Todd lets supporters know his plans for legislative session

Tennessee State Representative Chris Todd spoke to the Madison County Republican Party on Monday ahead of the upcoming legislative session that begins in May.

The major things on the agenda that he mentioned coming up include improving infrastructure, particularly congestion in more populated areas of the state.

“The Governor was here last week and told our Department of Transportation Commissioner to cut down on congestion in those areas and improve our roads without borrowing money or raising taxes,” Todd said. “That’s not a simple thing to do, but those were his marching orders.”

He asked for opinion from those in attendance about other possibilities including a public-private partnership that would add an express lane to the highways in Nashville that would require an extra fee to be driven on.

“I’ve been told what they’re proposing is similar to express lanes in Atlanta,” Todd said after the meeting. “I haven’t seen them myself, but it sounds like a similar idea to the toll roads in Florida.”

Toll roads in Florida require fees ranging from $.50 to $2.00 to enter the highway and pull off in certain high traffic areas of the state.

“They’re called ‘choice lanes,’ which means you don’t have to drive in that lane if you don’t want to pay for it,” Todd said. “If you want to drive on the slab that’s already there that we’ve already paid for, then go ahead and do that.

“But you’ve got the option to pay a little more to drive on this new lane, which will also hopefully clear some of the traffic from other lanes that already exist.”

Todd said he’s drafted a bill that will affect drag shows, which comes on the heels of Todd and other local conservative leaders pushing back on a drag show during Jackson Pride Fest in October which saw plenty of public discussion and disagreements among those in government and religious positions of leadership.

“I’ve filed a bill that would ban drag queen shows once and for all,” Todd said. “They’d be forced to have that type of event in a strip club or a similar venue now.”

Todd addressed a number of national issues as well, and one of them was the concept of clean energy.

“We’re going to try to establish a policy within the state to declare that natural gas and nuclear energy are both forms of clean energy,” Todd said. “I know a lot of people in these big tech companies that push that agenda that try to say they’re not, but they are.

“So we as a state will make that declaration.”

He addressed Second Amendment issues, saying some court cases have popped up in other states that have resulted in laws and precedents being set opposing the Constitution.

“That’s serious to me because that right to defend yourself against a tyrannical government is important because if we don’t have that right, the others don’t matter,” Todd said.

Todd also plans to make another push for an Article V convention to push for term limits for those in federal legislature, which would require 34 states to ratify a request for the convention to address the issue.

The legislative session in Nashville starts Jan. 10, 2023.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news