Last year, a U.S. District Court declared the Tennessee procedure for parties to get on the ballot to be unconstitutional, mostly because the deadline for submitting the petition is in March, which is too early. This year, SB 935, written by the State Elections Department, seemed to be moving ahead. It had passed the Senate State and Local Government Committee unanimously on March 15. It retains the high number of signatures (40,042) but moves the deadline to the first week in April. It does delete the language on the petition that implies the signers are members of that party.

The bill had been set to pass the State Senate on March 21, because it was listed on the consent calendar. Bills on the consent calendar are those for which no one appears to be opposed. However, on March 21, the bill was removed from the consent calendar. This may be because a Senator expressed opposition to the bill as it is presently written. Minor party activists have been trying to persuade the Senate that the bill does not improve the law enough, and that if passed, the law would still be unconstitutional. The court ruling last year said that a deadline four months before a primary is too early, and the Tennessee primary (for office other than President) is in August.