponent, released results of its own poll showing only 30 percent of Republican primary voters supported the governor’s plan.

Most recently, Vanderbilt University’s poll found Tennessee voters evenly split on the matter.

When asked if they approve of the policy, 45 percent were in favor of vouchers, 46 percent opposed them, and 9 percent said they neither supported nor opposed the idea.

“These results show that vouchers remain a controversial issue,” said John Geer, the Vanderbilt poll’s co-director and a distinguished professor of political science.

“It is a complex and complicated topic,” he added. “That makes the issue difficult to measure in a poll.”

The uneven findings of various polls stem, in part, from how the questions were framed.

For instance, Americans for Prosperity asked voters: “Governor Lee is proposing a school choice program that will enable parents to take back control over $7K of their education tax dollars to educate their child in a private or home school environment if they choose to, giving parents more control over how and where their children are educated. Do you agree with the program Governor Lee is proposing?”

More than 70 percent responded ‘yes.’

By contrast, the TEA’s survey asked a series of questions delving into the structural and financial impacts that universal vouchers would have on the state’s public education system.

Among them: “Other states that have enacted statewide vouchers saw that 95 percent of students who benefitted were from wealthy families who had the resources to send their children to private schools or already attended private schools, mostly in rural areas, instead of providing resources to middle-income families and students from across the state. Does knowing this make you more or less likely to support school vouchers?”

More than 70 percent responded that they were less inclined to support the policy.

The Vanderbilt poll, which also examined issues such as abortion, vaccines, and gun control, was conducted this spring, soon after the legislature adjourned.

On vouchers, Vanderbilt pollsters asked: “Do you support, neither support nor oppose, or oppose Tennessee giving all parents tax-funded vouchers they can use to help pay for tuition for their school-age children to attend private or religious schools of their choice, instead of attending local public schools?”

“We don’t have an ax to grind, so we tried to be as straightforward as we could,” said Geer.

About 49 percent of responding voters also said they were likely to use vouchers if they became available, and 50 percent said they would not. By a wide margin, Republicans who support former President Donald Trump were the group most likely to use them, while only 26 percent of Democrats said they would take advantage of the option.

“The outcome of the poll on vouchers was very partisan in nature,” Geer said.

That partisan lens, he added, was more significant than whether the voter lived in a rural, urban, or suburban district, where access to private schools varies significantly.

“I think it’s another statement about our political climate and the polarization of our country. We really weren’t able to get past the partisanship,” he said.

This year’s uneven polling results may help explain why many rural Republican candidates aren’t discussing vouchers or promoting where they stand on the issue when seeking to secure their party’s nomination. In suburban and urban districts, which are home to more private schools, both Republican and Democratic candidates are more likely to weigh in or use vouchers as a campaign issue.

“Rural Republican legislators got some pushback over the governor’s voucher proposal, so I can understand why they would skirt the issue with primary voters,” Geer said. “I can understand why they would just say: ‘I’m for public education because that’s what’s important to my rural district.’”

Debby Gould, president of the League of Women Voters in Tennessee, said legislative candidates can easily cloak their voucher stance by saying they support public education, especially since the House’s 2024 voucher bill bundled the creation of a statewide voucher program with public school reforms.

“That muddied the waters a bit, but voters deserve a clear answer to whether they plan to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on universal vouchers,” Gould said.

“Vouchers aren’t a secondary election issue,” she added. “Gov. Lee has said it’s a priority for his administration, so it will be front and center next legislative session.”

All 99 seats in the state House and half of the Senate’s 33 seats are on the ballot this year. Aug. 1 is Tennessee’s primary election day, with early voting July 12-24. The general election will be on Nov. 5.

You can find more voter information on the Secretary of State’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

New State Law Allows Discrimination for Anti-LGBTQ Foster Parents

Jace Wilder, education manager of the Tennessee Equality Project, says the new law “puts kids at risk of being abused, neglected and harmed again.” (Photo: John Partipilo)

With Gov. Bill Lee’s signature, Tennessee last week became the first state in the nation to establish the right of adults who claim moral or religious objections to LGBTQ identity to foster and adopt LGBTQ kids.

In the days since the law became effective, the Department of Children’s Services (DCS) has shelved a 10-year-old policy that said children in state custody must receive care that “promotes dignity and respect for all children/youth and families inclusive of their gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.”

That policy is now “under review and will be updated on the website once the review is complete,” DCS spokesperson Ashley Zarach said. New guidelines for how the state will navigate foster kids’ sexual orientation and gender identity in deciding where to place them are expected to be hashed out in the coming months.

Senate approves bill establishing a right to foster, adopt by anti-LGBTQ parents in Tennessee

The law’s passage has raised alarms among advocates for LGBTQ youth in Tennessee and elsewhere, who say it upends a central principle of child welfare systems: prioritizing the best interest of a child.

Instead, they say, the law gives greater weight to a prospective parent’s religious and moral beliefs over the need of a child for a loving, safe, and supportive home.

“What’s really sad about this is there’s a really high volume of LGBTQ+ kids in the foster system whose needs aren’t being met now,” said Molly Quinn, executive director of OUTMemphis. Among the LGBTQ nonprofit’s programs is one that aids 18- to 24-year-old LGBTQ youth facing homelessness, many of whom are former foster kids who faced a tough time in the child welfare system.

“The fact that the state would accept a family that is willing to discriminate into this broken system with such vulnerable kids is difficult to understand,” she said.

Best interests of the child?

