The Lay of the Land, Part 4

TN Legislation on Health, State Operations, Firearms, and Crime

Correction: We made a mistake in Part 3 of this series and stated that 10,000 students would be covered under HB1 — the new school choice bill. It is actually 20,000 students, and at approximately $7,000 per student this could cost up to $140,000,000 annually.

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Photo by Brian Botos on Unsplash

Tennessee political session officially started on January 14th, and we’re working overtime to track every bill that is filed and summarize the most interesting ones to help you stay up to date. Last week we covered 29 bills on abortion, education, finance, and immigration:

The Lay of the Land, Part 3

Notes from Part 3 regarding format and quoted text remain the same in Part 4. And again, to find a specific bill’s text, follow this link and search for the bill number (including the “HB” or “SB”) in the search window at the top of the screen.

This edition covers another 27 bills, including: Firearms, Health, State Operations, Crime and Law Enforcement, and a General category. Since some bills don’t have both a house and senate sponsor, you’ll notice that some are marked “SB” and some are marked “HB”, denoting which chamber they were filed in.

1. Health (including medical, food production, farming). With the advent of a Trump / Kennedy push to Make America Healthy Again, we’re seeing a slew of bills in this category. But legislators are also pushing for alternative treatments and different regulations on minors and hospitals.

   1. SB0025 — Allows a parent or legal guardian to access all medical and mental health treatment records of an unemancipated minor (Pody)

   2. HB0130 — Reduces regulation on most small-scale farms and food production in TN to the extent permitted by federal law. Items that contain dairy, meat, and poultry must be sold by the producer and delivered to the consumer directly. And food product must be uniformly labeled for consumer safety (Reneau)

   3. HB0134 — Beginning in 2027, bans Red 40 from being offered to students on school property unless the food is being used as part of a fundraising event (Davis)

   4. HB0144 — Creates a reporting system for hospitals to track the legal status of patients using medicaid, requiring a form that asks if a patient is a citizen of the US, lawfully present in the US, or unlawfully present in the US. Hospitals are required to track responses, including patients declining to answer, and report admissions by response type. They must also report uncompensated care for patients who are not lawfully in the US (Zachary)

   5. HB0192 — Allows certain patients with life-threatening or severely debilitating illnesses to take part in an “individualized investigative treatment” plan, which includes drugs that are unique to an individual patient and based on their genetic profile. This treatment may include individualized gene therapy (Terry)
      

2. State Operations. A broad category including government transparency, TN government interactions with other governments, and internal operations of the government.

   1. SB0021 — Declares that international policy-making organizations (including the UN, WEF, and WHO), and federal laws or rules based on guidelines from these organizations, have no jurisdiction or authority in TN, and that TN government agents shall not enforce them within the state. Also declares that TN government entities shall not implement or enforce such guidelines unless authorized to do so by state law. (Pody)

   2. SB0027 — Clarifies that executive orders issued by the governor of TN may not contravene, suspend, or conflict with any provision of the TN Constitution (Pody)

   3. SB0156 — Prohibits a member of the TN national guard from being released into active duty combat unless the US congress declares war or calls on the TN national guard to fulfill enumerated purposes. (Hensley)

   4. HB0022 — Requires government bodies to allow public comment during meetings on anything the body has jurisdiction over (Davis)

   5. HB0082 — Modifies ethics rules about gift-giving related to “indirect gifts”, as well as travel expenses paid to anyone in the executive branch by someone with an “interest in a public policy of this state”. (Hemmer)

   6. HB0132 — Clarifies that during a state of emergency, the governor shall not suspend state laws or regulations that conflict with the TN Declaration of Rights or the US Bill of Rights. Requires that a state of emergency end after 30 days unless it is renewed by the general assembly as a whole or by an ad hoc legislative council consisting of eight members of the house and senate. (Zachary)

   7. HB0177 — Urges the Department of Safety to study the enforcement of federal immigration laws and related issues in the state, and report to the state government with its findings. (Reeves)

   8. HB0202 — Requires that after July 1, 2025, anyone registering to vote in TN shall submit proof that they are a US citizen. Requires the coordinator of election to perform monthly checks against various databases to ensure that non-citizens are not registered to vote. Creates an appeals process for anyone removed from voter rolls for not being a US citizen.

   9. HB0215 — Appropriates $25 million for the construction of a new parking garage at the State Office Building, including at least 400 spaces and reserved solely for legislative employees. (Rudd)

3. Crime and law enforcement. Every year, various actions are criminalized or decriminalized, and punished more or less severely. Here’s a few that could be changed this year:

   1. HB0055 — Creates several new misdemeanors, including for intimidating someone through littering or trespassing, for failing to give your name to a law enforcement officer or giving him a false name, for approaching within 25’ of a law enforcement officer who says not to, for transporting a person in the cargo area of a box truck, and for tampering with signage over roadways (Lamberth)

   2. HB0058 — Requires law enforcement agencies to check with any prior law enforcement employers prior to hiring a new deputy or officer (Hakeem)

   3. HB0179 — Specifies that a criminal abortion does not include an abortion committed by a licensed physician who determined that “the abortion was necessary to protect the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman”. Also creates exceptions in cases of rape or incest. (Hakeem)

   4. HB0190 — Reduces the amount of alcohol in the blood or breath of a driver in order for an act to be categorized as vehicular assault. (Gant)

4. Firearms. A perennial topic, the legality of firearm possession, transfer, and use comes up every year.

   1. SB0033 — Amends the current offense of reckless endangerment to include a person’s failure to secure a firearm, if the act results in a child under 13 killing or injuring themselves or another child with the firearm. (Campbell)

   2. SB0034 — Creates an A misdemeanor for in any way transferring a firearm to someone that an individual should know is prohibited from possessing it. (Campbell)

   3. SB0043 — Allows a county legislative body to bar carry of a handgun without a state handgun permit, and requires the legislative body to notify citizens of the change. (Lamar)

5. General. This section includes anything that didn’t seem to fit neatly in one of the above categories, plus some newly filed legislation that would have gone in Part 3 if it had been filed earlier.

   1. HB0063 — Creates a HOPE program in Maury County to help those without a home transition to stable housing (Cepicky)

   2. HB0139 — Prohibits any voting machine from casting, receiving, or transmitting an election ballot via the internet, except for military and citizens living abroad (Warner)

   3. HB0145 — (Bulso)

      1. Prohibits financial institutions from allowing money to be sent abroad without verifying the immigration status of the person sending funds. Requires financial institutions to keep track of these transactions, and creates a penalty for financial institutions failing to comply with the law.

      2. Requires that students in public school who have parents or guardians who are not lawful residents of the state be charged tuition and fees for attendance.

   4. HB0178 — Requires Family Life curriculum in schools to include teaching on the “Success Sequence” for life — obtaining a high school degree, entering the workforce / pursuing further education, getting married, and having children (Bulso)

   5. HB0189 — Repeals all Professional Privilege taxes, starting in 2026 (Gant)

   6. HB0218 — Enacts the “Universal Pre-K Funding Act” (Behn)