The Tennessee ConserVOLiance

To vote in August, Tennesseans must register by Tuesday, July 8
Residents can register in person at several locations, such as county clerk’s offices, public libraries, register of deeds offices, Dept. of Safety offices
Today is the last day for Tennessee voters to register for the Aug. 7 election.
Voter registration information is available online at www.state.tn.us/sos/election/.
Continue…. 
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“Providing information to the public is an essential function of a representative government and an integral part of the routine duties and responsibilities of public officers and employees;”
- The Tennessee Legislature

One of the accomplishments of the 2008 session of the Tennessee Legislative was an updating of the Tennessee Open Records Act. The amendments to the […]

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First a history lesson: In the last 100 years, there was only one two-year period, from 1969-1971, when the Tennessee House had a Republican Speaker. It happened in 1969, following the mandated 1-man,1-vote redistricting of the Tennessee Legislature (which reduced the disproportionate strength of the rural counties). After the turbulent 1968 elections, the defection of […]

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This is a tale of 54,041 high school diplomas. That’s the number of public high school diplomas awarded in Tennessee last year (2006-2007). There are 324 public high schools in Tennessee. The public high schools are operated by 119 public school systems. There are 137 public school systems in Tennessee, but only 119 of them […]

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The Tennessee Department of Education has recently defended its decision not to recognize homeschool diplomas with the assertion that because they were prohibited from having anything to do with the selection of a curriculum, teachers, or textbooks in the church-related schools which “umbrella” homeschoolers they had no way to tell what a homeschool diploma represented.
So, […]

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Since its favorable passage eight days ago by the House Education Committee, HB1652 (the bill to direct the Department of Education to resume recognizing homeschool and church-related school diplomas) has been languishing in the House Calendar & Rules Committee. This Committee is where all bills go when they receive committee approval. Calendar and Rules decides […]

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Longest blog post title ever…
The bill was HB 1652, and you can read the history of how we got here in an earlier post.
The terminology of legislative committees is QUITE confusing… apologies to all. Enacting legislation is messy… today was a little messier than most.
When the problem with the police officer and daycare worker […]

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Kay Brooks has a great post summarizing the story so far: Good enough for UT, Vandy, Harvard…
The Tennessee Department of Education seems intent on picking a fight with church-related schools in general and homeschoolers in particular. They’ve been “educating” other state agencies for some time now about the fact that so-called “Category IV Schools” in […]

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In 1998, the several states which comprise our grand experiment in representative democracy found themselves on the receiving end of a windfall!! After years of abuse and under threat of continued litigation financed from the state’s deep pockets, the tobacco industry made peace with its enemies.
It was an easy choice considering the alternative was […]

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Should the state be able to force private businesses allow public access to restrooms?
No Restrooms Available Unless the Government Makes Me
My take on why the Electoral College protects our vote:
The Electoral College Explained
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