Capitol Notes

LEGISLATIVE COLUMN Capitol Notes | Peggy Sue, the Beagle Hound

If you want a friend in this town, get a dog. —President Harry Truman

2020 Session

The 111th General Assembly is fully engaged in its 2020 annual session. Some dogs say that the session does not really begin until the Governor files his proposed budget, and that seems to be the case this year. Speaking of Governor Lee, feelings are a little tender with our legislative friends now. Legislative leaders typically do not like surprises. With the sudden unveiling of two recent decisions concerning refugee resettlement and paid family medical leave for executive branch employees, both speakers were caught flatfooted and more than a little bit surprised. Perhaps it is time for Governor Lee to ponder a new puppy.

Governor Bill Lee

Beginning his sophomore year, Governor Lee still enjoys his role as a former political outsider now on the inside. In March 2019, Governor Lee established the Criminal Justice Investment Task Force through Executive Order 6. In July, the Task Force sought the technical assistance of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) to engage in a comprehensive review of Tennessee’s criminal justice system. JRI is an initiative of the Council of State Governments and is funded in part with a grant from the US Department of Justice. The Task Force submitted its report with 23 recommendations in December 2019. The task force findings reflect that Tennessee’s system is heavy on incarceration and a high rate of recidivism and that our communities are no safer than those in other states. The report notes a powerful need for mental health and substance abuse treatment services. The report also notes the harshness of our present parole board practices of granting parole with the condition that an offender seek mental health or substance abuse treatment services before being released on parole. Of course, the department of correction has a shortage of those services, so the state finds itself in the position of releasing an offender who has completed his or her sentence before he or she may be released on parole. Otherwise known as a system only Kafka would have loved.

TennCare Block Grant News

On November 20, 2019, Tennessee submitted its TennCare Block Grant Proposal to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). A week later, CMS notified the State that the proposal was complete and accepted and opened a 30-day federal comment period which ended on December 27, 2019. As was the original draft, the final proposal was still skinny on details and long on generalized rhetoric. The process will become murkier now as the state and CMS begin negotiations to reach an agreement. Any agreement must be ratified by the General Assembly before it becomes effective. An agreement is not expected, if at all, before summer. Governor Lee has stated that he is not averse to calling a special legislative session for the required legislative ratification if CMS and the State reach a deal.

Who Knew?

While we prefer biscuit hunting to more formal dog work, who knew Tennessee has a National Bird Dog Museum in Grand Junction in Hardeman County, just a few hunts east of Memphis. The museum has a Field Trial Hall of Fame in addition to the Sporting Dog Wing, a Retriever Field Trial Hall of Fame, and the Wildlife Heritage Center. Check it out at BirdDogFoundation.com.

Checklist for February & March

1. Be sure that your family members and all others you care about are registered to vote—and then vote. We must exercise our voting muscles just like our other muscles or we will become weak. Here is a link to register or revise one’s registration online: ovr.GoVote.tn.gov. 2. Census Day is April 1. Be sure to be counted. Your community depends on you to do so.

3. Watch for the April 2 qualifying deadline for candidates filing to run for our state legislative offices and our federal congressional offices. That date sets the field for the August and November elections.

Calendar Notes

State and NBA offices will be closed on Monday, February 17, for Presidents Day. The first day of the early voting period in the Tennessee presidential and local office primary is Wednesday, February 12. The official precinct based primary election day in Tuesday, March 3. n

PEGGY SUE is fond of the classic 1957 Buddy Holly song. When hunting legislative news or biscuits, she is hard to contact.

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Original Thinking. U n i que P rot ect ion. ®

Polk’s successes, he left office without resolving the coming crisis over slavery that would soon embroil the nation in civil war.

The Ugly: Andrew Johnson (1865-1869) While born in North Carolina, Andrew Johnson settled and began his political career in Greeneville, Tennessee. As a “Union Democrat” and the only southern US senator to return to Washington post-secession, Johnson was a natural and unifying choice for Abraham Lincoln’s vice president in the 1864 election. However, he was only vice president long enough to deliver a drunken address before the Senate on inauguration day. After President Lincoln’s assassination and serving 43 days in office, Andrew Johnson was sworn in as the 17th president of the US on April 15, 1865.

Johnson began his presidency guns-a-blazin’ by permitting the hanging of Mary Surratt for her part in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln, making her the first woman to be executed by the federal government in the US. Further, Johnson ordered the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and set a bounty of $100,000 for his arrest. Johnson’s devotion to the Union and early apprehension of Davis earned him a reputation as a president that would be tough and fair at a time of unrest and division. His policies during Reconstruction, however, quickly raised serious concerns among northerners and the Republican-controlled Congress.

While Congress sought to require a loyalty oath from members of Southern states prior to reintegration to the Union, Johnson was ready to welcome the Southern states with no strings

attached, under the theory that the states never really left the Union. The Southern states widely elected former Confederates to represent their interests in Washington; the northern Congress refused to seat them, instead establishing a separate committee to manage reconstruction efforts. The ideological conflict between Johnson and the legislature intensified upon Johnson’s veto of the Freedman’s Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Bill, both efforts to confer basic rights and citizenship to freed slaves. Johnson’s rationale: the bills discriminated in favor of African Americans and against whites. Congress swiftly overrode the veto on both bills, as well as proposed and adopted the Fourteenth Amendment, just for good measure.

After numerous power squabbles and overridden vetoes, Congress (over Johnson’s veto) passed the Tenure in Office Act, which limited Johnson’s ability to fire Lincoln-holdover Cabinet members, including Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Johnson’s preoccupation with firing Stanton, however, lead to his impeachment by the House of Representatives. After a nearly threemonth impeachment trial, during which time Johnson angled to appease Moderate Republican legislators, Johnson was acquitted when the Senate failed to achieve a supermajority vote to remove him from office by a single vote. Johnson’s legacy remains characterized by a regressionist racial attitude, numerous political missteps, and public bluster, and paranoia (he reportedly compared himself to Christ on multiple occasions and accused abolitionist leaders of attempting to assassinate him).

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