Tracking Proposed Legislation Related to Supporting Working Families and Strengthening Democracy

The 114th General Assembly began the first of its two-year session in February (the 3rd in the House and 10th in the Senate) after a week-long special session passing hurricane relief, immigration, and school voucher legislation.

Of the over 1,400 bills filed, over 200 address issues within ThinkTennessee’s policy priorities of Supporting Working Families and Strengthening Democracy, including several addressing issues covered in our recent policy briefs that highlight opportunities to increase housing supply and affordability and access to childcare for Tennessee’s working families, expand access to post-secondary education and to paid family leave for state employees, and explore alternative transportation funding sources and ways to streamline the voting rights restoration processes.

Proposed Bills Related to ThinkTennessee’s Policy Priorities

Here are some recent ThinkTennessee policy briefs and a few of the bills addressing these issues, including some of the recommendations shared in them:

Housing & Infrastructure

Breaking Ground: Local Tools for Housing and Infrastructure highlights policy options to improve housing supply and affordability and fund new infrastructure, specifically by expanding and modifying existing programs.

• SJR 0027 (Johnson) and HB 1327 (Lamberth)/SB 1323 (Johnson) SJR 0027 seeks to authorize funding for the state’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program established last year (the Tennessee Rural and Workforce Housing Credit). And HB 1327/SB 1323 would remove the requirement for tax credit authorization by joint resolution in future.
• HB 0753 (Faison)/SB 0539 (Stevens) proposes a new process for assessment and valuation of low-income housing properties for property tax purposes.
• HB 0649 (Marsh)/SB 1080 (Johnson) seeks to allocate 50% of recordation taxes to be given to counties to fund infrastructure, housing, and other local needs.

Childcare

The Early Years: Investing in Childcare Will Help Families and Our Economy offers recommendations to increase childcare capacity and better support Tennessee families, including eliminating regulatory barriers to increase childcare availability while protecting health and safety and improving job quality for childcare workers.

• HB 0106 (Lamberth)/SB 1288 (Johnson) proposes making exemptions from licensure requirements for some childcare programs operating for less than three hours per day and for those associated with programs such as religious services, Boys and Girls Clubs, and those subject to departments of state government.
• HB 1175 (Williams)/SB 1379 (Watson) and HB 0698 (Camper)/SB 1014 (Oliver) both propose to allow childcare agencies operating within a local education agency (LEA) to have access to the LEA’s underutilized or vacant properties. HB 1175/SB 1379 also proposes easing some license and zoning requirements for school and home-based childcare programs.
• HB 0105 (Lamberth)/SB 1286 (Johnson) expands eligibility to more organizations for a state childcare improvement pilot program currently available for nonprofits.

Workforce Development

Let’s Get to Work: Student Supports Will Help Tennesseans Train the Workforce it Needs highlights changes to the Tennessee Promise and Tennessee Reconnect grant programs aimed at expanding access to the tuition and fee support for post-secondary education for more Tennesseans.

• HB 0148 (White)/SB 0686 (White) proposes making permanent a pilot program awarding completion grants and providing mentors to Tennessee Promise scholarship students.

Transportation

Changing Lanes: Investing in Multimodal Transportation Options Will Improve Outcomes for Tennesseans highlights opportunities to rethink how Tennessee funds and builds transportation infrastructure, including alternative funding sources beyond the gas tax.

• HB 0127 (Lamberth)/SB 1307 (Johnson) proposes expanding authority to levy local transit tax surcharges to all local governments and changing the term from “transit improvement” to “transportation improvement” projects, allowing the revenues raised to fund highway and bridge, as well as transit, projects.
• HB 0969 (Hawk)/ SB 0144 (Walley) proposes allocating new and used car sales tax revenue to the state’s highway fund and requiring TDOT to conduct a study to determine future infrastructure costs and funding sources.
• HB 0523 (Atchley)/SB 0549 (Briggs) calls on TACIR to study measures to supplement transportation infrastructure funding other than the electric and hybrid vehicle registration fees.
• HB 0736 (Vital)/SB 0703 (Massey) also calls on TACIR to study sustainable funding sources to help meet the state’s future infrastructure needs.

Paid Family Leave

Paid Family Leave is Good Business for Tennessee highlights the benefits of paid family leave programs for employers, employees, and babies.

• HB 0957 (Slater)/SB 0938 (Rose) proposes extending eligibility for the state employees’ paid leave program to foster parents.
• HB 0915 (Sparks)/SB 0322 (Massey) proposes extending eligibility for the state employees’ paid leave program for those caring for family members with serious health conditions.

Voting Rights Restoration

Tennessee’s Voting Rights Restoration Process is Overly Complicated: Opportunities Exist to Make it More Efficient highlights the challenges with the current process and makes recommendations for streamlining voting rights restoration.

• HB 0445 (Hulsey)/SB 0407 (Gardenhire) proposes revisions to Tennessee’s voting rights restoration process by among other things separating the restoration of voting and other citizenship rights.

Additional Bills

Additional bills related to our priority issues include proposed changes to our state’s voting process and eliminating sales taxes on food groceries:

• HB 0458 (Rudd)/SB 0367 (Briggs) proposes a handful of voting changes, including raising the age for absentee eligibility to 65 from 60, introducing a way for voters to challenge the registration of an unlimited number of other registered voters, and requiring watermarks on all paper ballots.
• HB 0934 (Fritts)/SB 0732 (Pody) seeks to change the allowable forms of Voter ID in Tennessee to remove U.S. passports and require IDs to be current (not expired) and to have a current address. (This bill has been taken off notice in the House)
• HB 0069 (Lamberth)/SB 0133 (Johnson) would create two electronic portals for election officials to use by January 1, 2028 to verify voter registration applications’ eligibility based on citizenship status and felony convictions.
• Both HB 0002 (Behn)/SB 0002 (Oliver) and HB 0021 (Davis)/SB 1367 (Watson) propose to exempt from sales tax the retail sale of food and food ingredients

As the session continues, we’ll continue to monitor these bills and more. After the legislature adjourns next month, look for a post-session summary of the key changes adopted and important issues discussed.