The law, formally called the Tennessee Foster and Adoptive Parent Protection Act, was backed overwhelmingly by Tennessee Republican lawmakers, who two years ago also approved a first-of-its-kind law allowing private adoption and foster care agencies that accept tax dollars to reject prospective parents for a variety of religious or moral reasons, including their faith or whether they are LGBTQ.

In advocating for this year’s bill, Dickson Republican Rep. Mary Littleton characterized it as a necessary safeguard for families who want to offer loving homes to foster and adoptive kids but worry that they would have to compromise their faith or moral beliefs. Littleton also cited an urgent need for more willing families to step forward. Tennessee currently has 4,948 fully approved foster homes, but needs 400 more.

At the end of the day the state should be acting in the best interest of the kids and this doesn’t do this. This puts emphasis on beliefs of foster and adoptive parents.

– Laura Brennan, Family Equity

Littleton stressed that the new law says DCS is not precluded from taking a child’s preferences into account before placing them in a home.

“This bill does not disregard the values and beliefs of the child,” Littleton said, noting state child welfare officials can still take into account “a comprehensive list of factors” before placing any child in any home.

Advocates have pushed back to say that plain language of the law does not require the state to take into account the child’s own wishes.

They also criticized what they call a mischaracterization by the law’s supporters that prospective foster and adoptive parents in Tennessee have been rejected for holding anti-LGBTQ beliefs.

Parents in Tennessee have not been required to be gender- or sexual-orientation-affirming as a condition of becoming approved as a foster or adoptive parent. They have, however, been required to promote dignity and respect of a child’s identity if they take an LGBTQ kid in their home — until now.

DCS: parents preferences already taken into account

According to the Department of Children’s Services, prospective parents’ “preferences” have routinely been taken into account before a child is placed in a home, a spokesperson for the Department of Children’s Services said in a statement.

“Prior to this legislation, the DCS home study process included asking prospective foster and adoptive parents a series of questions to identify their placement preferences,” a statement from DCS said.

“Among those are questions regarding willingness to parent a child who identifies as LGBTQ+. Our goal always is to find the most appropriate placement to meet the unique needs of each child in our care,” the statement said.

Anti-LGBTQ foster, adoptive parents can’t be denied child placements under proposed law

Tennessee currently has 8,854 kids in state custody — 6,686 of them residing in foster homes. Up to a third of all foster youth nationwide identify as LBGTQ — often kicked out of home or winding up in state custody as result of mistreatment or rejection based on their gender identity, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Jace Wilder, education manager Tennessee Equality Project, an LGBTQ advocacy organization that has vocally opposed the law, pointed to his own tough childhood as an example of the importance of supportive adults in a child’s life.

Wilder, who is transgender, was raised, in part, by a friend’s parents after suffering abuse at the hands of his father, he said. His mother was disabled and frequently hospitalized.

Wilder said the abuse wasn’t solely because of his gender identity, but “it kind of gave him more ammo to use against me, so that did not help.” He was also able to connect with LGBTQ people for support in his teens and college years, he said.

“Without finding people that accepted me and really helped me grow, I think I would have been stuck in the position of being too afraid to transition, too afraid of being out,” he said. “I think this puts kids at risk of being abused, neglected, and harmed again.”

The nature of discourse over LGBTQ youth in Tennessee already exemplifies the need for safe and affirming homes, said Eli Givens, a college freshman from Tennessee who also serves as an advocate for the Tennessee Equality Project.

“It’s been just really unbelievable watching this session,” Givens said. “I’ve had adults telling me I need to go gas myself, that I was clearly molested when I was younger, just a wide array of threats.

“It’s bewildering that the same adults who told me to gas myself can adopt an LGBTQ child. That’s an extremely scary reality.”

Tennessee AG pushes back on proposed federal LGBTQ foster protections

The law was enacted on the heels of proposed new rules currently being considered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services related to the placement of LGBTQI+ youth in foster care. Among the proposed rules for all foster homes is they “establish an environment free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the child’s LGBTQI+ status.”

Tennessee AG leads multi-state fight against federal protections for LGBTQ foster youth

In November, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti led a 17-state coalition opposing the rules, saying in a letter to the federal government that they would shrink the pool of available foster families and “further divert resources away from protecting foster children from physical abuse and toward enforcing compliance with controversial gender ideology.”

Laura Brennan, associate director for child welfare policy for Family Equality, which advocates for LGBTQ families, said national advocates are keeping a close eye on what’s happening in Tennessee. The state’s 2022 law allowing publicly-funded private adoption and foster care agencies to exclude LGBTQ parents has seen been adopted by 13 other states, she said.

“At the end of the day the state should be acting in the best interest of the kids and this doesn’t do this,” she said. “This puts emphasis on beliefs of foster and adoptive parents.”

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Bill Allowing Armed Teachers Headed to Governor’s Desk

Protesters stage a "die-in" on the rotunda floor outside of the House chamber at the Tennessee State Capitol on April 23, 2024, after lawmakers passed a bill to let certain teachers and school staff carry handguns in schools. (Photo: Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat)

Protesters screamed “blood on your hands!”, then lay down on the floor of the Tennessee State Capitol as if they were victims of gun violence, after lawmakers passed legislation Tuesday to let some teachers and staff carry guns at school.

In between, House Speaker Cameron Sexton paused business in the House of Representatives and ordered state troopers to clear the spectator gallery of protesters.

The 68-28 vote came one year after an intruder shot and killed three children and three adults at a Nashville school, prompting mass protests by gun control advocates and ongoing calls for tighter gun laws.

But instead of restricting gun access in one of America’s most gun-friendly states, the GOP-controlled legislature is sending Republican Gov. Bill Lee a bill that would expand it.

