The special meeting of the Tennessee General Assembly, which starts on Monday, reflects the way in which the aggressive conservative agenda of President Trump is already increasing the Republicans to follow their priorities at state level.
Bill Lee has proposed new measures to tighten immigration, including the creation of a position in the state government that would be directly coordinated with the coordinating policies of Trump’s administration.
And he called on the legislators to re -reworking their plans to expand the use of public funds for private schools throughout the state.
What will happen in Tennessee can signal to what extent the states led conservatively will perform Mr. Trump’s wider political agenda. Regular legislative sessions of many countries are underway.
The Republican Supermajority, especially in the south, spent years of gathering for the litany of conservative policies. The bidden administration often condemned its decisions or attacked them in court, but Trump’s administration is much more likely to be on the same page.
“During the Biden administration, Red State lawmakers were frustrated by what they saw, how biden administration does or does,” said David Shonerd, Chief Director of State Operations at Multistate, state and local government relationships. “Now they have a helpful and enthusiastic partner.”
He added, “If necessary, they will be able to push the envelope.”
Mr. Lee also asked the legislature Tennessee to attend a third edition at a special meeting: assistance with a disaster for communities in the eastern corner of the state, which was destroyed at the end of last year by floods caused by rainy remains of Hurricane Helene. Supporters argue that using a special session to deal with these three questions is a way to speed up a high priority of limiting what can be discussed.
“People will complain about anything, whether it’s optics or anything, so it’s just a part,” said the Cameron Sexton speaker, a Republican. He added: “This allows us to focus on several questions in a very short period of time and really dive and explore these topics.”
Mr. Trump invited other governors to follow about targeting to immigration policy. Ron Desantis of Florida has already called the State Legislator to a special session that begins on Monday. He asked them to consider legal regulations that would expand the many local officials and deport people who are illegally in the country. Legislative leaders said they would consider only some of the Governor’s proposals.
Individual state lawmakers submitted their own proposals for progress in intervention by Mr. Trump against non -documenty immigrants. In South Carolina, the State Legislators are pushing requirements on a particular hospital report data on the state of immigration of their patients. Legislators in Georgia and Tennessee demanded further sanctions for cities and local administrations that resist state bans be a jurisdiction of a “shrine”.
The bill presented in Mississippi last week Create a reward hunter program with a reward of $ 1,000. In Tennessee, Account would charge tuition unqualified students attend public schools.
It is too early to say which of the accounts will have a chance to become a law.
In Tennessee Mr. Lee supported the creation of what he described as a new main officer to recover immigration for the state. He also supported accounts that would continue to penalize cities and local officials who did not cooperate with all over the heart to promote immigration. Legislators can also introduce other accounts about this matter.
“We see that the governor falls into harmony with Trump’s short -sighted and narrow vision of what this means belonging to this country,” said Judith Clerjeune, director of the Advocacy for Coalition in Tennessee Immigrant and Refugees. She added: “It is absurd to use local funding to go to the families of immigrants.”
The Democrats who oppose such politicians widely accused Mr. Lee of playing politics with Hurricane’s help with pairing in the same special session with dividing proposals for immigration and school vouchers. Although they are covered by separate accounts at Tennessee, some legislators in other countries and in Congress are increasingly trying to combine key emergency assistance to gain partisan changes in policy.
“Providing delayed and much needed financial assistance and relief to families and communities in Tennessee destroyed in September should be our focus and unique priority during this special session,” said prosecutor John Ray Clemons, chairman of the democratic choir.
But with Republicans who have control of supermajority, there is usually no need for democratic support to adopt legislation.
The approval of the long -term ambitions of Mr. Lee for the national school voucher is perhaps the smallest of three policy items. Mr. Lee’s office emphasized support from Several mayors of East TennesseeBut some school councils in the state voted publicly against the plan.
Conservative activists worked on financing voucher programs and promotion of elected officials who support them. In 2019, the Republicans pushed the pilot version for Tennessee’s largest county, despite concerns about public education. However, the strongly funded pressure to spend millions of dollars on the national plan has not yet been able to overcome objections from rural conservatives who protect their local public school districts.
After last year, Mr. Lee signaled that he was pushing the legislature to deal with the problem again. The prospects of his proposal for the passage this year were partially increased by Mr. Trump, who repeatedly said that he favored the creation of a program of federal selection of the school. Mr. Trump recently tapped Penny Schwinn, a former Tennessee State Education Commissioner, who supervised the initial phase of the state voucher program to serve at the US Department of Education.
On the days that led to a special session, Republicans orbits the shining confirmation of the Plan of Vouchers, including one of the America First Policy Institute, right -wing group deeply involved in the preparation of the political agenda of Trump’s administration. However, it remains unclear whether this support will be sufficient for approval of legislation.
“President Trump, who is in favor of choosing a school, really helped us,” said Mr. Sexton.
Initially, the proposal would assign about $ 7,000 to scholarship money per year to each of 20,000 students, about half of whom would be students with disabilities or families far below the income threshold to qualify for free or reduced school lunches. Thousands of other students would be added in the following years. It would also provide a one -time bonus of $ 2,000 for public school teachers who teach this school year.
Dana Goldstein and Patricia Mazzei The report contributed.
