Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam desires more active second session

July 15, 2011

NASHVILLE, Tennessee: Governor Bill Haslam hopes to take a more active approach to dealing with legislation when the Tennessee General Assembly reconvenes next session. This is after struggling to catch up to a mountain of legislation that built up while he was attending to other things.

The governor stated that his priorities upon assuming office were crafting his Cabinet and creating his spending proposal. He stated, "For us, we’re trying to get people hired, we’re trying to get government rolling, and we’re trying to get a budget put together."

Haslam said that by the time he began dealing with the Legislature, it had already advanced many bills that the governor's office was not equipped to handle. He stated that he was surprised "at the volume of things you need to have an opinion on."

Issues that caused the most trouble were Republican proposals to eliminated collective bargaining rights of teachers, outlawing certain parts of Shariah law, the Islamic religious code, and canceling a deal made with Amazon.com which would exempt it from collecting sales taxes on products sold from its Tennessee warehouses."

Going forward, Haslam plans to engage early and take a stance on more issues. He has also called for Republicans to limit the number of bills introduced, in an attempt to reduce government size.

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