GOP House, Senate split on issues as they return
NASHVILLE — As Tennessee lawmakers trickle back to the state Capitol on Tuesday to resume their session, the primary order of business is grappling with a projected coronavirus-created state revenue shortfall that will dictate spending cuts in both the current budget and the new one taking effect July 1.
But that’s not all the 99 House members and 33 senators in the GOP-dominated General Assembly are wrestling with.
Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, the Republican Senate speaker from Oak Ridge, and House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, are divided over the extent of
personal health-safety protocols as well as allowing the public into the General Assembly’s home in the Cordell Hull Building and the state Capitol.
Sexton is letting the public and lobbyists come under set protocols. McNally is not, saying the public can keep up with what’s going on via the legislature’s video streaming site.
The result? The erection of barriers between House and Senate committee rooms in Cordell Hull and between House and Senate chambers in the Capitol. Visitors, who will be required to undergo temperature checks and wear state-issued masks, will be allowed on the House side but not on the Senate side.
“I think it’s going to be very awkward,” said Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, chairman of the Hamilton County legislative delegation, on how he sees the session proceeding.
He noted that more than half the Senate members, including himself, are over 65 years old. “And some of them have some medical conditions,” added Gardenhire, who said while he’s not aware of any health issues he might have “I’m not about to take extra chances” on any front, and he plans to sleep in his office instead of a hotel while in Nashville.
Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, D-Chattanooga, said he favors the Senate’s plan, adding the House plan “not only puts the legislators at risk but the public also. … I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to have on a mask and gloves.”
In a statement last week, Sexton said the House is “taking necessary precautions and safety measures to ensure the safety of our members and staff as best as we can. Our intent is for public interactions and participation in the building.”
ANOTHER DISCONNECT: SCOPE OF BUSINESS
Another area of major disagreement is what measures lawmakers should take up in the next two to three weeks after abruptly adjourning March 19 following passage of a no-increase $39.9 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2020-2021. That plan slashed Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s originally proposed spending plan by nearly $900 million in one-time and recurring expenditures.
Revenues were already falling as Tennesseans began curbing their activities even before Lee and local governments began implementing restrictions aimed at preventing further spread of the virus near the end of March and on April
2. While Lee has lifted most restrictions, Tennessee like other states has lost revenues and is projected to lose far more.
McNally wants to focus on the budget, with the state facing a potential revenue shortfall of $300 million to $500 million in its current budget ending June
30. There’s also a roughly projected $900 million to $1.2 billion collapse of revenue in the new budget going into effect July 1.
McNally wants senators to focus on Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s expected recommendations.
“The Senate is committed to focusing only on items that are time sensitive, budget related or deal with the ongoing global pandemic,” McNally spokesman Adam Kleinheider said. “We are witnessing an unprecedented economic disruption due to the coronavirus. Our longstanding fiscal responsibility has left us in better shape than most states to weather this crisis.”
But Kleinheider said due to “significant” revenue shortfalls, “there will still be serious and difficult decisions to be made. The session’s scope will be limited in order to focus on the budget and minimize opportunities for the spread of the virus.” As a result, the Senate is focused on 30 “mission critical” bills.
But the floodgates are open on legislation in the House, with some 100 or so bills and other measures awaiting action.
“The House will resume committee meetings [this] week to begin finishing up all legislative calendars,” Sexton said. “Our committees will operate in the same manner as is customary — with a focus on passing good public policy.”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bo Watson, R-Hixson, who occupies a key position on both the budget and bills requiring state spending, said the Senate “wants to focus more on essential bills that are necessary for the operation of government and governmental entities. And look at the financial piece of the budget process — make sure we get our fiscal house in order for the remainder of this.
“The Senate has been pretty consistent” on that, Watson added.
Efforts to reach Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain, vice chairwoman of the House Finance Committee, were unsuccessful.
Rep. Esther Helton, R-East Ridge, has at least two bills she hopes to pass, one of them intended to help nonprofit groups such as Chattanooga’s Cempa Community Care continue to use a 1992 federal law that provides them low-cost drugs to care for the poor and medically underserved.
She said pharmaceutical benefits managers are trying to curb the program. Helton noted that Cempa is playing a role in helping provide COVID-19 testing in Chattanooga.
GOP: ABORTION, PERMITLESS HANDGUN CARRY, CORONA VIRUS LITIGATION CURBS
The list of pending measures before the House includes a controversial bill that would effectively ban most abortions — the purpose is to allow Tennessee to join other GOP-led states challenging the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Also on the table is a National Rifle Association backed permit less conceal-carry handgun bill that would allow Tennesseans to go armed without background checks and fees.
Other measures include at least three proposed state constitutional amendments, one sponsored by Hazlewood: the so-called “Marsy’s Law” that would grant victims and families greater input in the judicial process as well as a new right to privacy.
Both law enforcement and open record advocates have raised concerns about Marsy’s Law. Another bill seeks to designate the Bible the state government’s official book.
The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and allied groups, meanwhile, are seeking restrictions on Tennessee lawsuits arising from the coronavirus pandemic.
House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, downplayed prospects of a train wreck between the two chambers.
“This is not dissimilar from any other year where we’re at the end of the legislature,” Lamberth said, adding that the two chambers typically “go back and forth” over their differences and “it does not mean those bills may not be negotiated out.”
While acknowledging the pandemic makes it “more difficult,” there remain issues besides pandemic responses and budgetary actions that “are important to Tennesseans,” Lamberth said.
“Just because there’s a pandemic doesn’t mean that Second Amendment rights are not still extraordinarily important or First Amendment rights or Fourth Amendment rights or the right to life or any number of issues,” the majority leader added.
Asked by reporters about GOP leaders’ differences last week, Lee, who has made the abortion restriction bill as well as permitless handgun carry bill part of his official package of legislation, sought to downplay them.
“What I most agree with is the legislature really has the responsibility to set the agenda and they will do so. I’m talking with leadership in the legislature and with members,” Lee said. “As the time approaches I think those bodies will come together. We all know that the greatest importance in this agenda going forward is going to be the budget and how we address that budget, the economic downturn that’s been created.”
In a legislature where members and entire chambers have been known to hold the budget hostage to get what they want, Lee said, “I have a great deal of trust in this legislature. They’re responsible, they show responsible behavior.”
DEMOCRATS: EXPAND TENNCARE, FIX UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Legislative Democrats, a distinct minority among GOP super majorities in both House and Senate, have their agenda as well.
The list includes extending Medicaid coverage to “every essential worker,” with Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, the Senate Democratic Caucus chairman, saying caregivers, grocery store and distribution workers, farmers and factory workers need and deserve care while the move would inject a billion dollars, most of it federal money, into the state’s economy.
“We’ve got to do something,” Akbari said during a Zoom conference call with reporters last week.
House Democrats, meanwhile, are demanding both Lee and legislative Republicans improve the Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s response to more than a half million unemployment claims the state was overwhelmed by in March and is still struggling to catch up on.
Jobless Tennesseans have complained of not being able to get through on state phone lines or the Labor Department’s website for weeks and as long as two months. The situation was so bad that one man unable to get through started a Facebook site called “Tennessee Unemployment Nightmare” for residents to band together to share both their experiences and advice on how to cut through.