A new felony charge for local lawmakers who support sanctuary city policies may again provoke litigation from Nashville.
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Despite warnings from their own party and against legal advice given by the legislative attorney, Republican lawmakers passed an immigration package this week that criminalizes local lawmakers who vote for a sanctuary policy with a class-E felony. Conservative lawmakers in Tennessee have fixated on so-called sanctuary city policies since the first Trump administration and repeatedly passed laws punishing municipalities for immigrant-friendly policies in the years since. Legally, the felony punishment may be a step too far.
Senior GOP Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) chided colleagues for criminalizing elected officials and was the only Republican no vote in either chamber. First Amendment protections and established case law extending protections against legal liability for local, state and federal legislators set up yet another suit against the state brought by Nashville.
Almost 18 months have passed since a flurry of court decisions repeatedly overturned state laws directed specifically at the city. Last session, lawmakers laid off direct attacks on the city, with some telling the Scene that the losses had embarrassed Republicans and burdened state Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, whose office defends state legislation. Nashville relied on Home Rule protections in the Tennessee Constitution that prohibit targeted lawmaking. Amid the state’s push to reduce the size of the city’s 40-member Metro Council, Metro lawyers successfully argued that such legislation constituted a “ripper bill” — an illegal act removing lawfully elected lawmakers from office. Wally Dietz, who steered Metro’s successful challenges two years ago, still oversees the city’s law department.Â
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“This is a gross escalation, criminalizing votes and speeches that members of a legislative body make on the floor,” Dietz told reporters at Mayor Freddie O'Connell's media briefing Friday morning. “This is a very dangerous step they have taken. We cautioned against it. Their own lawyers cautioned them against it. It is a dramatic escalation.”
Attorneys for the city — or attorneys retained by individual councilmembers — must determine who has standing to bring a challenge and whether to bring a suit in Chancery Court, which handed the city its victories in 2023, or federal court. The ACLU has indicated it will bring its own legal challenge to the state’s new immigration policy, which also includes a new driver’s license marker denoting citizenship and a state-level department that will coordinate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
