Politics

Now that it's decided that Nashville won't expand its transit system, the head of the MTA says his team must continue looking for other ways to improve.

Steve Bland expects to analyze the election results and come back to voters again. Bland says he's "absolutely certain" that traffic congestion is getting worse, so whatever proposal comes next will likely have the attention of even more Nashvillians.

Nashville voters resoundingly rejected the multi-billion-dollar transit proposal Tuesday — telling officials to find another way to respond to the city’s growth and traffic congestion.

In the end, it wasn't even close. Some 64 percent of Nashville voters went against the plan. That's in an election that drew a surprising turnout of more than 120,000 people.

Voters in Williamson County may notice a prominent warning when they go to the polls today: A sign implying that only certain people are allowed to vote in the primaries.

It's the result of a dispute between the Williamson County GOP and two Democratic candidates over how to interpret Tennessee's murky law about who gets to participate in primaries. Voters don't register by party, but the law does say voters need either to be a "bona fide member and affiliated with" the party whose primary they seek to vote in, or to be willing to declare an oath of allegiance.

The Tennessee legislative session came to a late-night end last week, but some of the bills approved in the final hours might not make it all the way to becoming law.

In this week's edition of The Tri-Star State, Nashville Public Radio's Jason Moon Wilkins and statehouse reporter Chas Sisk discuss what legislation could miss the governor’s signature, as well as other lingering issues.

Wednesday's final day of the 2018 legislative session was chaotic, even by the usual frenetic standards of the Tennessee General Assembly.

Before lawmakers adjourned at about 11 p.m., the day featured a standoff between the House and the Senate over standardized testing, an attempt to hold the state budget hostage and plenty of last-minute legislative stratagems.

Here are three reasons why the final hours of the 110th General Assembly were so hectic:

The big debates appeared to be behind the Tennessee Legislature, which has been in a wrap-up phase for the last week or two. Then a move to "punish" Memphis and a cyberattack on standardized tests injected high drama into the final days of the session.

In this week's edition of The Tri-Star State, WPLN's Jason Moon Wilkins and statehouse reporter Chas Sisk look at why a budget decision stirred a national debate on race and how lawmakers addressed more trouble with TNReady.

Tennessee lawmakers have approved a measure meant to protect students, teachers and schools from being penalized for irregularities in this year's TNReady test.

Both chambers of the state legislature swiftly passed the legislation this afternoon, just days after a suspected cyberattack caused computerized tests to shut down.