Having a Republican supermajority means that a coordinated party can get anything passed through both chambers with a little foresight and responsible scheduling. Lawmakers’ failures, then, often illuminate the party’s divisions and disagreements. In other instances — there are plenty — individual politicians might go rogue on personal crusades or performative virtue-signaling that lacks support from GOP leadership or colleagues. This year had many such examples.
Throughout this year’s legislative session, bills were introduced with great fanfare from sponsors and attention from media. They range from textually incomprehensible to outright unconstitutional. Several were plain attempts to challenge established federal or local precedent — such as Plyler v. Doe, the 1982 Supreme Court decision protecting K-12 education for children regardless of immigration status — to provoke expensive ideological power struggles that might expand states’ rights. Sensitive to optics, the party saw many bills win party-line votes in committee before leadership rewrote or relegated divisive legislation to obscurity. As soon as the legislature gaveled out of session on April 23, anything left unpassed faced an uncertain future, left as dead bills, works in progress or so-called “zombie” bills that may see reintroduction later.
Conservative lawmakers took liberal cracks at immigrants’ rights this year. Last year’s fixation on Plyler v. Doe turned into multiple attempts this session to exclude and track students who are in the United States without full citizenship. House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) and state Sen. Bo Watson (R-Chattanooga) carried a short bill that openly flouted Plyler and required citizenship documentation for enrollment. Watson’s own constituents organized against the bill, with Chattanooga-area teachers and principals pointing out how expensive, time-consuming and destructive the law would be for Hamilton County schools. Watson quietly tabled the bill without a floor vote on March 26. A companion bill requiring every school to submit citizenship rolls to the state did not make it through committee.
Targeting Tennesseans by immigration status showed up across legislation. Self-described culture warrior Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood), a licensed attorney, carried a defective bill trying to compel banks to require citizenship for international money transfers. It also included a requirement for parents to pay tuition for students attending public school without United States citizenship. The House bill failed with opposition from Bulso’s own party; Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald) nominally sponsored its Senate counterpart, which died after multiple deferrals. Titled the “TRUMP Act,” the failed legislation landed more like an attention-hungry stunt in view of its prohibitive financial and practical considerations.
A similar bill failed in 2024; Bulso teases return of bill next year if he's reelected
Bulso and Hensley also pushed a convoluted attempt to erode the separation of church and state. The legislation’s meandering text empowers Tennesseans to sue the state if they feel a government officer impinges on religious beliefs. The pair went a step further in attempting to require that schools teach the “Bible as literature” rather than a religious text and designate a period of prayer and Bible study for students. Judiciary committees in both chambers approved the bill, though it never reached a full floor vote. Party leadership watered down a similar headline-grabbing attempt to require schools to display the Ten Commandments from Rep. Michael Hale (R-Smithville) and Sen. Mark Pody (R-Lebanon). The two chambers finally reconciled legislation that made the Christian doctrine a permitted but optional display in public schools.
Bulso also authored a bill that would have banned displaying Pride flags and other LGBTQ symbols in government buildings, but the “No Pride Flag or Month Act” died in a Senate committee.
Rep. Tim Hicks (R-Gray) briefly threatened to destabilize all local zoning control with a bill allowing property owners to sue municipalities for damages against future and past land use restrictions. Hicks cast the attempt as private property protections while, as written, it would essentially destroy governments’ most basic functions with narrow exceptions. He withdrew it on March 23.
A state attempt to shift municipal elections — including Nashville’s — stalled in the Senate, a gift to the political consultants who flock to the city for off-cycle work. Rep. Jody Barrett (R-Dickson) briefly pursued legislation that would have classified abortion as a homicide. National outlets picked up the story, which ended weakly in a crowded committee room when Barrett’s crusade couldn’t pick up support from his own party.
We recap what the state legislature did — and didn’t do — this year at the Capitol
