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Well, there isn't much to tell you about yesterday at the Capitol. The original plan, as was expected, was that the House and Senate would finish their business yesterday or perhaps this morning and adjourn sine die.
The Senate was scheduled to be on the floor at 9:00am and no one showed up except the speaker and some of the staff. After waiting a few minutes, the speaker said that he 'failed to detect a quorum' and called for them to meet at 11:00. They met for a short time and then adjourned until 4:00pm on Monday.
The Speaker of the House and some staff went to the floor just after 11:00am and he 'failed to detect a quorum' and set the time for the body at 4:00pm. In the meantime, the Finance subcommittee, the Finance committee and Calendar and Rules met to move bills to the House floor. Starting at about four o'clock, they met for almost three hours and, among other things, passed these bills:
HB7070-SB7089 - 90-2-5--26-0-4.
HB7002-SB7001 - 94-0--Layed on the table
HB7003-SB7058 - 94-0 - Layed on the table
HB7004-SB7081 - 88-4-3 - Layed on the table
HB7007-SB7090 - 86-0-3 - Layed on the table
Then they adjourned until 2:00pm on Monday.
Tennessee Senate Adjourns Special Session Until Monday Afternoon
August 24, 2023
The Tennessee Senate went into session briefly Thursday only to adjourn until 4 p.m. on Monday.
The Senate passed three bills Wednesday and are awaiting those bills returning but Sen. Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, told media he didn’t expect the Senate to take up any other bills.
“We feel like we’ve accomplished what we came here to do, which is to address the things the governor wanted us to take up in this special session,” Johnson (pictured above) said.
The special session will cost the state additionally based upon the per diem amount per legislative day, which WKRN reported was $7,989 in the Senate with mileage costing $6,137 per day and a total cost of $14,126 per day.
In the House of Representatives costs one day costs $24,903 in per diem and $19,547 in mileage for a total cost of $44,450.
That up from 2021, when it cost $30,750 for per diem and $15,474 for mileage for one round trip for the combined House and Senate.
The three Senate bills included bills addressing eliminating taxes on handgun safety devices, the communication timeline of criminal court proceedings to the Tennessee Bureau of Information and a bill creating a statewide report on human trafficking.
Senate Bill 7085, the handgun safety bill passed through the Senate committee, puts in new requirements to add safe storage training to future handgun safety courses and also eliminates sales taxes on firearm safes and safety devices starting on Nov. 1.
Senate Bill 7086 requires a clerk of the circuit or general sessions court to notify TBI of the result of criminal proceedings within three business days instead of within 30 days.
Senate Bill 7088 will create a new child and human trafficking crimes report from TBI’s human trafficking unit. The report will be due in December each year before the Legislature begins its session.
Gun control already ruled out, Tennessee GOP lawmakers hit impasse in session after school shooting
BY JONATHAN MATTISE AND KIMBERLEE KRUESI
Updated 8:50 PM CDT, August 24, 2023
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Republican lawmakers hit an impasse Thursday just a few days into a special session sparked by a deadly school shooting in March, leaving little certainty about what they might ultimately pass, yet all but guaranteeing it won’t be any significant gun control change.
After advancing a few bills this week, the GOP-dominant Senate quickly adjourned Thursday without taking up any more proposals, promising to come back Monday. The announcement prompted booing and jeers from the crowd of gun control advocates watching in the galleries.
But the decision also ignited outrage among the Republican supermajority inside the House as they continue to churn through a full slate of other proposals. House leaders argue that they’re using the special session to take up a wide range of proposals, while the Senate has refused to budge from passing anything that wasn’t in the limited legislative agenda outlined by the governor at the beginning of the special session.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers have expressed alarm that the only bills being considered in either chamber have only focused on mass tragedy responses rather than preventive measures specifically addressing gun violence.
“We are preparing for the next tragedy,” said Democratic Rep. Justin Pearson, who was expelled from the House earlier this year for joining pro-gun control protesters from the House floor but has since been reinstated. “Preparing for the next victims of children … to be met with gun violence because maybe this is the best we can do.”
The standoff between the two chambers has added fuel to an already emotional and chaotic special legislative session, where gun-control advocates want the GOP-dominant Statehouse to consider tweaking the state’s relaxed gun laws.
Instead, Republican legislative leaders have taken steps to limit public access to the Capitol building and increased the presence of law enforcement. House Republicans attempted to ban the public from holding signs during floor and committee proceedings, but a Tennessee judge has since blocked that rule from being implemented. In one hearing, a House subcommittee chairman had troopers make the public leave the room after deeming the crowd too unruly. That included grieving parents closely connected to the school shooting, who broke down in tears at the decision.
Senate Speaker Randy McNally told reporters Thursday that senators will consider any bills the House may amend, but held off from promising to making a compromise with the other chamber.
GOP Primary Debate Was A Dud For Americans Worried About Leftist Destruction Of The Nation
BY: JORDAN BOYD AUGUST 24, 2023
Americans don’t want to hedge their 2024 bets on performative politicians. They want to elect problem-solvers who will solve problems.
Concerned Americans looking for pledges that Republicans will do everything in their power to stop the left’s destruction of the country did not find them at the GOP primary debate on Wednesday.
Fox News Hosts Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier kicked off the night by asking candidates to analyze why Oliver Anthony’s hit song “Rich Men North Of Richmond” resonated with Americans. From there, the moderators’ line of questioning quickly deteriorated.
When it came time for a question on abortion, Fox News host and debate moderator Martha MacCallum inaccurately framed Republicans’ pro-life priorities as a “losing issue … since the Dobbs decision.”
Moderators gave the Republicans plenty of time to toot their fiscal horns and posture about funding the war in Ukraine. Noticeably missing from the debate stage, however, were key questions about problems facing voters every day, like attacks on their religious liberty, the pervasion of radical gender ideology, the integrity of the Supreme Court, and the rampant corruption clutching all of the country’s major bureaucratic institutions.
By the end of the evening, voters heard more about candidates’ opinions on extraterrestrial life, climate change, and January 6 than top GOP issues like the weaponization of the FBI and DOJ and Democrats’ ongoing indictment scheme against former President Donald Trump.
A majority of Americans recognize a two-tiered system of justice governs the U.S. Another 56 percent say they understand the Trump indictments are “interference by the Department of Justice in the 2024 election” instead of a “fair application of the law.”
Despite the concerns it elicits from voters across the board, the corruption of the nation’s top federal law enforcement arm did not even make the list of “most-discussed topics” on Wednesday night.
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