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| Home Front: Politix |
| Even Tennessee is Afflicted with Acute RINO-tis |
| 2026-02-21 |
| [TennesseeFirearms] SB1958 / HB1971 — A Nefarious Attempt To Place Legislative Power Beyond Constitutional Accountability Every generation of Tennesseans, indeed every generation of Americans, inherits the same fragile system of government: a constitutional republic built on limited governmental authority, divided powers, enforceable rights, and the rule of law. That system does not sustain itself automatically. It survives only so long as each branch of government and each individual government official respects the concrete boundaries that the People imposed by the Constitution on government. It survives only so long as citizens retain meaningful access to the courts when those boundaries are crossed. Certain Tennessee Republican Legislators have proposed SB1958 / HB1971 which must be evaluated within that framework. Despite being marketed by its sponsors (Senator John Stevens and Representative Andrew Farmer), as a mere procedural refinement, in truth the legislation represents something far more consequential: an attempt to weaken, restrict, and cloud the mechanisms by which citizens may ask the judiciary to determine whether the Tennessee Legislature itself has violated constitutional limits on its power and authority. This is not routine legislative housekeeping. It is a direct challenge to the structural safeguards that protect the people from governmental overreach. It is a direct attack by each supporting Legislator on the constitutional framework that defines the powers of the Legislature and the mechanism that the people established for enforcing that limited legislative authority. At its core, the Sponsors and supporting Legislators are seeking in this bill to repeal an existing statutory cause of action (Tenn. Code Ann. 1-3-121) that Tennesseans have relied upon when seeking declaratory or injunctive relief against unconstitutional governmental action. These legislators are seeking to replace it with new statutory language that expressly excludes challenges to the constitutionality of Legislative action by enacting or preserving state statutes. That distinction is not subtle. It is surgical. Under the change proposed by the bill’s legislative supporters, citizens would be allowed to have pathways and “standing” to challenge local governments, yet the citizens face newly constructed barriers should they seek to question whether enactments of the General Assembly violate the Tennessee or United States Constitutions. The unavoidable implication is that the Legislature is attempting to redraw the accountability map in a way that places its own acts on more protected ground. The Legislature is boldly telling the citizens, whether it passes this law or not, that it does not care what the constitutions say about the limits on legislative authority – they are willing to ignore the limits imposed by the citizens through the constitution and at the same time deny to the citizens the ability to ask the courts to serve as the “check and the balance” on constitutional abuses by legislators. This maneuver strikes at one of the oldest and most settled principles in American constitutional law. More than two centuries ago, the United States Supreme Court declared in Marbury v. Madison (1803) that “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” |
| Posted by:Mercutio |
| #2 |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2026-02-21 21:31 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2026-02-21 07:05 |