Lawmakers ease to adjournment

Pass meth bill, delay Common Core tests, restore electric chair

NASHVILLE — The Tennessee legislature ended its three-month run Thursday after passing bills to curb meth production, restore the electric chair as a backup execution method and delay the student tests associated with Common Core academic standards.

The adjournment closed out the two-year 108th General Assembly, which will be known for establishing free community college for high school graduates, finally approving wine sales in food stores and ending 59 years of municipal annexation without approval of residents being annexed.

Gov. Bill Haslam’s “Tennessee Promise” plan for tuition-free community college will start in 2015, and grocery store wine sales will begin in 2016 where approved in local referendums.

Lawmakers also approved a bill on the last day to limit consumer purchases of pseudoephedrine products without a prescription to 28.8 grams per year, a compromise from the 14.4 grams sought by the governor and law enforcement to cut down methamphetamine production and abuse. Pseudoephedrine, an ingredient in some cold and allergy medicines, is used in the illegal production of meth, an epidemic in parts of the state. Minors under 18 won’t be able to buy pseudoephedrine products without a prescription or written authorization by pharmacists.

Another last- day enactment made electrocution the state’s alternative method of execution if drugs required for lethal injection become unavailable.

Thursday lacked the usual last- day frenetic rush through long agendas to pass and kill bills. Last week’s passage of a $32.4 billion state budget cleared the way for a more

orderly closure spread over four days this week, two days more than planned. The Republican governor and GOP-dominated House and Senate resolved most differences among each other but not all, notably school vouchers. Vouchers and others measures they couldn’t agree on died for the year.

Afterward, Haslam and Republican legislative leaders agreed that the session was productive. Haslam said it was most important to him that the Common Core State Standards on math and English were not scaled back or repealed, as many conservatives wanted. But lawmakers did delay for at least one year the state’s use of Common Core’s testing program developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC.

PARCC was to replace the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP tests, in public schools in 2015, but TCAP will continue next year while the state considers alternatives to PARCC for 2016 and beyond.

“I think the biggest thing is we didn’t want to back up on the standards, and what passed didn’t back up on the high standards. We were going to fight to the wall on that,” Haslam said. “We will look at the different assessment vehicles out there.”

The governor said it’s too early to say whether school vouchers might win approval next year.

He said his plan for tuition-free community college or technical college for high school graduates starting with the class of 2015 is “a game-changer, with the long-term ability to change the state.”

Also approved on the last day were bills to restructure the state textbook commission and make the process of selecting textbooks for public schools more open, and to limit police access to information on smartphones and other electronic devices without search warrants.

It was also the end of an era: Sen. Douglas Henry, D-Nashville, ended a legendary tenure that began with a single House term in 1955-56. After a hiatus, he won a Senate seat in 1970 and has been a watchdog of the state’s finances and bond rating ever since. Also known for his advocacy for children, Henry, now 87, sponsored the law in the 1970s that made Tennessee the first state to require special car seats for children.

Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle of Memphis was also given an ovation in case he wins the Shelby County judgeship he’s running for in August and doesn’t return to the legislature next year.