Tennessee
Final voucher, immigration votes set for Thursday: Takeaways from Tennessee’s special session
Demonstrators removed from Tennessee House committee
Immigration Committee Chair Rep. Chris Todd, R- Madison County, asked the Tennessee Highway Patrol to remove three people from a hearing.
Senate Republicans on Wednesday passed an immigration enforcement bill that establishes a central immigration enforcement office and adopted new driver’s licenses differentiating legal resident immigrants from U.S. citizens.
Gov. Bill Lee and GOP leadership have said the measures are necessary to help President Donald Trump enforce his immigration policies. The Trump administration, however, has not explicitly directed states to take up any new policies at this time.
The bill also criminalizes local officials, such as county commission or city council members, who vote for any policy considered a “sanctuary” measure. Tennessee already bans sanctuary policies, which generally limit how much local or state governments are willing to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
The criminalization clause is an unprecedented step by the Republican legislative supermajority to control the actions of local officials.
Senate Judiciary Chair Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, was the lone Republican to vote against the measure. Gardenhire joined Democrats in warning against setting a “dangerous precedent.”
General Assembly staff attorneys also cautioned lawmakers this week the bill could likely run afoul of the U.S. Constitution, given constitutional protections for elected officials speaking or taking action as a part of their legislative duties.
“The reason that is a constitutional protection is to ensure that people are voting because they think it is the right thing to do,” said Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville. “To vote not based on pressure, not based on threats, but because they have some independence and integrity. We are literally threatening (elected officials) with criminal prosecution. This has been part of the common law since before we were a country.”
In recent years, Republican lawmakers have frequently passed legislation that conflicts with federal law, such as the abortion “trigger” law Tennessee passed that could not be enforced until constitutional protections were overturned. They now want to ban local officials from passing local policies that conflict with state law, even if the policies are unenforceable.
“The state legislature is the center of the universe, so there you go,” said bill co-sponsor Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, in an apparent tongue-in-cheek comment when asked why it was appropriate to criminalize local officials if state lawmakers regularly pass legislation that conflicts with federal laws.
Watson declined to answer questions about future implications of criminalizing local officials, or if he would find it appropriate for a Democratic-controlled legislature to criminalize local votes on issues like abortion.
Watson said the bill is “consistent with what the American people voted for,” continually touting Trump’s immigration policies as a mandate for state lawmakers.
“The feds can’t do it without the states helping them,” Watson said. “We’ve made it clear across Tennessee for the past several years that sanctuary city and sanctuary policies are illegal. This is all consistent with that. There’s no hypocrisy at all.”
The immigration enforcement vote came on the second day of the special legislative session. A final immigration vote in the House is set for Thursday, along with House and Senate votes on school vouchers.
Here’s what else you need to know about legislative business Wednesday:
Bills rammed through at breakneck speed
Bills typically take two to four weeks to advance through the legislature’s robust committee system. But not so this week.
All seven bills filed for the special session – totaling nearly $1 billion in spending – passed through 17 committee hearings in a span of less than 24 hours on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Republican committee members largely sat quiet during committee hearings: the bulk of questions came from Democrats, whom House committee chairs strictly time limited.
Despite the abbreviated committee hearings, Republican senators rejected multiple amendments offered by Democrats on the Senate floor at the behest of Watson, who argued they were already rejected in committee and should not be considered.
“Someone said earlier today that this bill has been rushed,” Watson said of the immigration enforcement measure before a final floor vote on Wednesday. “It has been through five committees. It has been debated. It has been vetted.”
Final voucher votes set for Thursday
Lee’s $447 million statewide school choice proposal passed a final committee on Wednesday morning, drawing bipartisan opposition. The bill passed the Senate Finance Committee in a 8 to 3 vote with Republican Sen. Page Walley, R-Savannah, opposing.
Final votes on the bill are scheduled in both the House and Senate chambers on Thursday morning.
Yarbro warned the scholarship program could become a “long term entitlement,” if demand rises over the years. There are currently about 74,000 students enrolled in eligible private schools statewide, and the program provide scholarships to 20,000 students. With legislative approval, the program can grow by 5,000 seats per year ― and could balloon to $550 million or more to the state per year if expanded to include every eligible private school seat.
Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, dismissed Yarbro’s concerns as “scare tactics” about how the program could “bust the budget in future years” noting that any growth to the program requires legislative approval.
Only 51 of Tennessee’s 95 counties have an eligible private school, but Republican leaders have said that the program could spark new private institutions in the future.
Private school scholarships not ‘for disadvantaged families’
Republican leaders have consistently pitched a statewide school choice program as an opportunity to empower families without financial means to get their children out of failing schools.
