During Tennessee General Assembly’s recent spring 2026 session, important issues were deliberated that relate to the lives of Nashville students. Proposed legislation addressed hot-button topics including gun safety, school vouchers, and teen sexual assault.
The workings of state and local governments can sometimes feel invisible or insignificant to young people. With that in mind, we at the SUNN aim to lay bare some of the issues at stake in our state government –– education and student safety –– and the measures proposed to address them. In summarizing new bills, we aim not to make judgments, but to reveal how elected officials across the aisle are grappling with important topics that can shape the lives of the rising generation.
Below are three consequential bills that were recently proposed, discussed or passed in our state legislature. If enacted now or in the future, these measures would bring meaningful change to the lives of young Tennesseans.
Reducing gun violence
The Protect Kids Not Guns Act, introduced by Democrat Justin Jones in January 2025, stalled out in the Tennessee legislature with no Republican support. After recent behind-the-scenes deliberations it did not advance to committee, but could be reintroduced next session.
Jones’ bill has been written to convey a strong message on gun law reform with measures that would limit unsafe storage of guns by non-authorized gun owners and the owning of “large-capacity” ammunition, alongside new restrictions on storing guns in cars.
The bill would also create a new kind of petition, an Extreme Risk Protection Order, which would identify people who pose a risk of harming themselves or others with firearms. The bill would allow these “at risk” individuals to be subjected to hearings and potentially dispossessed of firearms. The use of Extreme Risk Protection Orders was previously barred by 2024 legislation.
In recent years, pressure for new gun safety legislation has mounted in Tennessee, after tragic mass shootings took place at the Covenant School in 2023 and Antioch High School in 2025. However, Tennessee’s majority Republican legislature has not passed significant gun legislation, making the chances of a bill like Jones’ succeeding slim.
Jones has long been one of Tennessee’s most vocal advocates for gun safety measures. He made national headlines after he was expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives in 2023 following his participation in gun safety demonstrations.
The rhetoric on both sides has been forceful: “We are working with a Republican supermajority here in Tennessee that puts the lives of our children beneath the campaign contributions of the gun industry. That is morally insane,” Justin Jones said in 2024, after a bill was passed that allowed teachers to be armed with guns.
Many Tennessee lawmakers who oppose Jones believe that restricting access to guns will not prevent violence. “If you want to legislate evil, it’s just not going to happen,” Republican Representative Tim Burchett said in 2023.
Expanding school vouchers
A bill expanding Tennessee’s school voucher program recently passed the Senate and was signed into law by Governor Bill Lee. The bill was introduced by Tennessee House Republicans this February and passed mostly along party lines, with some Republican defections.
Governor Bill Lee signalled his support for the school voucher bill when it passed the Senate in April. “I’m grateful that the TN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to expand the Education Freedom Scholarship Program & deliver school choice for thousands more families,” Lee wrote on X.
School vouchers use public funding to provide families with education scholarships, which can be used to pay for private schools. This “school choice” model emphasizes family agency and private education over public school funding. The voucher bill would increase the amount of education scholarships given from $25,000 to $35,000, per an amendment adopted in April.
Republican Senator Kerry Roberts voiced his support for the school voucher program. “Not every child was a good fit for the public school that was doing an absolutely outstanding job for our children,” he stated.
Some lawmakers, including Democratic Senator Heidi Campbell, were less optimistic about the bill. “Obviously, the intention is to kill public schools, and that is the quiet-part-out-loud that people aren’t saying here,” she said. Other critics have pointed to data suggesting that many state vouchers are awarded to high-income families.
The bill also opts Tennessee into a tax credit program created by Donald Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, which aims to expand school choice nationwide.
Allowing teens access to resources for sexual assault
Legislation passed in March allowing teenagers who are victims of sexual violence to receive a forensic medical examination without parental consent. Evidence from the examination can be processed by law enforcement and used in trials to help young victims find safety and justice.
The bill was sponsored by Democrat Bob Freeman and supported by Nashville’s Sexual Assault Center; it passed into state law with bipartisan support. The legislation aimed to counter the 2024 “Family Rights and Responsibilities Act,” preventing teenagers from seeking reproductive care without parental consent.
Supporters of the bill argued that a parental consent requirement could deter teens from getting the evidence necessary to prosecute their perpetrators.
Representative Freeman stated that, in some cases, those aggressors “could be family members.” Freeman argued in a committee meeting that “to ask a minor to go in front of the person who could have very likely been the perpetrator of this crime … removes their ability to get real justice.”
