Stockard on the Stump: Immigrant student bill remains in limbo

Pratik Dash of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition yells during a 2025 protest of a bill that would deny public education to immigrant children. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

More than eight months after postponing a bill allowing school districts to refuse enrollment to children without legal immigration status, the House sponsor still awaits word on whether it could jeopardize federal funding.

House Majority Leader William Lamberth of Portland indicated this week he would revive the bill if the money isn’t in danger. 

House Speaker Cameron Sexton also said Thursday he wants to revive the bill, which would give school districts the option to check students to determine whether they have permanent legal documentation, then either block enrollment or charge tuition. 

Sexton said he’s not sure whether the U.S. Department of Education will opine on the matter, but after consulting with the White House over the past year he will roll out a package of immigration bills next week.

“I hope we bring it back in some form or another. We’ll see what that looks like,” Sexton said. “I would assume at some point we will get comfortable with whatever we want to do.”

The Senate measure requiring districts to check students’ immigration status and charge tuition passed in April 2025 on a 19-13 vote, but the House version got hung up on the potential of Tennessee losing more than a billion bucks for enacting a law that violates the constitutional requirement for schools to serve all students.

Breaking anti-discrimination laws could put another gaping hole in the state budget.

In the waning days of the 2025 session, Lamberth had Fiscal Review Executive Director Bojan Savic ask the U.S. Department of Education whether the state was putting the funding in jeopardy. Lamberth held the measure in the House after not receiving immediate word.

Tennessee asks feds whether state funds are jeopardized by immigrant student bill

Asked this week if he plans to revive House Bill 793, Lamberth tiptoed around the question.

“We are awaiting a definitive response from Secretary (Linda) McMahon’s office on whether Tennessee risks losing $1.1 billion in federal education funding. We remain in contact and are hopeful for a resolution,” he said in a statement.

Lamberth, a Portland Republican, said last year he would renew his effort based on the secretary’s response.

Lamberth and Sen. Bo Watson, who sponsored the Senate version, hoped passage would lead to a legal challenge that would reach the Supreme Court so it could revisit a 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe that established all children have a right to a public school education in the United States, regardless of immigration status.

Even if McMahon says the money isn’t at risk, the bill’s passage isn’t guaranteed.

It narrowly escaped the Senate where opponents, including Republicans, said lawmakers shouldn’t put children in the middle of a fight over immigration. 

Republican Sen. Ferrell Haile of Gallatin used a Bible verse to argue against blaming children for the acts of their parents. 

House members were more worried about losing money, though, and those concerns are likely to surface again in 2026, which is expected to be an even tighter budgeting year because of increased spending and revenue cuts extended in the form of business tax breaks and rebates.

Hallway talk at Cordell Hull, which isn’t quite worth a 25-cent cup of coffee (those don’t exist), says it remains up in the air again as lawmakers prepare to return next week to rattle the cages of Tennesseans.

Some semblance of sanity

U.S. District Court Judge Eli Richardson renewed hope in the nation’s judiciary this week when he sentenced former Rep. Robin Smith to one year of probation rather than six months in prison for her role in a much-ballyhooed fraud case.

The move came after President Donald Trump pardoned former House Speaker Glen Casada and his ex-chief of staff, Cade Cothren, who were set to go to prison for putting together a secretive campaign vendor called Phoenix Solutions to tap into state campaign mailer funds.

Smith hasn’t been able to get a pardon from Trump, which doesn’t seem quite fair. She remains a convicted felon after copping a plea to honest services fraud and testifying against Casada and Cothren while they get off hook, line and sinker. 

Sure, Smith might have come up with the idea to go for “low-hanging fruit” with the state’s mailer program. But in this case, it took three to tango. Cothren did the nuts-and-bolts work of setting up Phoenix Solutions in New Mexico while Casada tried to play it cool. Smith and Casada encouraged fellow lawmakers to use Phoenix Solutions to send out taxpayer-funded constituent mailers, and Smith put pressure on state officials to pay up before they got wind of something fishy.

The key factor was keeping Cothren’s name hush-hush after he resigned from his post in 2019 during a racist and sexist texting scandal that engulfed Casada, who also left the speaker’s office after a no-confidence vote by the House Republican Caucus.

In fact, during a four-week trial that nearly left attendees in traction from sitting on federal courtroom pews, attorneys for Casada and Cothren didn’t try to deny the details, claiming mainly that the two were operating a legitimate business and did the work lawmakers wanted.

The jury convicted them on multiple counts of fraud, bribery and money laundering, only to see the pardon waste a month of their lives.

Santa, we’re coming for you

Less than a week after U.S. forces invaded Venezuela and captured its president and first lady, U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles started parroting President Trump’s desire to take over mineral-rich Greenland too.

Ogles, who remains under federal investigation for campaign finance violations according to a WTVF report, called America the “dominant predator force” in the Western Hemisphere and said Greenland needs to break its relationship with Denmark and do more to protect America. 

Denmark is a member of NATO and already allows the United States to use Greenland for defense purposes.

Ninety-nine percent of Americans have never been to Greenland or know little about it other than it’s cold as crap there. It’s a self-governed territory of Denmark.

A takeover, though, puts us a little closer to the North Pole and the ultimate goal.

While experts debate the Monroe Doctrine and whether it was legal to extract Nicolas Maduro on cocaine trafficking charges (that’s so 1980s), we’ve decided it’s high time to take back Christmas. Festivus for the rest of us just won’t do. We’re not stopping with Greenland, either. We’re heading straight for Santa’s hometown, the reindeer and the toy shop. 

The charge: failure to deliver the goods. We got nothing but a tinhorn dictator. Oops, nearly forgot to mention Venezuela’s oil supplies.

“I can’t drive 55”

House Speaker Cameron Sexton declined to say Thursday where he was heading the October day a Metro Nashville Police officer stopped his security detail on Briley Parkway for speeding.

“We were just going to another event, like it is, like we do,” Sexton said after a State Building Commission meeting.

Asked why the vehicle driven by a state trooper was doing 85 in a 55, Sexton referred to a statement from his office. That statement, though, only accuses the MNPD officer of being “overzealous” and jeopardizing the safety of Sexton and THP officers and claims there was no violation of traffic laws based on state law. The THP officer flashed his lights at the Metro officer after being flashed to pull over.

In other words, it was business as usual.

“Well I’m drivin’ in an old car / Made in the USA / Hear that engine knockin’ / We’ve both seen better days” *

*“Drivin’ Down to Georgia,” Tom Petty