NASHVILLE – House Speaker Kent Williams today said his members still “have a lot of questions” about a proposed overhaul of higher education that may carry over from the special legislative session to the regular session.
“I’m told the Senate is not taking it up until Tuesday,” Speaker Williams told reporters this morning. “If we don’t take it up until Tuesday, my suggestion to the members of the House would be that we just move it to regular session.”
The speaker said tying up lawmakers for two to three weeks in special session on “one piece of legislation” would be a “waste of taxpayers’ money” and time.
The governor called lawmakers into this week’s special session to address K-12 changes he says are needed to help Tennessee make the cut in the $4 billion federal Race to the Top competition. The state’s application for $485 million is due Tuesday.
The special session call also includes higher education education issues unrelated to the K-12 Race to the Top issue. Gov. Bredesen recently expressed confidence lawmakers could address higher education next week.
Speaker Williams also alluded to a flap over one provision in the legislation, which establishes a closer relationship between the University of Tennessee and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The provision is aimed at catapulting UT-Knoxville into the upper ranks of research institutions nationally.
University of Memphis, Memphis business leaders and some West Tennessee lawmakers appeared in near meltdown mode this week over exclusion of their institution, complaining about what they said was the governor’s snub of their college as a research institution.
“Some members think it (higher education bill) has been regionalized, and so there’s a little drawback there,” Speaker Williams said. But, he added, “I don’t think it’s anything that won’t be resolved.”