How House, Senate Republicans found themselves in a stubborn special session standoff

Tennessee lawmakers will return to the Capitol on Monday, dragging the special session into a second week with scant legislative work to show so far and an unclear path forward as Republican leaders from both chambers engage in a stubborn standoff.

While Democrats have decried a lack of meaningful gun-related legislation in the wake of the Covenant School shooting in March, an ongoing conflict grew among GOP leaders throughout the week as Senate leadership sought to quickly pass a minimal slate of legislation on behalf of Gov. Bill Lee, close committees and go home to their districts.

In some cases, Senate committees lasted just minutes. They passed a measure to remove the sales tax on gun safes and provide free gun locks to Tennessee residents, a proposal to change the deadline for courts to submit records to the state background check database, and a bill to require the TBI to create an updated report on human trafficking. They passed a funding bill to pay for it all.

Meanwhile, House members heard emotional testimony from Covenant families and held marathon committee hearings on a range of legislation — including a controversial proposal to allow more guns on school campuses.

They moved dozens of bills through often highly charged committee meetings while also attempting to enforce newly enacted rules that, among other items, blocked residents from holding small paper signs. On Tuesday, a Republican committee chair directed Tennessee Highway Patrol to remove crying mothers from one legislative meeting, landing the House supermajority in another public image controversy and sparking a lawsuit over the rules.

Still, the House pressed ahead and on Thursday evening passed a host of bills, including millions in appropriations for higher education security grants, requirements for alarm system protocol for K-12 schools and state funds to pay for mental health evaluations for indigent individuals accused of misdemeanor crimes, among other items. They approved a measure making some autopsy reports of minors closed to public inspection, something backed by Covenant families.

Many of the bills received bipartisan passage but effectively have nowhere to go, unless the Senate backs down and reopens its committees to consider the Senate versions of the legislation.

Sexton: 'Terrible idea' to leave session early

House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, said it was a “terrible idea” to leave session without trying to address mental health issues. Sexton on Thursday criticized the Senate for not advancing a “single idea” of their own.

By Friday, Sexton's criticism of the Senate grew more pointed.

"I think what you have in the Senate is a few senators who are wanting to do nothing. They're trying to lead, and it's an internal fight over power and leadership. You're seeing it behind closed doors, it may not be public, but that's what every member of the House has seen. There's an internal conflict in the Senate, and I guess we're going to have to wait to see how it plays out."

Gov. Bill Lee has taken flak among some circles for his relative silence through the week, but Sexton said some senators balked at a meeting between the House, Senate and governor's office on Wednesday.

"That is not a governor problem," Sexton said. "That is the Senate being angry and mad that they're even in Nashville, and they don't even want to talk to the governor. So I find it disingenuous to blame the governor for something when one side of the governing body doesn't even want to have a conversation in the room with him."

Despite finding common ground on some bills related to mental health funding, House Democrats have criticized the Republican supermajority for failing to support gun safety proposals, which the majority of Tennesseans indicate they support.

House Minority Leader Karen Camper, D-Memphis, called it a "silencing of the people."

"We silenced their voice with some of the rules, cordoning people off, not letting them gain access to the galleries and the signs and all of that," Camper said. "I feel like we further silence them by not addressing the real issues that they wanted us to address in this special session. Now we're going to come back in a couple of days and still not take up any meaningful legislation that pertain to gun safety and gun violence in this state."

Democrats also criticized House Republicans’ attempts to push through legislation in what they say is an overreach of the special session's parameters.

Among the items are a proposal sponsored by Sexton to significantly overhaul criminal sentencing for older teenagers, a bill the speaker attempted to pass last session before the Covenant shooting. Criminal justice advocates testified against the bill all week.

McNally: No deal with House, some legislation should wait to January

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, said Thursday that Sexton’s juvenile justice bill, a sticking point between the chambers, “would wait until January, where we can have more testimony.”

McNally said as of Thursday morning, there were “too many” disagreements to count between the two chambers.

“There’s not a deal with the House,” McNally said. “Hopefully they’ll come to an agreement, pass some of the bills that we’ve suggested, pass the appropriations bill and whatever else is deemed essential.”

Asked whether the Senate is likely to take up more bills, Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, indicated the Senate is not likely to do so.

“The governor brought a package to the Senate, with pieces of legislation and appropriate funding for that legislation, and the Senate has passed that and sent it over to the House for consideration,” Watson said. “I know they are doing their work and we’re going to come back Monday and see where we are.”

Criticism of both chambers over action

Three Covenant School moms criticized lawmakers in both chambers on Thursday, saying more should be done to prevent future gun violence in the state.

“We have spent countless hours over the summer meeting with and working alongside these legislators and to see the House and Senate at an impasse is frustrating and upsetting, especially when there are so many good bills on the table,” said Melissa Alexander, whose 9-year-old son was at the school during the March mass shooting.

They urged lawmakers to consider a number of bills passed in committee by House members relating to mental health and upgraded school alarm systems. They pleaded with members of the Senate to reconvene on Friday and over the weekend to “do the job they’re expected and paid to do.”

“The measures that have progressed in this session are not enough,” said Sarah Shoop Neumann, whose 5-year-old son attends Covenant. “The House has passed rules stifling debate and limiting the rights of parents and other concerned Tennesseans to express themselves, while the Senate stonewalled real progress.”

Shoop Neumann said gun lobbyists watched from the galleries as grieving moms fought to have a seat.

Mary Joyce, whose 9-year-old daughter was in a classroom when the March shooting occurred, said her child still suffers from 50% hearing loss in her left ear, which was closer to the door when the gunfire rang out.

She said her daughter had more trauma heading back to school for fourth grade this month when she saw the names of her three friends, all third graders who died in the shooting, missing from the class list.

“To us we’re still in the thick of it,” Joyce said. “We’re still in the trenches of this trauma.”

Alexander said the moms have now had a crash course in civic engagement. And they have a message for lawmakers:

“We fully understand the importance of primaries,” she said. “You will see these faces again.”

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: TN special session: How House, Senate GOP got locked in a stalemate