House GOP asks Gov. Lee to call special session
Republicans in the Tennessee House are moving full steam ahead with pressuring Gov. Bill Lee to call a special session to take action against schools requiring masks.
All 73 members of the House Republican Caucus signed a letter Wednesday asking Lee to call legislators back to Nashville, an overwhelming show of support that will make it difficult politically for the governor not to do so.
While Lee has avoided saying whether he’ll grant Sexton’s request — and Lt. Gov. Randy Mcnally has said he prefers to allow local school boards to continue setting their own mask policies — some members of the Senate have also expressed support for the measure.
“We are reviewing the request,” Lee spokesperson Casey Black said in a statement Wednesday just after the letter was sent.
The governor on Monday said he would be in discussions with legislative officials this week and “nothing is off the table.”
In the letter, House Republicans outlined several topics they’d like to focus on during a special session, including limiting the authority of health departments in the state’s largest counties and tackling the issue of mask mandates in schools, something Sexton, R-crossville, has been outspoken against.
“We believe there is a need to curtail the overreach by independent health boards and officials, confirm a parent’s right to make decisions that impact the mental and physical health of their children, provide support and direction to schools to ensure educators are properly compensated for COVID-19 leave, and protect all Tennesseans from misdirected mandates designed to limit their ability to make their own decisions,” the caucus wrote to the governor.
The message to Lee came less than 24 hours after parents flocked to a Williamson County school board meeting Tuesday night, many to oppose a measure to require masks for students. Some yelled and harassed doctors and other medical professionals who had attended the meeting to speak in favor of masks.
The Williamson County board voted to mandate masks in elementary schools, joining districts in Shelby, Davidson and Hamilton counties, along with conservative rural counties like Hancock and Henry, in implementing some form of mask mandates for students.
Mcnally, R-oak Ridge, remained unamused Wednesday by the talk of coming back to curtail local education officials’ health safety policies.
“Amid all the controversy regarding masks, vaccine passports and the like, we appear to have lost sight of the one thing that truly matters: keeping children in the classroom so they can learn,” the lieutenant governor said in a statement after Sexton shared his letter.
“I remain convinced that locally elected school boards and private school organizations know how best to manage operations during this pandemic so that students can remain healthy, learning and, most importantly, in the classroom.”
Mcnally said if a special session is called, he’ll work with Lee and Sexton to keep the focus on ensuring children are learning in a classroom.
“And they can only do that if they remain healthy, vibrant and safe,” he said.
In addition to specifically mentioning independent health departments, such as one in Shelby County that imposed a mask mandate not just on public schools but private schools and daycares, Sexton’s letter leaves the door open to ask for topics other than schools to be addressed in a special session.
If the governor chooses not to call a special session, the legislature can initiate one itself with approval by twothirds of the members in each chamber.
The House would need 66 signatures, something Sexton has already proven his chamber could muster, while the Senate would need 22.
Receiving two-thirds support in the Senate is less certain, as Mcnally has been against a special session and Senate Republicans have been less averse to virus mitigation strategies and vaccines.
Most of the Senate Republican Caucus, including top members of leadership, in late July signed an open letter and Tennessean op-ed urging the public to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
Republicans on different pages about how far to go during a special session
Though no call has been issued for a special session, legislators on Wednesday already had a range of ideas of what should take place.
That included some of the most conservative voices calling for the governor himself to face a curtailing of his emergency powers and for the ability of private businesses to require vaccines to be taken away.
“I don’t anticipate Gov. Lee wanting to support a special session to limit his own powers, but I would argue that he would probably make himself more popular with all Tennesseans if he did just that,” said Rep. Bruce Griffey, R-paris, who is among a handful of lawmakers who would prefer to immediately limit Lee’s ability to continue a state of emergency without legislative approval.
Sen. Mark Pody, Rlebanon, also wants the issue addressed.
“We’re doing an emergency from executive orders that seem to be from something that was an emergency a year ago,” Pody said. “It’s not necessarily a new emergency now.”
Andy Ogles, the mayor of Maury County who is eyeing a longshot primary challenge against Lee in 2022, on Wednesday announced his own list of requests for the legislature to curb Lee’s emergency powers during a special session. Ogles, who has an active social media following, regularly speaks at conservative events in Tennessee where he criticizes Lee.
“It’s certainly within the realm of possibility,” Ogles said Wednesday when asked whether he’s challenging Lee.
Sen. Paul Bailey, Rsparta, last week announced he supported a special session, following Sexton’s declaration at an Aug. 2 news conference on public school testing scores that the House speaker would ask Lee for one if districts imposed mask requirements.
Bailey described a “wait and see posture” among some senators who were anticipating the House letter, how many signatures it would receive and what the scope of their request would be. Once the letter was released with full House GOP Caucus support Wednesday afternoon, Bailey said the “Senate has to take that into consideration.”
Asked whether Mcnally would entertain a special session scope that included curtailing the governor’s emergency powers or stripping businesses of their right to require vaccinations, spokesperson Adam Kleinheider issued a statement indicating the lieutenant governor would not be interested in doing so.
Senate Republican against special session says issue is ‘entirely self-inflicted’
Sen. Richard Briggs, Rknoxville, is among the Senate Republicans against returning to curtail COVID-19 mitigation strategies in schools and businesses.
“I don’t think at this point we need a special session,” said Briggs, a physician who described the current dilemma of mask debates and rising hospitalizations as “an entirely self-inflicted problem” by those unwilling to receive the vaccine.
His “nightmare situation,” Briggs said Wednesday, is if the legislature returns and passes a bill preventing any mask mandates. And Briggs is fiercely against stopping businesses from setting their own policies for employees and customers.
“If we’ve always said we don’t like government mandates to businesses, government doesn’t need to overregulate businesses, this would be absolutely contrary to what the conservative Republican legislature has been saying for years to make Tennessee a businessfriendly state,” Briggs said.
Democrats were quick to slam the effort.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Vincent Dixie of Nashville called it “political posturing,” while his counterpart in the Senate, Chair Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, referred to special session plans as “playing politics.”
“We’ve had more than 16 months to develop a plan to ensure our children can attend school in a safe and protected environment,” Dixie said in a statement. “It amazes me how we choose to ignore science and medical experts to placate a small group of extremists for donations and votes.”
Akbari said legislators should only return this summer to focus on affordable healthcare through Medicaid expansion.
“We cannot support a special session where the controlling party is only concerned with punishing private business owners and school districts for exercising medically appropriate precautions to keep people safe,” Akbari said.
Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com.
Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.