This week at the statehouse: McNally gets COVID, a state supreme court pick is confirmed, Dems ask for more college polling sites

The 112th Tennessee General Assembly is nearly a quarter of the way through, and there’s a lot to catch up on. Here’s a roundup of some of what happened during week five at the capitol.

McNally gets COVID

Senate Speaker Randy McNally was absent from the legislature Thursday morning after testing positive for COVID-19. A senate spokesperson says McNally’s symptoms are mild, and he will return to the chamber once he’s recovered.  

 The 78-year-old Republican is a retired pharmacist, and he’s encouraged Tennesseans to get vaccinated against COVID.  

Supreme Court nominee confirmed

Tennessee lawmakers confirmed the state’s newest Supreme Court justice on Thursday.

Justice Sarah Campbell was an assistant to the state’s Attorney General and successfully defended the state’s 48-hour abortion law, lethal-injection protocol and other laws that faced legal challenges in recent years.   

The Senate unanimously confirmed Campbell. In the House, Democratic member Gloria Johnson was the lone “no” vote. She noted concerns over what she described as a political and partisan nature of the justice’s past legal work. 

Dems want polls on college campuses

State lawmakers are considering a bill with the goal of improving civic engagement among young voters. The proposal would allow polling places on college campuses with at least 20,000 students during early voting. Memphis Representative London Lamar is the bill’s sponsor. 

“If we want to enable opportunities that 21% of the eligible voters in this state between the ages of 21 and 27 are eligible to vote on campus. We must allow them to do that by placing early voting sites on campus,” said Lamar.

If passed, polling sites would open for three days at Middle Tennessee State University, the University of Memphis and the University of Tennessee.

Democrats have tried similar legislation in the past, but those efforts failed to garner enough support. Republicans stalled the measure Wednesday over concerns about election security. The bill will get another hearing in two weeks.