From the beginning of the special session, Senate leadership said they were only planning to pass three bills in addition to the budget.

And that’s exactly what they did.

Despite two extra days in session, the many other bills passed by House Republicans and even a last-minute intervention from the governor, Senate Republicans stuck to their guns. After a days-long deadlock, they did come to a deal with the House to add more funding for mental health providers and school safety to the budget, a compromise that ultimately led to the end of the special session.

The bills now headed to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk mostly tweak existing laws and practices:

• House Bill 7012/Senate Bill 7085: this bill directs the Department of Safety to provide free firearm locks to Tennessee residents upon request and exempts the retail sale of firearm safes and firearm safety devices from sales taxes. The Department of Safety already had lock giveaway programs.
• House Bill 7041/Senate Bill 7088: this bill directs the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to submit an annual report on human trafficking to the governor and legislature. The TBI already collects data on human trafficking in Tennessee.
• House Bill 7013/Senate Bill 7086: this bill codifies Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order on background checks, which decreased the amount of time court clerks have to notify the TBI of the final results of criminal proceedings against a person from 30 days to 72 hours.

Throughout the special session, Republican lawmakers emphasized the importance of incremental change and said that it was the best they could do — despite holding supermajority in both the House and Senate.

“This is an attempt to do what we can do at this point in time,” said Rep. Mark White about the gun lock bill.

“Critics are going to be critics. Haters are going to be haters,” added Rep. Mike Sparks. “But you know what? We’re moving forward. This is a step in the right direction.”

But Democrats like Rep. Antonio Parkinson made it clear they don’t believe that’s good enough.

“This is more fluff to make it seem like we’re actually doing something. The counties already give away free gun locks,” he said.

Many of the bills put forward by House Republicans that were not taken up by the Senate during the special session — including ones on child autopsies and arming teachers — are likely to resurface during the regular session in January.