London Lamar

Rep. London Lamar (D) came to the GA in 2019. She is a Member, Finance, Ways, and Means Appropriations Subcommittee, Criminal Justice Committee, and the Finance, Ways, and Means Committee. She voted with TLRC on twelve bills and against us on eighteen, which accounts for her 43% vote score. Rep. Lamar did not sponsor or co-sponsor any of the TLRC favored bills. She did co-sponsor a bill that we opposed:

SB0425/HB1379 – Kumar/Massey – Would require insurers to cover infertility treatments which would result in higher premiums for all. Dictating to private business is antithetical to the U.S. and Tennessee constitutions but some of our legislators only remember that when it serves them (sent to Summer Study).

Lamar votes with her fellow party members, almost as a block, against strong constitutional bills and supporting those that are neutral or more profligate with tax-payer money and expansive of government. Rep. Lamar is vociferous but does not seem to understand the principles of freedom embodied in our constitution. Her constitutional score is a three out of ten.

Of the fifteen bills she sponsored, three of them passed into law:

HB0017 replaces the required element for self-defense that the person “not be engaged in unlawful activity” with the required element that the person “not be engaged in conduct that would constitute a felony or Class A misdemeanor”

HB0117 increases, from one time to once every three years, the required in-service training for a teacher employed by a local board of education in regard to the detection, intervention, prevention, and treatment of human trafficking in which the victim is a child.

HB0843 requires that female inmates who are fifty through seventy-four years of age be offered a mammogram or other appropriate screening every two years; requires that female inmates who are forty through forty-nine years of age be offered a physician consultation to inquire when a mammogram is needed; requires correctional institutions, which does not include city or county jails, to the best of their ability, to provide educational training on the importance of preventative health care to the inmates.

We hope to find more common ground in the 2022 session.