Usually, when the Republican governor and the Republican leader of the state Senate want something to happen in the Republican state legislature, there’s a good chance of it happening. They can’t get everything they want, but at least it’ll be considered seriously.
When the Tennessee General Assembly returns for a special session on Aug. 21, that will not be the case.
Gov. Bill Lee and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally have both expressed support for extreme risk protection orders in the wake of the Covenant School shooting that left dead three children and three staff members (including a friend of Lee and his wife) earlier this year. The ERPOs would allow courts to temporarily remove guns from the possession of people experiencing crises, and Lee, McNally, Democrats and some Covenant parents are in favor of the tool, supported by three-fourths of Tennessee voters according to recent Vanderbilt polling.
But any such legislation is dead on arrival for the special session, Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, House Speaker Cameron Sexton and dozens of other Republican lawmakers have decreed. Lee is not even including an ERPO proposal in his package of bills (though his special session call allows for a member to independently introduce a proposal).
Instead, Lee’s package includes seven items, to be taken up alongside member bills starting Aug. 21. The governor’s proposed legislation would require faster reporting by court clerks to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, seek a federal waiver to deploy Medicaid funds for mental illness and substance use disorders at institutions, boost the mental health workforce, allow advanced registered practice nurses with psychiatric training more latitude in treatment, require collection of DNA from anyone arrested for a felony, direct the TBI to write a report about human trafficking, and eliminate taxes on gun safes. The official call includes 18 topic areas in which lawmakers can file bills.
Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat, was part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who met for months with the governor to hash out a plan for the special session. She says she has “mixed feelings.” She appreciates some of the mental health proposals, is concerned by some of the juvenile justice possibilities and is “disappointed the scope is not wider.”
“At the end of the day, people want to feel safe,” she says.
Added Kramer Schmidt, a member of a group of Covenant parents who plan to be present at the special session: “As Tennesseans, we have to ask ourselves, what kind of state do we want to raise our children in? A state that, in the aftermath of a mass shooting of children and educators and amidst soaring rates of gun violence, will sit idly by when the vast majority of Tennesseans are asking for real reform to firearm laws? Or a state that rises to the moment and takes action to keep firearms out of the hands of those who seek to do the most harm to our children and communities?”
Democrats in the legislature were touring the state last week in an effort to rally support for ERPO and other safety legislation. Sexton was among the Republicans scoffing at them and dismissing the need for gun restrictions.
“The only thing they’re focusing on is the guns, which we knew all along,” he told reporters last week. “... There’s other solutions other than that.”
