A legislative push to double the number of students in Tennessee’s voucher program cleared its first hurdle this week with approval by the House K-12 Education Subcommittee on Tuesday and Senate Education Committee on Wednesday. Chalkbeat reports that Gov. Bill Lee has requested expanding the program from 25,000 to 40,000 students. The next scheduled vote on H2532/SB2247 will take place in the House Education Committee on March 17. The Tennessee Department of Education last month reported 58,000 students applied for the program next year, including 18,644 students currently enrolled in the program who have applied for a renewal.

The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in its effort to strip humanitarian deportation protections from more than 350,000 Haitians living in the United States. According to Reuters, the U.S. Justice Department filed an emergency request asking the court to lift a judge's decision that blocked the administration's move to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians. The lower court had found that the administration's action toward the Haitians likely was motivated in part by "racial animus." The administration has sought to end TPS for several countries, arguing the program was intended to provide temporary relief.

Growing Rutherford County faces competing taxpayer priorities over the construction of a $300 million jail and a $138 million high school, the Daily News Journal reports. County mayor Joe Carr wants to move first on replacing the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center and Sheriff's Office at 940 New Salem Highway in Murfreesboro. Most local officials agree that the overcrowded, aging jail needs replacing after costly repairs and inmate deaths, overdoses and escapes. Under tentative plans, a new jail with "modern" rehabilitation "principles" would be operational by Spring 2030. The paper explores the issues in a three-part series. Read the first and second installments here.

A years-long fight over a reform to protect domestic violence victims in Tennessee has come to an inconclusive end, WPLN reports. Advocates have been asking the Domestic Violence State Coordinating Council to alter the state’s firearms dispossession affidavit form, which is required in cases where an abuser is ordered by the court to give up their guns. The form currently does not require the name or address of the person receiving the guns, an omission that advocates say puts victims in danger. At its most recent meeting in March, the council debated whether it has the power in statute to change the form. In the end, it voted to write a letter to judges across the state recommending they amend their forms to require the name of the recipient. Investigative reporting by the station found that some counties already had begun amending their forms.

Defendant, Demontrey Monquisze Logsdon, was indicted by the Davidson County Grand Jury, along with two co-defendants, for two counts of first degree premeditated murder and first degree felony murder, along with several other charges. Defendant was convicted by a jury on all counts as charged, and Defendant was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. In this appeal as of right, Defendant asserts that he is entitled to plain error relief based on the admission of testimony by a detective who did not conduct the cell phone data extraction about which he testified. Defendant asserts he was denied his right to confront the witness who conducted the extraction. Because Defendant did not establish plain error, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Between March 2 and April 30, Davidson County General Sessions Court will operate a Winter Storm Support Docket for tenants who cannot pay rent due to complications from January’s ice storm. The Nashville Banner reports that the docket will help individuals apply for community-based rent assistance to prevent evictions and remain in their homes. Tenants facing eviction who are defendants in detainer actions will appear on the regular docket, at which point the court may determine eligibility for the support docket. Tenants facing evictions for non-monetary reasons are not eligible.

The TBA Intellectual Property Section will present its 2026 CLE offerings as a series of one-hour webcasts scheduled throughout the spring. The series kicks off on April 1 with a session on post-grant patent strategies. Rhett Sexton of Merchant & Gould will discuss the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO)'s recent procedural updates, which introduced director-centric institution decisions and new rules aimed at curbing parallel validity challenges, and will evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of different post-grant proceedings at the USPTO considering these changes. The series will continue on April 8 with Elizabeth Shah of Bookoff McAndrews discussing the changes to the obviousness test for design patents in LKQ Corp. v. GM Global Tech. Operations LLC. Additionally, save the date for current section chair Ryan Levy's session on zombie trademarks on April 29. Sessions on copyright issues with AI deepfakes and an IP 101 presentation are expected to be scheduled in May; keep an eye out for more information to be announced. As a reminder, all section members receive a discount on all section-sponsored CLE, so be sure to take advantage of those savings!

The Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office has released the full lists of candidates for 2026 federal and state elections following closure of the filing deadline. In the race to replace term-limited Gov. Bill Lee, 11 candidates (six in the Democratic primary and five in the Republican primary) filed to run. In the U.S. Senate, Sen. Bill Hagerty is running for reelection and faces no primary challenger. Five Democrats are running to earn the nomination to face him in the general election while eight Independents also filed for the seat. In the U.S. House, all nine Tennessee seats will be on the 2026 ballot. Six will see primary races. For state legislative races, all 99 seats in the House and 17 in the Senate will be up this year. Of note, Rep. Vincent Dixie, D-Nashville, decided not to run in District 7, the Nashville Banner reports, and no candidate will appear on the District 93 primary ballot after incumbent Rep. G.A. Hardaway, D-Memphis, failed to obtain enough signatures. That will force candidates to mount a “write in” campaign, the Commercial Appeal reports. See all lists of candidates on the secretary of state’s website.

The federal judiciary is accelerating its move to a new case management system after repeated cyber attacks on the current system used for court filings, Bloomberg Law reports. Six district courts will start testing parts of the new system this year, according to a press release from the judiciary. An outside firm with cybersecurity expertise has been consulting on the project. Court officials also reportedly have been looking at upgrading PACER, the public-facing system used to find and view court filings, and using fees from that service to help fund the new case management system.

With most filing deadlines for 2026 primary races having closed, it is the perfect time for candidates to focus on running an ethical and professional campaign. Four sessions from TBA’s ethical campaign CLE are now available on demand as a 1-Click package or as individual programs. Topics include the ethics of lobbying, ethical considerations for lawyers and judicial candidates, avoiding ethical problems with the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance, and the ethics of campaign finance and compliance. Purchase today and get up to three hours of dual credit.