Gun control advocates were angry.

“They’re going in the wrong direction,” said Marley Mello, a 15-year-old Nashville student. “Guns are the problem, not the solution.”

Lisa Bruce, a retired Tennessee principal, called it a “Band-Aid to cover a gaping wound.”

“I could maybe get on board with it if we were already doing common sense measures to reduce gun violence in our state,” she said. “But this feels like a huge leap.”

The bill’s Republican sponsors have said the legislation is needed to provide an armed presence on every Tennessee school campus, especially in rural areas. Nearly a third of the state’s 1,800-plus public schools don’t have a school resource officer, despite an influx of state money to pay for them, due to a shortage in the profession.

On the House floor, Rep. Ryan Williams, of Cookeville, emphasized that carrying a gun would be voluntary and allowed only if the local school district and law enforcement agencies agree to the policy. The school employee carrying the gun would have to have an enhanced permit, complete 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, and pass a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

Republican lawmakers voting for the measure liked that local officials ultimately could decide whether the policy works for their community.

“I trust my local law enforcement. I trust my director of schools. I trust my teacher,” said Rep. Brock Martin, of Huntingdon.

But Democrats said the effort was misguided, shortsighted, and dangerous.

“We’re going to give somebody a little pop gun to go against a weapon of war. It does not work, folks,” said Rep. Bo Mitchell, of Nashville.

Tennesseans would be better served, Democrats argued, if the legislature passed laws requiring safe storage of firearms and background checks, as well as to temporarily remove guns from any person who is an imminent risk to themselves or others — all proposals that have been defeated by Republicans in charge.

The vote came after an hour of debate in which Democrats tried unsuccessfully to change the bill to exclude their counties, ensure parents are notified when their child’s teacher is armed, or remove a clause that shields districts and law enforcement agencies from civil lawsuits over how a school employee uses, or doesn’t use, a gun.

On Monday, one parent at Nashville’s Covenant School, where the shooting occurred on March 27, 2023, delivered a petition signed by more than 5,000 Tennesseans asking lawmakers to vote the bill down.

“While we all want safe schools and an end to gun violence, arming teachers with guns is not the way,” wrote Sarah Shoop Neumann, whose 5-year-old son was enrolled in Covenant’s preschool.

Another Covenant parent, Mary Joyce, called the bill “ludicrous.”

“Had my daughter’s teacher left the classroom to pursue the shooter, a classroom of 9-year-olds would have been left to protect themselves,” Joyce said.

Jeff Bledsoe, the executive director of the Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association, told Chalkbeat he expects few teachers to carry a gun if the bill becomes law. More likely candidates, he said, are school staff members who have a military or law enforcement background.

His organization opposed the legislation in 2019 when Williams sponsored a similar bill. However, it is neutral on the current bill after working with the sponsors to add more requirements before a person can carry a weapon at school.

Two weeks earlier, the bill easily cleared the Senate, where spectators also were ejected from the gallery after defying warnings from Lt. Gov. Randy McNally to stay quiet.

The governor has signaled he likely will sign the measure into law.

“I’ve said for many years that I’m open to the idea, but the particulars are important,” he told reporters last week.

An advocate for parental rights, the governor declined to comment on the bill’s intent to block a parent from being notified if their child’s teacher is carrying a gun.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Welcome Turnaround

Volkswagen ID.4 (Photo: Courtesy Volkswagen)

“The reality is companies have choices when it comes to where to invest and bring jobs and opportunity. We have worked tirelessly on behalf of our constituents to bring good-paying jobs to our states. These jobs have become part of the fabric of the automotive manufacturing industry. Unionization would certainly put our states’ jobs in jeopardy.”

Sounds just like the kind of statement a well-paid automaker CEO would make when faced with the prospect of his company’s lowly worker bees forming a union. Except in the preceding case, it’s the kind of statement six Southern Republican governors would — and did — make at the prospect of the United Auto Workers unionizing a car-manufacturing plant in their state.

The governors — of Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and, of course, Tennessee — were getting the vapors over the notion that factory workers would dare to organize for better working conditions. “Lawsy mercy,” said Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, in a statement. “We cain’t have no communist unions moving into our bidness-lovin’ Land o’ Cotton™. Old times here are not forgotten! Next thing you know, these uppity workin’ folks will be wantin’ gummit healthcare and decent public schools and gun reform.” Okay, ol’ Voucher Bill didn’t really say that, but he sure as hell thought it. And to be fair, he wasn’t the first Lee to get his butt kicked by a union.

Here’s another gem from the governors’ statement: “We want to keep good paying jobs and continue to grow the American auto manufacturing sector here. A successful unionization drive will stop this growth in its tracks, to the detriment of American workers.” Right, because you clowns are always all about the “workers.”

The scare tactics didn’t work. Employees at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga voted by a three-to-one margin to join the United Auto Workers last Friday, making their factory the first in the South to unionize since the 1940s.

It’s no wonder the governors were scared. The GOP economic model is to keep workers underpaid and uneducated, grateful for any crumbs their corporate overlords deem them worthy to receive. In return, the politicians get fat corporate “contributions” and corporations get sweet tax breaks to move into the states of the old Confederacy. When it comes to workers’ rights, the mantra for those at the top of this pyramid scheme is, “Look away, Dixieland.”

Another vital part of the GOP’s strategy has been to keep working-class Americans fighting amongst themselves, mostly by exploiting racial division. Gotta make sure the MAGA whites stay mad at the African Americans and the Latinos. And vice versa. The GOP knows that if all those folks ever organized to challenge the game being played on them, well, it could get ugly for their overlords.

