Certain Tennessee Republican Legislators have proposed SB1958 / HB1971 which must be evaluated within that framework. Despite being marketed by its sponsors (Senator John Stevens and Representative Andrew Farmer), as a mere procedural refinement, in truth the legislation represents something far more consequential: an attempt to weaken, restrict, and cloud the mechanisms by which citizens may ask the judiciary to determine whether the Tennessee Legislature itself has violated constitutional limits on its power and authority.

This is not routine legislative housekeeping. It is a direct challenge to the structural safeguards that protect the people from governmental overreach. It is a direct attack by each supporting Legislator on the constitutional framework that defines the powers of the Legislature and the mechanism that the people established for enforcing that limited legislative authority.

At its core, the Sponsors and supporting Legislators are seeking in this bill to repeal an existing statutory cause of action (Tenn. Code Ann. 1-3-121) that Tennesseans have relied upon when seeking declaratory or injunctive relief against unconstitutional governmental action. These legislators are seeking to replace it with new statutory language that expressly excludes challenges to the constitutionality of Legislative action by enacting or preserving state statutes.

That distinction is not subtle. It is surgical. Under the change proposed by the bill’s legislative supporters, citizens would be allowed to have pathways and “standing” to challenge local governments, yet the citizens face newly constructed barriers should they seek to question whether enactments of the General Assembly violate the Tennessee or United States Constitutions. The unavoidable implication is that the Legislature is attempting to redraw the accountability map in a way that places its own acts on more protected ground. The Legislature is boldly telling the citizens, whether it passes this law or not, that it does not care what the constitutions say about the limits on legislative authority – they are willing to ignore the limits imposed by the citizens through the constitution and at the same time deny to the citizens the ability to ask the courts to serve as the “check and the balance” on constitutional abuses by legislators.

This maneuver strikes at one of the oldest and most settled principles in American constitutional law. More than two centuries ago, the United States Supreme Court declared in Marbury v. Madison (1803) that “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”

That statement, entrenched clearly in the constitutional structure established by the people, was not rhetorical flourish. It was a structural rule essential to the survival of constitutional governance. Legislatures make laws, but courts determine whether those laws conform to the Constitution. When lawmakers adopt measures designed to eliminate, narrow or obstruct that judicial function, the legislators are not defending our constitutional republic — they openly seek to destabilize the balance that prevents government power from becoming unchecked authority – they seek tyranny.

The sponsors of SB1958 / HB1971 insist the bill is procedural and carries no substantive effect on constitutional rights. That claim is not merely inaccurate; it is dangerously misleading.

Procedures governing court access determine whether rights are enforceable in practice. A constitutional guarantee that cannot be timely asserted before an independent judiciary is reduced to a theoretical promise, dependent not on law but on governmental restraint. The Supreme Court recognized this reality in Ex parte Young (1908) when it confirmed the necessity of allowing suits to prevent unconstitutional enforcement of state action. Without viable pre-enforcement remedies, citizens are often forced into an intolerable dilemma: surrender their rights or risk punishment simply to gain access to judicial review.

SB1958 / HB1971 pushes Tennesseans closer to that dilemma and constitutional crisis. By eliminating a clear statutory pathway and inappropriately asserting inapplicable claims like sovereign immunity, the legislation increases the likelihood that constitutional challenges will be dismissed on procedural grounds before courts ever reach the merits. The practical result is predictable. Many citizens will comply rather than risk prosecution. Others will be compelled to endure arrest, penalties, or financial harm merely to establish standing. Rights will be chilled not because courts have ruled against them, but because lawmakers have either banned or made judicial review more difficult, more uncertain, and more dangerous to pursue.

Such legislation inevitably raises profound separation-of-powers concerns. Mirroring the federal constitution and the constitutions in most sister-states, Tennessee’s Constitution divides authority among three co-equal branches precisely to prevent the concentration of power that history associates with tyranny. One of the most basic constitutional functions vested in the judiciary is to interpret the law and to declare legislative or executive acts void when they exceed constitutional limits. When the Tennessee Legislature, or any legislative body, enacts statutes restricting how citizens may invoke that judicial authority — particularly regarding challenges to statutes themselves — it invites the question no free society should ignore: can a legislative body lawfully limit the authority and ability of courts to review the constitutionality of legislative acts?

