The Governor’s Special Session which he demanded because he wanted to force a Red Flag law never should have occurred. But Governor Lee abused his discretion and called one anyway. Rather than focus on an “extraordinary occasion” as is constitutionally required, he issued a proclamation calling for the broad and vague topic of “public safety” and enumerating 18 broad categories of topics that he wanted addressed. Clearly, one of those – item 12 – is his renewed push for passage of a Red Flag law.

In a demonstration of some restraint, the Senate has so far passed only 3 bills, a funding bill, and some honorary proclamations. In contrast, the House has so far passed 7 bills, a funding bill and one honorary proclamation. However, as of August 28, 2023, House Committees have passed 32 bills and resolutions and has indicated an intent to continue passing bills on the House floor this week. The House calendar, on the state’s website, shows it has 134 Resolutions on its calendar for August 28. However, several substantive bills that were on the House floor calendar last week were “deferred” to the floor calendar for August 28.

This rapidly moving special session process makes it practically impossible for citizens and advocates to keep tabs on what is happening. It denies the citizens and advocates a reasonable opportunity to review the bills that the respective bodies are actually considering, to get copies of proposed or anticipated amendments or to even have an opportunity to ask to be heard on or speak with their own legislators about these public policy issues. The reckless speed of the process and the massive breadth of the pending bills are denying citizens their constitutional rights to have information about the proposed bills and to be able to “instruct” their legislators as provided in Article I, Section 23 of the state’s constitution. Essentially, Bill Lee and Legislative leaders are abusing a system in order to impair the constitutionally protected rights of citizens to have a voice in their own governance.

Speaking of such shenanigans, consider SB7088 (Sen. Jack Johnson) and its companion HB7041 (Rep. William Lamberth). While this never should have been a topic in an “extraordinary occasion” special session as broad as what Governor Lee demanded, the bill does address an important issue that is more appropriately considered in the regular session. The bill addresses human trafficking (which as everyone knows was relevant to the Covenant murders right?).

The legislature’s description of the bill appears insignificant. It states “As introduced, requires the [Tennessee] bureau [of Investigation] to submit a report on child and human trafficking crimes and trends in this state, based upon data available to the bureau, as well as current programs and activities of the bureau’s human trafficking unit, to the governor, the speaker of the house of representatives, and the speaker of the senate by December 1, 2023, and by each December 1 thereafter.” 

So, the bill as filed does nothing more than require that the TBI prepare and distribute a report by December 1 of each year. As an aside, the bill only required TBI to provide that report to the Governor, the Speaker and the Lt. Governor – there is no requirement that TBI include that report on the state’s website so that the interested public might also be informed.

The Senate passed the Senate version of the bill on August 23, 2023, with 26 voting yes, 0 voting no and 5 who were present but did not vote at all. The Senate passed the bill as written.

But something curious happened after the Senate passed the bill. On the House side, Rep. William Lamberth announced during the floor debate on August 24, 2023, that he was working on an amendment. That amendment appears to change the legislation by providing that the TBI will only send the annual report to the Speaker of the House. The amendment omits the requirement that a copy of the report to the Governor or the Lt. Governor. 

What is going on here? Is it truly the objective of Rep. Lamberth to exclude the report from being sent to the Governor and the Lt. Governor?

Is the proposed amendment that is presently filed the actual amendment that Rep. Lamberth intends or is it potentially a misdirection while yet another amendment is prepared and sprung on the citizens?

As a guest on the Tennessee Star Radio show on Monday, August 28, host Michael Patrick Leahy put that question to in-studio guest Rep. Gino Bulso. Rep. Bulso gave a plausible speculation as to why Rep. Lamberth would announce an amendment to a bill the Senate has already passed and which the Senate has clearly indicated is its final vote on that matter. Rep. Bulso stated that one possibility might be that Rep. Lamberth was wanting to create a scenario where the House and Senate would enact different versions of the bill and thereby force the bill to a “conference committee” where a small number of legislators from both houses negotiate, or try to do so, on a “take it or leave it” compromise bill that each house would then vote on without more amendments.

If that was Rep. Lamberth’s intent, then why propose an amendment that seems so clearly at odds with how other laws that require periodic reporting from state agencies to the legislature are handled? Why not put an amendment on the state’s website for the public to see which is exactly what Rep. Lamberth thinks the new law should be? Are we to assume that Rep. Lamberth truly thinks for any reason that the law should only require the report to be given to the House Speaker?

It is not clear what is going on but a few things do seem clear. First, the Lamberth amendment is not what is actually intended to be the final version of the proposed law. Second, the public at this time has no insight on what Rep. Lamberth thinks the final version of the proposed law should be. Third, as a result of these two factors, the public’s constitutional right to know what is going on and to be able to “instruct” their own legislators is impaired. More succinctly, it looks and smells like legislative shenanigans but why and why on this bill?

Compare the original bill with the amendment Rep. Lamberth has proposed on the TFA website.