That’s why it was so edifying to see videos of the Volkswagen plant workers — white, Black, and brown — celebrating their successful union vote with fireworks, chants, and cheers. They were celebrating getting a voice in their workplace, including better healthcare and retirement benefits, and more paid time off. They were celebrating getting some skin in the game.

Current wages for workers in Chattanooga range from $23 to $32, according to Volkswagen. The UAW noted that following their strikes last year against Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, wages for the highest-paid production workers at those plants rose to more than $40 an hour, plus improved benefits. Fireworks, indeed.

Interestingly, Volkswagen said it respects its workers’ right to determine who should represent their interests. “We fully support an NLRB vote so every team member has a chance to vote in privacy in this important decision,” the company said. It’s almost like the state governors were fear-mongering or something. Or maybe the company actually respects its workers. What a concept.

Next up for the UAW — which says it plans to try to unionize a dozen Southern automaker facilities — are two Mercedes-Benz plants in Alabama, where a vote on unionization will take place in mid-May. The UAW says a majority of workers at those plants have already signed authorization cards supporting union membership.

The results of the Volkswagen vote, could have far-reaching consequences for the labor movement in the region, said Stephen Silvia, a professor at American University who was quoted in a recent Washington Post article: “If the UAW can prevail,” he said, “it means that the Volkswagen victory isn’t an anomaly and we’re really seeing a turnaround in attitudes in workers in the South.”

If so, it’s kudos to Tennessee’s auto workers for standing up to the governors and for leading the turnaround in attitudes toward workers’ rights. And here’s hoping Alabama can keep the momentum going. Roll Tide.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

School Voucher Plan Dead for the Year

Gov. Bill Lee made passage of education savings accounts, a type of school voucher, the signature legislative goal of his first year in office and proposed creating a statewide school voucher program in 2024. (TN.gov)

In the end, the gulf between competing school voucher bills in Tennessee’s legislature was just too wide to cross.

Gov. Bill Lee acknowledged Monday that his push to create a universal school voucher program — which had been on the ropes for more than a month — was dead for the year after Republican leaders in the Tennessee House and Senate were unable to break through disagreements about testing and funding.

“While we made tremendous progress, unfortunately it has become clear that there is not a pathway for the bill during this legislative session,” Lee said in a statement Monday.

The Republican governor vowed to return with another plan next year and added that he’s disappointed for families “who will have to wait yet another year for the freedom to choose the right education for their child.”

The proposal’s failure this year hands Lee one of the biggest defeats of his administration, now in its second term.

It also signals that for all the momentum vouchers have in Tennessee — including a string of victories in the courts and legislature — Lee’s statewide proposal remains a divisive policy because of its potential to destabilize urban, suburban, and rural public school districts, and add a new burden on state finances.

For now, Tennessee only has its targeted voucher program in three urban counties, which provides taxpayer funding to 2,095 students to pay toward private school tuition, plus a smaller voucher program for students with certain disabilities.

As part of his broader school-choice agenda, the governor wanted his new voucher program to eventually become available to every K-12 student across Tennessee, regardless of their family income, and lawmakers took up two vastly different bills from the House and Senate.

But the chambers deadlocked on two issues, according to Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, the Bristol Republican who worked with House Republican leaders for weeks to try to reach a compromise.

First, in addition to creating a new private school voucher program, the more expansive and expensive House version sought to dramatically reduce testing and accountability for public school students.

“We had worked really hard to get those measures into place,” Lundberg said, “and believe it would be a step backward for our state.”

Second, the House version proposed increasing the state’s contribution toward public school teachers’ medical insurance coverage from 45 percent to 60 percent — and paying for it with funding earmarked for teacher raises.

That funding pathway closed last week when the legislature approved a 2024-25 budget that retained the $125 million that Lee had set aside to increase the annual minimum salary for public school teachers from $42,000 to $44,500, as promised last year by the governor.

“Ultimately, the House and the Senate had looked at education freedom scholarships through two different lenses,” Lundberg told Chalkbeat on Monday. “We looked at it as school-choice legislation. The House looked at it as a way to achieve both school choice and education reform.

“Our perspectives were just so different that we could not come together at the end,” he said.

Timing and cost were factors

As the legislature entered what’s expected to be its final week of the 2024 session, lawmakers worried about the timing of creating an expensive new program in the midst of flattening revenues and during an election year in which most of their names will be on the ballot.

The voucher program would have been expected to grow over time, likely subsidizing tuition for families who would have chosen private schools anyway. In the program’s second year, according to financial analysts, the Senate version’s projected cost was $287 million, while the House version was projected to cost $384 million.

In addition, more than 50 Tennessee school boards were on record opposing the plan. And the research shows little recent evidence that vouchers improve test scores.

The hurdles were especially problematic in the House, where voucher proposals have historically been harder to pass. To win more votes in that chamber, GOP leaders added enticements aimed at public school supporters to reduce testing time for students, require fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and give districts extra money to help with their building costs, as well as more funding for teachers’ medical insurance costs.

On Monday, House Speaker Cameron Sexton framed the debate as helpful for future talks even though it didn’t produce a consensus this year.

“Universal school choice came closer to a full vote than it had ever been in the past,” Sexton said in a statement. “We will continue working until all parents have the same opportunity to use their tax dollars to choose the best school for their child.”

Democrats, who were united in their opposition to vouchers, said the governor’s proposal ultimately crumbled because many Tennesseans pushed back on a plan that generated more questions than answers.

“From the start, the governor’s proposal was heavy on talking points and light on the substance of how it would work and how much it actually would cost,” said Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville. “The funding and the accountability pieces were always going to be the sticking points,” he added, “because voucher proponents really want the funding without the accountability.”

