People are going through cash like peanuts as the economy chugs along. Folks are caroling in the snow (well, maybe not). And the Tennessee General Assembly is eyeing 2024 with renewed hope for better days (at least none with fists flying).
But seriously, the Senate is set to hold a Faith and State Panel for the second day of the new session, Jan. 10, following the chamber’s opening salvos.
Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, fresh off a year challenging Biden Administration rules for water heaters and gas stoves and, of course, trying to defend the state against unconstitutional laws, is scheduled to speak at the event (Not a joke).
Sen. Ferrell Haile, a Gallatin Republican, says he came up with the idea from David Young, pastor of North Boulevard Church of Christ in Murfreesboro, who preached a three-week series on “church and state” this year. Haile says he encouraged Skrmetti to listen to recordings of the sermons, and he came back with a positive response, thus the Senate event.
Young started his third sermon in the series detailing President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 call for fasting, prayer and repentance toward the end of the Civil War and telling the people they had received a great “bounty” but “forgotten God” along the way. (Considering the sins of our forefathers included enslavement and banishment of Cherokees from their land, one wonders if the founders ever really knew God. It also took 620,000 deaths for people to wake up, and many are still fighting the war. But I digress.)
Young acknowledges government is built on the concept of “justice,” while the church is founded on “grace;” therefore, they don’t make a great mix. He also notes the church doesn’t have the resources of competence to govern, though it must proclaim righteous principles.
Based on the number of indicted lawmakers over the years, apparently some weren’t paying attention in Sunday school.
With high ideals in mind — not the corruption and constant money grubbing — Young, Skrmetti and former Rep. John DeBerry of Memphis will participate on the panel.
Haile points out DeBerry was known as the “conscience of the General Assembly” during his tenure in the House, giving a yearly spanking to the House on morality. The Tennessee Democratic Party decided he was unconscionable, though, and ousted him from the Democratic primary in 2020 after he voted to enact private school vouchers and to ban abortions. He was rewarded with a job as senior advisor to Gov. Bill Lee.
It’s not clear exactly what Skrmetti will say at the event. His office didn’t respond to questions from the Tennessee Lookout when queried about how he might approach the panel
. Likely, they’re busy telling the NCAA what to do about investigations.
But here’s what Haile might be getting at by organizing this event. He wants to touch on ethics within the Legislature and possibly the constitutionality of religion in state government, though he isn’t certain that will be a primary topic.
(It must be noted I’m not one who subscribes to the theory that religion has no place in politics: After all, I pray for quick adjournment every day.)
Instead, Haile says he wants the focus to be on “how we treat one another and have respect for one another, even in disagreement.”
Say what? Pastor Bill Young, on whose series of sermons the “Faith and State Panel” is modeled, has preached that President Abraham Lincoln told Americans in 1863 they had forgotten God — without mentioning the sins of slavery, banishment of Cherokee Indians and the 620,000 Americans who died in the Civil War.
Call me crazy, but it sounds as if this is aimed more at the House than that staid body in the upper chamber where sobriety and restraint reign compared to the lower chamber (they get pissed when people refer to them that way) where protests, pushing, shoving and confrontation are beginning to rule. We wait most days to see who throws the first punch, not who calls the question.
So while the Senate spends the early part of the 2024 session trying to soothe lawmakers’ nerves, the Republican-controlled House is likely to be adopting rules designed to quell activists within the chamber, whether they’re duly elected or hanging out in the balcony.
They did it during the August special session, and repeat is predictable.
The Tennessee Journal reports the state filed a motion recently to dismiss a lawsuit by Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, against House Speaker Cameron Sexton dealing with his ouster this year and alleged racial discrimination. Sexton makes a practice of cutting Jones’ mic because he has a tendency to go off topic.
Republicans voted to expel Jones and Rep. Justin J. Pearson, D-Memphis, for holding an impromptu rally on the House floor to protest gun violence shortly after six people were shot to death at The Covenant School in Green Hills. Democratic Rep. Gloria Johnson narrowly avoided expulsion, mainly because the Republicans’ main piece of evidence, a patchwork video, showed her doing little to nothing but standing at the podium.
Rather than replay the ruckus of this year’s regular and not-so-special sessions designed to stop gun violence, let’s simply look forward to days ending with the singing of Kumbaya.
