I hope you all are enjoying a happy and healthy new year.
With the bang of his gavel, Speaker Cameron Sexton reconvened the 111th Session of the General Assembly at noon on January 14th in the Tennessee House of Representatives. As I drove to our State Capitol that morning after dropping my boys off at school, I could not help but think of all the challenges facing families and how grateful I am to be in a position to work on them in a substantive manner. There are many serious issues that require immediate attention, real leadership and bipartisan political collaboration, so I thank you once again for the privilege and opportunity to serve and represent your family.
STAYING IN TOUCH
Throughout the legislative session, I will continue to visit as many neighborhood association meetings and other events as my legislative schedule allows. Please be sure and contact me to let me know the dates and times of any meetings or events.
TENNESSEE BLUE BOOK
The 2019-2020 special edition of the Tennessee Blue Book has a yellow cover to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. If you would like to receive your very own copy of this informative state resource, please contact my legislative office. As you can imagine, they are going fast, so please reach out soon if you would like one for your children, yourself, your office, or your organization.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
For real-time updates and legislative alerts, be sure and follow us on Twitter @JRClemmons, Facebook @johnrayfortn, and Instagram @jrclemmons.
JRC LEGISLATION
We are working to finalize our legislative package for 2020, and I am excited about the issues we are addressing this year. It is an uphill battle to pass legislation in this political climate as an active member of the super-minority, but we continue to bring serious issues to the forefront, elevating them through thoughtful discussion and debate.
The following bills will be heard in House subcommittees over the next two weeks:
HB1061 - “Tennessee Property Relief Equity Act” (the amendment that makes the bill is not posted online) – Currently, the household income cap on seniors and disabled individuals who qualify for property tax relief is effectively the same in all 95 counties. For instance, an individual in Davidson County has a similar income cap as someone living in a county like Hancock County. Meanwhile, the cost of living and housing prices are drastically different from county to county. Therefore, my legislation seeks to create more equity in the property tax relief program across the state by taking into account a county’s median household income and the median sales price of homes to determine a more realistic household income cap for each county.
HB1589 – “Tennessee Anti-Lunch Shaming Act” – This bill seeks to protect children who have incurred a meal debt at school from being punished by a school or LEA or stigmatized in any manner. My aim with this bill is to prevent bullying or any additional harm to a child who is experiencing an ACE such as poverty or hunger and help student performance in the classroom. Under this legislation, schools or LEA’s would continue to be able to collect debts from parents/guardians, but their efforts and communications must be directed to the parents/guardians. However, collection agency fees are expressly prohibited. After a child has incurred a debt that is the equivalent of five meals, the school must communicate with a parent/guardian to provide a free or reduced meal application to determine if a child qualifies. If this law is enacted, schools will no longer be able to deny a child the ability to attend a field trip or receive a diploma, force a student to eat a limited meal alone in the principal’s office, dump a student’s lunch out because of a meal debt, or otherwise punish a child for something that is not their fault.
HJR 658 – Transportation Infrastructure Study Committee – This joint resolution would establish a special joint committee to study the long-term transportation infrastructure and funding needs across Tennessee. To continue to operate and maintain Tennessee's existing transportation system and build a forward-thinking 21st century transportation infrastructure system, it is imperative for the state to immediately begin to study, evaluate and consider new ways to utilize existing revenues and identify potential new sources of revenue to modernize our state's century-old transportation funding model.
RECENT ACTIVITY ON THE HILL
TANF
In response to the news that our state is inexplicably sitting on a $732 million surplus in federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds, Speaker Sexton and Lt. Gov. McNally created a bipartisan working group, including Rep. Harold Love, Jr. and Sen. Steve Dickerson, to dig into this issue on several fronts. New information and bureaucratic concerns seem to come to light with each new meeting, including exorbitant overhead costs and spending funds from an incorrect account.
Tennessee receives about $191 million each year to assist families, but these funds have failed to reach those who require assistance. At this time, there is disagreement between the governor’s office and legislators about who should determine how and when to spend these funds. Ideally, the Department of Human Services would be best informed and positioned to steer this ship, but the recently discovered information makes it clear that legislative oversight is warranted here. Fortunately, unlike the $214 million in funds from the federal Child Care and Development Fund that Tennessee has foregone since 2015, our state actually still has the opportunity to use the TANF money, and it should with due haste.
For those seeking to apply for TANF funds, the application process is expected to be reopened in early February 2020 for a two or three week period. I will be posting information as it is released on my various social media accounts, but information is expected to be posted to DHS’ 2Gen website here and/or here.
PRISONS
The Tennessee Comptroller recently released another scathing audit of the Department of Correction, highlighting several failings within state-run prisons and CoreCivic’s privately operated prisons across Tennessee. My strong opposition to and concerns with private prisons have been well documented over the years, and this report serves to validate many of our concerns once again. I visited the CoreCivic Trousdale Correctional Facility over a year ago with then-Sen. Lee Harris in response to reports from inmates and family members. We have yet to have many of our questions answered, and the latest audit, as well as this weekend’s tragic death, demonstrate that CoreCivic-operated facilities continue to pose a danger to the individuals inside and the community outside the prison walls. For this reason, we will continue our efforts to restore legislative oversight of our state prisons.
IN THE NEWS
The Daily Memphian, Jan. 6, 2020 -
Dunn objects to renaming Cordell Hull Office Building for him
NewsChannel5, Jan. 22, 2020 –
Tennessee lawmaker proposes bill requiring body cameras more Metro Police by 2021.
WKRN, Jan. 22, 2020 - State lawmaker introduces bill requiring body cameras for MNPD
WPLN, Jan. 22, 2020 - Nashville Mayor’s Office Disputes $30 Million Annual Cost For Police Body Cameras
The Tennessean, Jan. 23, 2020 - Bill proposes statewide cap limiting Nashville's ability to raise funds from property taxes.
NewsChannel5, Jan. 24, 2020 -
New bill aims to prevent lunch shaming in public schools.
The Daily Memphian, Jan. 27, 2020 –
White likely to vote against lunch shaming bill again.
DISTRICT 55 EVENTS
Belmont University’s Annual Community Night: Belmont Bruins vs. TSU Tigers
Curb Event Center
Thursday, February 13th
Join in for a free dinner and basketball games. Dinner at 4:45pm; Women’s game tip-off at 5:00 pm; Men’s game tip-off at 7:00 pm. Seating is limited. For more information and registration, click here.
*If you have a civic event in District 55 that you would like to announce in Working For You, please let me know.
