This story was updated on May 27, 2025, with the correct spelling of Tyré Nichols name.
Members of the Memphis City Council approved a slate of police reforms after the death of Tyré Nichols. Yet during this legislative session, two Republicans representing Memphis in the statehouse are pushing versions of a bill that would prohibit any local government from adopting those reforms.
The bill, said Rep. John Gillespie, R-Memphis, is in direct response to the Memphis City Council’s actions.
And that bill, moving through the House and the Senate, is just one of several that target Memphis.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. Over the past decade, state officials have regularly pursued actions to take power from Memphis and city leaders. It’s a practice called preemption.
“Preemption overall in any state is harmful, but I think that Tennessee and Memphis, it’s been so blatant,” said Jasmine Payne-Patterson, senior state policy strategist at the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s so different than other states, between kicking people out or just having so many levels of preemption. … Tennessee is one of the states that preempts the most on our measures.”
The Economic Policy Institute defines preemption as “a situation in which state lawmakers block a local ordinance from taking effect — or dismantle an existing ordinance.” Their research has found it is more prevalent in Southern states and often used to target people who are low-income and people of color (Black, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander).
State government preemption of local legislation and policy dates back to the history of slavery, the Reconstruction period, and then the backlash to Reconstruction, Payne-Patterson said. During Reconstruction, when Black Americans were first able to represent themselves, white Americans responded by contesting political races, blocking Black voters from the polls and massacring Black residents, including in Memphis.
While Nashville also faces frequent preemption by the state, Memphis is unique in Tennessee in that the city is both majority-Democrat and majority-Black, making it a particular target of conservative, white leadership at the state level, Payne-Patterson said.
“The history of slavery, the history of racism, the history of the Ku Klux Klan still lives today through the state legislative laws when they preempt and disempower people,” she said.
Looking back a decade, the examples of preemption targeting Memphis were numerous. Here are a few of the most pointed examples from recent years, along with some of the bills currently moving through the legislature.
Jump to specific year
2024
Senate Bill 2572 / House Bill 1931, whose sponsors include Sen. Brent Taylor, R-Memphis, and Rep. John Gillespie, R-Memphis, would prohibit local governments and officials “from adopting or enacting an ordinance or policy that prohibits or limits the ability of a law enforcement agency to take all necessary steps that are lawful under state and federal law to fulfill the law enforcement agency’s duties to prevent and detect crime and apprehend criminal offenders.”
This legislation addresses the police reforms enacted by the Memphis City Council after the death of Tyré Nichols, who was pulled over in a traffic stop and then brutally beaten by Memphis police officers. The “Achieving Driving Equality” ordinance, passed by the council in April, directed officers not to make traffic stops solely for low-level offenses like a single broken brake light. (Since its passage, information about whether MPD has enacted those ordinances has been conflicting.)
While saying in a Feb. 21 House committee meeting that the bill was in response to the Memphis City Council, Gillespie mischaracterized the council’s ordinance.
The Memphis City Council passed ordinances that “literally made it so that police officers employed by the Memphis Police Department could not pull (drivers) over for not wearing a seatbelt, could not pull somebody over for a bad, broken tail lights, even weaving down the road,” Gillespie told others in the committee.
While the ordinance tells officers not to pull people over for a single broken tail light, it does not block them from pulling people over for speeding, seatbelt violations or weaving.
On Monday, Memphis Mayor Paul Young wrote members of the State Legislature, urging them to oppose the bills.
“As we continue to develop a dynamic response to crime in Memphis, it’s imperative we have the ability to determine policies and practices unique to our context,” Young wrote. “Limiting the ability of local governments to pass ordinances to this effect would be counterproductive to our efforts.”
Nichols’ family has spoken out against the bill, saying in a news release that it would “unjustly and unlawfully ratify the actions of the police officers and the city of Memphis as to their roles in Tyré’s death.”
“This legislation would remove critical reforms the Memphis community fought for on behalf of my son Tyré, and would be a devastating step backwards,” said RowVaughn Wells, Nichols’ mother. “Our communities deserve law enforcement that is held to the highest standard of integrity and accountability to begin to restore trust.”
A constitutional amendment, pushed by House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, and others, would allow certain defendants to be held without bail on offenses such as aggravated rape of a child and second-degree murder. Currently, only defendants charged with capital murder can be denied bail in Tennessee. This amendment, if approved twice by the legislature, would then go before the public, requiring the support of a majority of all citizens voting for governor.
The push for the amendment comes after Republican leadership targeted bail reform in Shelby County, including opening a bail hearing room in February 2023.
In a hearing on Feb. 20 of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, who heads that committee, expressed concern about the amendment having “unintended consequences” of filling up jails across the state, particularly in rural areas.
“I know this is all aimed at Shelby County. There’s no secret about that,” Gardenhire said.
Two separate constitutional amendments would prohibit expelled members of the General Assembly from qualifying for office in the General Assembly for four years following the expulsion or from ever being reelected or reappointed to the General Assembly. To become law, one of the constitutional amendments would have to pass the General Assembly twice and then be approved by the public in a state gubernatorial election year. Last year, Republican lawmakers in Nashville expelled two young, Black representatives, including Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, after they led gun-reform chants that briefly disrupted House proceedings after the Nashville Covenant School shooting. Both men were quickly reappointed by their local legislative bodies.
