The Tennessee state Capitol was filled with drama again on Monday as lawmakers returned for a second week of work during the special session on public safety.
In many respects, the week began like last week ended: The House plowing through legislation as the Senate quickly adjourned, set on sticking to the narrow slate of legislation it already passed.
Meanwhile, in the House, Democrats walked out of the chamber en masse after a 70-20 vote to silence Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville. House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, had ruled Jones out of order twice, setting up the vote under controversial new House rules.
By mid-morning, the House and Senate reached a deal to end their deadlock and both chambers adjourned before noon CT.
Follow along today for the latest updates.
Lee says he’s hopeful about session, encouraged by engagement
In his first comments since the session adjourned, Gov. Bill Lee said he is hopeful and encouraged by the results of the special session, and related public engagement.
“We have made some headway this week, four of our bills passed,” Lee told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “Significant funding was focused on issues that matter to public safety. We improved the background check system, attacked human trafficking, made more access for safe storage. We funded mental health resources across the state. We made progress.”
Lawmakers adjourned having passed only four of Lee’s seven proposed bills. The governor declined to say whether he plans to continue to push forward with the others, or an extreme risk protection order proposal when the legislature returns in January.
“It’s good when we make progress of any kind, and we have made progress, and we will continue to make progress,” Lee said.
Lee also thanked Covenant families for engaging with the legislative process – while holding his news conference at the same time as one held by the Covenant families. Down the street, those families tearfully expressed frustration and resolute grief over the special session’s early adjournment.
“Their presence made a difference,” Lee said. “They also reminded Tennessee that there is hope in the midst of tragedy, and they brought that hope into this process.”
Of the stalemate between the House and Senate – which ultimately killed three of the governor’s bills – Lee said he saw his role to step back and let lawmakers hash out their differences. He acknowledged that he did not ask Senate leaders to reopen committees to consider his bills after they’d closed last Wednesday.
“I recognize that the job the governor has is to call this session to put forth his ideas, and the job of the legislature is to decide which bills to move forward,” he said.
Nevertheless, Lee said he was hard at work helping broker deals at the state Capitol – despite having traveled to West Tennessee on Monday. The only publicly known meeting that the governor brokered between the parties happened during breakfast time Tuesday morning.
“This week was important because I worked hard together with lawmakers to move the ball forward,” Lee said. “That was my effort all week long, every day at the Capitol, meeting with those lawmakers.”
Lee highlighted about $20 million in funding for various mental health programs and
Lee highlighted the new funding for mental health providers and some new money for school safety personnel funded in the appropriations bill.
But the governor did not acknowledge that many of the items in the bills he backed were already in place before the session, including a free gun lock program at the Department of Safety, data reported by the TBI on human trafficking, and a 72-hour deadline for entry of court records into the state’s background check database – which he instituted by executive order this spring.
“We have much work to do, but together the work that we did this week and that we will do in the future will make Tennessee a safer place,” Lee said.
– Vivian Jones, The Tennessean
Covenant families: ‘We will be back in January’
“Let me remind you. My daughter was hunted at her school.”
Mary Joyce’s words fell on an eerily silent room, as journalists watched her contain her tears at a news conference following the end of the special session.
“She hid from a woman with a high-capacity rifle in her third grade classroom,” Joyce said. “She now understands what it feels like to be shot at. Since then, every single day she worries if it will be her last. Because it almost was.”
Joyce, alongside Sarah Shoop Neumann and David Teague — all parents of children at the Covenant School when the mass shooting occurred in March — spoke of the horror they felt watching the special session close with no gun legislation bills passed.
“Today, we will go home and we’ll look…
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