Since the campaign trail in 2018, Lee has shared how helping a boy he mentored enroll in a charter school changed his view of education.
“I witnessed the educational disparities across different incomes and ZIP codes, and I knew there were thousands of children like Adam who deserved better,” Lee wrote in a recent opinion column in The Tennessean. “Every child has a different life situation. So shouldn’t every family – not just the wealthy – have the freedom to choose the right education for their child?”
But for 10,000 scholarships set aside in Lee’s bill for low income recipients, the income cap is $170,000 for a family of four. Another 10,000 have no income limit. Tennessee’s median household income was $85,900 in 2024.
During debate on Wednesday, Johnson sought to reframe the pitch.
“I never once said this was a program designed for disadvantaged families, and I’ve never heard the governor say that,” Johnson responded. “This legislation has been marketed as a parental empowerment tool.”
Johnson said some have criticized the proposal, arguing that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison could theoretically apply for a scholarship. Johnson decried the notion as “ridiculous,” but did not deny that the program would be open to billionaires.
“We’re not going to penalize people who have been successful,” Johnson said. “We’re not going to penalize people who work hard and might do a little better than someone else. We want these to be universal.”
Protesters carried out of immigration enforcement committee
Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers were called into the House Immigration Committee Wednesday morning after Chair Chris Todd, R-Madison County, said a group in the audience was being disruptive.
A small group of protesters sat at the front of the committee room during debate over the immigration enforcement bill, holding signs and occassionally snapping to indicate their support of something said.
Todd had previously admonished the audience for attempting to “participate” in the committee hearing, though the group was relatively low key in comparison to previous committee hearings. But after another comment was made from the crowd, Todd shut down the meeting and ordered their removal.
The women criticized the ejection as arbitrary after another spectator, Alison Beale, admitted to making the remark and offered to leave. The group refused to leave their seats, arguing they’d done nothing wrong, so a group of troopers physically lifted and carried the three women out of the committee room.
They were not arrested or charged.
Tennessee director of track and field Duane Ross gauged the hunger of the men’s 4×100-meter relay team to pull off the upset.
“They said, ‘Coach, we’re going to win,’ ” Ross said. “When they bring you that much confidence, you can grab your popcorn and enjoy the meet.”
No popcorn was consumed, but the appetite was there from the start.
Traunard Folson, Davonte Howell, T’Mars McCallum and Elijah Clark finished in a school record time of 37.98 seconds at the NCAA Outdoor Championships on June 12 in Eugene, Oregon. It was the the program’s first national title in the 4×100 since 1983 and the fourth-fastest in NCAA history.
Four other relay teams never crossed the line. Auburn, the two-time defending champion, had run an NCAA-record 37.75 in the semifinal, but had a botched handoff on the last exchange. Arkansas, the reigning SEC champion, also dropped its baton, along with Oregon and Houston.
McCallum said staying clean through a race of chaos starts with a focus on winning, even in practice.
“In the moment we can’t really worry about anything else, just what we can control,” McCallum said on June 18. “We came to practice every time with the idea of, ‘OK, we’ve got to make sure this is fixed, because we know if we run that time, we can win.’ “
It was the final event of McCallum’s college career. It didn’t fully hit until the long flight home to Knoxville.
“I was like, we really did it,” he said. “Now we have a school record, the first team to ever go under 38 seconds here.”
Whether belief had anything to do with what went wrong in those four other lanes isn’t something Tennessee’s runners can answer. It’s exactly what they point to for why theirs didn’t.
Clark, a freshman who ran the anchor leg, said winning was just a matter of starting the race.
“We knew we had it the whole time,” he said. “No matter who did what, what happened, we knew what the outcome would come to.”
Ross said the victory wasn’t a surprise inside the program either.
“I wouldn’t say unsung,” Ross said. “I’ve watched this team all year long, and we were expecting to come out of there with the championship. It was a tight competition down to the last event.”
Tennessee finished third in the men’s team standings with 46 points, its best total since 2002.
Howell, a junior who ran the second leg, said the belief behind the relay team’s confidence was built long before the race.
“Three of the four of us already ran under 10 seconds,” he said. “Last year we all trained together during the summer, all lived together. We already had the bond, and adding the freshman on anchor was just a cherry on top. He figured it out at SECs, ran a 10.1, season’s best, and we trusted him to bring it home.”
Clark said the title is already part of something bigger to him.
“The goal is to always make history,” said Clark, who was hired by Tennessee four years ago after a successful run at North Carolina A&T. “It’s been one of my dreams. To be able to be on the wall, especially at a school like this, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
With OTAs and minicamp now behind us, all we have before the preseason gets underway is training camp. The Titans will enjoy the next month off before getting started with camp in late July.
