Tennessee General Assembly

The Tennessee General Assembly is the formal name of the legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee.

According to the Tennessee state constitution of 1870, it is a bicameral legislature and consists of a Senate of thirty-three members and a House of Representatives of ninety-nine members. The representatives are elected to two-year terms; according to a 1966 constitutional amendment the senators are elected to four-year terms which are staggered, with the districts with even numbers being elected in the year of Presidential elections and the those in the districts with odd numbers being elected in the years of Tennessee gubernatorial elections.

The 1966 amendments also changed the regular sessions from being held biennially to annually, and implemented a salary for legislators, as opposed to expense money only, for the first time. (At that time, it was set at $1,800 per year, it has since been increased several times but is still only $16,500 per year.) To keep the legislature a part-time body, it is limited to ninety legislative days per two-year term, plus up to fifteen days for organizational purposes at the start of each term. If it remains in session longer than this, legislators cease to draw their expense money, currently set at $141 per legislative day. Legislators also receive an "office allowance" of $1000 per month, obstensibly for the maintenance of an office area devoted to their legislative work in their homes or elsewhere within their district. (Traditionally it has been easier politically to raise the per diem and office allowance than the salary.) The speaker of each house is entitled to a salary triple that of other members. Under a law enacted in 2004, in the future legislators will receive a raise equally to that given to state employees the previous year, if any. The governor may also call "extraordinary sessions", limited to the topic or topics outlined in the call, limited to another twenty days. Two-thirds of each house may also initiate such a call by petitioning for it.

The expense per diem money is a boon to legislators who live within a realistic commuting distance of Nashville, but is a limiting factor in the lifestyle of those who live farther away; many share apartments during the term. (The allowance, if claimed, is taxable income for federal income tax purposes for those legislators living within a 50-mile radius of Nashville, the state capital.) Generally speaking, "legislative days" are scheduled no more than three days a week during the session, Tuesdays through Thursday, with Monday used primarily for committee meetings and hearings rather than actual sessions. Sessions begin each year in January and usually end by May; during recent fiscal crises meetings have spilled on into July. The time limit on reimbursed working days and the fact that the Tennessee state government fiscal year is still on a July 1 - June 30 basis puts considerable time pressure on the General Assembly, especially with regard to the adoption of a budget.

Membership in the legislature is best regarded as being a full-time job during the session and a part time job the rest of the year due to committee meetings and hearings (for which legislators are reimbursed their expenses and receive a mileage allowance). A few members are on enough committees to make something of a living from being legislators; most are independent business people and attorneys, although the latter group is perhaps no longer the absolute majority of members that it at one time comprised.

Lobbyists are not allowed to share meals with legislators on an individual basis, but are not forbidden from inviting the entire legislature or selected groups to events honoring them, which has become a primary means of lobbying. Members are also forbidden from holding campaign fundraising events for themselves during the time they are actually in session.

Each house sets its own rules and elects its own speaker; the Speaker of the Senate carries the additional title and office of Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee. For over three decades, both speakers have been from West Tennessee; this has caused considerable resentment in the eastern two-thirds of the state.

According to the state constitution, the Secretary of State, state Treasurer, and the Comptroller of the Treasury, who serves many of the functions of an auditor, are selected by the General Assembly in joint convention, where each member of the General Assembly is accorded a single vote and the office is awarded to the first candidate to receive a majority of the votes (67 of 132). A contested gubernatorial election is also to be decided by a joint convention of the General Assembly according to statuory law; the General Assembly is also to decide the election by joint convention according to the constitution in the event of an exact tie in the popular vote, an extremely unlikely proposition.

The General Assembly districts of both houses are supposed to be reapportioned based on population as determined by the U.S. federal census on a deciennial basis; in practice this was not done between 1902 and 1962, a fact resulting in the United States Supreme Court decision in Baker v. Carr (369 US 186) required this action to be taken and subjected it to judicial review. Aftwerwards, there have been other lawsuits, including one which resulted in an order for the body to create a black-majority district in West Tennessee in the House in the late 1990s.

The General Assembly also selects the members of the State Election Commission. It selects three members from the majority party (the one controlling the majority of the 132 total seats). In theory, they then select the members of the 95 county election commissions; in practice the General Assembly members tell which members of their party from their districts should be elected and the parties themselves select the members from the party which is not represented in that county by either a state senator or a state representative.

The Tennessee General Assembly can proposed amendments to the state constitution, but only through a rather convoluted and time-consuming process. For the legislature to propose amendments to the state constitution directly, an amendment must first be passed by an absolute majority of the membership of each house during one term of the General Assembly. Then, during the next General Assembly term, each house must pass the amendment by a two-thirds majority vote. The amendment must then be put on the statewide ballot, but only at a time when an election for governor is also being held. The amendment to be passed must receive over half of the total votes cast in the gubernatorial election in order to be ratified and come into effect. The 1870 constitution of Tennessee had never been amended in this manner until 1998, when the "Victims' Rights Amendment" was added; a similar process was used in 2002 to enact the state lottery. In 2005 the "Defense of Marriage Amendment" was approved for submission to the voters in 2006. The more usual method of amending the state constitution, and the one used in the past (all amendments prior to 1998), is for the General Assembly to put on the ballot the question of whether a limited constitutional convention should be called for the purpose of considering amendments to certain specified provisions of the constitution. If the voters approve this in a statewide election they then, at the next statewide election, elect delegates to this convention. This body then meets (in the House chamber of the State Capitol) and makes its recommendations. These recommendations can be voted on in any election, either one specially called or in conjunction with other statewide elections, and need only pass by a majority of those casting votes. This method can not be employed more often than once every six years.