Bill banning residency requirements is delayed
A bill in Tennessee General Assembly that would have banned any city in Tennessee from having a residency requirement for public safety employees — police officers and firefighters — is effectively dead for now.
The Tennessee House’s local government committee referred the bill, which had already passed the Tennessee Senate, to summer study, meaning that it will not pass this legislative session.
That means, for now, new Memphis police officers and firefighters will have to live within the limits of Shelby County. The bill appeared aimed at Memphis and the Memphis City Council’s decision to stop a public referendum on eliminating the residency requirement last November.
The measure was introduced by State Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-germantown, and had received the endorsement of the Memphis Police Association, Memphis Fire Fighters Association and Memphis Police Department Director Mike Rallings.
It was amended in the Senate so that Hamilton County could be exempt from the ban, but the bill’s text made no such stipulation for Shelby County.
For some on the Memphis City Council, particularly those who voted to take the residency referendum off the ballot and keep it in place, the bill was seen as an attack on local control.
Councilman JB Smiley, Jr. criticized it repeatedly on Twitter and described it as people not from Memphis who didn’t live in Memphis trying to govern the city.
It represented something of a sticky wicket for Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, who wanted the residency referendum repealed and tried to undo the City Council’s action in August by using the first veto of his administration. That veto would be quickly reversed.
Strickland has often been an advocate for local control and opposed measures that take powers away from municipal government.
Last week, in an interview, Strickland said, “this is an issue that I’ve been torn about because I agree with the substance of it but I don’t agree with the preemption of local control. There are usually 30 to 40 bills filed in the legislature each year pre-empting local control and we’ve always opposed them.”
Kelsey did not immediately return a request for comment.
Samuel Hardiman covers Memphis city government and politics for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by email at samuel.hardiman@commercialappeal.com or followed on Twitter at @samhardiman.