Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is calling a special legislative session to address his school choice bill as well as other priorities of President-elect Trump’s new administration, such as immigration law and disaster relief in the volunteer state.
Lee announced that he will call on the Tennessee General Assembly to call a special session on Monday, January 27, to pass the Education Freedom Act. The governor said he would introduce a statutory disaster relief package addressing recovery needs from Hurricane Helena as well as future natural disasters, and that the session will also address public safety measures related to immigration, “as the new Trump administration has called on states to prepare to implement the policy.”
After that came the announcement from Tennessee Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Monday he was calling a special session to help coordinate Trump’s planned crackdown on illegal immigration in the Sunshine State.
Lee issued a joint statement with Tennessee Lt. Governor Randy McNally, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson and House Majority Leader William Lamberth.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee speaks on stage at the Republican National Convention on July 16, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“We believe the state has a responsibility to act quickly on the issues most important to Tennesseans, and there is broad support in the General Assembly and across Tennessee for a special session on the most pressing legislative priorities: a unified Education Freedom Act and a comprehensive Hurricane Helene relief package and other disaster recovery efforts,” they said. “Most Tennesseans, regardless of political affiliation, have made it clear that they support empowering parents to choose school, and the best thing we can do for Tennessee students is to provide choice and public school resources without delay.”
The statement added: “Hurricane Helena was an unprecedented disaster in rural, disadvantaged and vulnerable communities that cannot shoulder the local share of the cost of federal relief funds on their own. The state has an opportunity and an obligation to work with these affected counties and develop innovative solutions to natural disasters in the future.”
“Finally, the American people elected President Trump with a mandate to enforce immigration laws and protect our communities, and Tennessee must have the resources ready to support the administration on day one,” they said.
“Last year, Governor Lee directed key state agencies to begin preparing to implement federal immigration policy,” Lee’s press secretary, Elizabeth Lane Johnson, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “In this special session, we will ensure that the state is best positioned to coordinate with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to implement the Trump administration’s plan to enforce the federal immigration laws on the books.”
“President Trump has made it clear that states will play a major role in partnering with his administration to make our communities safer. Tennessee is heeding the call,” she added.
Lee, whose initial school choice proposal failed in the state legislature earlier last year, spoke to Fox News Digital in November after the introduction of another package aimed at increasing parental rights.
After Trump’s decisive election victory, the governor argued that the political environment on the ground in Tennessee is not what it was a few months ago when the first school choice proposal failed.
A wave of pro-school candidates won the elections at the state level, and Trump succeeded in his candidacy for the White House. Lee told Fox News Digital that he agreed with Trump’s promise to disband the US Department of Educationechoing the president-elect’s concern that the federal bureaucracy has become entrenched in gender and racial ideology instead of learning.
Gov. Bill Lee joins fellow governors at a news conference along the Rio Grande River on the U.S.-Mexico border to discuss border issues on February 4, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas. (Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
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“In this case, the states certainly know best. We in Tennessee know best what our children need and how to best educate our children. Parents in this state need to be given more influence over how their children will be educated, and that will happen if the federal Department of Education education is being dissolved and those funds are being turned over to the states to be used in a more efficient and effective way,” Lee said at the time. “President Trump has long believed that school choice is important to the people of this country and that the freedom of education is something that all Americans can have. He talked about it. He campaigned on it.”
Cars and debris near the Swannanoa River after catastrophic rains from Hurricane Helene flooded areas on October 5, 2024 in Swannanoa, North Carolina. (Steve Exum/Getty Images)
Lee’s new school choice bill, called the Education Freedom Act of 2025, would draw from already-approved funds by the state legislature to allow the state Department of Education to award up to 20,000 scholarships — worth about $7,000 each — for the next school year to be spent on tuition, tutoring, technology and testing costs. The first 10,000 scholarships would be set aside for low-income students whose parents could not otherwise afford to send their children to institutions other than public schools in their districts.
In addition to establishing the Educational Freedom Grants, Lee’s office said the bill “further invests in public schools and teachers by delivering bonuses to teachers to recognize their unwavering commitment to student success, increasing funding for K-12 institutions, and ensuring state funding for school districts cuts due to attrition. ” The governor and General Assembly “will maintain their commitment to public schools by continuing to invest hundreds of millions of state dollars in the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) formula and increasing starting teacher salaries,” Lee’s office said.
The governor also plans to invest more than $450 million in direct disaster relief.
Hurricane Helena “was an unprecedented disaster that primarily affected at-risk and affected counties, with justifiable costs associated with damage estimated at $1.2 billion,” Lee’s office said.
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The Disaster Relief Grants (DRG) Fund allocates $240 million “to strengthen Tennessee’s existing disaster relief fund, as well as to reduce the local cost-sharing burden from 12.5% to 5% and fund state matching requirements to access federal funds and covered administrative costs.” Lee’s package also establishes the Hurricane Helena Interest Payment Fund, which allocates $110 million to “help local governments manage interest on recovery loans by covering interest costs of 5% per year over three years on recovery loans.”
Finally, the Governor’s Response and Recovery Fund allocates $100 million “to create a new HEAL-inspired program that will provide flexible funding for future emergencies, including agricultural recovery, unemployment relief and business recovery efforts.” The package also allocates $20 million to rebuild Hampton High School in Carter County, which was destroyed by Hurricane Helene.
