Tennessee

State lawmakers adjourned for the year passing a drastically reduced state budget. Governor Phil Bredesen and lawmakers slashed proposed state spending and enacted a $27 billion [21] spending plan that is 1.2 percent less than the current budget. The appropriations bill authorizes raids on several reserve funds and offers over 2,000 employees voluntary buyout packages. Overall, the legislative season proved to be a mixed bag for Tennesseans. After several years of state coffers flush with cash, Governor Phil Bredesen and lawmakers faced a steep drop-off [22] in revenues this year, forcing priorities to be scaled back or even dropped, as well as sharp budget revisions.

Health Care:  The governor and elected officials in both parties herald passage of a bill expanding long-term care options for the elderly and disabled TennCare recipients, making it easier for them to get care at home rather than going into nursing homes.

• The Long Term Care Community Choices Act of 2008 (SB 4181 [23]) expands access to home and community-based services for Tennessee's elderly and disabled by restructuring the long-term care system and reallocating funding for less intensive and more affordable alternatives to nursing home care. 
• SB 1157 [24] establishes a pilot program for a “self-directed care program”? whereby individual patients would receive a monthly budget based on their need, and could use this money to hire personal assistant services, make home modifications, and other necessary expenses.  It would provide counseling and financial assistance to patients to help them plan and manage their responsibilities.
• Additionally, SB 4014 [25] allows small businesses of 2 to 50 employees to pool together for the purpose of negotiating better insurance rates, creating a small business cooperative. The bill is designed to encourage more small employers to purchase health insurance and to give them predictability and stability in health-insurance rates.

Education:

• With the enactment of SB0611 / HB0653 [26] Tennessee lawmakers broke a two-year impasse [27] over how to spend excess lottery revenues, approving changes to lottery-funded college scholarships which will make it easier for students to maintain their HOPE scholarships while expanding opportunities to thousands of others.
• SB 2008 [28] provides educational resources and opportunities to students by way of the Internet in a “virtual”? classroom setting, while maintaining these programs within the public school system. The legislation will help local schools tap into funds available through grants and donations to provide start-up money for a virtual education program.
• SB 4039 [29] uses a portion of the excess funds to set up an “Energy Efficient Schools Program”? aimed at helping schools save money on their energy bills. 

Democracy:

• SB 3459 [30], the Racial Profiling Prevention Act, strongly encourages all local law enforcement agencies to adopt written policies to prevent racial profiling by 2010. Law enforcement organizations will have over 18 months to help generate model policies.  The bill also provides assistance to individual law enforcement agencies.
• HB 1442 [31] prohibits members of state or county election commissions from serving as campaign manager or treasurer of any political campaign during their time on the commission. The bill originally prohibited commission members from playing any "leadership role" in a campaign and also prohibited commissioners from endorsing candidates, but was narrowed by an amendment in the House.
• SB 3839 [32] removed exemptions from jury duty in favor of a general “hardship exemption”? and reforms administration of local jury pools.
• HB 1256 [33] was a resounding victory for election integrity advocates.  The Voter Confidence Act will dramatically overhaul the state's voting system by requiring the use of optically scanned paper ballots, establishing post-election audits of election results and prohibiting the use of voting technology with wireless communication abilities. This legislation was drafted largely in response to a report [34] by the Tennessee Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations that outlined the dangers of unverified electronic voting and the tireless work of Gathering To Save Our Democracy [35], a grassroots election integrity group.
• After two years of avoiding taking a stand on open records and open meetings, the legislature passed [36]SB 3280 [37], a watered-down “open records”? law to make it easier for Tennesseans to get to public documents, including an expansion of the definition of "open records," establishing a schedule of reasonable charges to citizens for copies of public records, a requirement that open records requests must be fulfilled or denied within seven days, and a requirement that all denials must be accompanied by a description of the "basis for denial."
  

On the negative side, Tennessee passed HB 1421 [38], one of the least consumer friendly statewide video franchising [39] bills to date. The legislation allows providers to define and cherry-pick attractive areas of services, gives them 3 1/2 years to make service available to a measly 30% of the households in their franchise area, and has odd formulas that let franchise holders count certain households twice or even four times.  Additionally, the Tennessee's bill takes away municipal power and puts residents' access to Public, Education, and Government stations at risk.

