On March 23, the Tennessee legislative committee that had planned to hear HB 3060 removed the bill from its agenda. This probably signifies that the bill is dead.
HB 3060 would make it possible for the speaker of the Tennessee House, Kent Williams, to run for re-election in the Republican primary. He is a Republican, but he was elected by the votes of the Democrats in the House. The House has a one-vote Republican majority, but Democrats retained influence in the House by putting Williams into office. The Republican Party considers Williams an enemy and is not letting him file for re-election in the primary, so far. The deadline for filing for primaries is April 1.
HB 3060 said that anyone could file simultaneously as an independent candidate, and as a write-in in a party primary. It now seems somewhat likely that Williams will run for re-election as an independent candidate, or possibly his party will relent before April 1 and let him file for the primary ballot. Independent candidates in Tennessee only need 25 signatures so Williams will have no trouble filing as an independent on the deadline, if that is his only choice.
The sponsor withdrew HB 3060. He had just had another bill slapped down by the committee. After the No vote, the sponsor said “that was quite a surprise”; and the chair replied, “it shouldn’t have been”. The sponsor then said he would withdraw HB 3060 until the chair was in a better humor.
The deadline for filing for the primaries and filing as an independent are both on April 1. The deadline for declaring as a write-in candidate is later.
HB 3060 would let a candidate who had already filed as an independent, to run as a write-in candidate in a primary. Moreover, it would remove party authority over write-in candidates who had filed or won the primary. It would also permit a write-in winner of a a primary to withdraw his independent candidacy.
Given the closeness to the deadline, and the fact that the original HB 3060 was completely replaced, it appears the whole point was to let Speaker Williams give his speech before the elections subcommittee.
It was pretty doubtful that the bill could get through both houses in time for this year’s election, at least before the regular filing. So you possibly could have had a change in the election system being put in place during the election.
The obvious problem is that Tennessee, like most states, has made the political parties the gatekeepers to the election process. Since all candidates, both partisan and independent have the same qualification standard, the solution is to let all candidates run in a single primary, regardless of party, and let the top 2 candidates, regardless of party, advance to the general election.