What's past is prologue

Good afternoon, everyone.

President Donald Trump spoke for 1 hour and 40 minutes last night, finishing his speech just short of 11 p.m. EST. It was the longest Joint Address of Congress in history. I’m baffled that official government business runs that late. Metro Council meetings typically run well into the night, with last night’s adjourning around 11 p.m. CST. Megan’s got more on that below.

Aside from the particulars of Trump’s speech, the address impressed upon me how unfortunate a position Democrats are in at the federal level. There’s probably a “honeymoon phase” going on between the GOP and their constituents at the moment. But Democrats appear to be completely fraying at the edges, unwilling to applaud objectively positive initiatives like not taxing tips.

Trump said it best: “I look at the Democrats in front of me and realize there's absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy, or stand, or applaud.”

Capturing this sentiment, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas told a reporter after the speech, "This is not America. This is a terrible nightmare. Somebody slap me and wake me the f*ck up because I'm ready to get on with it." Regal.

Onward.

Last night’s Metro Council meeting picked up right where it left off two weeks ago with a discussion on Councilmember Rollin Horton’s proposed guardrails for camera surveillance technology.

Councilmember Sean Parker continued the ongoing Fusus conversation implicitly linked to the legislation by calling attention to Ohio residents and their experiences with the integrative technology. “[They] kind of found themselves in a new scenario where there were multiple cameras installed with very little notification to the community throughout their complexes, and those were being monitored kind of around-the-clock, not as, like, an incident response,” he shared.

Later, Councilmember Jeff Preptit presented an amendment requiring Metro Nashville Police Department to preserve footage that captures “any MNPD employee utilizing excessive or unlawful force.” Councilmember Bob Nash, who served 33 years with the MNPD before retiring as Commander of the East Precinct, stood up in support of the proposal. “Like DNA evidence, this can easily clear people as much as it can help apprehend them,” he said. The amendment was added to the bill, which passed on second reading with a solid 28-8 majority.

Almost two hours into the meeting, the council moved on to its regular agenda. The tone stayed consistent as constituents pushed back against Horton’s legislation during the public comment period. One woman took the mic and shared her fear that new surveillance measures could target her undocumented husband. “My son is growing up in a world where he has to live with the reality that one day his father might not come home,” she said.

Eventually, the body made its way down the docket to another piece of contentious legislation that would place the Historic Zoning Commission under the purview of Metro’s Planning Department. Before the council meeting started, we got a sense of what was going to happen on the floor. Though Sponsor Emily Benedict was originally open to deferring its second reading, the mayor’s Director of Legislative Affairs David Rosenberg explained why the administration preferred it stay on course during the Metro Government Operations & Regulations committee meeting.

The pressure to pass Metro’s bill has been heightened by two looming state bills that would preempt the local government if the council fails to adjust historic zoning at the local level. “My understanding is that if [Metro’s bill] isn't passed tonight, that at least one of the [state] bills will be put on notice with its amendment tomorrow with the intent of it being heard in subcommittee in the House next week,” said Rosenberg. He also explained that the General Assembly is suffering from their own time crunch as legislators rush to place their bills on committee calendars before the final deadline next Wednesday.

Despite several attempts to defer the bill, the council ultimately passed Benedict’s rewrite of the legislation by voice vote. The changes included a few amendments now attached to the bill: one clarifying the management and supervision role of the Planning Department in relation to the Historic Zoning Commission and another stipulating that all future Planning Department Employees presiding over the Historic Zoning Commission have experience in historic preservation.

Though no further changes can be made on its final reading, the council supported a motion to hold a public hearing for the bill during the council’s next meeting on March 18. MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

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✏️ Wiltshire Finds Another Role In Metro Former mayoral candidate and President of Pathway Affordable Housing Corp., Matt Wiltshire, was elected to serve on the Metro Health and Educational Facilities Board by the Council last night. This is not the first time Wiltshire has served in Metro government. For eight years, he worked under three separate administrations as the Director of the Mayor's Office of Economic and Community Development helping to attract and facilitate business growth in Nashville. He also served as the city’s Chief Strategy and Intergovernmental Affairs Officer under Metro’s Development and Housing Agency before his mayoral run in 2023.

Metro’s Health and Educational Facilities Board is a public nonprofit that promotes and maintains healthy living conditions in Nashville. Members are “authorized to issue revenue bonds and loan the proceeds to finance the acquisition, construction, development, rehabilitation, and improvement of health, educational, and multifamily housing facilities.” Wiltshire is set to serve in his new role until September 2026.

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📜 The Right To Have Rights A bill aiming to expand the protection of Constitutional rights when emergency powers are enacted is making its way through this year’s General Assembly. The legislation was drawn up by Tennessee Freedom Initiative, a grassroots nonprofit organization that lobbies for bills promoting “small government, low regulations, individual liberty, and strong fiscal responsibility.”

According to TFI Legislative Director Kayla Garretson, the bill sponsored by Representative Rusty Grills (R-Newbern) and Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) would tie up a few loose ends in Tennessee Code. In 2007 and 2022, two sections were added to prevent the governor from infringing on Second Amendment and religious gathering rights during a state of emergency. “The problem is, once we passed those protections, it pretty much jeopardized the rest of our Constitutional rights,” said Garretson. “My bill corrects that and says that anything that is guaranteed in the Constitution is upheld during a state of emergency.”

It’s TFI’s perspective that when emergency powers were originally granted to Tennessee’s administrative branch in 2000, “it was meant that anything that [the governor] does still has to fall within the purview of the Constitution.” The bill has been placed on the House Public Service Subcommittee today and the Senate regular calendar tomorrow.

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🗺️ Deportations Accelerate The Nashville Banner reported this morning that ICE detainers rose over 400 percent in February compared to last year. Last February, ICE made 33 detainer requests in Nashville, taking 11 into custody. Last month, under Trump, requests rose to 75, with 42 detainees picked up. An attorney quoted in the article says ICE is targeting people for minor offenses—even those not convicted. “ICE changed their policy to where they’re placing [detainer requests] on essentially every offense,” the attorney told the Banner. “So if somebody is getting pulled over and arrested for driving without a license, which is a C misdemeanor, … it’s usually just a fine, if that. Now, they’re having an ICE hold placed on them.”

As we discussed yesterday, a big part of Trump’s deportation effort will involve coordination with the state. As laws and organizational capacity come online, we’ll likely see an even greater increase in the number of deportations here in Nashville.