With this week’s Question of the Week, we asked our readers what they believed Tennessee’s legislators should make priorities this legislative session. Here are some of the responses we received.
Health care access
Two things our legislators should pass are referendums on allowing the citizens of Tennessee to vote on Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and some reasonable law to protect women’s reproductive rights similar to what some other states have voted on and passed (all that were allowed to vote).
The Affordable Care Act was originally a Republican idea supported by the Heritage Foundation and if it weren’t passed by Obama and a Democratic administration it would already be law in Tennessee. Under “Obamacare,” your health insurance premiums are based on your income, and if you are below an income level, you are covered by the Medicaid expansion with all coverage through private insurance carriers.
With the draconian state laws, women in Tennessee have no reproductive rights with these gutted by four men on our federal Supreme Court with the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe vs Wade. Let the citizens vote on this issue.
In the last election, we voted on referendums that addressed the following issues: 1. Right to Work (already law since 1940s) 2. Illegal to own slaves in the State (Emancipation Proclamation of 1863) 3. Issues that involved the government should the governor become incapacitated and 4. Allowing preachers to “pass the plate” and politic from the pulpit and run for political office.
Important issues right up there with a state gun, a state book and who can sell wine.
WILLIAM PRENDERGAST
Elizabethton
No more politics
Most voters want policy, not politics. No more scare tactics. No more playing to the base.
We want children to have a well-rounded education based on facts. We want children to be safe in school. We want hungry children fed.
We want the less fortunate to be taken care of and provided with the assistance they need, whether it’s housing, nutrition or health care.
We want true and fair justice for all. We don’t want one justice system for the privileged and one for the rest of us.
We want billionaires and corporations to pay their fair share. We want seniors to retain the benefits they were promised and paid into their entire working lives. We want tax fraud prosecuted, not ignored.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts.
CYNTHIA GAINES
Butler
Pro-child/pro-life agenda
State lawmakers should use anti-abortion momentum to turn toward a pro-child/pro-life agenda by prioritizing these policies:
1) Revise the state’s total abortion ban by adding exceptions for mother’s life/health, severe fetal abnormalities, rape, incest and child sexual abuse.
2) Fund increased staff, salaries and oversight for the Department of Children’s Services where a recent state audit showed “a severe staffing shortage” has the department “struggling to provide support services to Tennessee’s most vulnerable children and youth.”
3) Fund increased salaries for public school teachers (ranked 41st of 50 states) to improve student-teacher ratios (ranked 33rd).
4) Expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act with recently-enhanced federal incentives, to help uninsured low-income citizens (ranked 41st) and adults avoiding health care due to cost (ranked 45th).
5) Abolish the death penalty, beginning with a permanent moratorium on executions, which the state has conducted in violation of its own standards (according to an independent investigation ordered by Gov. Lee last year).
Tennessee currently has a strong economy and the state has substantial surpluses. Now is the time when state lawmakers should enact these changes to preserve and improve life in Tennessee.
DAVID VOLLRATH
Johnson City
Carry the ConstitutionThere’s a couple of things that the Tennessee legislature should consider prioritizing:
1. Banking reform. There’s too many banks that claim to wish to benefit our country but then backstab the Constitution. Speaking as a veteran, I find this to be outrageous. Many of these banks donate huge sums to groups that unabashedly seek to destroy our constitutional republic.
Worse (much worse) is the growing habit to blatantly disenfranchise businesses and individuals who believe in the Second Amendment. Wells Fargo just canceled the business account of a gun shop for no reason other than the type of business. Bank of America, Citibank are others that do this.
I submit that any such lending institution that has practices like this should not be allowed to do business in the State of Tennessee. I’d like to hope that we’d be the first to take this patriotic step, but Texas is leading the way on this.
2. There should be a concerted effort to get true constitutional carry of a firearm by amending state law to remove the phrase that bans lawful firearm carry if the person “intends to go armed.” If you have a permit that presents an “affirmative defense” to the ban. But it requires court action and expensive lawyers but the new law removes the permit requirement so this phrasing allows any liberal prosecutors or liberal law enforcement to make life a Hell on Earth for just about anyone they wish to target.
JIM KONONOFF
Johnson City
Rise to the occasion
2023 will be an important year for state lawmakers, as they have an opportunity to make a decisive impact in the lives of Tennesseans from Memphis to Mountain City. They should prioritize the top five needs we’ve seen brought up in our communities again and again.
1. They should fix and fund the Department of Children Services; it’s unacceptable to force kids to sleep in offices!
2. They should make health care affordable to all immediately by using their indecently high State cash reserves and expanding Medicaid access.
3. They should enact a reasonable increase in the minimum wage to help Tennessee workers without penalizing small businesses.
4. They should fully fund public schools and our teachers so that all Tennesseans can access free, quality education.
5. They should accelerate investments in the infrastructure to fix our roads, make internet available to all, involve our farmers in energy transition projects, and serve those communities that need it most.
Tennessee has more than the means to accomplish this – now is the time for the political leadership in Nashville to rise to the occasion.
SYLVAIN BRUNI
Johnson City