GOP backing away from ‘fringe’ groups

NASHVILLE — Before a House vote to give final approval to a contentious firearms bill last week, Speaker Beth Harwell implored her Republican colleagues to ignore demands from what she deemed “fringe” groups to make major changes to the measure.

The chamber took Harwell’s advice and passed the guns-in-parking-lots bill without any changes. Lawmakers have also in recent weeks drawn the line at proposals to bypass the federal government by allowing the creation an independent health care network and stopped a proposal to ban the enforcement of federal firearms laws in Tennessee.

The failure of those two bills in House and Senate committees indi- cates a new willingness among leaders of the GOP supermajority to reel in some of the more extreme — and likely unconstitutional — measures before they reach a floor vote, where lawmakers might have a harder time voting against them for ideological reasons.

Last year Gov. Bill Haslam decried the attention being paid to what he called the “craziest” measures, although he blamed the news media and not the lawmakers for that.

Polls of state voters also have shown lower approval ratings for the General Assembly than for Haslam. In December, the Vanderbilt Poll showed 68 percent of voters approved of Haslam’s performance, compared with the legislature’s rating of 52 percent, which was up from an April approval rate of just under 50 percent.