Tennessee voting rights regulation: Governor indications monthly bill penalizing some protesters with felony and loss of voting rights
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Lee’s signing of the monthly bill comes just a person week right after the GOP-managed Standard Assembly first handed the legislation. At the time, Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the Senate Randy McNally, a Republican, touted the invoice as a preventative measure in opposition to the forming of autonomous zones like the kinds in other key towns.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican House Vast majority Chief William Lamberth, reported at the same information meeting that the bill was to crack down on “prison elements” and safeguard legislation enforcement officers.
“And then specially on the criminal justice reform monthly bill that cracks down on prison things out there that are sad to say are making it quite hard for individuals to even go to this capitol,” Lamberth explained.
“Whenever a regulation enforcement officer is assaulted I would concur that actually is an assault on the point out of Tennessee and all of our persons, due to the fact that officer is definitely out there to guard and serve us. From whenever these costs are signed by the governor or go into law … each officer can be particular they will be safeguarded additional than they are right now,” Lamberth mentioned.
The Tennessee chapter of the ACLU denounced Lee’s signing of the bill as a “chill on free of charge speech.”
“Although the governor frequently speaks about sentencing reform, this bill contradicts people words and phrases and wastes useful taxpayer resources to severely criminalize dissent,” Hedy Weinberg, government director of ACLU of Tennessee, said in a assertion to CNN.
“This regulation also robs men and women of their suitable to vote if they are convicted of these new felony fees. We will be intently checking enforcement of this legislation and are urging Tennesseans to get out and vote like their legal rights depend on it,” Weinberg claimed.