Tennessee Disability Day on the Hill 2023
Transcript
Marsh Naidoo (00:11):
Hello, and welcome to the Raising Kellan Podcast. My name is Marsh Naidoo, and I'm a physical therapist as well as a parent raising my son, Kellan, a 10- year-old boy with cerebral palsy. I blog www.raisingkellan.org, where we curate resources to empower and educate parents raising children with disabilities. This digital platform is a free resource and part of a 5 0 1 (c) 3 nonprofit registered in the state of Tennessee. If you are a business or individual interested in supporting our mission, hop over to the website where you can see what sponsorship looks like. This year we look to investigate the infrastructure that is in place to help support adults with disabilities, such as housing, transportation, education, employment, as well as medical care.
(01:16):
In today's episode of the podcast, we are joined by Jeff Strand, coordination of government and external affairs at the Tennessee Disability Coalition. Jeff will be informing us as to the priority policies related to the disability community for this year at the Tennessee General Assembly. As always, remember, the information provided on this podcast is purely educational, and if you are seeking advice for your specific situation, always contact a trained professional.
(01:57):
Hi, guys. Today I'm here with Jeff Strand from the Tennessee Disability Coalition. Just as a reminder, our friends at the Coalition form part of an organization, or rather an alliance of member organizations as well as individuals. So you don't need a belong to a profit or nonprofit organization. You could just be an ordinary citizen that's vested in what happens in our community. Welcome, Jeff, once again to the podcast.
Jeff Strand (02:45):
Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.
Marsh Naidoo (02:47):
Well, it is a busy time, Jeff. Tell us what is happening and what bills are a priority this year. Before we, we head into that, Jeff, just a little bit of background as far as how things get put into motion for a bill to be proposed to the House of Representatives at the assembly.
Jeff Strand (03:14):
Yeah no problem. So I think that the inner workings of the general assembly start at the end of summer, at the beginning of fall, and that's when legislators and community constituents people with good ideas are coming forward with their ideas for legislation or ways that they think that their communities could be better, the state could be better, and they're starting to share those things, you know, doing research on that kind of thing, finding allies looking at the Tennessee code to see what it already says, checking out rules, that kind of thing. So really the idea is the beginning part of it. And then when the formal stuff starts to begin, that's the beginning of January. So I think it's, it's like two weeks ago now. Two weeks and a couple of days. The General Assembly kicked off the first year of a two-year session.
(04:01):
So each General Assembly session is two years. This, like I said, this is the first year that means that on that very first kickoff day, they all, you know, put on their suit jackets and go sit in the general assembly chambers and say their Oaths, and do all sorts of formalities. Right, and then they vote on committee assignments. The speakers assign the general assembly members to committees that'll talk about things like insurance or healthcare or education committees for a lot of different legislative topics. And then I think it's funny to see all of this happen down at Cordell Hall, the legislative office building. It's moving week, so last week was moving week. They, when you get a new committee assignment or there are new members of the general assembly, you have to kind of shuffle around offices to make sure everybody has the appropriately sized office or appropriately located office.
(04:55):
And that was last week. Okay? So this week they're really starting to kind of move forward with things. They have what's called the consent calendar this week. That's pieces of legislation that are very non-controversial like extending the Department of Health, like things that we're gonna do no matter what. It doesn't matter. So they all say, yay. And that goes so during this whole time, while they're moving, while they're patting each other on the back, they're submitting legislation. So they're submitting bills, and each bill for it to move forward needs a house sponsor and a Senate sponsor. So it doesn't have to be the exact same bill, but they have to be very close. Okay, and they'll take their two separate tracks through the House and the Senate. So once you've got a House and Senate sponsor, it's submitted and you bring it to the clerk's desk, and the clerk has, I'm not sure, like a fancy stamp and then sends it over to the speakers who then will put it on a calendar.
(05:53):
So once it's submitted, clerk stamps are put on a calendar, and that's when it can start to be held in these committees. Right? So an education committee or a healthcare committee, depending on what it's about. And some bills, like the public school funding formula last year, went through seven on one side and eight committees on the other side. Others will go through 1, 2, and 3 is probably more common. So people will be submitting their bills all the way up until the bill-filing deadline. So this year in the house, that's January 31st, so it's coming up really fast. Okay. and in the Senate, it is February 2nd. So after that point, nobody's allowed to submit new legislation. There is one kind of workaround for this one. It's called a caption bill, which means that somebody has an idea, but they're not quite sure of the language or the text or what exactly the bill's gonna say, but they know what they want it to do.
(06:47):
So they find themselves a House and Senate sponsor, and they write a caption, which means it's just opening up part of the code for an amendment. So, for example, Title 49 of the code is education. So if you wanted to do something about education, you'd say your caption would be, I'm opening up Title 49. Right. So those are aa of little bit different than the bill filing deadline. They'll be no new bills after that, but we won't know everything right away. But we'll know the extent of the number of bills that are on the table, and I would expect 1200 or 1300. But in each of the House and Senate, so there are a lot of bills to sift through. There are already 500 plus right now. And I'd expect as we get close to the deadline here, quite a few more coming through. So once you're in these committees, they will debate, talk about it, they'll bring in people for testimony.