Other positive environmental and ethic reforms [22], along with a measure that would have increased broadband and cable build-out in the state, were defeated. Although environmental issues were in the forefront of this year’s General Assembly, most initiatives, ranging from Governor Phil Bredesen's administration's efforts to regulate rock mining and environmentalists’ attempts to ban mountain-top coal mining, were unsuccessful.  Budget shortfalls forced the scrapping of a major water planning bill and proposed new land acquisitions.  Additionally, the cable industry’s lobbying blitz [40] succeeded in killing efforts by Chattanooga’s public power provider, EPB, to expand its ability to offer cable and broadband outside its service area.  On the positive side, a nasty bill aimed at stopping same sex couples from adopting was defeated.

Special Sessions: NV, WV KY, and WI

Nevada, West Virginia, Kentucky and Wisconsin recently wrapped up special sessions to address budget shortfalls. 

Nevada: Governor Jim Gibbons called the Legislature into a rare special session [41] to address the state's budget woes.  A housing crisis and slowing tourism industry have left the state facing a $1.2 billion shortfall in the current two-year budget cycle [42].  Lawmakers and the governor already have slashed operating budgets, delayed building projects and drawn down the rainy day fund to make up for $914 million of the gap.  Under legislation approved during the special session, the remainder budget deficit will be closed by an additional 3.3 percent cut - $106 million - in reductions to agencies' operating budgets.  While legislators approved a mixture of budget cuts, including $48 million from textbooks and instructional supplies for K-12 education [43], they were able to avoid deferring a four percent cost-of-living raises that teachers and state workers were promised effective July 1. Governor Jim Gibbons has until July 9 to act upon legislation that reaches his desk.

West Virginia: The West Virginia Legislature held two special sessions this year, finally adjourning on June 28.  In the second special session, lawmakers breezed through Governor Joe Manchin’s laundry list agenda. The Governor has until July 19 to act upon legislation that reaches his desk.

• HB 218 [44] puts a freeze on the variable rate component of the gasoline tax for the 2009 calendar year.
• HB 210 [45] appropriated $25 million to deal with the transfer election of pensions from the Teachers’ Defined Contribution system to the Teachers Retirement System.
• HB 216 [46] allows certain state employees, hired before July 1, 2001, who have accrued at least 65 sick days to trade their sick days [47] for cash in an effort to ease debt from members of the Public Employees Insurance Agency.  Eligible employees must keep at least 50 days in their accrual accounts. Those meeting the requirements will get paid 25 percent of their daily compensation for each traded-in sick day.
• HB 219 [48] limits the influence of corporations on elections by requiring special interest groups to disclose their funding [49] sources when running advertisements for or against political candidates.

Other appropriations, including $5 million to upgrade the state’s ancient computer system [50], were passed without much fanfare. 

Kentucky:  In a special session, the Kentucky General Assembly passed a measure altering the state's chronically underfunded pension system [51] ”” though not without recognizing that financial problems still loom.  The pension legislation raises the age of retirement [52] and service requirements for state workers hired after September 1 and limits the annual cost of living increase to one-and-one-half percent.  Additionally, the legislation directs future General Assemblies to adhere to a funding schedule to increase the state's payments into the Kentucky Retirement Systems by about $52 million each year.  Thankfully, the legislature did not approve controversial proposals [51] to undermine existing defined benefit pensions for state employees in favor of "defined contribution" programs, although a working group appointed by Governor Beshear will be studying that and other proposals related to retiree benefits.

Wisconsin:  With gubernatorial veto-power slightly curtailed by voters in an April 1 election, Governor Doyle artfully crafted three revisions to the budget repair bill [53] passed by the legislature - which the legislature did not [54] override.  He increased spending cuts from $69 million to $270 million, in part by tapping into the state transportation fund, to the consternation of some legislators.  Doyle also: refused to go along with a delay in a $125 million payment to public schools; increased the emergency fund from $25 million to $100 million; left alone $20 million to implement the Real ID Act; approved $18.6 million more for child care subsidies; and, struck down a property tax exemption for low-income housing amid legal disagreements with lawmakers over how to implement exemptions.  Calling it "not perfect but needed", State Sen. Jon Erpenbach brought attention to a bright spot [55] in the budget repair bill - a provision to end [56] a corporate tax loophole by requiring "combined reporting [57]."  This sensible reform [58] requires multi-state corporations to list profit reports for all subsidiary companies together on state tax forms to prevent companies from hiding profits through phony transactions among different corporate entitites.

During the special session, lawmakers also made [59] Wisconsin the 5th state to ratify the Great Lakes Compact.  The Compact protects the Great Lakes from future water diversions and authorizes Great Lakes governors to manage water diversions.  According to Governor Doyle, the Great Lakes generate $55 billion in tourism and $377 million in personal income for Wisconsin and the greater Midwest.  Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have yet to sign the Compact, while the other Great Lakes state and provinces have signed it.