The Tennessee General Assembly adjourned for the year on Friday, April 21, after a session defined by the short-lived expulsion of two young Black Democrats as well as a loud — and ultimately fruitless — effort at gun reform.

The General Assembly chose to end this year’s legislative session before Gov. Bill Lee could find someone to sponsor — or even file — his “temporary mental health order of protection” bill.

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Tennessee General Assembly ends legislative session

The budget includes Lee’s Transportation Modernization Act, a $3.3 billion infusion to the Tennessee Department of Transportation and local governments to build roads and expand highways with voluntary toll lanes.

Lee said his proposal, which expands a law that applies to cases of domestic violence, balances the need to restrict gun access for people deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others with the need to protect the rights of gun owners.

Gov. Lee proposed $100 million for the centers, which provide limited medical care and urge people not to terminate pregnancies. A Daily Memphian analysis found those centers’ revenue was about $20 million in 2020.

Lawmakers put on ice a bill requiring the TBI to test rape kits in 30 days after bureau officials said it would be “exorbitantly expensive” to meet that goal.

A General Assembly bill allowing 18-year-olds to carry guns without permits was pushed to next year, but the state is already treating it as the law under a settlement that ended an age-discrimination lawsuit.

“There is no indication that the defendant did not understand his plea,” prosecutors wrote in documents filed Friday, April 14. “The defendant identifies no case in which a court has permitted a defendant so sophisticated to withdraw a valid plea so late with so little justification.”

The bill requires trial court and general sessions court judges to set bail for certain violent felonies. 

Two days after Gov. Bill Lee asked lawmakers to pass an “extreme risk protection order” bill, one such bill sponsored by Democrats died without receiving a committee hearing.

Pearson was sworn in at the legislative plaza next to the State Capitol by Nashville General Sessions Judge Rachel Bell in front of a small group of gun safety advocates.

The commission voted to return Pearson to the District 86 state House seat at a special meeting Wednesday, April 12.

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Several hundred march to Shelby County Commission

The march from the National Civil Rights Museum to the county building comes ahead of the Wednesday, April 12, county commission vote to appoint Justin J. Pearson to his District 86 seat in the state House of Representatives.

It’s the first gun-safety proposal Tennessee Republicans have made in the weeks following the Covenant School shooting, and follows a school-safety plan Lee offered last week.

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Health care providers urge Gov. Lee to act on gun violence

One of the two Black Democrats who were expelled last week from the GOP-led Tennessee House has been reinstated. Nashville’s governing council voted Monday to send Justin Jones straight back to the Legislature.

Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, whom Republicans expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives last week, have lawyered up.

The dispute over reappointing an ousted state legislator doesn’t appear to put Memphis stadium funding in jeopardy.

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Expelled Tennessee House reps retain counsel, including former US Attorney General

Nashville Metro Council returns Justin Jones to the Tennessee House

Tennessee Republicans voted to expel two Black Democrats, Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville, on Thursday, April 6, for speaking out of turn during a gun-safety protest a week earlier.

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What happens now that Justin Pearson has been expelled from his House seat

A federal judge’s ruling ends the age-discrimination lawsuit against Tennessee’s 2021 permitless carry law, allowing individuals aged 18 to 20 to carry handguns without a permit.

The Shelby County Commission has filled two vacant seats in the Tennessee General Assembly from Shelby County in the past year — one following an expulsion and the other resulting from the death of a legislator. Here is how the process works.

A bill that would add a narrow exemption to one of the strictest abortion bans in the United States is on its way to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk for his approval.

Rep. Justin Pearson spoke at the Tuesday, April 4, ceremony at the National Civil Rights Museum marking the 55th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.