Tennessee Firearms Association

With pressure building for potential tax increases in Memphis city government, the outlook for additional aid from state government took a hit Monday, as the State Funding Board acknowledged weaker-than-expected revenues and set a deliberately slow growth rate.

The board, composed of the state’s three constitutional officers and the state finance commissioner, set a growth rate in general fund revenue of 1 percent to 2 percent and total tax growth at 1.25 percent to 2.15 percent for fiscal 2025-26. That is on the heels of an estimated total growth rate projection for fiscal 2024-25 of -1.68 percent to -1.34 percent.

Economic growth has ground down considerably in Tennessee after a double-digit revenue windfall of two years ago. Among other factors, the state is facing a $1.9 billion business tax reduction stemming from legislative approval of Governor Bill Lee’s proposal to eliminate the property portion of the state’s franchise and excise taxes. That move followed additional tax breaks for businesses the previous year. The Department of Revenue has processed nearly $900 million in rebates this year, and more are expected.

On the eve of the oncoming 2025 legislative session, the weak budget outlook could affect lawmakers’ decisions, leaving in the lurch not only localities’ requests for aid but funding requests from state agencies totaling over $4.2 billion. The revenue forecast isn’t expected to come close to matching that figure, even with anticipated federal funds covering some of the costs.

• Two Memphians are finalists to succeed soon-to-be-retiring state Court of Appeals Judge Arnold Goldin of Memphis: Shelby County Circuit Judge Valerie Smith and interim Memphis Chancellor Jim Newsom. A third candidate is Jackson Chancellor Steve Maroney, a former chair of the Madison County Republican Party.

Smith was a member of a three-judge chancery court panel that dismissed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the state’s school voucher program. The decision was later reversed by the Court of Appeals.

Newsom was named in 2015 to a Chancery Court position by former Governor Bill Haslam but was defeated for re-election in 2016 by current Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins. He was reappointed interim chancellor this past summer by Governor Lee to assume the duties of Chancellor Jim Kyle, who has been disabled by illness.

• The three gun-safety measures approved resoundingly by Memphis voters earlier this month via ballot referenda have predictably come under legal challenge. The Tennessee Firearms Association has filed a lawsuit in Shelby County Circuit Court seeking to block city government from activating the measures.

In a sense, the gun-lobby group’s suit is pointless, in that backers of the referenda conceded that voter approval of the measures was conditional on the will and pleasure of state government, which had made clear that state policy at this point would disallow the implementation of the three measures.

State House Speaker Cameron Sexton had angrily opposed the referenda as antithetical to state law and threatened to retaliate by cutting Memphis off from various state-shared revenues if the measures were enacted.

The measures, certified for the ballot by the city council, would re-institute a requirement locally for gun-carry permits, ban the sale of assault weapons, and enable the local judiciary to impose red-flag laws allowing confiscation of weapons from individuals certified as risks to public safety.

Mindful of Sexton’s attitude, backed by Governor Lee, the Shelby County Election Commission originally acted to remove the referendum measures from the November ballot, but they were approved for the ballot by Chancellor Melanie Taylor Jefferson.

• It begins to look as though the beleaguered Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert will survive various ouster attempts and will survive in office until the election of 2026, when she will be term-limited.

Her latest reprieve came from Circuit Court Judge Felicia Corbin-Johnson, who disallowed an ouster petition from attorney Robert Meyers, ruling that such an action had to be pursued by Shelby County Attorney Marlinee Iverson, who had recused herself.

Judge Corbin-Johnson had previously disallowed an ouster attempt from Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp, who was acting as a special prosecutor.

The Tennessee Firearms Association (TFA) is trashing Gov. Bill Lee’s push for what it calls a “red flag law,” saying he wants to pass an unconstitutional measure as an emotional reaction to the Covenant School shooting.

“Governor Lee called for the Legislature to react to the emotional response of some citizens after the Covenant murders and more particularly after the expulsion of two Democrat House members who demanded gun control,” TFA Executive Director John Harris said in a Wednesday statement. “Nothing in Bruen authorized knee-jerk emotional responses to murders or the calls of progressive Democrats and their mobs to justify government infringement of a right protected by the Constitution.”

The association contends Lee’s plan would violate the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Justices found that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to “keep” firearms in their homes and to “bear arms” in public, including the ability of “ordinary, law-abiding citizens” to carry firearms “for self-defense outside the home,” without infringement from state and federal governments.

I’ve talked to Republican members that say that the Tennessee Firearms Association is irrelevant.

– Rep. Bob Freeman, D-Nashville

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, based in part on the court’s decision in Bruen, reached an agreement with a California gun rights group that sued the state over its permit-less carry law and agreed to drop the gun-carry age to 18. Two bills to lower the age to 18 are hung up in committees, but the state Legislature remains a gun-friendly body overall.

Thus, Lee is avoiding the term “red flag law” while trying to garner the Legislature’s support for a new protective order that would prohibit access to weapons for people deemed to be a danger to themselves and others. He made the proposal two weeks after six people, including three 9-year-olds, died in a hail of bullets at The Covenant School in Green Hills.

The proposal, which the governor wants done this session, is meeting with mixed reaction from lawmakers and faces an uphill battle with only a couple of weeks left in the legislative session.

He also signed an executive order Tuesday to improve the background check system in Tennessee for firearms purchases.

Democratic state Rep. Bob Freeman, whose district contains The Covenant School, said Wednesday he hopes the governor’s plan can survive a fight from the gun lobby.

“I’ve talked to Republican members that say that the Tennessee Firearms Association is irrelevant,” Freeman said.

Yet the Republican House will be torn between following the governor’s lead and sticking up for their voters, many of whom base ballot decisions on support on the absolute right to bear arms. The gun lobby doesn’t spend heavily on legislative races, but pro-gun voters are a critical ingredient in Republican elections.

“People back home don’t like it. They don’t want their gun rights taken away from ’em, so we’re going to have to vet that very, very closely and I don’t know to what degree his executive order will play out on legislation when we go to pass something, because my people back home do not like it,” Rep. Dale Carr, a Sevierville Republican, said Tuesday.

Rank-and-file Republicans are dead set against a “red flag law” too, Carr said. Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, said, “Depriving someone of a constitutional right is a serious matter and any proposal to create an emergency mental health order of protection must be carefully considered, narrowly tailored and require rigorous due process.”

In his statement, Harris points out many Republican lawmakers campaigned as “strong Second Amendment supporters” and told constituents they would never back a “red flag law,” even signing pledges against voting for such laws.

“Now Republican Governor Lee calls on them to violate those promises and assurances and to pass a ‘Red Flag’ law,” Harris wrote.

Harris calls “red flag” laws “a scheme” that allows almost anyone to claim that a person at risk of harming themselves or others shouldn’t be able to possess a gun. He points out courts can direct law enforcement to seize a person’s weapons and to notify authorities that the person is banned from having guns — all without due process.

Republican leaders said Tuesday any type of protective order to prevent an unstable person from possessing weapons would have to include provisions guaranteeing due process.

But while some Republican leaders said they would be willing to work with the governor, Johnson, who usually carries the governor’s legislation, said changes to state law shouldn’t be made hastily in an emotional time.

“Depriving someone of a constitutional right is a serious matter and any proposal to create an emergency mental health order of protection must be carefully considered, narrowly tailored and require rigorous due process,” he said. He noted no bill has been drafted and he could not endorse or oppose a bill he hasn’t seen.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus 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.