Even as voucher supporters quickly promised to try again next year, groups representing the state’s teachers hailed the governor’s loss as a win for Tennesseans.

“Governor Lee’s proposal was poorly written, arriving late in session, and had zero accountability in the plan,” said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee.

The leaders of Arlington Community Schools near Memphis, who issued a fiery statement in December denouncing Lee’s voucher plan as part of a systematic attack on public schools, said they were exhilarated by the legislation’s defeat — and troubled that the governor is already talking about next year.

“He hasn’t even taken a day to understand why his signature bill failed,” said Superintendent Jeff Mayo. “That tells me he doesn’t care to listen to our concerns. The end-game is to ultimately usher vouchers into Tennessee to fund private schools, despite the lackluster evidence that it will actually help students.”

Voucher policies have advanced under Lee

For years, school voucher advocates had watched their policy dream come up short in Tennessee before racking up a string of victories after Lee took office in 2019 amid significant turnover in the GOP-controlled legislature.

Lawmakers passed a bill on a narrow, controversial vote in the House of Representatives during Lee’s first year in office to help create an education savings account program.

The targeted program rolled out in 2022 in Memphis and Nashville for students from low-income families attending low-performing schools. Voucher opponents challenged the law in court and had some early legal wins, but the Tennessee Supreme Court declared the law constitutional in 2022.

After the program’s accelerated rollout and the addition of Hamilton County during its second year, the governor took another big step: proposing a separate statewide Education Freedom Scholarship program to launch this fall with up to 20,000 students, and eventually to eliminate all the geographic and family-income restrictions.

Dueling bills from the House and Senate easily advanced through education committees, but stalled for four weeks in finance committees before the governor accepted defeat.

In his statement Monday, Lee reiterated his reasons for pressing ahead, adding that he’s “never been more motivated.”

“It’s very simple,” he said. “This is about every Tennessee student having the opportunity to succeed, regardless of their ZIP code or income level, and without question, empowering parents is the best way to make sure that happens.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis reporter Laura Testino contributed to this report. Contact her at ltestino@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Lee’s School Voucher Bill Not Expected to Advance

Credit: Tennessee Lookout

The plan to expand school vouchers statewide is not expected to pass the Tennessee House Finance Ways and Means subcommittee Tuesday, a source confirmed to the Tennessee Lookout. 

The legislation’s failure in the finance subcommittee likely sends it back to the clerk’s desk and requires it to go through the committee process again, all but guaranteeing that the bill won’t pass this legislative session. 

The Tennessee Journal first reported Monday that the voucher bill was dead. 

Three different versions of the school voucher program floated around the Capitol this session:

• A House version that includes several sweeteners for public school advocates, such as less student testing and extra funding for school infrastructure.

• A Senate version with no sweeteners but testing requirements for students who receive vouchers.

• A Gov. Bill Lee version that had no extra funding for public schools or testing requirement but created the base program and provided funding for 20,000 scholarships with ability to expand to every student

The Senate and House have been stuck over items such as testing reduction, which the Senate opposes, and transfer of students from public district to another, a provision the House dislikes. Lawmakers vary in their opposition to the plan, but many dislike the proposal because of concerns raised by public schools officials in their districts.

Ultimately, though, many lawmakers have grown leery of the proposal because right-wing groups have been opposing it because of the potential impact on homeschool families and private schools that might have to give standardized tests.

One of the few remaining decisions for lawmakers is whether to sock away the $144 million it would take to start the private-school voucher program or spend the money in the fiscal 2024-25 budget.

On Monday, Lee and legislative leaders met at the State Capitol, but no compromise was publicly announced. 

The voucher program, which lawmakers had titled “education freedom scholarships” during an announcement in November, has long been Lee’s top priority. He first introduced a similar voucher bill in 2019, but under pressure to pass it, he took out the universal aspect and targeted it at the Democratic-controlled counties of Davidson and Shelby. It has since expanded to Hamilton County. 

Along with Lee’s advocacy, the voucher program also had the backing of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and the American Federation for Children, which is affiliated with former Republican Secretary of Education Betsy Devos. 

American Federation for Children sent text messages attacking at least one Republican for not supporting vouchers. 

The money pushing for a statewide school voucher program means the concept is unlikely to go away. Lee could call a special session to pass a voucher program, but it’s election year and lawmakers are not allowed to raise money while in session.

The failure of the voucher bill also means these groups, along with several others, are likely to play a significant role in Republican primaries held later this year. The entire state House and half the Senate are up for re-election in 2024. 

Tennessee lawmakers are expected to finish their legislative session over the next two weeks. The voucher bill was one of the major sticking points left before members could head home and start campaigns. 

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

School Voucher Plan Stalls as Legislature Enters Final Weeks

Gov. Bill Lee speaks Thursday with reporters at the state Capitol about the chances of his statewide school voucher proposal passing this year in the legislature. The General Assembly is expected to wind up its business during April. (Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat)

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s push to create a statewide school voucher system is running out of time as Republican lawmakers work to reconcile significantly different proposals and iron out disagreements over student testing requirements.

After sailing through education committees and building early momentum, the bill has stalled for three weeks in finance committees — without public discussion.

GOP leaders hope to complete the 2024 session by April 26. That leaves two weeks to approve a state budget, decide on dozens more bills, and seek consensus on one of the biggest education proposals of Lee’s administration.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol) and House K-12 Subcommittee Chairman Kirk Haston (R-Lobelville) have been key players during weeks of private negotiations.

