By Logan Langlois
NASHVILLE, TN — Civic TN accuses the Tennessee State Senate of evading meaningful discussion surrounding common sense gun reform as the state’s most recent special session continues. The non-partisan civic engagement coalition says that lawmakers are failing at fairly representing the priorities of Tennesseans by delaying steps contributing to long-standing legislative change. Civic TN Executive Director Matia Powell also said that the Senate has been actively attempting to stifle criticism against the bill from both common citizens and state representatives.
The special session was called following the devastating shooting at Covenant School which killed six people. A mass of protestors arrived at the start of the session, voicing their discontent with the Senate’s decisions, and calling for more drastic steps of gun reform. It wasn’t long until the session under the direction of House speaker Cameron Sexton, began to ban protests from the State Capitol where the session is being held, including parents of children who had been affected by the most recent school shooting.
“I think that the special session was a reaction to people from all across Tennessee, moms, parents, teachers, students, grandparents, people of all ages asking for something to be done about gun violence in this state,” said Powell.
She said that even though the special session was called to talk about the Covenant School shooting, the conversation around the session has been about anything but. Powell says the lack of conversation is especially frustrating considering how agreed most of the Tennessee public are on how they want gun reform.
“Most Tennesseans support some level of background checks, there are Tennessee that really want to see some solutions, and none of these things have been brought up in the special session,” Powell said.
She detailed that she believes that the lack of conversation is a direct example of the consolidation of power that’s been achieved by the current supermajority present in the House. She says that the consolidation of power also has allowed the Senate the freedom to choose not to listen to their constituents when it is threatening their agenda.
“When you see democracy not working is when you see a large group of your community wanting to see something happen and nothing happens,” Powell said.
She said that modes of power consolidation that lead to the kind of stalling seen now include the purposeful efforts of gerrymandering that have been successfully made by Tennessee conservative lawmakers. She said that this, along with Tennessee having some of the strictest voting laws in the United States, has created an environment that allows citizens to be ignored.
She also said that she still has hope regarding Tennessee being a fair state for all its citizens, provided power that affects the public is restored to the people. She said that one thing she’s hoping the public outcry will fight against is the massive apathy that the supermajority has instilled in much of the public. She said that this apathy has come largely from the belief that though many citizens want real change for the good of their city, it just was not possible.
Powell said that Civic TN will continue to mobilize voters to fight against the legislators responsible for the lack of meaningful gun reform legislation.
“It’s not lost,” said Powell. “People were down there regardless of what has happened in the past, how they’ve been ignored, they still were there trying their best to make their voices heard.”
