This is my last commentary on COVID-related issues, at least for a while, and parents who are frustrated with public K-12 schools and mask mandates do not really know how bad things are regarding parental rights. For the following reasons you have no such rights or, at least in the very near future, you will have none. So read this carefully and be appropriately terrified.

When in a state of crisis, one must be able to retreat to and reflect on fundamental principles to develop workable solutions. I believe Governor Lee’s Executive Order 83 and his more recent one about mask mandates in schools have given us an excellent opportunity to recall and apply our fundamental governing principles. People on every side know something is wrong, but without fundamental principles to guide us, anger and frustration, resulting in the disintegration of personal and familial relationships and civil social intercourse, are becoming the norm. Here is my open letter to and request of the Governor and General Assembly.

Yesterday I listened to the oral arguments in the U.S. Court or Appeals for the Sixth Circuit over the correctness of federal District Court Judge William Campbell’s decision to prevent enforcement of Governor Lee’s abortion legislation enacted last year prior to a trial on the constitutionality of the law. Here are my thoughts and my prediction.

Last week, Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education released a child well-being toolkit that government officials were to use to “ensur[e] that the needs of Tennessee children are met during and after extended periods away from school.” The next day, the Governor rightly instructed the Commissioner to take it down and promised to release a “better” version. In the interim, all of us would be well-served by conducting a well-being check on our government.  

When Governor Lee’s COVID-19 Executive Order first ordered certain businesses to close, I looked up the law on which he relied and saw it passed while I was still in the state Senate. My heart sank on the assumption I probably voted for it. However, this week’s executive order delegating authority to county mayors to require county residents to wear facemasks or face state criminal sanctions sent me to the Tennessee Code to see if I’d really voted for a law that would allow that. I did not, and it is time we tell our state legislators to put an end to law by executive branch fiat.

This week several Tennessee abortion clinics sued to have a federal district court in Nashville prevent Governor Lee’s executive orders on social distancing and essential services from applying to their abortion practice. Parts of the press release about it were most amusing, even made me chuckle, but not for long.

My counterpart in Massachusetts emailed earlier this week that his state’s governor had issued an order “prohibiting gatherings of over 25 people” that included “faith-based events” and “any similar event or activity that brings together 25 or more persons in a single room or single space at the same time.” Could Governor Lee issue such an order, or perhaps more importantly, should he?

By February 17, Governor Bill Lee will have to make a very hard decision with the potential for national repercussions. He will get sued either way, so he must base his decision on what, in his head and heart, he really believes and let the chips fall where they may. Here are the “bad” choices from which he must choose and the only constitutionally defensible solution available to him.

On January 1, the U.S. representative from Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, Mark Green, penned an editorial in which he said, “I’m more convinced than ever that the only thing that will save America is what started America: Federalism.” He is mostly right, but where he is right, Tennessee’s elected officials and Tennessee’s evangelicals better understand the breadth of?his challenge to assert the principle of dual sovereigns embodied in federalism. I’m not sure they really do.