Tag Archives: gov bill

NASHVILLE — A GOP-led legislative effort to bring lawmakers under the operational control of the Tennessee State Board of Education with six of the panel’s nine voting member nominations moving to the state House despite the opposition from Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who now makes all the appointments. House Bill 1838, sponsored by Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, was approved by ...

Tennessee municipalities spend on professional sports. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is set to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure Nashville and Memphis maintain their major league standings. To that end, Lee would be interested in talking to the National Football League about hosting a Super Bowl in Nashville. The NFL is no longer auctioning the game. If a ...

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is proposing to relocate three schools from Memphis due to the possibility of flooding, a school building change not currently part of a new facilities plan. Schools in Memphis-Shelby County was unveiled last spring and started in earnest during a recent round of council votes on school closures, mergers, school building additions and HVAC upgrades. Inspired ...

SPRING HILL, Tenn. (WDEF) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is making appearances statewide, taking time Thursday to tour the Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station in Spring Hill. His first time at the factory became less of a photo opportunity and more of a state-of-the-state address. While the Governor got to see all of the services provided by Watts Bar, he ...

Coronavirus cases are again due to omicron variant, which has raised concerns about the spread of the deadly virus in public schools. But are schools allowed to switch to distance education? The answer is complicated. Under current guidelines, classrooms or individual schools can temporarily switch to distance learning for up to seven days, but school districts cannot. Classrooms and schools ...

In a rare move, the Tennessee Supreme Court will revisit arguments over Gov. Bill Lee’s controversial scholarship program. The ruling hints at a deadlocked high court that doesn’t just wait for a new judge appointed by Lee to join the bench. The High Court lost a member after the sudden death of judge Cornelia A. Clark earlier this year. Judge ...

NASHVILLE – Tennessee Gouv. Bill lee has lost ground with voters since May, according to a new Vanderbilt University poll released Thursday that suggests the 10-point drop may be linked to the Republican governor’s enactment of a set of laws limiting health measures public amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 17,000 Tennesséens. The survey of 1,002 registered ...

More than 70 people are believed to have died after a catastrophic series of tornadoes swept through Kentucky and other states on Friday evening and early Saturday, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said. The governor estimates that “the death toll from this event is north of 70 Kentuckians and could end up exceeding 100 by the end of the day,” he ...

By JONATHAN MATTISE, Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) – A Tennessee panel selected three finalists Thursday for a state Supreme Court opening: two middle judges from the appeals court and a high-profile attorney from the attorney general’s office. The Governor’s Council for Judicial Appointments voted in favor of sending Republican Gov. Bill Lee the names of Tennessee Associate Attorney General ...

A Tennessee State Senator asks Davidson County Attorney Glenn Funk to investigate the state’s non-competitive contracting process – a process that has drawn criticism for the provision of faulty services and for lack of transparency. Senator Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville, sent a letter to Funk’s office on Tuesday requesting an “audit and financial review” of all emergency purchases made by Gov. ...

ELIZABETHTON, Tennessee (WJHL) – Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee will visit Elizabethton on Tuesday, his office confirmed on Sunday night. The governor will visit the Carter County Workforce Development Center on Route 91 this afternoon. Carter County Mayor Patty Woodby told News Channel 11 that the governor would be briefed on plans to create a centralized career and technology campus for ...

A pediatrician wrote the most read November opinion piece on Tennessean.com. Dr Susan Hata, a graduate of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, wrote a comprehensive and well-researched guest column, encouraging parents to get their children vaccinated against COVID-19 now that 5 to 11 years are allowed to be vaccinated. “Contracting COVID-19 is not trivial for a child,” wrote Hata, ...

Hate trafficking is alive and well in Tennessee – and particularly in the Tennessee General Assembly. Last Monday, Tennessee State Representative Chris Todd R-Jackson accused a Christian foster care organization – the well-known Bethany Christian Services, which has an office in Chattanooga – of facilitating trafficking human beings by working with the federal government to place unaccompanied migrant children. with ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) – Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s office has warned lawmakers that their sprawling bill limiting COVID-19 restrictions would violate federal law that protects people with disabilities and put the state at risk of losing federal funds, according to records obtained by The Associated Press. The Republican-controlled legislature ignored the advice and passed the bill anyway. Less than two ...

