Bills That Fail, Part 2
The first part of this series, published two weeks ago, was our highest-viewed article ever. If you missed that, you can find it here:
It’s been two more weeks of high-volume work at the legislature, and more interesting stories have emerged of bills failing. So once again, here are a few bills that didn’t make it through, along with some analysis of why.
HB2/SB2 - deferred to Summer Study in a party-line vote of 10-3. (Summer study in the House is similar to General Sub in the Senate — it generally means that people don’t want to deal with the issue, so they send it to be “studied”. These studies rarely happen.)
What is it? A bill to remove all Tennessee taxes on food and food ingredients, both state and local.
What are the details? Rep. Behn ran this bill, which we profiled earlier in the session in one of our Lay of the Land emails. The idea, as she explained in her presentation, is to reduce loopholes in corporate taxes to make up the shortfall caused by reduced grocery taxes — some $824m in state and $525m in local. In the presentation, Behn did not specify which corporate loopholes would be closed to balance the decrease in state and local revenue.
Why did it fail? Probably two main reasons:
$1.35b in state and local tax revenue loss is about 2% of the overall state budget. To cut taxes by this amount without having a very specific plan to balance the budget is never going to make it through the legislature, no matter who you are. A tax cut of this size will take years of planning, work, and political positioning.
The Republicans have their own version of this bill, HB21. It’s co-sponsored by eight representatives, including the Majority Leader, and sponsored by the Chair of Finance in the Senate. It only deals with the state part of tax (4%), meaning that the fiscal note is smaller ($808m instead of 1.35b). Its primary sponsor is Elaine Davis, who is representing an increasingly purple district and, if the legislation passes, could use the win in future campaigns.
HB598/SB640 - failed 8 to 2, along party lines.
What is it? Physician-assisted death for adult patients who have received a terminal diagnosis.
What are the details? Democrat Bob Freeman brought the bill forward after one of his friend’s fathers went through a terminal bout with brain cancer. In his bill presentation, he asked the question: “What kind of freedom do we give people at their end of life?” Under the proposed bill, the assisted death could only happen after a prognosis has been given that the patient has less than six months to live, and it would include a psychological evaluation of the patient, a second opinion from another physician, and other checks to ensure the system isn’t abused. The process would be 100% voluntary and take several months to complete. He finished his presentation by saying: “If you are at a point where medicine can no longer heal you… would you not want to at least have the conversation about ending your pain?”
After his presentation, several individuals testified against the bill, including a lawyer and a “pro-life democrat”. Their arguments included the following:Medically-assisted death creates perverse incentives for insurers and doctors, and ruins the moral fiber of the medical profession, which is supposed to bring life, not death.
The bill didn’t include necessary precautions related to the mental health of the patient, potentially allowing depressed patients who had received a terminal diagnosis to go through with assisted suicide without considering alternatives.
There is massive risk in this kind of procedure, because we can’t bring someone back from the dead. A single bad actor in the medical community could use this bill to create irreversible harm, and therefore a TACIR study should be done to consider the potential outcomes of the bill.
Why did it fail?
The issue here isn’t that Bob Freeman can’t pass bills. He can. He’s smart, well-reasoned, and doesn’t make too many enemies.
Rather, this is another example of a bill that the Republican committee simply opposed on its merits.
Representative Paul Sherrell commented briefly that what scripture says is, “God gives life and God takes life” — hence, it’s not our job.
Sabi Kumar, one of the doctors on the committee, said that as humans, it’s hard to look at those with only a few months to live who are suffering with pain or disappointment. However, he took a Hippocratic oath, and therefore he will never advise euthanasia. Life is a gift from God, and we have to respect that. There’s also a misuse potential: That the doctor could be wrong about a prognosis. “Given these uncertainties, to legally allow end-of-life… it just is not possible for me personally to vote for this.”
Chairman Terry, another doctor, spoke briefly of the sanctity of both the profession of doctor and the sanctity of life. He said that because of those two things, he would not be able to vote in the affirmative for the legislation.
HB1392/SB1348 - failed 7 to 2, along party lines
What is it? Would have repealed the code that allows permitless carry of firearms in most of the state.
What are the details? In his presentation, Rep. Justin Pearson stated that since the passage of the permitless carry bill in 2021, both suicides and homicides by firearm had increased in Tennessee. He said that the permitless carry system was immoral, and that returning to our previous permitted system would also make the state $11m per year. Toward the end of his presentation, he said that our children, families, and communities are, “suffering because of bad laws… that put the voices and the ideas of a few over the lives of millions of Tennesseans…. We have the power to do something about the gun violence epidemic… You don’t have to throw out responsible gun ownership on behalf of the second amendment.”
Why did it fail?
Justin Pearson, like his TN Three compatriot Justin Jones, is persona non grata to most of the Republican caucus right now. He has made very intentional choices in his tenure as an elected official that have alienated him from Republicans in order to score points or represent his voter base. And since Republicans make up 75% of the House members, he won’t be getting anything through for the foreseeable future.
On merit, this is a bill that never had a chance. The legislature just changed the law to allow permitless carry in 2021, as Pearson noted in his presentation. Most of the legislators who made that change are still in their seats. There is no substantive reason for them to backtrack on the position they held in 2021.
In his comments, Pearson said that the law, as written, puts the “voices and the ideas of a few over the lives of millions of Tennesseans”. But in reality, most of these members represent districts where the majority of their constituents want freedom to carry firearms. Aside from any moral argument for or against gun control, for these representatives to vote in favor of his bill would be against the will of their constituents, and therefore, anti-democratic. Contrary to Pearson’s perception that a few powerful lobby groups forced permitless carry upon us, it is the desire of most rural communities that they be able to freely carry firearms. The Republicans are “giving the people what they want.”
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Media mentions: Last week we published an essay about Culture and Politics which garnered a couple of mentions in other publications, including Aftyn Behn’s newsletter and the Pamphleteer. It also generated some interesting feedback, so we’ll follow up on that topic in the next few weeks.
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