Lawmakers are coming back to Nashville for another special legislative session. Last week, they passed a nearly $900 million incentive package for Ford Motor Company. This week, they’ll be talking COVID.
WPLN political reporter Blaise Gainey spoke with afternoon host Marianna Bacallao about what to expect.
Listen to their conversation above, and read takeaways below.
What, if anything, can lawmakers do to change school and workplace rules at the state level?
A lot of Republican lawmakers have wanted to discuss COVID measures in schools since the start of the academic year. And now there’s a vaccine mandate for federal workers, and OSHA is pushing back against workplaces that have lax COVID precautions.
During the Ford special session, Republican legislators in the House filed a bill that resembles the gist of their plans. That bill would’ve made unemployment available to employees laid off due to their refusal to vaccinate. Similar language is expected to show up this week, as well as an attempt to prevent mandated masking in schools.
More: Tennesseans fired for not getting vaccinated can receive unemployment, though some are left in limbo
What has Gov. Bill Lee said about the session?
The whole reason this special session is happening now is because Gov. Lee would not call one back when students were returning to the classroom. He did issue an executive order letting families opt out of school mask mandates, but that’s seen its own obstacles in court.
He has stayed out of it as much as possible. When asked, he says he will continue to fight in court for parents’ rights to allow their children to not wear masks.
What can lawmakers realistically accomplish this late in the game?
The fall semester is already more than halfway done; most schools already settled into COVID precautions. And some Republicans are resisting this whole legislative session.
It’s hard to say what impact this will have. Some counties, including Knox, Shelby and Williamson, are under a federal order to enforce a mask mandate. State law doesn’t supersede federal law. But it’s ultimately up to the districts as to which law they will follow.
How might the court case involving unemployment benefits for the unvaccinated affect what lawmakers do?
WPLN News recently reported that employees who get fired for refusing a vaccine mandate already qualify for unemployment. But there is a case before a judge this week, brought by employees who weren’t fired. They were placed on indefinite, unpaid leave, where they’re not getting a paycheck and they’re not getting unemployment.
What we do know is that lawmakers want to make a way for those vaccine-hesitant employees to return to work or quit and be eligible for unemployment. The worry is how to do that without creating a loophole where anyone can quit and gain unemployment benefits.
The true goal is to force employers to not mandate the vaccine — so that people who don’t have it are not forced to take it to stay in their field.
More: Vanderbilt sees surge of employee vaccinations ahead of deadline
For Blaise, how different is the Tennessee statehouse from covering the Florida legislature?
WPLN’s political reporter recently came to Nashville from Tallahassee, where he reported from the Capitol there for five years. Last week was his first time covering the Tennessee statehouse.
More: Five Questions For WPLN’s New Political Reporter Blaise Gainey
“The biggest takeaway so far has been the lengthy walk from Cordell Hull to the State Capitol,” Gainey says. “Other than that, the actual capitol building itself, the high ceilings and large columns, it’s beautiful.”
As for the legislature itself, Gainey says, things seem to move quickly here. A lot passes without a lot of debate, which could be because Republicans have such a supermajority here.
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