Lawmakers Eager To Get Started On Tennessee’s Next Legal Confrontation — Over Refugees

Tennessee might not be done yet suing the federal government.

Earlier this week, the state joined Texas and nine others in a case that challenges the Obama administration’s stance on transgender students.

Now top lawmakers want state Attorney General Herbert Slatery to make up his mind about another lawsuit — this time over refugee resettlement.

Slatery has been keeping his thoughts about whether to sue over refugees to himself. All a spokesman will say is that he’s still weighing the options.

But Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, R-Collierville, says he’s spoken to the attorney general recently and believes he has some insight. Norris says the attorney general thinks the state has a case but wants to get it right.

“He wants to take his best shot,” says Norris. “He wants our sovereignty to be upheld in an appropriate court, so he doesn’t take the decision lightly.”

Critics of the lawsuit say it’s hostile to refugees. They had pressed Gov. Bill Haslam to veto the measure that authorized the suit, to send a signal that Tennessee remains welcoming to everyone.

Norris has been one of the biggest supporters of a lawsuit. He thinks Tennessee isn’t getting the full picture about where refugees are coming from and who they are, and he wants to sue the federal government for more oversight of the resettlement program.

Gov. Bill Haslam, meanwhile, has reservations about suing, and he’s leaving it to Slatery to decide. With the transgender lawsuit under way, Norris and other Republicans in the legislature hope to get an answer from Slatery on the refugee suit as early as next week.

But if the attorney general announces he isn’t willing to sue — or procrastinates  — Republican lawmakers say they’ll hire their own attorneys. The Thomas More Law Center, a Michigan-based group, has volunteered to represent the state in the case.

There’s some question as to whether legislators have the legal authority in Tennessee to retain their own lawyers. Haslam has also asked Slatery to weigh in on that question.

Norris says lawmakers are ready to assert their right to hire counsel, though they’d prefer it doesn’t come to that.

“We’re hoping he (Slatery) just takes the case,” says Norris.

Tennessee wouldn’t be the first state to sue over refugees. Norris says at least two others, Alabama and Georgia, have already filed challenges to the resettlement program.

But those states handle refugees very differently from Tennessee, raising new legal questions that Norris argues only a court can decide.