Tennessee's supermajority Republican General Assembly faces a tough choice.
Govern the way Tennesseans want - with a more consensus-based approach that we tell pollsters we prefer - or continue to govern as though the most conservative, even Trumpian, view is the only way to play.
That's the message of the Spring 2019 Vanderbilt University poll with a plus or minus 3.8% margin of error. Overall, the poll shows Tennessee standing at "a political crossroads," with our lawmakers apparently being affected by the national polarization of the Republican base, despite the fact that Tennesseans as a whole - yes, including Republicans - want a more middle road.
Two bills in the last legislative session highlight the choices the Republican supermajority have to make about how they want to govern, according to poll directors John Geer and Josh Clinton, professors of political science.
Though the state legislature recently passed a bill permitting the use of school vouchers in Davidson and Shelby counties, just 40 percent of Tennesseans favor the measure.
And while the "heartbeat bill" banning abortions after the detection of fetal cardiac activity failed this session, it would not have found majority support among voters anyway: Just 41 percent support such a measure.
Here are more examples:
* Voting access: 66% said they support "motor-voter" policies that automatically register Tennesseans to vote when they get driver's licenses or interact with other state agencies. Our state lawmakers have consistently sought to restrict voter registration.
* Restoring right to vote: 74% said they support restoration of voting rights for Tennesseans with certain felony convictions after they complete their sentences. A bill to do that went nowhere in this year's legislative session.
* Health care: Tennesseans strongly support policies related to children's health. For example, 72% said they backed the recently passed "Katie Beckett" waiver law that permits families of severely disabled children to receive Medicaid funding regardless of income level. Additionally, 60% said they supported expanding Medicaid to include more low-income adults. And 87% of voters favor mandatory vaccination for healthy children seeking to attend public schools.
Tennessee, however, leads the nation in disenrolling children from Medicaid and TennCare, leaving over the past two years, an additional 130,000 low-income children - including 5,500 in Hamilton County - without any form of insurance.
* Immigration: Tennesseans favor policies that preserve the rights of illegal immigrants to stay and rectify their status, with 54% saying they should be allowed to apply for citizenship and another 20 percent favoring a guest worker program. Furthermore, 62 percent of Tennesseans say efforts to reduce illegal immigration should target employers, not immigrants.
That's particularly striking since the poll also shows many Tennesseans think far more illegal immigrants live here than actually do. While the current estimate is between 120,000 and 140,000, nearly a quarter of poll respondents thought there were more than a million.
Meanwhile, our lawmakers consistently turn aside Chattanooga state Sen. Todd Gardenhire's proposal to help Tennessee's "dreamer" children pay only in-state tuition to go to college in Tennessee.
There was one question in the poll on which voters and lawmakers appear to have agreed: That of whether House Speaker Glen Casada should resign following the revelation of sexually explicit text messages he exchanged with his chief of staff. The survey found 63% of the 1,000 people surveyed in the May 9-May 23 poll said Casada must go - including 58% of Republicans.
On May 20, the 73-member Republican Caucus voted 45-24 to hand Casada a "no-confidence" vote. With a nudge from Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Casada said he will leave the speakership on Aug. 2.
One of the researchers summed up the overall poll results - and their clear divide - this way:
"We're seeing the beginnings of a potential fracture in terms of what direction the state wants to go," Josh Clinton said. "On one hand, our political leaders could go all in for issues that matter to the Republican base, but which may not be reflective of the views of independents and Democrats. Or they can maintain a more consensus-based approach to policies that voters support broadly."
Here's one clear way for us voters to influence their decisions: Make our views clear to them in the only way they understand. Give them feedback early and often, saying that whether we'll ever vote them again depends upon their attention to our views today.