TENNESSEE, USA — Several new laws went into effect in Tennessee on July 1.
10News has highlighted several you'll want to know about:
- Businesses and Commerce - Prohibits a county or municipality from requiring a license, fee, permit, or other form of regulation for a business that is operated solely by a person under 18 years of age, is located on private property with the property owner's permission, and generates gross receipts of contributions of $3,000 or less in a calendar year.
- Criminal Offenses - As enacted, prohibits the dropping of items or substances from unmanned aircraft into an open-air event venue where more than 100 persons are gathered for a ticketed event. Violation is Class C misdemeanor.
- Criminal Offenses - As enacted, creates offenses related to the possession, sale, distribution, and transport of child-like sex dolls.
- Criminal Procedure - Adds the sale or distribution of a substance containing fentanyl, carfentanil, or any opiate with the intent and premeditation to commit murder as an aggravating circumstance for the imposition of the death penalty or imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole.
- Driver Licenses - As enacted, gives a person 65 years of age or older who applies for a photo identification license the option to receive a photo identification license that does not expire, instead of automatically receiving a photo identification license that does not expire.
- Education - As enacted, authorizes Local Education Agencies to offer internship programs for elective credits in the high school curriculum through cooperative agreements with local and state governments.
- Education/Curriculum - As enacted, expands career and technical education programs to middle school grades; requires the board of career and technical education to plan facilities for comprehensive career and technical training for middle school students.
- Education/Curriculum - As enacted, requires students to pass a civics test to receive a full diploma upon graduation from high school; revises and enacts other provisions relating to civics test.
- Education/Curriculum - Requires that the family life curriculum used in public schools include instruction on the detection, intervention, prevention, and treatment of human trafficking in which the victim is a child; requires each local board of education to require that each teacher employed by the board receive a one-time in-service training on the detection, intervention, prevention, and treatment of human trafficking in which the victim is a child, which must be accomplished through the viewing of a video recording approved by the LEA.
- Higher Education - As enacted, requires each state institution of higher education to do the following: develop and implement a suicide prevention plan for students, faculty, and staff; and provide the plan to students, faculty, and staff at least once each semester.
- Higher Education - Requires a degree-granting postsecondary educational institution to designate a staff member to serve as a homeless student liaison to assist homeless students who are enrolled in the institution, and to develop a plan to provide homeless students who are enrolled in the institution access to housing resources, if the institution offers housing resources.
- Local Education Agencies - As enacted, requires, rather than encourages, all public middle and elementary schools to place one or more automated external defibrillator (AED) devices within the school.
- Local Education Agencies - As enacted, authorizes LEAs to provide free feminine hygiene products in eligible public high schools.
- Local Education Agencies - As enacted, requires a Local Education Agency that has one or more school buses operating in the LEA with a camera or video camera installed inside a school bus that is used to transport students to and from school or school-sponsored activities to adopt a policy that establishes a process to allow a parent, guardian, or person having custody of a student to view photographs or video footage collected from the camera.
- Gambling - As enacted, enacts the "March Madness and Fantasy Football Freedom Act," which decriminalizes, under certain circumstances, wagers on fantasy sports leagues and sports pools.
- Gambling - As enacted, enacts the "Tennessee Sports Gaming Act."
- Handgun Permits - As enacted, waives the fee for obtaining a lifetime handgun carry permit for former law enforcement officers who served at least 10 years and left the law enforcement agency while in good standing.
- Marriage - As enacted, clarifies that a marriage license may not be issued for an applicant under 17 years of age; defines "parent" for purposes of parental consent to the marriage of a minor.
- Marriage - As enacted, authorizes members of the general assembly, duly appointed law enforcement chaplains, and members of the legislative body of a municipality to solemnize marriages; prohibits persons receiving online ordinations from solemnizing the rite of matrimony; requires members of the general assembly who want to solemnize marriage to opt in by filing notice of the member's intention with the office of vital records.
- Mental Illness - Requires court clerks to report the race, sex, and, if known, social security number of a person judicially committed or adjudicated a mental defective to the Federal Bureau of Investigation-NICS index and the department of safety for use in determining a person's eligibility to purchase firearms; requires that such information be confidential.
- Mental Illness - As enacted, requires the department of finance and administration, in consultation with the department of mental health and substance abuse services and the division of TennCare, to develop and administer a grant program to assist sheriffs who are required by law to transport persons who have been certified by a health care professional for transport to a hospital or treatment resource for a mental health examination to determine whether the person should be involuntarily admitted; authorizes hospitals and treatment resources to conduct a mental health examination to determine whether a person should be involuntarily admitted via telehealth services.
- Parks/Natural Areas Preservation - As enacted, extends a 50 percent discount on camping fees at state parks to veterans who have a 100-percent permanent total service-connected disability.
- Public Funds and Financing - As enacted, establishes a 'victims of human trafficking fund' in the state treasury to provide comprehensive treatment and support services to victims of human trafficking.
- Sentencing - As enacted, enacts the "JaJuan Latham Act," which increases the penalty for an aggravated assault or homicide that occurs by a person discharging a firearm from within a motor vehicle and the victim is a minor at the time of the offense.
- Sexual Offenders - As enacted, prohibits a sexual offender from conducting overnight visit at a residence in which a minor resides or is present, in certain circumstances.
- Traffic Safety - As enacted, establishes requirements for the operation of electric foot scooters; specifies that for purposes of the DUI laws, an electric scooter will be considered a motor-driven vehicle.
- Traffic Safety - As enacted, prohibits a person from physically holding or supporting, with any part of the person's body, a wireless telecommunications device or stand-alone electronic device while operating a motor vehicle; imposes other similar restrictions on activities such as texting; creates certain exceptions.
- Tobacco/Tobacco Products - As enacted, expands the Prevention of Youth Access to Tobacco and Vapor Products Act and other laws concerning juveniles' access to tobacco and vaping products to apply to hemp for smoking.
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