In the dark of the night, Republicans caved in and excluded private companies from strict mask restrictions. Still, the bill was unsavory enough that the chamber and the NFIB objected to its final form. Nine House Republicans voted no, two chose not to vote and others weren’t there for the final overnight. Republican Gov. Bill Lee has not said whether ...

(The Center Square) – The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation called for a budget increase of $ 59 million during its budget hearing this week with Gov. Bill Lee and his advisers. The request includes $ 24.9 million for a career development initiative that will help recruit and retain staff, an issue many government agencies cited in hearings this week. TBI’s ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) – Two civil rights groups on Thursday filed a challenge in federal court against a Tennessee law that prohibits transgender athletes from participating in public sports in high school or college aligned with their gender identity. The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and Lambda Legal, which defends LGBTQ civil rights, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District ...

(The Center Square) – The Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration on Wednesday called for an $ 88.9 million increase in funding in a budget hearing with Gov. Bill Lee and advisers, including the Commissioner of the Butch Eley department. Among the spending proposals were $ 20 million for business process automation, $ 15 million for federal funding growth, $ ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WKRN) – Major cities across the state of Tennessee are trying to figure out how to respond to new COVID laws passed in a special session this weekend. The GOP qualified majority has targeted leading independent health councils to prevent them from implementing COVID mitigation strategies. ‘Unprecedented’ and ‘Dangerous’ TN COVID Laws Metro Council writes in letter to ...

October 29, 2021 The House and Senate both passed a law on Friday allowing the state attorney general to ask courts to appoint interim district attorneys for any district attorney general who makes a general statement against prosecution of certain categories of illegal activities. The Senate passed its version of the bill by a 25-6 vote. The measure was passed ...

A sweeping series of measures designed to curb local dissent over state COVID policies, and to verify the governor’s emergency powers, easily made their way through the hearings of the Republican-dominated committee in the specially called legislative session. Thursday. They include tough new penalties for members of locally elected school boards who defy executive orders and a mechanism for the ...

In an era when Maury County public schools struggle to fund teacher fundraisers, new positions and improved learning programs, a shift in the way the state distributes school funding could signal a new day for the district. With the promise of change comes the potential for financial relief. As the state begins to revisit its basic education plan, or the ...

A school district in Tennessee resolutely opposes the governor’s efforts to allow parents to remove their children from school mask warrants. Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order, which was extended until Nov. 5, will continue to be stuck in Williamson County’s two public school systems, thanks to a ruling by U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, reported The Tennessean. “The court ...

Ahead of next week’s special legislative session on COVID-19 restrictions, a Tennessee lawmaker introduced bills holding employers accountable for the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine and making school board elections partisan. Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, is the first to introduce legislation after House and Senate leaders formally announced this week that the session could cover a wide range of ...

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (WVLT) – Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has officially filed an appeal in the ongoing case demanding Knox County schools apply a mask warrant for students and staff. The appeal specifically refers to the court order prohibiting the school district and the governor from enforcing Executive Order 84, the order allowing parents in Tennessee to remove their children from ...

Republicans at Tennessee House move forward with broad round of proposed restrictions on COVID-19 vaccination and mask warrants in special session called to discuss economic incentives and government authority for investment Ford’s $ 5.6 billion. But the bill, HB8003, was doomed this week after gaining no traction in the state’s upper house, with no Senate godfather carrying the bill and ...

NASHVILLE – A Republican lawmaker in Tennessee has said he will push for the state to follow Montana’s lead and pass legislation banning COVID-19 vaccinations as a condition of employment here in special legislation that leaders of the GOP House and Senate plan to hold later this month. “I like what Montana did. It’s simple,” Sen. Frank Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains, ...

