Government

Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Haslam is proposing a greater reduction in the states' sales tax on groceries as part of his final amendment to his annual spending plan.  Haslam says  he’s included an additional $3.3 million dollars in the budget proposal to drop the state sales tax on groceries from 5.5 percent to 5.25 percent.

As primary campaigns in Kentucky warm up, the highest-profile one is turning into a responsibility blame game.

State Representative Alecia Webb-Edgington is six Republicans vying to replace outgoing Fourth Congressional District Congressman Geoff Davis.

And one of her opponents, Boone County Judge-Executive Gary Moore, is criticizing Webb-Edgington for missing crucial votes on the state budget last week.

Confusion and last-minute lobbying have potentially derailed what some Kentucky lawmakers considered the hallmark of the current legislative session.

House Bill 4 is better known as the prescription pill bill. It's centerpiece is the transfer of the KASPER drug tracking system to the attorney general’s office.

Late last week, it appeared lawmakers had struck a last-minute deal to pass the bill before this week's recess. But confusion about which amended version of HB4 was up for a vote mired them in procedural minutiae.

When the top three Republicans in the Tennessee statehouse coalesced behind a plan to cement the state's current selection process for Supreme Court justices into the state constitution, there seemed to be a smooth path ahead for getting the measure before voters in 2014.  Two months later, their proposal has made little progress as some Republican lawmakers have embraced a rival proposal, while others want to allow contested elections to take place.  A proposal is advancing in the Legislature to impose a federal-style system of having the governor make nominations to the high court's bench

A measure that would prohibit Tennessee students from dressing indecently in school is scheduled to be heard on the floor of the House and Senate this evening.  The bill seeks to prohibit students from exposing "underwear or body parts in an indecent manner that disrupts the learning environment."  A stricter version of the proposal failed to pass the Legislature three years ago.