Next General Assembly is shaping up to be a 'play-it-safe' session

State lawmakers return to Nashville in the new year for what’s shaping up as a play-it-safe session, with Republican leaders hoping to protect their large majority by coming and going quickly without offending fence-sitting voters before the 2012 elections.

House Speaker Beth Harwell said “most importantly” her goal is a “deliberative and efficient legislative session,” perhaps wrapping up at the beginning of May. That’s roughly a month earlier than the typical adjournment. Some legislators are even touting an unheard-of April ending.

“We’re going to try to get finished early and go home, 
and the people will be safe,” House Republican leader Gerald 
McCormick said.

Last session, the first year of the reign of Republicans in state government, the legislature engaged in some risky business by ramming through several items on a national GOP agenda to do political damage to Democrats, their allies and constituents.

As they took power, legislative leaders vowed to focus like lasers on creating jobs and improving the tottering economy. They hoped to put to rest questions about whether the new majority was capable of governing responsibly. But with new laws stripping the teachers’ union of collective bargaining rights and requiring photo IDs for voters, Republicans might have come across as vindictive and overly partisan.

In addition, GOP leaders were forced to answer critics who said they wasted time on pointless arguments and politically extreme causes. There were seemingly endless debates on opening the door to the teaching of creationism in public schools, allowing college professors to carry handguns, and criminalizing some practices of Islam — just to name three issues. None of these proposals actually became laws, but they succeeded in holding up Republicans to outrage and mockery in the media.

Gov. Bill Haslam largely contented himself with enacting his own agenda last session, including tort reform and the weakening of teacher tenure, and he tried to distance himself from the rest of the messy legislative process.

“Yadda, yadda, yadda,” he said at one point in dismissing the time-consuming controversy over the GOP bill to ban any mention of homosexuality in schools.

This year, he is making it clear he will take a more active role. Together with Harwell and her lieutenants, the governor is serving as a moderating influence over hard-liners in their party led by Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey in the Senate.

“I think what you’ll see is we’ve had the chance to do our homework better. Because of that, and because you’ve been around the track one time, I think it’s a little bit easier to be engaged in more things than we were last year,” Haslam said.

Even before the session’s Jan. 10 start, Haslam already has intervened to scuttle a couple of polarizing issues. Pulling a page from an old political playbook, he formed a blue-ribbon committee to study public school vouchers for a year, effectively killing that bill for this session. He did the same for the state’s controversial new teacher evaluation system, assigning Bill Frist’s SCORE organization to conduct a study of whether any changes are needed.

Haslam also has expressed concerns about the GOP’s election-year hopes of chopping taxes on inheritances and investment income. He’s said he’s not sure it’s a good idea for the legislature to require drug-testing for welfare or unemployment insurance beneficiaries or to enact a law to boot Occupy Nashville off Legislative Plaza, and he’s come out against barring cities and counties from passing living-wage ordinances. Most of these positions put him at odds with Senate conservatives.

For his part, Ramsey is denying any underlying tension between the Senate and Haslam or House moderates, even as he belittles the governor with backhanded compliments for fighting a steep learning curve in his first year in office.

“It could not be better than it is now,” Ramsey said of his relationship with Haslam. The Senate speaker then took credit for helping the governor learn the ways of the legislature.

“He’ll tell you that in two seconds. When he came in, I don’t think he knew that the legislature met from January until the end of May, that you actually have to deal with these legislators to pass a bill. That’s just human nature. When I came down here in 1992, I didn’t understand the process. So yes, absolutely, he understands it better. And I hope I’ve been part of educating him on how the system works. If we’ll work together and stay on the same page, we can make Tennessee a better place to live, and I think we’ve proven that.”

Here are more of the issues facing the second session of the 107th General Assembly:

Gerrymandering the Democrats: The first item of business is redistricting — the redrawing of the political map that is required every 10 years based on shifting populations in the latest census. Republicans are expected to unveil their plan just before the session’s opening gavel and ram it through on short notice in the first two weeks.

Legislative leaders have promised a fair reallocation of political power, but Democrats are certain to wail and go to court to try to overturn the plan.

Senate Democratic leader Jim Kyle of Memphis is likely to find his residence in someone else’s district. But Republicans are seen as unlikely to splinter Congressman Jim Cooper’s 5th district into little pieces — a proposal the GOP discussed as a way to force one of the state’s last two remaining Democratic House incumbents into retirement.

Taxes: In an election year, Republicans would love to cut or eliminate the state’s taxes on inheritance and income from interest and dividends. But Haslam warns the state’s finances can’t afford the reductions in revenue.

“In this difficult time we still have expenses that are larger than our revenues at this point, so it’s hard to figure out how we would do that, because we have to make that budget balanced,” he said.

Drug-testing the jobless: A new state law to mandate drug-testing for welfare beneficiaries, workers on unemployment and even injured employees receiving workers’ compensation is a top priority for Ramsey.

“I’m in favor of drug-testing for people who are on any kind of benefits, whether it’s unemployment compensation or workers’ compensation, whatever it is, because I don’t think we need to be supporting that lifestyle with government money,” Ramsey said. “I’m very much for that. I think you’ll see that passed this session.”

Once again, Haslam isn’t jumping on board, saying giving all these drug tests could cost the state too much money. But Ramsey insists his proposal is “revenue neutral” if the state accounts for the cost savings from denying benefits to workers who flunk tests.

Gun rights: Over the protests of the gun lobby, legislative leaders say they see no need for greater expansion of Second Amendment rights in Tennessee. The Senate does favor letting handgun-carry permit holders keep their pistols locked up in their cars in the parking lots of their employers while at work. But some House leaders see that as an invasion of private property rights.

Ramsey said: “I think we’re a Second Amendment-friendly state now, and I can’t think of a whole lot of things we need to do. There is one that I do think is commonsense that I hope passes this year. … If you have a gun-carry permit, you ought to be able to keep it in your car, locked, while you’re at work. That would be the only thing that I can think of that needs to be addressed.”

Losing HOPE: Legislators will consider tightening requirements for HOPE scholarships because expenditures are running more than lottery profits. A special task force has unanimously recommended cutting scholarships in half for students who fail to make either a 21 on the ACT or 3.0 grade-point average in high school. Students who do both will keep getting the full $4,000 annual college scholarship

Even though the lottery’s reserve totals $325 million, lawmakers worry because expenditures outstripped revenue by about $19 million last year.

Judging the judges: Senate social conservatives are demanding to overhaul or even abolish the Court of the Judiciary, the state commission that weighs complaints of misconduct against judges and decides whether sanctions are necessary. They contend reforms are needed to hold judges more accountable. But judges say their independence and integrity is threatened. They say senators are trying to intimidate the judicial branch to produce more conservative rulings on 
social issues ranging from the death penalty to abortion.

Unoccupying Nashville: Some lawmakers are threatening to pass a law to clear Occupy Nashville from Legislative Plaza. But that would face constitutional issues, since a federal judge has enjoined the state from evicting the protesters while their lawsuit is pending against state government, and Haslam is urging legislators to wait and follow existing state law in 
setting regulations for use of the plaza.