Senate Speaker Ron RamseyNASHVILLE – Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey said Thursday that GOP majority lawmakers should consider holding their first veto override session in 13 years in the event fellow Republican Gov. Bill Haslam vetoes any bills.
Stressing “it’s nothing personal,” the Senate speaker said lawmakers in the past held one-day sessions 30 days after winding up their annual business so they could act in the event a governor vetoed one of their bills.
“I think it’s something that ought to be done,” Ramsey said, calling it a “good government” move to schedule one at the end of every two-year General Assembly. He noted the Tennessee Constitution provides for a veto override.
If a governor vetoes a bill during lawmakers’ first annual meeting, they can always come back and override it the following year. But when a General Assembly adjourns “sine die,” or permanently, at the end of their second year, lawmakers have no ability to come back, Ramsey said.
According to Article III Section 18 of the Tennessee Constitution, governors have 10 days, excluding Sundays, once a bill reaches his desk to decide whether to sign it, allow it to be become law without his signature or veto it.