Tennessee House passes restrictions on legislative appointments, despite constitutional questions

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The Tennessee House has advanced a measure that would limit local governments’ abilities to name interim successors in the event of an expulsion from the body.

During its marathon 4-hour-and-23-minute session Monday, Feb. 26, the House passed HB2716, which “prohibits a local legislative body from electing a member, who was expelled for disorderly behavior, to fill a vacancy in the general assembly that was created because of the member’s expulsion.”

The bill is a direct response to the reappointments and subsequent reelections of Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis after they were expelled from the Tennessee General Assembly in 2023 following a protest on the House floor in support of stricter gun laws.

The lawmakers, two of the Tennessee Three , were immediately reappointed to their former seats by the city councils in Memphis and Nashville and then handily won their reelections back into the legislature in their respective special elections.

During floor debate, Pearson offered two amendments to the bill, one of which would make clear that a lawmaker removed for criminal offenses would be ineligible for reappointment. The other amendment he put forward would rewrite the bill—authored by Goodlettsville Republican Rep. Johnny Garrett—to allow for the county elected body to fill the vacancy rather than the municipality with no qualifiers. Both amendments were defeated on party lines over vocal objections.

“This bill as it is currently written seeks to take away and strip away a constitutional power given to our counties in order to fill vacancies,” Pearson said Monday night. “This is overreach of government. This is not what we should be doing. The Constitution, in this manner, has not been changed since it was written, and now we have a bill before us that even our own legal team said is unconstitutional because someone in the well and folks here do not care about the voices of the communities where we come from.” The Secretary of State says this—there are some things you have to do and have to be here.”

Nashville Democratic Rep. Jason Powell also offered amendments that would rewrite the bill. The first amendment he put forward would state local elected bodies could not fill the vacancy of the expelled member if the vacancy was caused by said member’s expulsion. This amendment also stated the vacancy could not be filled by someone who previously was the “prime sponsor” of any law that was “overturned, in whole or in part, by a state or federal court” or was the sponsor of a law currently being litigated for purposes of overturning an appeal on said law.

That measure also failed on party lines, as did Powell’s other amendment, which would exempt Memphis and Nashville from the applicability of the original bill’s prohibition.

During floor debate, Powell reiterated what legal analysts from the state said during the House State Government Committee on Feb. 21, that Garrett’s bill was likely unconstitutional. He further said the House has made a habit of passing blatantly unconstitutional laws that have seen legal challenges and been struck down by state and federal courts.

“I recognize that even the constitutionality of a bill might not stop its passage, unfortunately, in this body,” he said Monday night. “This seems to be a habitual problem, of seeing bills that are unconstitutional.”

Pearson and Powell were referring to comments made by Matthew Mundy, Legislative Attorney, during the Feb. 21 meeting of the House State Government Committee that indicated Garrett’s bill might be on shaky legal ground.

“Respectfully, I think there is some question as to the constitutionality of this bill and would suggest that it would better served as a constitutional amendment,” Mundy said.

Powell said Nashville has been targeted “time and time again” by unconstitutional bills, so he offered his amendments to address that problem.

“Very simply, if a legislative body in that county cannot appoint the member who was just expelled, then surely we wouldn’t want that body to appoint a member who continues or has previously passed laws that our court system has deemed unconstitutional or are in the court system right now,” Powell said. “I am sick and tired of seeing my community picked on and bullied. If you’re going to sit around and come up with laws that are unconstitutional, that target my city and my community, then I don’t think you deserve to be appointed back up here. That is the point of my amendment.”

Garrett said “a lot” of the comments made by Pearson and Powell “just didn’t apply” to his bill, saying his bill was “fairly simple.”

According to legislative legal staffers, lawmakers are only “succeeded” when they are elected, meaning an interim legislator appointed to the general assembly is a separate entity, Garrett asserted.

“There’s some precedent that you can succeed yourself by election. No other place in the state’s constitution does it say anything about succeeding yourself by an appointment,” he said Monday night.

He further asserted that Article II, Section 15 of the Tennessee Constitution, which deals with vacancies, does not mean a “replaced legislator” can be the expelled legislator.

“I believe this is absolutely clear, under the wording of Article II, Section 15,” Garrett said of his bill before asking for support in an affirmative vote.

When asked by Memphis Rep. G.A. Hardaway whether he believed there were different qualifications for appointments versus elections, Garrett said his bill did not address the matter of reappointment “whatsoever.” When challenged further, Garrett said the framers of the Tennessee Constitution “clearly” intended an expelled member from being prohibited to hold their seat by virtue of the expulsion.

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“Our framers that drafted Article II, Section 15 knew that that is a disqualification for office, so should be a disqualification for reappointment, and that is clearly in Article II, Section 15 (a) and (b),” he said.

Ultimately, the vote passed on party lines, with three Republicans abstaining from the vote: Reps. John Gillespie (R-Memphis), Patsy Hazlewood (R-Signal Mountian) and Sam Whitson (R-Franklin). Reps. Harold Love (D-Nashville) and Kelly Keisling (R-Byrdstown) were absent from the proceedings.

While the House version has been approved, the Senate version of the bill is still in limbo. As of Feb. 5, it was assigned to the Senate State and Local Government Committee, but the bill was not listed among the bills discussed during that committee’s Feb. 27 meeting. If both versions of the bill are not passed, the measure will not become law.

Hundreds of bills will be up for debate during the 113th General Assembly . Tennessee lawmakers shared their thoughts on some of the major issues up for discussion at this year’s legislative session.

You can also find daily coverage from the session here .

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