“We’re still working on it,” Lundberg said Thursday as he emerged from the Senate chamber. He declined to take questions from reporters.

“We’re still working on it.”

Sen. Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol)

Privately, several Republican lawmakers have told Chalkbeat the governor’s statewide voucher plan is sputtering and may not have the votes needed to pass in their respective chambers, especially if negotiators tinker too much with the original proposals.

But publicly, the governor and GOP leadership sound hopeful.

“It feels like they’re close,” Lee told reporters after the legislature recessed for the week. “I’m very encouraged.”

Asked about sticking points, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) said the Senate wants to make sure voucher recipients take some type of annual state-approved test that can be used to compare and rank students in order to gauge the program’s academic effectiveness. The House version has no state testing requirements for students who accept vouchers.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) said his chamber is “adamant” that any school choice-related package includes a provision to reduce student testing in public schools. He also indicated that the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, an education research and advocacy group known as SCORE and founded by former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist (R-Nashville), is being consulted as negotiations progress.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations this week,” Sexton said about talks between the House and Senate. “So we’re hopeful we can get there.”

Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act, projected to cost $144 million in its first year, would provide taxpayer funding to up to 20,000 K-12 students to pay toward private school tuition. The governor has set aside that amount for the program in his proposed budget.

The Senate’s version also would allow public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it, provided there’s enough space and teaching staff.

The House’s larger and more expensive version includes a long list of enticements aimed at public school supporters, including reducing testing time for students, increasing the state’s contribution toward health insurance costs for teachers, requiring fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and giving districts extra money to help with their building costs.

Democrats in the legislature oppose school vouchers, even while supporting many of the public school provisions in the House bill.

Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) said he’s glad to see the bill’s progress slow, but added that Democrats are staying vigilant as the two-year session moves toward adjournment.

“Deals get cut late at night,” said the Nashville lawmaker. “I would encourage citizens of Tennessee who truly value public schools to sleep with one eye open.”

“I would encourage citizens of Tennessee who truly value public schools to sleep with one eye open.”

Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville)

Meanwhile, lawmakers are anxious to head home during an election year. All 99 seats in the House and half of the Senate’s 33 seats are on the ballot this year. Until the session ends, incumbents can’t begin accepting campaign contributions. And Republican members in both chambers don’t appear interested in taking a stance on the controversial voucher bill during an election year if the measure is unlikely to succeed.

More private talks by Republican leadership are planned for the weekend.

The bill is scheduled to be taken up Monday by the Senate Finance Committee and Tuesday by the House Finance Subcommittee. McNally, the Senate’s leader, said the outcomes there will signal the proposal’s chances.

“One of the keys will be as it moves through the finance committee in both houses,” McNally said. “I think if you see that, you probably know that things are going fairly well.”

You can track the legislation on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Developers, Seeking to Gain from BlueOval City Building Boom, Push for Weaker Wetland Rules

Ford BlueOval City, photographed while under construction in April 2023. (Photo: John Partipilo)

A high-stakes battle over the future of Tennessee’s wetlands has been playing out behind closed doors in recent weeks, with developers and environmental groups furiously lobbying on opposite sides of a bill to drastically roll back regulations.

The bill by Rep. Kevin Vaughan (R-Collierville) would limit state oversight over more than 430,000 acres of Tennessee wetlands. That’s more than half of the state’s critical ecosystems, which serve as a bulwark against floods and droughts, replenish aquifers and are prized by hunters, anglers and nature lovers.

Environmental groups warn that the proposed bill, if enacted by the General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee, could inflict irreparable harm on future generations.

“The proposed legislation favors the interests of developers over the safety of future flood victims and pocketbooks of Tennessee taxpayers,” said George Nolan, senior attorney and director of the Southern Environmental Law Center in Tennessee.

“Once a developer fills and paves over a wetland, it is gone forever. This is no time to repeal laws that have protected our wetlands for the last 50 years,” he said.

Vaughan called the measure an overdue check on red tape that costs developers time and money; he has denied weakened wetland regulation could lead to increased flooding.

The proposed legislation favors the interests of developers over the safety of future flood victims and pocketbooks of Tennessee taxpayers.

– George Nolan, Southern Environmental Law Center

He has accused state environmental regulators of “bureaucratic overreach” and “unnecessary inflation on the cost of construction” and pointed to the urgent need for relief from regulation given a building boom in the region he represents, where a new Ford plant is going up in Stanton just 40 miles from the offices of Township Properties, Vaughan’s real estate and development company.

“My district is one that is different from a lot of other people’s districts. We’re in the path of growth,” Vaughan told lawmakers.

Lee’s office did not respond to a question about whether he supports the bill.

West Tennessee Where Wetlands Abound.

There is perhaps nowhere else in the state where tensions between fast-tracking development and protecting wetlands are higher than West Tennessee.

BlueOval City, Ford Motor Co.’s $5.6 billion electric truck plant, has spurred a land rush in the region, with developers buying up properties, designing subdivisions and erecting apartment complexes at a fast clip ahead of its 2025 planned opening.

Restaurants, hotels, and grocery stores are springing up to accommodate an expected 11 percent increase in population by 2045 in the 21-county region surrounding the plant — making it the fastest-growing area in Tennessee.

West Tennessee counties also have some of the largest shares of wetlands that would lose protections under Vaughan’s bill.

The bill targets so-called “isolated wetlands” that have no obvious surface connection to a river or lake. Wetlands, however, rarely stand alone, often containing hidden underground connections to aquifers or waterways.

The 10 Tennessee counties with the largest share of at-risk “isolated” wetlands are located in West Tennessee, within commuting distance of the Ford plant.