(07:42):
They'll submit amendments. So if they're like, I really like this bill, but if we did this tiny thing differently, I could really support it. So they would do amendments like that, and then each committee will vote to either kill the bill if they don't think it should move forward out of their committee or suggest that it moves on to the next committee. So it could be the K-12 subcommittee is the very first education committee you'd go to. They might vote that you go all the, you know, next to the house education committee. So they'll vote to go to the next one and then vote to committee, committee, committee. They'll debate, amend, debate, amend in each of those, and then it'll finally go to the Senate and house floor. Once it's gotten to this point, especially with the makeup of our general assembly with the supermajority it's unlikely that it'll change or any surprises happen on the floor.
(08:37):
Usually, that stuff all gets hammered out in committee. They'll get in their fancier chambers, the House and Senate at the Capitol, and they'll vote on it. If it passes, each of the speakers sign it. So the speaker of the Senate leads the Senate, speaker of the House, leads to the house, they'll sign it, send it, the governor who's got 10 days to either sign it into law, veto it, and send it back to the general assembly to vote on again or change if they so choose. Or he can just not do anything. And it becomes law automatically in 10 days.
Marsh Naidoo (09:10):
So if a parent or an individual was interested or had an idea, they would put this idea forth to the representative of their district
Jeff Strand (09:21):
That I think, and that's just a personal opinion, is the best way to do it. Your elected officials who are elected to represent you are beholden to you that that's their job, is to make sure that you and the people in your community have a voice. So it makes sense to go to those folks. There are other opportunities. You can come to organizations like ours. We submit bills. We've submitted three bills this year. Then we'll bring those to say, important people on committees. So if we have an education bill, we might go looking for a sponsor who's on an education committee.
Marsh Naidoo (09:56):
Wow. Thank you for explaining that. Jeff. What are the priority goals that are on the table, so to speak, for the Tennessee Disability Coalition?
Jeff Strand (10:08):
Yeah, so like I mentioned before, we have three that we are actually submitting this year. And I'm pretty excited cuz I've never submitted bills on my own before. I've been more kind of a watcher and supporter type of position. But I'll, I'll go through those first three really quick. Got a couple more that I like, and then two that I'll tell you about that I don't like. Okay, so the first one that we're working on that we're really excited about and really optimistic about is around Able Accounts. Able Accounts are tax-advantaged accounts for young people with disabilities that allow them to save money without jeopardizing access to their benefits. Typically, if you're receiving support from the state or federal government, you can only have $2,000 in assets or in your bank account at a given time. An ABLE account would allow you to save money in this kind of different savings account, and that doesn't count towards your benefits.
(11:03):
So it allows someone to go and work and save their money, or save up to buy a car, or save up to move or really just promote independence, have money of your own without potentially jeopardizing your healthcare. The one drawback of an ABLE account is that it's subject to a state recovery. So that means that when the beneficiary or the person who has the account passes away, the state is allowed to go into that account, that Able Account, and reimburse themselves for any healthcare or services that were provided over your lifetime. So usually those are expensive services that clear out an account and people hesitate then because you can save up to a hundred thousand dollars in those accounts over someone's lifetime. And that could all be wiped away for something that, you know, we weren't expected to pay for in the first place.
(12:00):
You know, the services and healthcare provided by the state, they're not generosity, they're not charity, they're not something to be paid back. It's not a loan. It's what we as a society have agreed that we would provide for people who need it. So all that is to say what this bill does is it prohibits the state from engaging in that estate recovery. So trying to take that money besides what the federal government requires them to do. So our hope is that it encourages more people who might be on the fence about an able account to say, okay, that one thing is out of the way, now we can start saving money for a car house. I can go get a job. Yeah.
Marsh Naidoo (12:40):
So Jeff, and please correct me if I'm wrong, my understanding this at it is actually a federal law that money can be recovered from these able accounts. However, the individual state either has options to opt in or opt-out. ( Correction TN is currently opted in as of the day of the editing)
Jeff Strand (13:08):
Yeah. So the two rules from the federal government are that any services provided after the age of 55 are required to be subject to a state recovery. So if you got healthcare from the state after the age of 55, then the state is required by Medicare and Medicaid (CMS/Medicaid) to go after that money. And then the other is that the federal government gives states the option. And you're right, it's an opt-in, opt-out. The default is an opt-in that we're gonna engage in a state recovery and Tennessee, should we pass this bill would be the 10th state to opt-out of trying to access that money for people under the age of 55.
