Last year, we flagged – pun intended – an unusual bill well before the 2024 Tennessee legislature met as one that was likely to stir controversy. And we weren’t wrong.
The bill would have prohibited public schools from displaying anything other than the United States flag or Tennessee flag. Initially, once the session began, it was amended to prohibit flags that “represent a political viewpoint, including but not limited to, a partisan, racial, sexual orientation, gender or other ideological viewpoint.”
The legislation passed the state House in February, but it was amended again to return the original language before coming up for a vote in the Senate in April. There, it fell short of the number of votes it needed to pass.
Because a new session will start in January, the bill – in order to be resurrected – would have to be filed again.
In the coming session, an unusual bill filed this month and likely to stir controversy is one that assigns one color of driver’s licenses for U.S. citizens and another color for the driver’s licenses of noncitizens.