TN Legislature Controlled by Dark Money...More from the Buzz

With Todd out for surgery, House leadership plans to force vouchers through

State bill would prohibit affordable housing mandates

Group Hopes To Rekindle Fight Over Same-Sex Marriage In Tennessee

‘Dark money’ remains a problem in Tennessee politics

Given the activities of Americans for Prosperity in this state over the past few years, it's not surprising that National Institute on Money in State Politics and the Center for Public gives a failing grade to Tennessee’s campaign finance law. Tennessee is one of 36 states with campaign finance disclosure laws so weak that so-called “dark money” from outside groups, such as nonprofit issues-oriented groups (such as Americans for Prosperity) and big-spending political action committees, go unreported in state elections.
The deficiency in the Tennessee law comes as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010. That ruling has led to practically unlimited spending by individuals, corporations and labor unions in federal races. What has gone unnoticed by some, however, is how the Supreme Court’s decision impacts states. As a result of weak local regulations, shadowy groups are able to go virtually undetected as they spend big money in state and local races.
Dark money is something Tennessee legislators don’t want to talk about. It’s a problem that has impacted many crucial races in Tennessee. And in the case of the state's gas tax, it's a problem that has also snuffed out debate on vital issues. Johnson City Press

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With Todd out for surgery, House leadership plans to force vouchers through

Republican leaders in the House plan on capitalizing on Rep. Curry Todd's surgery and a reshuffling of members to push a long-debated school voucher bill through a key finance committee Wednesday morning.
"You have the committee just where you need them. One in the hospital, threw two off," House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh said to fellow members Tuesday afternoon when House Finance Committee Chairman Charles Sargent told subcommittee members at a committee pre-meeting that the voucher bill would come up for a vote.
Rep. Curry Todd, who was last on record leaning away from vouchers, is out this week after a planned surgery Tuesday. He is expected to be out all this week and return on Monday.
For years, advocates for school vouchers have failed to move the bill out of the House, watching it get snarled in committee. But subcommittee of House Finance, Ways and Means — where the bill now sits — has changed a lot since last year's attempt to pass it. Mike Harrison, Republican chairman of the committee and no fan of vouchers, resigned late last year to become executive director of the Tennessee County Mayor's Association. Ryan Haynes, a state representative, left to become chair of the Tennessee Republican Party, although his latest public statements indicate he would have voted in favor of the bill. Post Politics

Group Hopes To Rekindle Fight Over Same-Sex Marriage In Tennessee

Supporters and opponents of gay marriage are already squaring off at the state Capitol.
Some lawmakers and activists hope to shut down same-sex marriage licenses in Tennessee and force the courts to take the issue back up.
The push is being driven by conservative activists like Cal Zastrow. He refuses to accept last summer's Supreme Court ruling that recognized same-sex marriage nationwide and believes Tennessee could be the state to reverse the decision.
"Courts don't make laws. Legislatures make laws," he says. "Courts don't make laws, so we're going to obey the law."
Zastrow helped organize dozens of people to come to the state Capitol on Tuesday in support of a bill called the Tennessee Natural Marriage Defense Act, House Bill 1412.
The plan to fight gay marriage is complicated.
It starts with Tennessee's 10-year-old constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Activists argue that law is still on the books in Tennessee. Therefore, they believe the state Department of Health, which oversees vital records in Tennessee, can compel county clerks to turn away same-sex couples.
That would trigger another court battle, which state Rep. Mark Pody, the Lebanon Republican sponsoring the measure, hopes would end with the Supreme Court changing its mind.
"For a Supreme Court to overrule themselves is not uncommon," he says. "They do that quite often."
Pody plans to present the bill Wednesday afternoon. But the proposal faces plenty of obstacles.
The Tennessee Equality Project has been lobbying lawmakers to vote down the measure. It says 1,500 people have signed a petition opposing the bill.
Meanwhile, the state's attorney general has already said last summer's Supreme Court ruling is law — even in Tennessee.
And there's also the issue of cost. One estimate is Tennessee could lose $8.5 billion in federal money each year if it tries to discriminate against same-sex couples. WPLN

Jeremy Durham and the Cult of Victimhood

Rep. Jeremy Durham’s victim complex is becoming so bizarre that we fear he’ll soon blame his Hail, Caesar!hairdo on the Coen brothers.

After narrowly escaping last week’s House Republican caucus meeting to yank away his majority whip job, he blamed not his own unmentionable misbehavior at the Legislative Plaza. No, according to Durham, it’s the fault of the liberal media and also possibly jealous GOP enemies working in cahoots with the liberal media.

“When you have 73 people in charge of some very tough decisions, you’re always going to have people who don’t agree with each other and would rather see someone who’s closer to them in the leadership,” Durham told reporters. “The people who know me know what kind of person I am.”

Now Durham’s pal, the ever helpful Sen. Brian Kelsey, is offering someone new to blame—Insure Tennessee supporters. That’s right, all those vicious aging hippies and dreamy moonbeams who support health care for poor people are out to get Durham because he hates Obamacare. Nashville Scene

Tennessee General Assembly 2016: Here We Go Again!

By an interesting fact of the governmental calendar, the Tennessee General Assembly convened for its 2016 legislative session on Tuesday, mere hours before President Barack Obama's final State of the Union address. To
further the coincidence, the gathered lawmakers of Tennessee are scheduled to be living it up at the annual pre-session gala sponsored by AT&T in one of the best-known edifices of the Nashville skyline, the so-called "Batman building." No disrespect meant to the giant communications corporation, but the nickname of its landmark building seems appropriate in view of the annual fantasies that are cooked up in the nearby state Capitol building.
According to advance forecasts, one of the issues to be taken up, both by the president in his address and by the legislature, when it gets down to business, concerns the increased incidence of deadly weaponry in the body politic. Obama is expected to dilate even further on the measures he took last week to secure some extremely modest curbs on the sale of firearms to certifiably mentally ill persons and on the ridiculously wide-open availability of guns that can be sold at gun shows without buyers having to undergo even minimal background checks.
As the president noted last week, there was a time when the National Rifle Association itself favored such safeguards, but the N.R.A.'s position these days is an adamant resistance and an apparent conviction that the only remedy to the violence stemming from an ever-increasing supply of guns is more guns.
As it happens, the majority of members of the General Assembly in Nashville have seemed to be of that persuasion in recent years as well. As the 2015 legislature left matters, there were virtually no gun-free zones left, and there are likely to be moves to follow in the wake of nearby states such as Arkansas and Mississippi, which have opted for open-carry laws so permissive as to basically be nonexistent. An opinion issued last year by Tennessee's Attorney General may save the legislators the bother of having to pass new laws to catch up with our neighbors, but that won't keep some of the gun nuts in the General Assembly from trying. Memphis Flyer

State bill would prohibit affordable housing mandates

Some Nashville poverty advocates continue to push for the creation of a new Metro policy that would mandate affordably priced homes be included in new residential projects.
But recently filed state legislation would prevent cities from adopting such a plan, known as mandatory inclusionary zoning.
As he promised in the fall, Tennessee Rep. Glen Casada, R-Franklin, has introduced a bill that would prohibit local governments from requiring that a certain percentage of existing or newly constructed private residential units be reserved for affordable or workforce housing. Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin, has signed on as the sponsor of the Senate version of the bill.
Tennessee already has a law that says local municipalities can’t control the cost of rent. Whether that restricts local governments from adopting a zoning policy that mandates affordable housing units be included in new apartment projects has been debated.
Casada’s bill would erase any doubt by explicitly prohibiting local governments from enacting affordable housing mandates over rental properties as well as for-sale homes. Tennessean/Subscription

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