New Ballad overseer tapped
Tennessee Health Department Commissioner Ralph Alvarado and AG Skrmetti recently named University of Tennessee Medical Center CEO Joe Landsman as the next monitor for Ballad Health’s certificate of public advantage (COPA) in northeast Tennessee and Virginia.
Landsman, who has been with the UT Health System since 1998, will take over the post in April, replacing Larry Fitzgerald, who is retiring after six years of holding the monitor’s post since the state agreed to allow Ballad to operate as a regional monopoly in 2018. He previously worked as a hospital director in Virginia.
With two healthcare companies threatening to stop providing care, the Legislature worked out a deal allowing them to merge with the requirement that the new company meet certain guidelines for healthcare quality and charitable obligations.
Lawmakers, however, tell the Lookout people still aren’t happy with Ballad for a variety of reasons, mainly a major shortage of nurses. At least one legislator called the situation “dire.”
Tenn. Attorney General urges look at Ballad Health amid community concerns over monopoly deal
KFF Health News also reported state Health Department documents show Ballad fell short of charity care spending by $148 million over four years, while suing thousands of patients to collect money, and failed to meet 80% of requirements to improve care, including those affecting death and infection rates. All this was done while Ballad netted income of $143 million in 2022 and $175 million in federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funds, according to the report.
Ballad’s primary response is that without the merger and the monopoly, the region wouldn’t have a healthcare system.
Skrmetti admitted in a recent Lookout interview that upper East Tennesseans aren’t happy with Ballad. He also noted the state should be “constantly looking at the arrangement” and listening to residents in the region to make sure Ballad is “providing better healthcare.”
The Attorney General’s Office reviews Ballad’s performance against the terms of certification annually to confirm the company “continues to provide a public advantage,” according to the office. And if the certificate’s structure proves to be an “impediment” to healthcare, a solution to the problem is necessary, the AG’s Office says.
While some lawmakers say the situation surrounding Ballad Health is beyond their control and lies with the attorney general and Health Department commissioner, others say some type of action is looming early in the new year. It could be among some of the biggest news of early 2024.
More school security?
Sen. Mark Pody, R-Lebanon, and Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, are proposing a bill allowing school districts to apply for state safety grants to pay for a new security technology.
Pody, who represents a portion of Davidson County, and Lynn explained in a Thursday press conference the security system could be worn by teachers at $300 per unit to notify principals in case of student disciplinary problems and police in live shooter situations.
The duo didn’t have a total cost for the bill Thursday. But the Department of Education wouldn’t be allowed to award schools a grant of more than $50,000. With 67,000 teachers in public schools alone, although this would affect private school teachers too, the bill could have a total cost of at least $20.1 million. Pody said he is confident the governor will put more money for school safety grants in the upcoming budget but noted he doesn’t believe every school district would request this type of security.
Pody said he and Lynn weren’t targeting a preferred vendor, either, but they did have a Safety Cams LLC sign behind them during the press conference, as well as a representative on hand to answer questions. How convenient.
They also claimed such a security system, which has video, audio and GPS technology, would have saved lives in The Covenant School shooting. In that case, law enforcement officers arrived within eight minutes and took out the shooter in four minutes.
“We’re really trying to recognize that when there’s an emergency in the classroom there’s differences between the emergency we saw with Covenant School, that was a lockdown situation that, unfortunately, the technology that’s available now, it was unknown, and that jeopardized lives,” Lynn says.
The duo plans to introduce their bill as soon as the Legislature convenes the second week of January.
It’s serious time
The year 2023 was a bit of a battle for the kid, with two major surgeries: shoulder reconstruction and hip replacement. It took years of abuse to start falling apart. But with the help of my loving wife, Diane, and the Tennessee Lookout team, my joints are coming together.
You know what that means: I’ve picked up a half-step in the last two months alone.
“Nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide.”*
Merry friggin’ Christmas, and we’ll see you next year.
(* “Nowhere to Run,” Martha and the Vandellas)
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Sam Stockard is a veteran Tennessee reporter and editor, having written for the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, where he served as lead editor when the paper won an award for being the state’s best Sunday newspaper two years in a row. He has led the Capitol Hill bureau for The Daily Memphian. His awards include Best Single Editorial from the Tennessee Press Association.
This article in this post was originally published on Tennessee Lookout and parts of it are included here under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0
