Resolution on border squabble ignored
NASHVILLE — Top state House leaders Tuesday turned a collective thumbs down on a resolution urging Gov. Bill Haslam not to participate in Georgia’s renewed attempts to revisit a two-century-old state boundary dispute in a quest to gain Tennessee River access for a thirsty Atlanta.
The resolution, sponsored by Rep. Marc Gravitt, R-East Ridge, died for lack of a motion in the House Delayed Bills Committee. The panel is comprised of Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, Majority Leader Glen Casada, R-Franklin, and Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley.
Earlier, Gravitt pleaded with the trio to let House Joint Resolution 1004 go to the appropriate committees.
“Folks, this could impact me. I would suddenly become a resident of the state of Georgia,” Gravitt said. “This impacts 55,000 citizens in my district. So that’s the reason, I brought this. As you can see it has bipartisan support.”
The measure drew no discussion, let alone a motion to approve. Harwell quickly announced it was dead.
Long a historical curiosity over an 1818 botched Tennessee-Georgia border survey, the boundary dispute in recent years has taken on new urgency for Georgia in recent years as the ever-growing metro Atlanta area has faced water shortages.
Nineteenth century surveyors erroneously set the line between the states about a mile south of where it should be. Georgia argues it should follow the 35th parallel, saying that’s where Congress intended it to be when Tennessee was admitted as a state in 1796.
Previous efforts by Georgia to revisit the issue have been met with jeers and derision by Tennessee lawmakers.
Last month, Georgia’s General Assembly approved a resolution to form a delegation to negotiate the “true border” with Tennessee. Georgia lawmakers once again threatened to take the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The dispute area involves a 51-mile stretch, which the Atlanta JournalConstitution recently reported as covering about 30,000 Tennessee residents. Both the cities of East Ridge and Chattanooga sit on the order.
“I just want to threaten them and then stick a straw into the Tennessee River,” Georgia Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, said last month during a hearing, the JournalConstitution reported.
As always, Georgia’s real goal is gaining access to the Tennessee River with proponents eyeing a portion of Nickajack Lake in Marion County.
Gravitt’s resolution’s “whereas” introductory clauses note that the Tennessee General Assembly “realizes that the TennesseeGeorgia boundary has been well established for nearly 200 years, and that there is no valid reason for Tennessee to revisit this issue.”
MEDICAL POT BILL DEAD FOR 2018
A Tennessee legislative effort to legalize medical marijuana is dead for the year after Sen. Steve Dickerson, R-Nashville, took the bill off notice Tuesday in the Judiciary Committee.
The physician told colleagues he couldn’t support House changes that turned the original effort to create a carefully regulated regimen into a decriminalization effort with no way to purchase products here.
House sponsor Jeremy Faison, R-Cosby, made the changes to get the measure through the committee.
Dickerson told the committee that while he might be able to pass the House version, he didn’t want to because that likely would make it difficult to come back next year with the original version.
“I’d bet this body would tell me I needed to wait three, four years,” he predicted, saying that while the amended House version is “well-intentioned” it “would be harmful to the patients over the next five years.”
He moved the bill to general subcommittee, later adding he wants the panel to study the issue and legislation during the summer.