Feds approve state’s Medicaid block grant waiver
The $8.6 billion waiver must be approved by the Tennessee General Assembly and sets a cap on TennCare funding with the state keeping a share of any savings if its spending comes in below the cap.
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Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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The $8.6 billion waiver must be approved by the Tennessee General Assembly and sets a cap on TennCare funding with the state keeping a share of any savings if its spending comes in below the cap.
Dr. Stephen Threlkeld, one of the city’s leading experts on the COVID-19 virus, says state and local officials need to figure out a vaccine pipeline that can keep the vaccine coming while not forgetting about the importance of testing.
The Daily Memphian’s City Council Scorecard opens the new year with two council decisions — one on a familiar issue in council discussions. The other is a close vote on a lower speed limit.
Former local Democratic party Chairman Corey Strong, on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, says the Georgia model of bringing activists and organizers into the state party machinery will take time — probably six to 10 years to take Tennessee from red to purple.
The Shelby County Commission votes Monday, Jan. 11, on the proposed $2.5 million fund drawn from county reserves.
The House and Senate kept late hours, resuming the Electoral College certification after a violent protest shut down the process into Wednesday evening. The session continued until just before dawn Thursday.
Here is the latest from the city’s representatives in the U.S. House and Senate.
The protest of several dozen along the Poplar Corridor came before the aborted attempt in Washington D.C. to certify the Electoral College results that ended in violence.
The bill follows a City Council decision late last year to remove a referendum question that would have allowed Memphis police and firefighters to live outside Shelby County.
Harris took the proposal for grants of $1,000 per qualified worker to commission committee sessions Wednesday, Jan. 6.
Grants for distressed businesses also got a share of the funding after a council debate. And the council mediated a call by a restaurant owner to MLGW to work out payment plans with the industry.
With a virtual groundbreaking ceremony before Christmas, actual construction work began Tuesday, Jan. 5, on the Tom Lee Park project.
By a narrow 7-6 vote, the Memphis City Council has changed the default speed limit on city streets without speed limit signs from 30 miles an hour to 25 miles an hour.
In the discussion with Memphis City Council members Tuesday, Jan. 5, the police director said he can’t carry out plans of a city task force to reopen several community policing centers given the pandemic. He got immediate pushback from several council members.
The museum has been closed to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic while the Mud Island River Park has been open to visitors.
The first online council meeting of the year comes with some changes in committee chairmanships and votes on down-zoning two parts of Summer Avenue as well as new penalties for illegal street racing.
The two Republicans are part of a group of 11 Republican Senators and Senators-elect who are calling for a Congressional investigation and audit of presidential election results in battleground states won by President-elect Joe Biden.
From an ongoing budget battle to police reform and new voting machines, these are five critical votes by the Shelby County Commission in 2020 as chronicled in The Daily Memphian’s County Commission Scorecard.
The two Republican U.S. senators representing Tennessee have not commented on the override of the Defense Authorization Act veto by Trump or the move to boost stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000 per person.
The Daily Memphian City Council Scorecard tracked 48 key council decisions in the current council’s first year in office. These are five significant decisions made that promise to have an impact on what happens in 2021.
The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast offers a review of the year 2020 centered on four major events. Three of the four were national in scope. The fourth is a local story that has broad implications for the gap between aspirations and the reality of governing.
The last County Commission meeting of the year included important decisions on governing in a pandemic, with a path to nine votes through compromise and the fine print of the newest health department directive.
The city’s representatives in the U.S. Senate split on the bipartisan $900 billion package while the city’s two Congressmen both voted for the bill.
The National Civil Rights Museum is closed until further notice because of the new countywide health directive.
The council action wasn’t unanimous and it follows a split vote the day before by the Shelby County Commission expressing support for the countywide directive that takes effect the day after Christmas.