Guns, Germs, and Deals: A report from TN legislative session

https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/cover-story/article/21147351/guns-germs-deals-a-report-from-the-tennessee-legislature

"....This session, Tennessee’s Republican lawmakers simped for right-wing pseudo-celebrities and Tennessee transplants Ben Shapiro, Tomi Lahren and Candace Owens, the latter of whom got a standing ovation when she visited the House floor. (Owens, for context, once said: “If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine. The problem is that he wanted, he had dreams outside of Germany.”)

They banned a nebulous theory related to racism from being taught in Tennessee schools, an effort that seemed to seep out of the national conservative media ecosystem down to Tennessee, where lawmakers had little evidence that it: A. existed in Tennessee schools; or B. was bad. They briefly debated retaliating against the commission that decided to move a bust of the enslaver and alleged Confederate war criminal Nathan Bedford Forrest from its honorary perch at the Capitol.

They appointed a 9/11 truther and 2020 election truther to the body that decides which textbooks can be used in schools. They named the stretch of street home to many of the most prominent Metro Nashville offices after former President Ronald Reagan — seemingly in retaliation for the city’s honoring of Nashville civil rights veteran John Lewis and Martin Luther King on streets near the Capitol. One of the governor’s stated top priorities this year was banning a type of China-backed research institute that is not operational at any Tennessee colleges, and the legislature obliged. They banned other stuff that isn’t in Tennessee too, like vaccine passports. They didn’t get everything they wanted, though: An effort to designate an official state tool (the ladder) passed in the House but faltered in the Senate. 

“We had opportunities to really do things that were innovative and transformative and could really move our state forward,” says Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis). “A lot of the culture-war-type legislation sucked the oxygen out of the room.” ...(more)