First Legislative Session Set For Tuesday

Tennessee legislators are preparing for the first legislative session of the new year set to begin Tuesday.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton said in the first session members will be sworn in and will vote to elect the speaker. Sexton said the early work includes the distribution of work to legislators.

“There will be people who have new committee assignments,” Sexton said. “Some will stay on the same committee. There will be a few changes in the chair system and people get reacquainted with their positions and what they are. They are already filing legislation and so we’ll get to work.”

Sexton said members will also have an opportunity to state what important topics they would like to tackle. Sexton said some topics that will be discussed are healthcare and increasing penalties for violent crimes.

“We are still working to combat violent crime in our state and trying to keep that on a path that keeps declining,” Sexton said. “I think it has been declining in our state. You know, healthcare I think there are some people who are looking at the corporal practice of medicine. The 340B program which is a reimbursement for hospitals and pharmacies and so we will get to all of that. We will see how it makes us do the committee system and what it looks like when it ends.”

Sexton said there has been some preliminary work ahead of the first session.

“The governor has been working on his budget for a few months now and I think it is about ready,” Sexton said. “We have been working on the school choice program with the governor and so we hope to work to pass that this session and members have been working on various other aspects of legislation as well, so there has been some work going on. The governor has probably been doing most of the work because of the budget but members will start filing little pieces of legislation in the coming weeks.”

Sexton said on average lawmakers pass around 200 to 300 pieces of legislation per session. Sexton said after the first session legislators will take a week of recess and then rejoin for the second session. Sexton said the target is complete all legislative sessions by the end of April.