Image Credit: Jody Barrett Tennessee State Representative / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative [By Adelia Kirchner] –
Tennessee’s General Assembly is now one week into the 2024 legislative session and Rep. Jody Barrett (R-Dickson-District 69) has weighed in on some of the concerns of conservative voters across the state.
Last Monday, the House Select Committee On Rules met to establish this session’s rules for the House of Representatives.
During the committee meeting, Rep. Bryan Richey (R-Maryville-District 20) proposed a rule change that would have required all House committees to conduct roll call votes instead of voice votes in order to be more transparent.
This proposed rule change was voted down via voice vote.
“It’s not like we’re hiding behind this voice vote process,” Rep. Barrett said on Mill Creek View Tennessee. “We only have a limited period during the day that we can fit these in. It makes it go faster for us to be able to do the voice votes, but the thing is […] anybody that wants to have their vote recorded as a certain way, you can make a note.”
Barrett explained that all a legislator has to do in order to have their vote recorded is give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to the clerk. This means that it is very easy for legislators to put their vote on the record and create transparency with their constituents if they choose to.
The lawmaker went on to explain that a voice vote may be preferred, when bills are put before a committee “packed” with a variety of things, similar to how bills are at the federal congressional level.
“They pack all this other stuff into a bill that you have to vote no against and then they turn around and say well you voted no against saving babies or whatever the case may be, but that’s not really the thing that you were voting against,” said Barrett. “By doing this voice vote process, procedure, it eliminates some of that stuff where votes are used against you.”
Barrett also announced that he hopes to file legislation on illegal immigration.
Tennessee does not issue licenses to illegal immigrants, but the state does issue temporary licenses to people on temporary visas.
One potential bill would require the words “non-U.S. Citizen” to be presented clearly on the face of those licenses so that law enforcement knows what situation they’re dealing with.
This would also provide for less confusion if a non-U.S. Citizen attempts to show their temporary license at a voting precinct.
Another potential bill that Barrett is working on would create an aggravation of a criminal charge for defendants found to be illegal immigrants.
“If a defendant is charged with robbery and they’re determined to be an illegal alien, then [the charge] would automatically be upgraded to aggravated robbery or aggravated assault which gets a heighted sentence,” Barrett explained.
The idea, Barret says, is to make Tennessee a little less hospitable to people that are coming here illegally.
“We can’t preempt federal law […] but what we can do is change and enforce the laws that we do have here in Tennessee, that we have control of through the 10th Amendment,” he said.
The Tennessee Conservative will continue to keep our readers informed as more new bills are filed for this legislative session.
About the Author: Adelia Kirchner is a Tennessee resident and reporter for the Tennessee Conservative. Currently the host of Subtle Rampage Podcast, she has also worked for the South Dakota State Legislature and interned for Senator Bill Hagerty’s Office in Nashville, Tennessee.
You can reach Adelia at adelia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
15 Responses
Why should any of us pay taxes ? We have no representation here in Tennessee. They represent corporations, lobbyists, globalists, any and everyone except the people of Tennessee. No taxation without representation.
Vote them out.
Require e-verify in TN.
They never seem to be worried about the Tenth Amendment and lack of “Enumerated powers” when passing legislation revoking the “Bill of Rights”.
Madison had written to Jefferson:
“My own opinion has always been in favor of a bill of rights; provided it be so framed as not to imply powers not meant to be included in the enumeration.
Madison believed that by including a “Bill of (Expressly Stipulated) Rights”, they would be even more secure a “DOUBLE SECURITY” because no Court could deny those rights.
“If they are incorporated into the Constitution, independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive; they will be naturally led to resist every encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated for in the Constitution by the declaration of rights”.
(The Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, First Congress, 1st Session, pp 448-460. (page 455)
(https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=001/llac001.db&recNum=227)
“I know in some of the state constitutions the power of the government is controlled by such a declaration, but others are not. I cannot see any reason against obtaining even a….”DOUBLE SECURITY”…. on those points; and nothing can give a more sincere proof of the attachment of those who opposed this constitution to these great and important rights, than to see them join in obtaining the security I have now proposed; because it must be admitted, on all hands, that the state governments are as liable to attack these invaluable privileges as the general government is, and therefore ought to be as cautiously guarded against”.
https://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/james-madison-speech-june-8-1789.html
Madison:
“It has been said, that in the Federal Government they (Bill of Rights) are unnecessary, because the powers are enumerated and it follows that all that are not granted by the Constitution are retained, that the Constitution is a bill of powers, the great residuum being the rights of the people”.
1789: Madison, Speech Introducing Proposed Amendments to the Constitution.
West Virginia State Board of Education v Barnette, 319 US 624, 638; 63 S Ct 1178; 87 L Ed 1628 (1943)
“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no election.”
Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436, 475 (1966)
“Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them.”
Miller v US, 230 Fed 486,489; “The claim and exercise of a Constitutional (guaranteed) right cannot be converted into a crime”.
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 US 105: “No State shall convert a liberty into a privilege, license it, and charge a fee therefore.”
Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham Alabama, 373 US 262: “If the State converts a right (liberty) into a privilege, the citizen can ignore the license and fee and engage in the right (liberty) with impunity.”
Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
If you want to straighten Nashville out, let’s file and transfer some to the Jail house.
The Law is on our side, even to using our guns if necessary.
AMEN!!
If a crime is committed by an illegal, said illegal should be immediately deported back to his or her own country. We are not paying taxes for the care and feeding of people who should not even be here. As for licenses, they are here illegally. What part of that word is so difficult to understand?
I disagree with you on the deport illegals issue. What kind of punishment is sending someone home? Lifes not high school. Lock um up for punishment. And what’s the point of throwing someone out when chances are they will just return? I do agree with ya on the driver’s license issue though. An ID is incentive to be here.
We see common sense is an issue with you, huh?
Exactly!
“By doing this voice vote process, procedure, it eliminates some of that stuff where votes are used against you.”
Sure. But then you are lumped in with the Republican supermajority, since the Democrats are and have been irrelevant for the last 13 years. So guilt by association with the voice vote – unless you ask for your vote to be recorded. The “fix” for this scenario is no “omnibus” or NDAA style bills. One subject, up or down. No BS “caption” bills, no “amendment makes the bill”, no “the administration’s bill”.
I’ve also seen occasions where reps call for a roll call vote at introduction of their bill, because WAY TOO MANY like hiding behind the voice vote. So then they resort to no one being willing to second the motion to hear the bill in committee so they never have to vote. That’s how “leadership” does it in the Senate, so the genital mutilators at Vanderbilt got to stay in business despite Janice Bowling’s bills two years in a row.
If it’s so hard, why is the Senate able to do it?
Pukes oughta stay how ever long it takes to roll call. He’s talking BS.
You’re kidding, right? Sooo busy! The voice vote issue is so much BS. You just don’t want to be a responsible adult or legislator who can be held accountable for your vote.
We need to fine employers for hiring illegals and paying them cash, like Florida. The governor in Fla.can do it! Our government can block a lot of them if they would. Cookeville is getting too many in the High School!!
In Tennessee if an employer is found to have 1 illegal, the business losses its license to operate in Tennessee.
If there’s “too much stuff” in a bill that has nothing to do with what the bill is addressing,
why not restrict the bills only to whatever they’re meant to address??
Then “Citizens” would only get what they want not a lot of Garbage.
“Wouldn’t have time to pass all the bills”,
Yep, be another blessing.