***Note from The Tennessee Conservative: The Tennessee Conservative does not necessarily agree with the more editorialized statements made in this article. This piece is published here for informational purposes only. Take from it what you will.
Image Credit: John Partipillo
By Sam Stockard [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
A House committee passed legislation Wednesday removing state courts from challenges of House rules despite the threat of another court battle.
Allison Polidor, lead plaintiff in a 2023 case against the House’s special session sign rules, called the measure adopted Wednesday a “power play meant to intimidate the people of Tennessee” and said she would sue again if it becomes law.
The House State Government Committee, nevertheless, voted 14-6 in favor of Rep. Gino Bulso’s House Bill 1652, which says circuit, chancery and other lower state courts would no longer have jurisdiction over cases involving House and Senate rules. Bulso cited a case from an intermediate appellate court that he would remove from the equation.
The measure moves to the House floor where approval could mark another step toward passage of legislation violating the state Constitution.
Bulso, a Brentwood Republican and attorney, said he sponsored the bill “just to enforce the constitutional provisions that deal with the General Assembly.”
Asked afterward why he would try to stop the public from challenging legislative rules in a state court, Bulso said, “It’s a question of what does the Constitution allow and what does the Constitution require.”
Bulso, who said the ACLU had not won the sign lawsuit last August, based his argument, in part, on an opinion by Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, who determined the House could enact a ticketing system for lawmakers to allow guests to use the west side of the House balcony. The general public is allowed to sit on the east side.
Critics of the ticketing system have said it is designed to stop people from disrupting what they see as an increasingly power-hungry, Republican-controlled House. People in the balconies joined Reps. Justin J. Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville last March in an anti-gun rally on the House floor that led to their ouster a week later.
The House adopted new rules to avert disruptions at the start of the 2024 session, but the ticketing system was done by word of mouth rather than being put into writing.
Those were a continuation of new rules House members adopted for an August 2023 special session on public safety banning signs from meetings. Polidor, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, won a challenge of the rule in Davidson County Chancery Court, forcing the House to allow people to hold small signs in meetings. The session ended and the legal arguments became moot before the case could come to a close.
Polidor told lawmakers Wednesday she would sue again if Bulso’s bill becomes law.
“It’s a sad day for Tennessee … when you think you need to have supreme rule and you’re scared of any sort of checks and balances,” Polidor said afterward.
Since August 2023, Polidor said she has witnessed daily “antics” of lawmakers voting along party lines with “little understanding of the repercussions,” especially for bills likely to be found unconstitutional. She contends the Legislature has spent millions defending itself against constitutional challenges, several of which involved Metro Nashville operations.
Bulso, though, contended the First Amendment doesn’t necessarily come into play on House rules and argued that the Constitution allows the Legislature to hold floor sessions in secret, if it wants to, and outlaw signs — all without judicial review — even though the Constitution says the “doors of each House and of committees of the whole shall be kept open, unless when the business shall be such as ought to be kept secret.”
Under his bill, Bulso told the committee challenges could be made in federal court and to the Tennessee Supreme Court. He added that former Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Bill Koch said the ultimate way to challenge House and Senate rules would be to re-elect new lawmakers.
Several Democrats and Republican Rep. Tom Leatherwood of Arlington questioned the bill’s legality, saying it would violate the separation of powers and hurt people’s ability to challenge House rules at their local courthouse. Leatherwood was the only Republican to vote against the measure.
Rep. Jason Powell, D-Nashville, asked Bulso whether he voted for the balcony ticketing system, saying he had not been involved in that vote. Bulso replied that he had but acknowledged afterward he had only heard Speaker Cameron Sexton wanted the rule instead of seeing it in writing.
Rep. Pearson, a Memphis Democrat who was expelled last year but won reappointment and then re-election, criticized the bill, saying it is not only “unconstitutional but is very much anti-constitutional.”
“The founders created these co-equal branches of government with the idea that one would not be usurping the other,” Pearson said, adding after 228 years, the legislation is trying to remove a large part of the judicial branch’s authority.
About the Author: 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. Follow Stockard on Twitter @StockardSam