NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Tennessee lawmakers scrambled to get hundreds of legislative proposals submitted before the filing deadline on Thursday, including a renewed bid to require transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding to the gender listed on their birth certificates.
Other filed bills filled before the cutoff would allow people with handgun carry permits to be armed in schools, drop a state ban on Sunday liquor sales and get rid of open primary voting in Tennessee.
Republican Gov. Bill Haslam asked a reporter for more time to digest the barrage of bills before taking a position on several of them.
“There’s like 1,000 bills that have been filed today or yesterday,” Haslam said after a Rotary Club speech in Smyrna. “Give us a little chance to go review all those and see where we are.”
Haslam did say that he’d prefer to let litigation over bathroom gender policies play out before Tennessee considers the issue. Neighboring North Carolina has been roiled by political and economic repercussions for its transgender bathroom law, and similar legislation was abandoned at the Tennessee Capitol last year.
As for allowing liquor to be sold during the same hours that beer can bought, Haslam was quick to beg off of taking a position.
“We’ll probably stay out of that one,” he said with a laugh.
House Speaker Beth Harwell has touted her policy of only allowing each House member to file 15 general bills.
“We’ve really gone from the days when I first came in as speaker from having close to 4,000 bills introduced, to cutting that in half,” said Harwell, R-Nashville. “And that’s a good thing.”
“Because, you know bills turn into laws, and laws turn into big government,” she said. “So I ask members to really prioritize wants the most important thing to your district, to you personally and to our state.”
Not all of the bills will end up continuing through the legislative process. Legislation without sponsors in both chambers after Thursday deadline will be dropped.
Other legislative proposals submitted on the final filing day include:
- SALES TAXES: Democrats want to eliminate the sales tax on diapers, feminine products and over-the-counter medicines this year and begin phasing out the sales tax on groceries. Another proposal would increase the tax on a pack from cigarettes from 62 cents to $1.69 to pay cover the cost of eliminating the sales tax on food.
- CASINOS: Proposing an amendment to the Tennessee Constitution to allow casinos to operate in the state.
- CIVICS TEST: Requiring high school students to pass a civics test in order to graduate.
- DANGEROUS INSECTS: Making it a misdemeanor to exhibit or handle an insect that could endanger a person’s life or health.
- PATRONIZING PROSTITUTION: Allowing law enforcement to impound vehicles for up to five days for people arrested multiple times for patronizing prostitutes.
- HIGH ALCOHOL BEER: Allowing high gravity beer of up to 18 percent alcohol to be sold in grocery stores.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.