The United States Supreme Court addressed the supremacy of constitutional interpretation in Cooper v. Aaron (1958), affirming that the judiciary is supreme in the exposition of constitutional law. That principle exists because no branch may be trusted with final authority over the scope of its own power. A Legislature empowered both to enact laws and to restrict meaningful review of those laws accumulates a degree of institutional insulation fundamentally and fully at odds with constitutional design. Checks and balances cannot survive when one branch acquires the power to weaken or destroy the very mechanisms that the people included in the constitution to restrain it.

Equally troubling is the question of motive. If this legislation truly produces no substantive impact, why pursue it? If Tennessee statutes are constitutional, why seek to narrow citizens’ ability to challenge them? If judicial review is an integral component of constitutional governance, why advance measures that predictably increase dismissal risks and delay constitutional adjudication? Citizens are justified in examining not only the language of the bill but the context in which it arises. The legislation follows high-profile constitutional challenges in Tennessee courts, including rulings invalidating longstanding statutes such as the major ruling by a unanimous three judge trial court panel in Hughes et al v. Lee et al. in August 2025, just a few months before this legislation was proposed. Against that backdrop, efforts to restrict judicial pathways appear less like neutral reform and more like a legislative attempt to reduce exposure to constitutional scrutiny if not outright retaliation against citizen advocates.

And, the danger extends well beyond Tennessee. Legislative bodies across the country observe and replicate legal strategies perceived as strengthening institutional power. If Tennessee enacts a model restricting or clouding judicial review of state statutes, other states may adopt similar measures. The erosion of constitutional accountability would not occur through dramatic constitutional amendments but through incremental statutory revisions, each framed as mere procedural efficiency. Over time, citizens could find their ability to challenge unconstitutional laws weakened not by judicial interpretation but by legislative design. Although such legislative enactments themselves likely violate the scope of their constitutional powers, those enactments would still remain on the books and potentially enforceable for years if not decades until a court struck down those statutes as well.

The constitutional order depends on enforceable limits. The Supreme Court warned in United States v. Lee (1882) that no person is so high as to be above the law. That principle applies equally to legislators and their institutions. Legislatures are not immune from constitutional boundaries, nor may they lawfully construct barriers that shield their enactments from meaningful judicial examination. When government gains the power to restrict the people’s access to courts, constitutional supremacy itself is placed at risk.

This debate is not partisan. It is structural. It concerns whether citizens retain a practical ability to hold lawmakers accountable to the Constitution that defines and limits legislative power. Constitutional rights without meaningful judicial remedies become privileges contingent on political grace and subject to legislative prejudices and abuses. History leaves no doubt about the consequences of that transformation — unbridled tyranny.

SB1958 / HB1971 is therefore not a procedural footnote. It is a test of whether Tennesseans — and Americans more broadly — will tolerate legislative efforts that weaken the judiciary’s ability to perform its constitutional duty and the citizens’ ability to invoke it. Vigilant public scrutiny, informed civic engagement, and unapologetic defense of judicial review are not political acts. They are acts of constitutional preservation.

The enduring question is stark. In a constitutional republic, may lawmakers shield their own enactments from robust judicial review by narrowing the people’s access to the courts?

The answer will define far more than the fate of a single bill. The answer should also define – if not end – the political careers of the bill’s sponsors and supporters.

[Note: as of information on the State’s website on February 20, 2026, the individuals who are named as sponsors on Senate Bill 1958 are John Stevens, Lt. Governor Randy McNally, Jack Johnson, Bo Watson, Ken Yager, Ferrell Haile and Todd Gardenhire (who states in Judiciary hearings that he would become a sponsor). Senators who voted for the bill in Senate Judiciary on February 17 were Todd Gardenhire, Paul Rose, John Stevens and Dawn White). In the House, the prime sponsor is Andrew Farmer.  The House co-sponsors include Speaker Cameron Sexton, William Lamberth, Jeremy Faison, Fred Atchley, Mark Cochran, Kip Capley, Gary Hicks, Johnny Garrett, John Crawford and Ron Travis. House members voting in subcommittee to advance the bill were Lowell Russell, Elaine Davis, Andrew Farmer, Johnny Garrett, Tom Stinnett, and Chris Todd.]