Tennessee

According to the Associated Press, the Tennessee Senate has voted to ban drones from recording jails as well as ticketed events with more than 100 people in attendance. The law was requested by the NFL's Tennessee Titans.

A different version of the bill passed in the House and a compromise version has to be negotiated, the AP reports.

A Republican Tennessee state senator has introduced legislation to bar drones from flying at sporting events, concerts and other large events, ABC local affiliate WKRN's Jamey Tucker reports. The bill also would address copyright issues when event sponsors hire vendors to record their events.

The stars were aligned for Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam to expand Medicaid in his state to 280,000 low-income Tennesseans: "Hospitals and chambers of commerce endorsed the plan. A recent poll showed Haslam had an 86 percent approval rating among Republicans in the state, and he has a GOP supermajority in the House and Senate." But the plan died this week after a state Senate committee voted the plan down, The Tennessean's Dave Boucher reports. Haslam said that he didn't realize how deeply Republican legislators had issues with the federal government: '"I think this whole sense of distrust of the federal government. Well, I could've told you that was, that our legislature felt that way (before the special session). It was so much bigger than I thought.'"

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has proposed expanding Medicaid to cover more poor residents of his state, although the plan, if accepted by regulators and conservative legislators, would not follow traditional Medicaid rules, The New York Times' Abby Goodnough reported. Haslam said he still opposes the Obamacare plan to expand Medicaid to everyone earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, but he is proposing a second option to use "federal Medicaid funds available under the law to cover some 200,000 low-income residents through their employer’s health insurance plan or the state’s Medicaid program," Goodnough reported.

Hospitals have found that the amount they spend on charity care or uncompensated care has risen in states that don't have the Medicaid expansion, but fallen in states that do have the expansion.

There is an interesting twist in Haslam's plan that would keep the expansion revenue-neutral for Tennessee, Goodnough reports: Tennessee Hospital Association has agreed to pay expansion costs beyond what the federal government covers. 

 

Tennessee voters opted to change the way that judges are selected, The Tennessean's Dave Boucher reports. The constitutional amendment tweaks the state's judicial selection process from one in which the governor appoints judges to one in which judges, after appointment by the governor, must be approved by legislators and face judicial retention vote from the general public vote every eight years.

Control of the Tennessee appellate courts has been heated this year. Three Democratic justices on the Tennessee Supreme Court were retained in the most expensive judicial campaign in the state's history. Republican Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey funded much of the effort to oust the justices. According to the AP, Ramsey promised to push for popular elections for judges if the constitutional amendment failed.

Tennessee voters will be deciding whether to keep the state's method of selecting appellate judges, the Associated Press reports. Under a "merit selection" system, the governor makes appointments to fill vacancies on the state's appellate courts and voters then decide whether to keep the judges and justices in retention elections. A proposed constitutional amendment would allow legislators to reject the governor's nominees.

Control of the Tennessee appellate courts has been heated this year. Three Democratic justices on the Tennessee Supreme Court were retained in the most expensive judicial campaign in the state's history. Republican Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey funded much of the effort to oust the justices. According to the AP, he will push for popular elections for judges if the constitutional amendment fails.

Earlier this month, a Tennessee state-court judge likely became the first in the country to uphold a state's ban on same-sex marriage since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional, according to Daily Kos. The ruling came in the case of a same-sex couple who got married in Iowa and seek to get divorced in Tennessee. The judge opined that the definition of marriage '“should be the prerogative of each state. That neither the federal government nor another state should be allowed to dictate to Tennessee what has traditionally been a state’s responsibility, which is to provide a framework of laws to govern the safety and wellbeing of its citizens.”'

Three justices on the Tennessee Supreme Court were retained last week during a heated judicial retention race, the Memphis Daily News reports. But while all three justices were retained, another clash is looming over the court's decision-making and "an effort by the Republican supermajorities in the Tennessee Legislature to exert political control over the court." In November, voters are being asked to amend the state constitution to require legislative approval of Supreme Court appointments made by the governor.

Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey spearheaded a campaign against the retention of the three justices, the Daily News also reports.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post opines that the judicial retention races in Tennessee show that politics need to be kept out of the process for selecting judges: "The application of due process and the maintenance of Americans’ civil rights should be more isolated from the pressures of majoritarian elections."

Three same-sex couples in Tennessee had legal recognition of their out-of-state marriages stayed after the Sixth Circuit entered a temporary order while the case is on appeal, The Tennessean reports. The plaintiffs argue Tennessee's statutory and constitutional bans on same-sex marriages harms them.

A federal judge in Tennessee has issued a preliminary injunction against applying that state's ban on same-sex marriage to three couples married in other states that do recognize same-sex marriage, The Tennessean reports. U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger said the ban "fails to meet constitutional standards under even a minimal review," The Tennessean further reports.

A lawsuit also is planned to challenge the ban "regarding hose who married in other states and live here [in Tennessee, those who want to end those marriages but can’t obtain a divorce, and those denied typical probate proceedings because their spouses died," The Tennessean also reports.

Meanwhile, three news lawsuits have been filed to challenge Indiana's statutory ban on same-sex marriage, the Associated Press reports. One plaintiff had to pay $300,000 more in Indiana inheritance tax after her same-sex spouse died, the AP further reports.