Haywood County, where the plant is located, has more than 57,319 acres of wetlands that could lose protections under Vaughan’s bill — nearly 17 percent of all land area in the county, according to 2019 data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife National Wetlands Inventory compiled by the Southern Environmental Law Center.

In Shelby County, where Vaughan is based, 35,482 wetland acres are at risk — 7 percent of the county’s total land area.

The region also lies atop the Memphis Sand Aquifer, the primary water supply for urban and rural communities, and farmers in west Tennessee. Wetlands serve to recharge and filter water that supplies the aquifer.

“This is such a unique moment in west Tennessee history,” said Sarah Houston, executive director of the Memphis advocacy group Protect Our Aquifers, noting projected growth data that shows population increases of 200,000 or more in the next two decades.

“But when you’re removing protections for wetlands, you’re cutting out that deep recharge potential for all the water supply West Tennessee relies on,” she said.

Vaughn’s business among those to profit from building boom.

Developers who wish to fill in, build on or otherwise disturb wetlands must first apply for a permit from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, or TDEC, which can approve or reject the plans.

The process can prove costly; companies must hire lawyers, hydrologists and other experts before filing a permit. And if they get one, TDEC can require developers to pay expensive mitigation fees for disturbing wetlands — potentially adding tens- or hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to construction costs. The fees are used to preserve wetlands elsewhere, balancing out what is lost by a single project. The process can add months, or more, to construction timelines.

Vaughan has spoken openly about ongoing frustrations in his own business to comply with the state rules, describing TDEC regulators as overzealous in defining marshy or muddy lands that are created by tractor ruts or runoff as wetlands.

State records show that Vaughan as recently as December received state notice that a project he is spearheading contains two wetlands: one at 1.42 acres and another at 1.51 acres.

Given the presence of wetlands, “any alterations to jurisdictional streams, wetlands, or open water features may only be performed under coverage of, and conformance to, a valid aquatic resource alteration permit,” the Dec. 8 letter from TDEC to Vaughan said.

The project, a 130-acre site of the proposed new headquarters for Thompson Machinery, Vaughan’s client, will have to incur costly remediation fees should its permit to build atop wetlands be approved by TDEC.

It’s one of multiple development projects that Vaughan has been affiliated with that have butted into TDEC wetland regulations in recent years.

PAC money flows in from west Tennessee.

Vaughan also represented Memphis-based Crews Development in 2019 when the company received a notice of violation for draining and filling in a wetland without permission.

Vaughan did not respond to questions from the Lookout, including whether his sponsorship of the bill presents a conflict of interest.

He is not alone among developers in the region who are seeking favorable legislation during a period of rapid growth.

West Tennessee construction companies and real estate firms have spent big on a new political action committee formed in 2022 to influence legislative policy. The little-known Build Tennessee PAC spent $186,000 in the six months before the start of this year’s legislative session, the fourth largest spender over that period, according to campaign finance records analyzed by the Lookout.

Keith Grant, a  prominent Collierville developer listed as Build Tennessee’s contact, did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more: Connecting the dots between Tenn. home builders and bill to deregulate construction on wetlands 

The measure also has gained the backing of influential statewide groups, including the Tennessee Farm Bureau, the Home Builders Association of Tennessee, Associated Builders and Contractors and the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce.

Bradley Jackson, president and CEO of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, said last week the legislation — which Vaughan recently amended to make distinctions between different types of wetlands — represents a fair and balanced approach.

Jackson said the chamber convened a working group of five trade organizations last summer that concluded Tennessee’s wetland regulations need adjustment. “We feel this deal strikes a really good middle group. It provides the business community with consistency and certainty. We can ensure we’re being compliant,” Jackson said.

Vaughan offers ‘compromise’ amendment; environmental groups say it leaves wetlands unprotected.

The legislation is scheduled to be heard Wednesday in the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, with an amendendment that makes distinctions between wetlands.

The amendment would allow developers to build on “low-quality” wetlands and up to four acres of “moderate” isolated wetlands without seeking state permission.

Environmental groups say the proposal continues to place large pieces of Tennessee wetlands at risk.

Rep. Kevin Vaughan, R-Collierville. (Photo: John Partipilo)

“Vaughan’s current amendment is not a compromise as it requires no mitigation for low-quality wetlands regardless of size and no mitigation for large swaths of moderate-quality wetlands,” Grace Stranch, chief executive officer of the Harpeth Conservancy said. “The development resulting from those huge carveouts will likely cause increased flooding, a decline in water quality, higher water bills, and aquifer recharge problems.”

The measure has also drawn pushback from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

“We at TDEC fear the proposal could result in greater back-end costs,” Gregory Young, the agency’s deputy commissioner, told lawmakers earlier this month.

Alex Pellom, chief of staff for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, cautioned the bill could lead to more flooding; the state has already suffered its wettest years in history since 2019, leading to devastating floods, billions of dollars in property damage and loss of life.

“We continue to work with the sponsor to discuss potential solutions,” Eric Ward, a TDEC spokesperson, said last week.

A Supreme Court decision limits federal oversight.

Vaughan’s bill was introduced on the heels of a controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that narrowed federal protections of wetlands, leaving it up to states to set their own rules.

The court concluded that only wetlands that have a surface water connection to rivers, lakes and oceans fall under federal oversight and are subject to Clean Water Act regulations.

There is little debate in the stormwater community about the value of wetlands as key instruments of maintaining water quality and mitigating damaging flooding.