This time of year is always fun because you get to see a few players come out of nowhere and work their way into the roster discussion. You also get to see if the young players have made progress, and we get a good idea of what the depth chart is looking like. Today, let’s go over eight players who were winners at camp and four who didn’t have the best showings.
Winner: Cam Ward | QB
Cam Ward has to be considered a winner. The quarterback faced a ton of criticism for his performance at OTAs, and if he had gone out and had a bad showing at minicamp, you can just imagine what the talking points would be.
Luckily, Ward looked much more relaxed and efficient during minicamp. On Tuesday, Ward made a few very nice throws, including a sidearm touchdown pass to Gunnar Helm that I’m sure everybody has seen by now. On Wednesday, Ward showed off his chemistry with Wan’Dale Robinson and Chimere Dike, in particular, as both guys caught several passes.
I think we saw what we needed to see from Ward this offseason. He’s a young passer learning a new offense, it’s not crazy to think there are some kinks to work out.
Winner: Tyjae Spears | RB
It seems like many forgot about Spears this offseason. After the talk of Jeremiyah Love around the draft and Nicholas Singleton being added, it seems like not many were expecting big things out of Spears.
However, Spears has done nothing but impress this summer. The Tulane product looks as explosive as ever and had a couple of really nice runs. Spears also caught some passes and mentioned that he actually wants to get even better as a pass-catcher. Spears did well enough this summer that Robert Saleh already said Spears and Pollard will be the bellcows. That has to be a win.
Winner: Xavier Restrepo | WR
Xavier Restrepo was the most productive wide receiver on the team this offseason. The receiver had more catches than any other pass-catcher and legitimately looked like an NFL-caliber player. Restrepo also had probably the most impressive catch of the summer on Wednesday. That’s really saying something, too, considering this receiver room is incredibly deep.
I still think Restrepo still has an uphill battle to make the final roster, but it would have been very difficult to have a better couple of months than Restrepo has had.
Winner: Chimere Dike | WR
Someone who definitely WILL make the roster is fellow receiver, Chimere Dike. Dike was a Pro Bowler and All-Pro as a rookie thanks to his special teams prowess, but he showed off his talent as a wide receiver too this summer.
Dike caught a ton of passes during minicamp and finished behind only Restrepo in total catches this offseason. He offered plenty of value already as a returner, so if he can give more on offense as well, watch out.
Winner: Austin Schlottmann | C
Austin Schlottmann was signed this offseason, and at the time, the deal didn’t exactly make a ton of headlines. It was expected that Schlottmann would be battling for the starting center job with several other players, but it already seems clear that the veteran is the leader for the job.
Schlottmann was made available to the media, which usually is a good sign that the player is in the team’s plans. Teammates and coaches have praised Schlottmann’s leadership and familiarity with Brian Daboll’s offensive system. Schlottmann looks primed to step into the largest role of his career in a system he’s familiar with.
Winner: Pass Rushers
There are several defenders on the line who deserve praise. This defensive front made life hard for the offensive line, especially on Wednesday. Truman Jones, Earnest Brown, Jacob Martin, and Jermaine Johnson II were all credited with would-be sacks on Wednesday.
This is another group that didn’t seem to have the best depth, but looks much better now. The line was able to dominate even without Jeffery Simmons and Femi Oladejo, too, which is more impressive.
Winner: Alontae Taylor | CB
Alontae Taylor was a big-ticket addition for the Titans and is expected to play a crucial role in 2026. Taylor missed some time at OTAs, but if there were any worries about that, those should be put to rest now.
At minicamp, Taylor showed why the Titans valued him so highly. The veteran is talkative and always seemed to be around the ball. The defender almost came down with an interception on Tuesday on a nice play and then had another nice pass breakup on Wednesday. Jim Wyatt noted that Titans fans will love Taylor’s “scrappy play and feistiness.”
Winner: Keydrain Calligan | CB
Keydrain Calligan isn’t a name that was on many radars a month ago. That’s changed now, as the depth corner took full advantage of his opportunities at OTAs and minicamp. Calligan came down with an interception and had several pass breakups over the last few weeks.
I was worried about the corner depth, and I’m still not thrilled with it, but Calligan has made me feel better. The former undrafted free agent also has some versatility and can play safety as well. Perhaps nobody more helped their chance to make the roster than Calligan.
Loser: Hendon Hooker and Will Levis | QB
I didn’t want to just pick on Will Levis, as Hendon Hooker was also underwhelming. Both passers had a perfect chance to impress, considering Mitchell Trubisky missed the first part of OTAs, and neither were able to do so.
