Tennessee General Assembly 2017

The 2017 session of the Tennessee General Assembly, which came to an end last week, was one of the more momentous in recent years, as measured by the triumph of Governor Bill Haslam‘s “IMPROVE Act,” which levies significant gasoline and diesel price increases to begin the long overdue process of rebuilding and renovating the state’s thoroughfares.

There were fewer novelty bills and crank measures than usual, particularly in the area of social issues, though, unsurprisingly, a few measures friendly to the gun lobby found their way to passage — notably one entitled the Tennessee Hearing Protection Act, which basically removes restrictions from the sale of silencers for firearms.

And Memphis, along with the state’s other urban centers, experienced a shot fired across the bow with the Senate’s passage, on the session’s last day, of a de-annexation measure by Senator Bo Watson (R-Hixson). As originally submitted, the bill was a far milder version of the sponsor’s 2016 bill that would have given residents of areas annexed since 1998 an easy route to severance from the annexing cities. The new version requires that an approving referendum must be held, not just in the territory seeking de-annexation, but in the municipality at large.

Another proviso, apparently shepherded into the bill by state Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris (R-Collierville), would have given cities with their own de-annexation formulas (like Memphis’ “right-sizing” plan) almost unlimited time to carry them out. But sharp questioning on the point by Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) forced a last-day amendment that compelled that such plans be carried out within a year after an enactment deadline of January 1, 2018.

The House will no doubt act on its version of the bill in the 2018 session.

• Two of the five Republicans who conducted the annual end-of-session press conference in the Old Supreme Court Chamber of the Capitol in Nashville last Wednesday continue to figure in speculation about the 2018 governor’s race, and the time is growing nigh for them to make a definitive decision. The candidacy of one of the two, Norris, is a fairly sure thing. Anybody who drives a car in Shelby County has been exposed in recent weeks to Norris’ billboards looming over major thoroughfares. The billboards are also up in various other locations in West Tennessee. But Norris contended in Nashville last week that his purpose in having the signs erected had been merely to further legislation in the respective areas mentioned.

Right.

The other possible gubernatorial entry at the end-of-session press conference, House Majority Leader Beth Harwell (R-Nashville), continues to be noncommittal about a governor’s race, which would find her up against several multi-milionaires in the Republican primary. She’s between a rock and a hard place, with her speakership coming under annual challenge from members of her party’s ultra-right wing, who depict her as that most unfashionable thing for Republicans, a moderate. But it is that very identity, more accurately described as centrism, that helps give her a shot at the governorship.

As the current session of the Tennessee General Assembly heads toward its conclusion, either late this month or early in May (see cover story, “Nashville Gets Serious”), two questions of serious concern to the Memphis area are about to be revisited.

Up for reconsideration this week are the voucher bill, co-sponsored by state Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) and state Representative Harry Brooks (R-Knoxville), and a measure enabling de-annexation, sponsored by state Senator Bo Watson (R-Hixson) and state Representative Mike Carter (R-Ooltewah).

The voucher measure, a variant of which has been brought up unsuccessfully by Kelsey for years, may have its best prospects for passage yet — its odds improved by the fact that it is styled as a “pilot program” restricted to the Shelby County Schools district alone.

Brian Kelsey

That fact removes some of the onus from legislators elsewhere in the state who might be deterred by the prospect of immediate blowback affecting their own districts. In much the same manner, the way was cleared in 2012 for the Norris-Todd bill, which eliminated a freeze on new special school districts in Tennessee and allowed new suburban districts in Shelby County, when Norris-Todd was successfully revised to apply only to Shelby County.

The difference, and it could prove to be major, is that support for Norris-Todd was relatively stout in the major suburbs of Memphis, represented by several key legislators, notably state Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris of Collierville, the bill’s chief author, while a majority of Shelby County legislators, Republican and Democratic and from Memphis and as well as its suburbs, are on record as opposing vouchers.

And the Kelsey bill prompts doubts as to its ultimate constitutionality, inasmuch as it fails to qualify as a “private” bill — i.e., one supported by a county’s chief legislative body. That would be the Shelby County Commission, which voted unanimously in February to oppose the voucher measure.

In any case, the voucher bill, which has been hanging fire on the Senate side for a month awaiting action by the House, was placed on the calendar of the House Government Operations Committee last Thursday. Action was deferred until Wednesday of this week.

The Watson-Carter bill on de-annexation is essentially the same measure that was introduced last year, gaining quick passage in the House and getting immediate traction in the Senate, until an all-out resistance on the part of Memphis city officials, the city’s allies in other Tennessee cities, and the Greater Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce managed to get it postponed in the Senate State and Local Government Committee.

That reprisal was based on the understanding that Memphis deserved the option of proposing its own formula for de-annexation — one presumably kindlier than the Watson-Carter version, which provided a fairly easy means for any area annexed by a city since 1998 to hold a referendum to gain its independence. A hastily appointed city/county task force came up with a formula for “right-sizing” the city and allowing a relatively graceful exit of such hotbeds of de-annexation sentiment as South Cordova and Southwind-Windyke.

But the right-sizing plan envisioned that implementation would be postponed until 2021, a fact unsettling to local de-annexation activists. And, instead of promptly giving the plan an up-or-down vote, the city council has opted for a more deliberated response, allowing for a series of public meetings in the potentially affected areas and envisioning possible referenda in those areas later on.

Both those facts moved Carter and Watson to schedule new action on their bill, which was first reset for last Thursday’s calendar of the Senate State and Local Government Committee and then postponed for action by the committee on Tuesday of this week.