Andy Sher

National and Tennessee LGBTQ leaders as well as parents of transgender students Tuesday condemned bills approved by Republican state lawmakers, the latest ones coming in this year's legislative session to prevent transgender athletes from participating in girls' and women's sports in public K-12 education as well as at the college level.

NASHVILLE — In her contest to Weston Wamp's victory in Hamilton County's May 3 Republican mayoral primary election, second-place finisher Sabrena Smedley wants the Tennessee Republican Party's State Executive Committee to set aside the results, citing what she says is crossover voting by Democrats as well as failures by the county election commission and the local party to adequately police the election.

In her formal challenge to fellow Republican Weston Wamp's victory in Hamilton County's May 3 GOP mayoral primary, Sabrena Smedley is relying on a rarely-invoked provision of Tennessee law.

A new poll finds that a slim majority of Tennessee voters - 45.7% to 43.6% - think Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election over then-President Donald Trump despite the results having been certified in Tennessee and across the U.S.

Hamilton County mayoral candidates Sabrena Smedley and Matt Hullander on Wednesday formally contested fellow Republican Weston Wamp's victory in the May 3 primary election, citing crossover voting by Democrats and asking the Tennessee Republican Party either to declare Smedley the victor or set aside the results of the contest and set a new election.

A federal judge in Nashville on Tuesday struck down a controversial 2021 Tennessee law that required businesses and other entities to post warning signs if they allow transgender people to use public restrooms that match their sex at birth.

Since taking office in January 2019, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has yet to veto any bill approved by his fellow Republicans who dominate the General Assembly, that despite a growing list of bills he has refused to sign and sometimes criticized publicly.

The relationship between Tennessee Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bo Watson, R-Hixson, and his wife, lobbyist Nicole Osborne Watson, is under scrutiny after the powerful chairman's yes vote on the state's $52.8 billion budget bill last month.

While Gov. Bill Lee is in many respects at the top of his game, the Republican governor first elected in 2018 as a political outsider faces mounting challenges from the GOP supermajority, which has dominated the Tennessee legislature since 2011.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has refused to sign into law a controversial "truth in sentencing" bill championed by his fellow Republicans, House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Senate Speaker Randy McNally, saying previous get-tough-on-crime approaches have proven both costly and ineffective.

A Tennessee legislative effort to require local governments to provide workers' compensation benefits to Tennessee professional firefighters formally diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder failed to win approval as state lawmakers wrapped up their annual session last week.

Nearly all abortions in Tennessee would be outlawed if the U.S. Supreme Court follows through with a leaked draft opinion in a Mississippi case that would overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion.

In one of their last acts during this year's legislative session, Republican state lawmakers approved a bill that will vacate the entire membership of the nine-member board of the Tennessee Human Rights Commission on Sept. 1 while also stripping Gov. Bill Lee of his ability to control the majority of new appointments going forward.

Hamilton County and Chattanooga officials and local state legislators sometimes found themselves at odds on major issues during this year's session of the Tennessee General Assembly.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Northwest Georgia was among 10 Republicans this past week who voted against a House bill calling on the Biden administration to speed up supplies of military equipment to Ukraine as the nation continues to defend itself against Russia's invasion.

Tennessee lawmakers gave final approval Thursday to a bill allowing government-owned Erlanger Health System to pursue plans to convert the hospital system into a nonprofit corporation that leaders argue will help enable its survival into the future by becoming more competitive.

The Tennessee House on Wednesday approved an amended private act allowing Hamilton County government to pursue converting the governance model of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Hospital Authority, better known as Erlanger Health system, to IRS-certified nonprofit status.

A bill that began as an effort to ban delta-8 and delta-10 products in Tennessee was amended in state House committees on Tuesday to allow continued sales of the currently legal, hemp-derived psychoactive cannabinoid but impose new regulations, licensure and packaging requirements as well as age restrictions and a new 5% tax on sales.

Tennessee Senate Speaker Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, is accusing critics of his and House Speaker Cameron Sexton's campaign and ethics reform bill of peddling "blatant untruths" in a bid to derail "dark money" reporting provisions in the measure.

Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal Pinkston's brother-in-law, Kerry Clewell, will come off the county's payroll effective May 17, according to a memo by a county official.