State Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver, R-Lancaster, this week introduced a joint resolution reaffirming Tennessee’s Constitutional status as a sovereign state and the General Assembly’s authority as a separate and independent branch of state government.
Weaver’s resolution comes on the heels of the governor’s announcement in December declaring he would allow refugees to resettle in Tennessee. That decision follows an executive order by President Donald Trump to allow states and local governments to opt-in on whether they would resettle refugees.
When Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980, they authorized a 100 percent reimbursement to states for the cost of providing Medicaid for three full years.
However, shortly after the law passed Congress began decreasing its own appropriations for refugee assistance. Even though the number of refugees being resettled was not decreasing the authorized reimbursement to states was eliminated in 1991. The involuntary shifting of federal costs to the states has caused an institutional injury to the general assembly with regard to its constitutional duty to appropriate public money.
House Joint Resolution 741 reaffirms the constitutional duty and exclusive authority and power of the Tennessee General Assembly to appropriate taxpayer dollars and balance the state budget.
“Our constitution does not allow the federal government to force the Tennessee General Assembly to implement federal programs,” Weaver said. “This is an involuntary transfer of federal costs that creates a coerced expenditure of state dollars without approval of the General Assembly.”
Tennessee in 2017 became one of the first states in the nation to sue the federal government over refugee resettlement citing a violation of the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which reserves states’ rights.
“Our Founding Fathers understood the danger of allowing the federal government to amass broad powers. This joint resolution simply reaffirms our state’s rights guaranteed in our Constitution,” Weaver concluded.
For more information about HJR 741, please click here