Top DUI bills drown amid funding questions

A pair of top DUI bills cracking down on drunken driving won’t become law this year as a result of either funding shortfalls or lawmakers maneuvering to halt their passage.

This legislative session, imposing a state “administrative license revocation” program — which would effectively revoke suspected drunken driver’s licenses immediately as opposed to waiting until court — as well as prohibiting automobile passengers from having an open container of alcohol, have been two signature DUI reforms discussed.

However, both bills were effectively killed for the year Wednesday and won’t be becoming law.

And despite it being the program that was Gov. Phil Bredesen’s top DUI legislation, the administrative license revocation bill was the first to fall by the wayside Wednesday.

Tennessee is one of just nine states that do not have such a law, and organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving had lobbied for its passage. But administrative license revocation costs $2.8 million, and Bredesen says he can’t afford it as he’s trying to trim $468 million from next year’s budget.

“Unfortunately, it is not possible to add dozens of new positions to administer this measure at the same time we are planning workforce reductions across government,” Bredesen wrote in a letter to Sen. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge), a bill sponsor.

According to a legislative fiscal note, the administrative license revocation bill would add 75 positions in state government. Bredesen has announced his intentions to cut 2,011 jobs from the state’s payroll.

Bredesen wrote in the letter that he was “disheartened” to not be able to fund administrative license revocation this year but said he planned to “reintroduce this measure at the earliest possible date.”

While Bredesen’s administrative license revocation bill was nixed because of funding shortages, a House panel effectively killed legislation modifying the state’s open container law.

The House Budget Subcommittee, commonly known on Capitol Hill as the “black hole,” effectively killed legislation that would have prohibited automobile passengers from having an open container of alcohol.

The Senate had previously passed the bill, imposing a $50 fine on those passengers caught.

The bill’s passage would have allowed $12 million in federal funds currently spent on DUI prevention to go toward road funding.

Lawmakers on the panel questioned the merits of freeing up the $12 million to allow it spent on building or paving roads.

“It doesn’t have to, but it’s probably going to go back into building roads,” said Rep. Randy Rinks (D-Savannah) of the federal funding.

Rep. Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol), the bill’s sponsor, said the road funding argument made by opposing lawmakers wasn’t logical because the money can still be spent for DUI prevention or for roads.

“I think they are doing their best to create a semblance of why you’re voting against a bill that, to most people in Tennessee, I think makes very common sense,” Lundberg said.

The bill was killed for the year by sending it to a “summer study” committee.

Applying the state’s open container law to passengers has been brought for 18 years in the Legislature but has never passed the state House, Lundberg said.

Tennessee’s law is commonly known as a “pass the bottle” law because it allows drivers with an open container to simply hand their beverage to a passenger.