The haggling over Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act has begun, with three different — and expensive — versions of the bill.

The committee could meet as soon as Thursday, March 7. The process for her removal is not the same as a formal impeachment, which would stop her from running for office again.

The bill seeks transparency from progressive criminal-justice reform groups like the Vera Institute of Justice, Justice Innovation Lab and Memphis-based Just City, which local Republican lawmakers blame in part for crime in Memphis.

“The evidence of incompetence and willful neglect by management in the Shelby County Clerk’s Office is overwhelming,” Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower wrote in a letter to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and the Shelby County Commission.

The bill doesn’t force districts to sell buildings when they don’t want to. But when they do want to sell, it would force them to sell for less then the property is worth.

Bills advancing through the Tennessee General Assembly this week included one aimed at reversing police reforms passed in the wake of Tyre Nichols’ 2023 death in Memphis. 

Here is a brief history of the scandal surrounding the 25-year tenure of Georgia Tann as the head of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis.

County Commissioner Henri Brooks found out three years ago she was adopted through the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, a notorious black-market adoption operation. Her lawsuit against the state could open a “floodgate.”

Those in favor of the proposed House Bill 2043, which would eliminate the state tax on groceries if it passes, got together Saturday — where else? — outside a supermarket.

The bill is sponsored by state Rep. Johnny Garrett, one of the central figures who led the expulsion proceedings against state Reps. Justin Pearson, Justin Jones and Gloria Johnson last April.

A bill moving through the Tennessee General Assembly would make it a felony to block a roadway, a penalty enhancement intended to prevent another protest like the one that blocked the Hernando DeSoto bridge for hours earlier this month.

The gun-reform movement in Tennessee has something it’s never had before: money.

“People living with HIV should not be subjected to a different system of justice based on outdated science and misguided assumptions,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a news release.

The bill would prevent adults who are not a child’s parent or guardian — including siblings and grandparents – from helping them access abortions.

State lawmakers advanced two bills limiting criminal defendants’ right to bail on Tuesday, Feb. 13, amid objections that the legislation would cause more people to be detained before trial because of their inability to pay.

Sen. Brent Taylor is exploring concepts and asking questions about separating the Shelby County suburbs and Memphis into different judicial districts.

Some Democrats said it was unnecessary because public safety is already part of the bail determination; they also said it would chip away at defendants’ liberty by expanding pretrial detention.

In 2023, 47 of the nation’s 56 organ procurement organizations, including Tennessee’s, broke records in the recovery of organs for transplant. 

Half of the state’s wetlands — often described as “earth’s kidneys — could be deregulated under a new proposal, but lawmakers are looking at a compromise that would take wetlands’ size and quality into account.

The Tennessee General Assembly passed a law in 2023 taking the power away from local DAs in collateral review of death penalty convictions and instead putting the authority in the hands of the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office. 

The archive of 60 years of Ernest Withers’ photographs joins the national set of historic places as the Beale Street entertainment district marks 10 years of operation and management by the Downtown Memphis Commission.

“The state of our state is strong, resilient and ready for the future,” Gov. Bill Lee told the audience of state lawmakers and other officials within the House chamber at the Tennessee State Capitol in Downtown Nashville.

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Gov. Lee proposes $1.2 billion in business tax refunds, $410 million annual cut

The tax cut is among the biggest expenses in the governor’s budget, and comes as state revenues are stagnating. Lee argues the state can afford it because revenue is stabilizing at a level significantly above where it was a few years ago.

Gov. Bill Lee has now appointed a majority of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s justices.