Trans bill delayed on AG opinion

‘Fiscal note’ adds legislative layer

Action on the controversial transgender restroom bill was delayed Tuesday in a state Senate committee as a result of Monday’s attorney general’s opinion advising lawmakers that the bill could cost the state millions of dollars in federal funding.

The bill, Senate Bill 2387/House Bill 2414, requires transgender students in Tennessee’s public K-12 schools and state colleges and universities to use the restroom and locker room of their birth gender and forbids them from using the restroom of their gender identity.

Transgender students have told lawmakers that the bill would subject them to more bullying.

The bill was scheduled for review by the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday, but when it was called up, its sponsor, Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, asked the committee to postpone it to today because he’s “still trying to digest and understand the attorney general’s opinion” issued by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery.

The opinion says that because the U.S. Department of Education has interpreted such legislation in other states as discriminatory, it puts federal funding for education at risk for any school district or state college or university that puts the bill’s provisions into effect.

But the bill is likely to be delayed longer than just a day. Sen. Bo Watson, R-Chattanooga, the committee’s vice chairman, told Bell that the attorney general’s opinion means the bill now has a “fiscal note”— an estimate of the bill’s potential costs to taxpayers — and as a result, it must be considered after the committee acts on the state budget bill.

That may occur late this week or early next week, as the General Assembly works toward adjourning its 2016 session by the end of next week.