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I am your TLA Legislative Monitor - Andrea Zielke.  I will be sending you updates about legislation impacting libraries and librarians across the state.

Going forward, I'll send a weekly update about legislation. In the weekly emails, I'll highlight new legislation or important committee meetings. Instead of listing all the legislation in each email, I will be using the TLA General Assembly Tracker so you can keep up with the various bills at any time. 

TLA General Assembly Tracker 
Tab 1 - Legislation
Tab 2 - Members & Contact Info
Tab 3 & 4 - House & Senate Committee Info (still being developed)

As bills are being reviewed by the TLA leadership, bills will be marked Watch, Under Review, No Position, Support, Oppose. For example, there is a bill about Open Meetings which may have impacts on library boards. TLA may not have a position on that bill but may want to mark it as WATCH or NO POSITION until they learn more when the bill progresses through committee. 

The 113th Tennessee General Assembly session started on 1/10/23 and will wrap up at the end of April or May. Most bills will be introduced between now and Feb 6th (including caption bills that are placeholders until amendments are proposed with actual language for the bills). Between now and the Governor's State of the State, committees will be relatively quiet but after the Governor's address, committee work begins in earnest. Right now is a great time to introduce yourself to your legislators. 

TN Library Legislative Day is scheduled for April 4, 2023. 

TNLA Annual Conference in Memphis is scheduled for April 11 - 13, 2023. 

There are lots of education bills that impact teachers and school librarians. I recommend using the TN Ed Trust Bill Tracker to keep track of education legislation - also I stole their template for the tracker :) 

Let me know if you have any comments, questions, suggestions or bills that should be included in the Tracker! 

Thanks,

Andrea