NASHVILLE – Tennessee pledges to spend nearly $ 900 million on incentives, infrastructure work and a new technical college under deal with Ford Motor Co. and South Korean battery maker SK Innovation for a multi-billion battery factory and assembly facility in rural West Tennessee. While the state was known to offer $ 500 million in incentives to businesses, a much ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WTVF) – The Tennessee legislature will likely call another special session in two weeks to discuss restrictions related to COVID-19. A spokesperson for Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton (R – Crossville) confirmed Thursday that they will discuss the warrants of masks, quarantine, independent health services and monoclonal antibodies. State Senators and House Representatives. tell me it is ...

12 October 2021 Conservative Representative Bruce Griffey lashes out at lawmakers who favor vaccination mandates, calling them “medical Nazis” and seeking to use ivermectin to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.Claiming he was not opposed to vaccines for Tennessee seniors with health problems, the Parisian Republican nonetheless said in a letter to colleagues on Tuesday that he “vehemently” opposed government mandates. and ...

RUTHERFORD CO., Tennessee (WKRN) – A Tennessee judge illegally jailed children at a rate nearly 10 times the state average – even when no crime was committed, according to a report by WPLN and ProPublica. Judge Donna Scott Davenport instituted a policy that all children accused of crimes should be treated in the detention center, according to the report. In ...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Gov. Bill Lee and Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn on Friday announced plans to review how the state funds its multibillion-dollar K-12 education system. Lee and Schwinn hope that principals, families and other members of the public will provide feedback on how the system can be improved over the coming months. While no specific timeline has yet ...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Knox County School officials are asking a federal judge to relax exemptions around a recently implemented court-ordered school mask warrant, arguing they need more flexibility to determine who needs a mask. Last month, U.S. District Judge J. Ronnie Greer ruled Knox County schools must adopt a mask warrant to help protect children with health conditions more ...

Republicans at Tennessee House looking for a special session on COVID-19 issues could try to put the state’s $ 5.8 billion deal on an electric truck and Ford battery campus on ice. House Speaker Cameron Sexton told WWTN-FM late last week that some members of the House Republican caucus would vote against funding for the Blue Oval City Project on ...

NASHVILLE – On the same day, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and executives from Ford Motor Co. announced last week’s agreement to set up a $ 5.6 billion electric vehicle plant in rural western Tennessee , Conservative opponents of school mask mandates and federal immunization requirements rallied at Lt. Gov. Randy McNally’s hometown of Oak Ridge to pressure Lee and other ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WKRN) – Gov. Bill Lee is extending his mask removal order in 92 of Tennessee’s 95 counties, while fighting federal mask requirements in three of the remaining counties. The extension comes as new data points to darker details about Tennessee’s return to in-person learning. Tennessee surpasses 15,000 deaths from COVID-19 Governor Lee said he was disappointed with three ...

Gunmaker Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. SWBI -0.14% moves its headquarters from Massachusetts to Tennessee, joining other gun manufacturers who have moved from the mid-Atlantic and northeast to the southern states with less restrictive gun laws. The company will invest more than $ 125 million to move its headquarters and some operations from Springfield, Massachusetts, where it has been based ...

Doctors across the state, including a member of Governor Bill Lee’s COVID-19 advisory committee, challenge his COVID-19 policies and applaud three court rulings to overturn his executive order allowing parents to step down from school mask warrants . Dr. Erica Kaye, pediatrician, oncologist and palliative care physician at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, wrote a letter to Governor ...

Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Cornelia Clark, a pioneer who served on the High Court for 16 years, passed away last week. Clark was the second woman to sit on the Supreme Court. She has acquired a reputation as a curious and passionate lawyer with a pronounced taste for the law. She was also the first woman to serve as a ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) – A third federal judge has blocked Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s order allowing families to step down from school mask warrants. The ruling, released Friday night by U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, is the latest development in the ongoing legal battle against Lee‘s order launched by parents and advocates alarmed by the surge in coronavirus cases in ...

Two Tennessee federal judges have struck down at Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order that allows families to opt out of school mask warrants, ruling on Friday in separate cases that local districts may require face coverings to protect children with disabilities during that legal challenges progress through the courts. This was the third time in the past two weeks that ...

