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TOP PHOTO: State Senator Ken Yager gave a legislative update at the Campbell County Rotary Club Luncheon on Tuesday.
By Charlotte Underwood
LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF)- State Senator Ken Yager gave a legislative update at Tuesday’s Rotary Club luncheon held at the LaFollette Methodist Church. Yager spoke about what has happened in the legislature so far and also touched on the upcoming special called session that Tennessee Governor Bill has called to convene on Monday, January 27.
According to Yager, the governor has called the special session regarding his Education Freedom Act, as well as to introduce a disaster relief legislative package addressing recovery needs for the distressed East Tennessee counties that suffered flood damage from Hurricane Helene. Also slated for the governor’s special session will be legislation regarding illegal immigration.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Rotarian Brandon Johnson introduced the Senator, thanking him for all he has done for Campbell County.
“He does great things in Nashville, and he is constantly fighting for all the counties in his district,” Johnson said.
Before launching into his legislative update, Yager thanked State Representative Dennis Powers, who was also in attendance, for being his long-time friend and colleague.
“I just couldn’t have a better representative. As a senator it’s always good to know you have representatives you know you can count on. For example, if you carry a bill, Dennis and I go to each other to help carry one another’s bills in the General Assembly. He does an outstanding job, he is always there hard at work,” Yager said.
Yager spoke about the state legislature and what has been done so far this year.
The 114th General Assembly convened in an “organizational meeting” on January 14th in its new session, which is a two-year session.”
“The General Assembly always has an organizational week. We elected a speaker for the two-year term, Senator Randy McNally from Anderson County was elected again, and he made several appointments, not the least of which was the committee appointments,” Yager said.
Yager said he was “pleased” to once again be on the “two major committees of the Senate,” the Finance, Ways and Means Committee, as well as the Commerce, Insurance and Banking Committee.
“The Finance, Ways and Means committee makes recommendations on the budget each year; any spending comes under our lens,” Yager said.
The Commerce, Insurance and Banking Committee, anything to do with business, corporations, partnerships, sole proprietorships, mom and pop and anything to do with business regulations comes to this committee, as well as the banking industry, that is also in our jurisdiction,” Yager said, adding that Tennessee had a “very strong and sound banking industry.”
“The committee also deals with anything to do with insurance…Next to alcohol, insurance is one of the most regulated industries in the state and that comes to my committee … A lot of folks put mandates on insurance to do certain things, and that drives up rates, that is a busy busy committee, but I’m pleased he has put me on those committees.” Yager said.
Next Yager spoke about the governor’s special called session where the legislature will meet next Monday at 4 pm.
Yager said the governor has called the special session regarding his Education Freedom Act (related story HERE), as well as to introduce a disaster relief legislative package addressing recovery needs for the distressed East Tennessee counties that suffered flood damage from Hurricane Helene. Also slated for the governor’s special session will be legislation regarding illegal immigration in line with President Trump’s new policy measures.
“He has called this legislature session to consider approval to appropriate in excess of $400 million dollars towards the relief for the at-risk counties in East Tennessee that were devastated by the floods of Hurricane Helene and to give other tax relief to people in that devastated area,” Yager said.
Yager visited those areas about three weeks after the flood and said he had “never seen such devastation” in his life.
“Those counties have experienced a 1,000-year flood and they were at risk distressed counties to begin with,” Yager said. Another thing the governor is doing with this special session according to Yager is appropriating $20 million to rebuild a high school that was totally ruined by the flood.
Yager said he wanted to thank local Pastor Michael Dent for all he and the LaFollette Church of God had done to provide flood relief to those areas and also for taking Yager to visit the counties on one of his supply runs.
“I have never seen such public spirit,” Yager said.
“Another item on the governor’s special session is to look at the Freedom Scholarships, also known as school vouchers. He wants us to consider that. I think that will draw a lot of attention. It is very controversial,” Yager said.
“I’ve gotten a lot of mail on that both ways coming into this. It is a huge issue. In times past, I have voted no because I had concerns about the language of the bill and how it would affect local school revenues, but the governor has fixed that and I am grateful that he has done that,” Yager said.
“The principal is that dollars follow students, if they lose a student to another county, in times past under a former law, that money would follow that student to the other school. But that’s not going to happen in this case; if someone gets one of these scholarships and they go to a private school, the money the school system was receiving, they will continue to receive it indefinitely. I’m really happy that the governor has fixed that because that was my biggest concern about the bill was the fact that schools were going to lose money…Now that money will stay with the school. That basic level one contribution will not change,” Yager said.
He said he was not yet ready to make a public commitment on how he would vote on that bill and that he wanted to wait till the bill gets through the education committee to see what the committee does.
“Any bill in the legislature, any changes made will be made in the committee,” Yager said.
He said the governor had also asked legislatures to take up some bills “they had not seen” about dealing with illegal immigrants.
“I think he is piggy backing on some of the things that President Trump is recommending,” Yager said, adding that “illegal immigrants is one of the most serious problems the state faces.”
“Illegal immigrants are bringing drugs like Fentanyl into our country. It is being made in China, sent to Mexico and being brought into our country and our state,” Yager said, adding that he had a “couple bills” of his own on immigration for this year, “that will help with communication between local law enforcement and Homeland Security.”
He said he did not know how long the special session meetings could last, maybe a week and that after that, the focus of the General Session would be on the budget. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-01/22/2025-6AM)