Senate Bill 2634 / House Bill 2716 – Similarly, these bills would prohibit a local legislative body from electing a member who was expelled for “disorderly behavior” to fill a vacancy in the general assembly created because of that expulsion. The House version passed Monday after Pearson and others called it unconstitutional.
Senate Bill 2763 / House Bill 2035 – These bills would preempt local governments from passing any legislation regarding extreme risk protection. Extreme risk protection orders, also known as red flag laws, prohibit specific individuals from owning or possessing firearms based on evidence that the individual poses a severe threat of violence to themselves or the community. These bills would declare federal statutes, rules and orders that enforce an extreme risk protection order “to be null and void.” And any attempt to enforce a federal extreme risk protection order would be a Class A misdemeanor. In 2024, Memphians are slated to vote on a referendum approved by the Memphis City Council on several gun restriction items, including the passage of extreme risk protection orders. The council proposed the referendum as the city has been plagued by gun violence, which many attribute to increasingly lax state laws.
Senate Bill 2565 / House BIll 1719 – These bills, sponsored by Gillespie and Taylor, would remove a defendant’s financial condition as a consideration in determining bail amounts. Shelby County recently implemented a bail hearing room — developed after Shelby County was threatened with a lawsuit — that ensures individualized bail hearings with counsel no later than three days after arrest. That hearing includes an examination of a person’s financial circumstances prior to bail decisions.
Senate Bill 2570 / House Bill 2031 – Sponsored by Taylor and Rep. Jody Barrett, R-Dickson, these bills would increase the penalty for intentionally obstructing a highway, street or other place used for passage of vehicles from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class D felony, and would allow offenders to be sued. Taylor proposed the bill after a group demanding a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war blocked traffic on the Hernando de Soto “I-40” bridge. No arrests were made, something Taylor called “unacceptable.” Taylor also asked the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to investigate the bridge protest.
In a hearing on Feb. 20, members of the House conflated road takeovers by young people drag racing with organized protests, with Barrett referencing protests in Memphis on the I-40 bridge multiple times.
Jana Abuirshaid, a Palestinian-American who works with Memphis Voices for Palestine, said the recent bridge protest came after activists had spent months rallying.
“We are citizens of America, and we feel like our voices deserve to be heard. The fact that our voices weren’t being heard, we weren’t being acknowledged, we were being censored, that led us to the thought of we need to take it to the next level.”
The economic impact of a bridge closure forced people to pay attention, leading to more research and awareness about Palestine, Abuirshaid said.
She doesn’t believe the passage of this bill would stop people from protesting on the bridge. It does, however, look like an attempt to limit voting rights for people who protest, if they are convicted of felony offenses, she said.
2023
Senate Bill 0591 / House Bill 0764 – This law disbands community oversight boards for law enforcement agencies, like Memphis’ Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board, allowing them to be replaced instead with police advisory and review committees, with members appointed by the city mayor. The bill was opposed by the Tennessee NAACP, who said the bill would threaten ongoing investigations in Memphis and Nashville and give too much authority to the mayor, who also selects the police chief. Since then, Memphis’ CLERB no longer exists in its previous form. The Memphis mayor is expected to form a new police advisory board in accordance with the new state requirements.
2022
Senate Bill 0029 / House Bill 0105 – This law bans local governments from having residency requirements for first responders. The bill was created to target a Memphis city charter provision requiring new law enforcement recruits to live within county limits.
2021
Senate Bill 0895 / House Bill 0716 – This law prohibits county governments from regulating rental property in ways that are more burdensome for landlords than the state. That included a prohibition on the creation of mandatory rental registries for landlords, something Memphis officials had long fought for. In the end, Nashville was allowed to keep its preexisting rental registry, while Memphis was blocked from creating one.
2019
Senate Bill 795 / House Bill 0939 – This education voucher bill targeted only Memphis and Nashville, since it is limited to students in districts with more than 10 schools that are priority schools or in the bottom 10%, something only possible in those two cities. It gives taxpayer money to eligible families to pay for private school tuition.
2013
Senate Bill 0035 / House Bill 0501 – This law prohibits local governments from mandating health insurance benefits or wage standards for private employers. Since Tennessee has no minimum wage above the federal $7.25 per hour, local governments cannot require businesses in their city or county to pay more than the federal minimum. About 16.5% of Memphis residents under the age of 65 do not have health insurance, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and 23.6% of the city’s residents live in poverty.
Senate Bill 0836 / House Bill 0553 – The Tennessee Heritage Protection Act, amended multiple times through 2023, prohibits the removal, relocation or renaming of a memorial on public property without permission from the state. The act was amended in 2018 after the City of Memphis transferred ownership of two parks to a nonprofit, a loophole allowing for the removal of Confederate statues at those parks since they were no longer public property.
Katherine Burgess is the government accountability reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact her at katherine.burgess@mlk50.com
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