– Aaron Rogge, Tennessee Storm Water Association

The majority of Tennessee’s wetlands — 432,850 out of  the state’s 787,000 acres of wetlands in the state — do not have a surface connection to a water source, according to TDEC. It is these wetlands Vaughan is seeking to remove from state oversight and protection.

“This is going to be a major change to the way that the state manages its water resources, and likely one that we’ll look back on as a product of our current political climate,” said Aaron Rogge, a Nashville-based civil engineer who is also the current president of the Tennessee Stormwater Association.

“There is little debate in the stormwater community about the value of wetlands as key instruments of maintaining water quality and mitigating damaging flooding; in fact, many cities and counties choose to actively construct wetlands to manage their runoff,” he said.

Tennessee is not alone in targeting wetland regulation after the high court’s decision, according to Jim Murphy, director of legal advocacy for the National Wildlife Federation.

Legislatures in Illinois, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado are considering expanding wetland protections in light of the court’s decision while Indiana is among states considering a developer-backed bill similar to Vaughan’s.

“It’s a very fluid situation,” Murphy said. “In a lot of ways, it mirrors the politics of a state. But as you get down to state-level realities of what’s being lost, people are seeing what unregulated development means and often that means that their special places get paved over.”

Reporter Adam Friedman contributed to this story.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

School Vouchers: Key Difference Emerges in Senate, Governor Plans

Gov Bill Lee speaks with voucher supporters at New Hope Christian Academy, a private school in Memphis, during a visit in December, to promote his Education Freedom Scholarship Act. House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who is supporting the governor’s proposal, also spoke. (Photo courtesy of State of Tennessee)

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters

Gov. Bill Lee and Senate leaders unveiled dueling proposals Wednesday to bring universal school vouchers to Tennessee. House leaders are expected to release a third version later this week.

Testing accountability stands out as a key difference in multiple amendments filed as part of a Republican campaign to eventually give all Tennessee families the option to use public money to pay for private schools for their children. The Senate plan also calls for open enrollment across public school systems.

Lee’s seven-page plan does not require participating students to take annual tests to measure whether his Education Freedom Scholarship Act leads to better academic outcomes. The governor has said that parental choice provides ultimate accountability.

The Senate’s 17-page proposal requires recipients in grades 3-11 to take some type of norm-referenced tests approved by the state Board of Education, which could include state tests that public school students take under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP.

Assessments must include a third-grade test in English language arts and an eighth-grade test in math; the grades are considered benchmark years for learning those skills. Eleventh-grade recipients would also have to take the ACT, SAT, or a similar exam to assess their readiness for continuing their education after high school.

“The testing component is critical,” Senate Education Committee Chairman Sen. Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol) told Chalkbeat. “We have a responsibility to share with Tennesseans how this is working.”

The developments show divisions at the state Capitol, despite a GOP supermajority, about key details of the biggest education proposal of Lee’s tenure, even before legislative debate begins in public. Lundberg’s committee is scheduled to take up the issue next week.

The governor wants to start with up to 20,000 students statewide this fall and eventually open up the program so any K-12 student can use a $7,075 annual voucher, regardless of family income. His earlier Education Savings Account law, which squeaked through the legislature with a historic and controversial House vote in 2019, targeted students from low-income families in low-performing schools in Memphis and Nashville but remains under-enrolled, even with the addition of Hamilton County last fall.

Cost is expected to be a major hurdle for Lee’s voucher expansion plan in a state that prides itself on being fiscally conservative.

Tennessee government has a nearly $378 million budget shortfall through the first six months of its current fiscal year, according to a revenue report released last week.

Even so, Lee’s proposed $52.6 billion spending plan for the next fiscal year includes $144 million annually for vouchers and $200 million to grow state parks and natural areas, all while slashing corporate business property taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Over the weekend, Rep. Bryan Richey (R-Maryville), told a local town hall that, although he supports statewide vouchers, he expects to vote against this year’s proposal over budget concerns and the lack of accountability provisions.

The Daily Times reported that Richey compared the upcoming legislative process to baking a cake as he urged his constituents to engage early with lawmakers while the proposals are in committees.

“Once the ingredients are in the batter and it’s all mixed up, we’re not going to be able to go in there and pull the egg back out or get the oil out,” he said.

Lee’s proposal did not look markedly different from draft legislation that was inadvertently filed in the Senate in late January due to a miscommunication, then pulled a short time later. Vouchers would be funded through a separate scholarship account, not the funding structure currently in place for public schools.

RELATED: Tennessee’s universal school voucher bill draft drops. Here are 5 things that stand out.

But the Senate version aligns funding with the state’s new public school formula known as Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA. And it would allow students to enroll in any school system, even if they’re not zoned for it.

“We want open enrollment so you can transfer anywhere,” Lundberg said. “It’s not just for private schools. The funding follows the student.”

House leaders have been huddling for weeks with key stakeholders to get their feedback for an omnibus-style amendment that’s expected to come out on Thursday.

“I look forward to reading the House proposal, but there are obviously already major discrepancies,” said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, who has been in some of those meetings.

“I really don’t see how these versions can be reconciled this year,” added Bowman, a voucher critic. “If they’re hell-bent on doing this, they need to at least take the time to get it right.”

But a statement from the governor’s office said the various proposals show “an encouraging amount of engagement in this process.”

“The governor has repeatedly emphasized that the Education Freedom Scholarship Act is a framework, built upon the foundation that parents should have choices when it comes to their child’s education, regardless of income or ZIP code,” the statement said.

The bills are sponsored by Senate and House majority leaders Jack Johnson of Franklin and William Lamberth of Portland. You can track the legislation through the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.