Schools in Williamson County and Franklin Special will be able to apply mask warrants under a ruling by a federal judge in Nashville on Friday. U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr. issued the order in the afternoon, blocking Gov. Bill Lee‘s executive order allowing parents to remove their children from the district’s mask warrants. The judge’s ruling is temporary ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) – On Friday, a federal judge dealt a second blow to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s controversial order allowing parents to opt out of school mask requirements, ruling that Knox County schools must implement a mask mandate to help protect children with health issues amid the coronavirus pandemic. The ruling by U.S. District Judge J. Ronnie Greer also ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) – Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Cornelia Clark has died aged 71, the court said on Friday. She had been diagnosed with cancer. According to a press release, Clark died overnight after 16 years in her role, serving the longest term of her counterparts in court as she sat on the bench for more than 1,100 Supreme Court ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WKRN) – Tennessee is seeing a decrease in COVID-19 cases as the delta variant decreases in the state. However, deaths continue to rise and doctors are now warning people not to let their guard down. The death toll is rising after several weeks of highly positive COVID cases in Tennessee. “The trend of deaths will hopefully reverse, but ...

Tennessee Highway Patrol Soldier Aaron Rumford is remembered at his funeral Wednesday as a man focused on service, family and his Christian faith. Rumford, passed away on September 13, was a member of the THP Executive Protection Unit, which provides security for the governor. Governor Bill Lee spoke at the funeral, saying the 29-year-old native of Dickson County was like ...

District Attorney General Kim R. Helper, the first woman to hold the post of the 21st Judicial District, on Monday announced her intention to be re-elected to that post in the next election in 2022. Due to the redistribution, which takes effect with the 2022 election, the 21st District will be dedicated solely to Williamson County. Helper has served in ...

I’m sending this dispatch from the highway – from Tennessee, to be exact. This is one of my favorite states. I have family here. Tennessee gave the world of ice cream Mayfield and Stax Records and American legend Dolly Parton, whose photo should be on our money. But the news from Tennessee regarding COVID-19 almost makes me want to turn ...

Tennessee should receive at least 415 Afghan refugees in the coming weeks, while Gov. Bill Lee – who says he supports the resettlement of U.S. allies from Afghanistan – calls on the White House to provide detailed information on who will arrive. In an email Wednesday from the US State Department‘s Afghanistan Placement and Assistance Program, obtained by The Tennessean, ...

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (WATE) – Tennessee lawmakers are considering calling for a special session to ban masks and vaccines; we heard from Governor Bill Lee as he attended a ribbon cutting in Morristown on Friday. Biden announces new vaccine mandates for 100 million Americans Lee said he’s working closely with Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally ...

GREENVILLE, Tenn. – “I want to keep them safe, and we’re not keeping them safe right now,” fifth-grade teacher Ashley Paquette told a federal judge on Wednesday, testifying on the side of four families suing to bring back a demand for mask in Knox County schools. US District Judge J. Ronnie Greer has said he intends to rule “as quickly ...

Schools can use creative schedules to comply with the Tennessee governor’s order that allows families to opt out of mask warrants in schools while protecting the rights and health of immunocompromised students, the lawyer argued Jim Newsome at a hearing Thursday. Newsome, lawyer for the defendant Gov. Bill lee, was among the parties presenting their cases in a Memphis courtroom ...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A Shelby County suburban school district announced on Saturday it was changing a policy that allowed parents to deny children from wearing masks to school, a day after a federal judge issued an order to temporary ban against a decree of the governor. Judge grants temporary restraining order against Governor Lee’s mask removal order All students, employees ...

Shelby County schools have several hurdles to overcome before implementing more robust virtual learning options like last year, but the district is taking the first steps to get there. The delta variant continues to fuel a wave of COVID-19 in Shelby County, the Mid-South and Tennessee, sparking more concern from parents. Currently, families in Tennessee can only virtual learn through ...

