This week, Tennessee's House and Senate agreed that Memphis, alone among cities in the state, should not be able to require rookie cops and firefighters to live within the county. While some Memphis officials had been pushing to end the residency requirement in the city charter, local voters no longer have a say in the matter.
Political analyst Otis Sanford says Republicans have more brazenly been writing Memphis-specific legislation, from school vouchers to a rejection of ranked choice voting, to forcing Memphis-Shelby County schools to rent underused school buildings to private charter schools at deep discounts.
Also this week, some on the Memphis City Council want voters to reconsider term limits for councilmembers and the mayor.
In national politics, Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty have been criticizing the Biden administration's Ukraine strategy. But both are also supporters of Donald Trump, who has praised Putin's aggressive leadership. Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives for withholding military funding for Ukraine until that country agreed to manufacture a political scandal involving Hunter Biden. Sen. Blackburn continues to press for investigations into the president's son as the GOP debates whether Russia is America's friendor foe in this war.