There was probably no scenario where Levis or Hooker earned the QB2 spot, but with a good offseason program, they could’ve forced the Titans to keep a third quarterback. Instead, the young passers were either bad or mediocre for the majority of the offseason. I don’t see a scenario where either quarterback is on the final roster.
Loser: Kalel Mullings | RB
As I mentioned above, Saleh has already appointed Pollard and Spears as the team’s top running backs. Rookie Nic Singleton should also factor in as well, but there’s likely going to be four running backs on the roster. This meant that Mullings seemingly entered the offseason with a great shot to stick.
Unfortunately, Mullings didn’t take advantage of his opportunities. Michael Carter, who is also competing for a spot, made more plays, and Julius Chestnut probably has the edge due to his special teams prowess. Mullings still has time, but it would have been nice to have seen him do more this summer.
Loser: Femi Oladejo | EDGE
It feels bad to put Oladejo here because injuries are unavoidable. However, it’s objectively disappointing that Oladejo wasn’t able to do much this offseason. The young pass-rusher missed minicamp with an unspecified injury, missing out on valuable offseason reps.
Oladejo has a shot to fill an important rotational role this year. After losing most of his rookie season, it would have been nice for him to get some hype going this summer. Instead, we’ll head to training camp still not knowing what to expect from Oladejo.
Latrell McCutchin Sr. | CB
I was very high on McCutchin when the Titans signed him right after the draft. McCutchin has good size for the boundary and had a ton of pass breakups in college. With the lack of depth the Titans have at corner, I thought McCutchin had a great shot to make the team.
Instead, McCutchin has been overshadowed by Keydrain Calligan and Micah Robinson. I had McCutchin making the roster over those two originally, but if the season started tomorrow, I’d have the rookie behind both. McCutchin needs a strong camp and preseason to avoid landing on the practice squad.
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Tennessee
Tennessee Titans’ Star Jeffrey Simmons Addressed Health and Contract Concerns on Wednesday
The Tennessee Titans wrapped up minicamp on Wednesday and will now head for a summer break. Before heading out, several players spoke with the media. Jeffery Simmons was one of those, and the veteran revealed he’d been managing an elbow issue for years before deciding to address it this offseason.
“That’s the reason why I’ve been wearing a brace, you know? Probably, what, two and a half years to where I wasn’t even able to straighten out my right arm,” Simmons said.
“So to just be able to get that cleaned up… I feel good. I don’t think it’s gonna be a big difference from last year because, like I said, it’s already years in the past… I mean, I played with the brace, and [I might] play with the brace this year, who knows? But at the same time… I feel great. My body feels good, I’ll be ready to go. I’m gonna get back to training camp and hopefully this year continue to keep getting better as a player.”
Let that sink in. Simmons just put together the best season of his career while unable to fully straighten his right arm. That’s absurd.
Big Jeff Speaks: Dollars and Cents
Simmons also made it abundantly clear he’s not interested in any noise on the contract front.
“I think the biggest thing is, since I got to Tennessee, this organization has been nothing but good to me. We’ve been on the same page since I got here. So when it comes down to the contract, I [let] everything play out,” Simmons said.
“Since I got here, I don’t think we [missed] a [beat] in the front office. Me and Ms. Amy, everyone been on the same page. And whenever [it’s] time to talk contract… I know my agent… they’re going to work together to make sure it’s done the right way.
That’s a veteran who knows exactly where he stands — and trusts the people around him to handle the business side.
“One thing when it come down to that contract, we know how messy it could get. And that’s not what I’m looking for, especially going on year eight… This organization been nothing but good to me. So I’m not so focused on the contract right now. Like I said, my goal this offseason is, let me go work my tail off and get ready for training camp.”
The Scariest Part for the Rest of the AFC
Here’s where it gets fun. It’s going to be fascinating to watch how defensive guru and new Titans’ head coach Robert Saleh chooses to deploy Simmons — especially alongside his new running mate, John Franklin-Myers, who signed a three-year, $63 million deal in the spring.
Simmons is legitimately one of the best defenders this organization has ever had. In 2025, he racked up a career-high 11 sacks, three forced fumbles, and 67 tackles. He’s an absolute monster. For his career, he’s now at 42.5 sacks and eight forced fumbles.
Pairing a player at the peak of his powers with a legit interior running mate, under a head coach whose entire reputation is defensive violence? It’s not a stretch of the imagination to now call Jeffery Simmons arguably the best defender in the AFC. And if he played all of last season with one good arm? Look out.
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