Remnants of the Tropical Depression Henry flood the northeastern United States with heavy rains, causing flooding and power outages as it crosses New England and heads out to sea. The storm saturated the region for two days, bringing record rains to New York City. Central Park got 7.12 inches until Sunday and saw its rainiest hour ever late Saturday, the ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WTVF) – The U.S. Secretary of Education questions the legality of Gov. Bill Lee‘s executive order that allows parents to opt out of mask mandates imposed by local school districts. Education Secretary Miguel A. Cardona sent a letter to Governor Lee and Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, saying the ordinance could “infringe the power of a school district ...

The regulatory battle over school mask mandates in the United States reached new heights this week when President Joe Biden said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona could take legal action against governors who ban them in schools. Across the country, several state governors have issued orders prohibiting schools from forcing students to wear masks. These states include Florida, Texas, South Carolina, ...

Posted on: August 18, 2021 Author: Jennifer McEachern Amazon’s fourth fulfillment center project in Tennessee in about 18 months NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Economic and Community Development Commissioner Bob Rolfe and Amazon officials today announced the company will establish a new state-of-the-art distribution center in Clarksville. Amazon will create 500 full-time jobs with full benefits in the ...

In Sullivan County, where COVID cases have tripled in the past two weeks, the medical director of the local health department has started to see a slight but noticeable change in the attitudes of parents whose children are old enough to to get vaccinated. Public schools have resumed operations for just over a week, and 31 students and 3 staff ...

“Transgender Students Challenge Tennessee Law Restricting School Washrooms They Can Use” was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. Subscribe to their newsletters on bit.ly/tnchalk. A Washington, DC-based group representing two transgender students from Tennessee sued the state this week over a new law that restricts the school toilets they can use. The Human Rights Campaign, ...

Patrick Gleason is vice president of Americans for Tax Reform. Vance Ginn, Ph.D., is Chief Economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Republicans in Washington may not have much credibility in criticizing the lavishness of Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration, given how much the the federal debt has increased when the GOP was in power. Yet in a moment ...

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (WMC) – The speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives will be in Memphis on Friday to discuss criminal justice reform with Shelby County leaders. Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton will meet with Mayor Jim Strickland, Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner and District Attorney Amy Weirich to discuss the truth in law ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) – Tennessee has sent nearly half a million dollars to farmers who have vaccinated their livestock against respiratory and other illnesses in the past two years. But Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who grew up on his family’s ranch and describes himself as a cattle rancher on his Twitter profile, has been much less enthusiastic about encouraging herd ...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WJHL) – Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and other heads of state announced the results of Tennessee’s Spring 2021 Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) testing on Monday afternoon. According to Lee, the results indicated that education in the state was negatively affected by COVID-19. You can watch the stream of News Channel 11‘s announcement below: “These results show that COVID-19 ...

NASHVILLE – Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee reports that he raised $ 684,900 in campaign money in the first half of this year for his re-election effort in 2022. After spending $ 357,000 so far, the governor said he had $ 2.4 million in cash as of June 30. Among Lee‘s donors was billionaire transgender businesswoman Jennifer Pritzker of Nashville, although ...

NASHVILLE – Legislative Democrats on Friday called for the immediate removal of the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest – Confederate General and the Ku Klux Klan’s First Grand Wizard – from the Tennessee Capitol Building after a required waiting period for action had expired earlier today. Among them was Representative Yusuf Hakeem, a Democrat from Chattanooga, who said Forrest’s bust ...

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (WMC) – At least four children have been abused this week, including a seven-year-old boy who was shot and killed on July 4 in the Klondike. As in all cases of violence, the ultimate responsibility rests with the person who commits the crime. But community members and city leaders say there are other factors at play as well, ...

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the presiding judge in this case. The trial has been assigned to Davidson County Chancellor Anne C. Martin. A recent review of Tennessee’s parole regulations changes the fundamental approach to early release for defendants who hope to be released from prison after serving their sentence. But a new trial argues the parole ...

NASHVILLE – Faced with threats from certain Republican colleagues in the legislature to abolish or “reconstitute” the Tennessee Department of Health after carrying out awareness-raising actions with minors encouraging them to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the Gov. Bill Lee said Wednesday that his administration would work with parents before. “The state will continue to encourage people to seek access, adults ...