Marsh Naidoo (13:56):
I just wanna say this, by the by. I think it pretty much ties into the fact that Tennessee is trying to really work towards making (positioning) it the state for persons of disabilities to move ahead and this year's logo for the Tennessee Disability Coalition is My Tennessee Life. And I think that very aptly ties in with that. So Jeff, what else is on the table, sir?
Jeff Strand (14:32):
Yeah, so here's another one I'm excited about because this one came to us from a constituent. So somebody who personally experienced this issue came to us with an idea and said, we should try to fix this. So that's why I'm, I'm really excited about this one. And this one is a two-part bill where we're only gonna get to one part this year. So the whole thing, the way that I've been writing it out is called #Right to Repair. And this year's is right to repair number one. So what this one would do this year is would eliminate the necessity or the requirement for a prior authorization from your insurance company to receive repairs on your wheelchair, whether that be a power or a manual wheelchair currently. It can take a really long time to get your wheelchair fixed. That's what our you know, our friend came to us to say was that she had been, you know, held up for six weeks trying to get a battery replaced on her wheelchair which meant she couldn't go to work, she couldn't go into the community, she couldn't leave her house.
(15:34):
She was nearly bedridden because she was dependent on her power wheelchair for that mobility. And it took so long in part because of the necessity of prior authorization. People, especially those who are in power wheelchairs are typically going to be in a power wheelchair for the long term. Right, You know, not everybody, but typically that's how it goes. And if you've already established the medical necessity that a doctor wrote you a prescription for a power wheelchair. I don't understand why you would have to get that medical necessity reaffirmed to get that same power wheelchair they already approved, fixed. So what this would do is it would eliminate or it would prohibit insurance companies and tenNcare the state Medicaid agency from requiring prior authorization for the repair of a wheelchair. And it's our hope that this speeds up the process and, really benefits people who use a wheelchair.
Marsh Naidoo (16:38):
So those are the two priority goals as of right now.
Jeff Strand (16:42):
Another one we're working with some partners on is expanding the prohibition of corporal punishment in schools. So that's using a paddle or some other object to punish a student in a physical way. Currently, students with disabilities are protected from that, except if their parent opts them in. We are trying to add a few more layers of protection for the students and for students who might not have been evaluated or identified as having a disability yet. That's especially really young kids. So we're excited about that one. There are like four bills proposed this year and some interest from the governor. He's, you know, expressed wanting to get into this field is a paid family leave in the state. There are you know, nearly half the states, especially for their state employees, offer paid family leave for dealing with an illness yourself having a child, dealing with a family member's illness or death or something like that.
(17:38):
Tennessee does not have that. They have unpaid leave, but that's not as helpful. They're like I mentioned four, I think at this point, paid family leave options on the, and the governor like I mentioned before, has expressed willingness to engage in this area. And then the last one I think is really interesting for advocates is it would require the state to archive the General Assembly website. So the general assembly website is a wealth of information. You can find what's gonna happen next on a bill. You can read the bill text, you can see amendments, can watch videos all from that spot. You can find your legislator legislatures gets really a helpful website. The only problem is that every year it gets wiped clean and then you can't see anything from the previous year. So if it's like this year, it's the first year of a session and you're trying to see, oh, I know that bill passed last year, but it's related to my interest, you can't go back and look at it because it's been wiped clean.
(18:37):
So this would require them to archive the general assembly website, which would be a huge boon to advocates like us. There are two more that I don't like as much. One I'm referring to as the Mechanical Restraint Bill mechanical restraint is using like handcuffs or zip ties. And what, who this affects are students with disabilities in schools. So currently, and as a result of 2018, so before me, TDC effort Tennessee has some really strict restraint and seclusion laws that really protect kids with disabilities from being restrained by adults from being locked into rooms by themselves, that kind of thing, that have no academic benefit nor any really behavioral social benefit. What this one, what this bill would do is it would roll some of those protections back and allow student resource officers or police officers to use mechanical restraints.
(19:34):
So handcuffs or zip ties in an emergency situation. So it's extra vague. There's really no reason we should be handcuffing kids. There's no benefit to this. You can already use these as a police officer as part of your job. I am not sure why this bill exists and, we really don't wanna roll those protections back for kids with disabilities, or any kids for that matter.
(20:03):
And then there's one more, and this is a big one this year. Everybody's talking about it. They're like 10 bills submitted in this area. It's the problem of third-grade retention. So in 2021, the general assembly passed a big school bill meant to kind of address the effects of the pandemic and kids being out of school. One of those was to set up summer camps, summer learning camps, and bridge camps right before school starts.
(20:32):
Then another big component of this was to be set to come into effect this year would be that third-grade students who do not read proficiently. So when they take that one test in the spring, if they don't score proficient, they are subject to being held back. And that would create an enormous cohort of third graders, given that our state is pretty dismal in our reading and math proficiency rates. So it really takes you to know the power out of the hands of parents to decide what's gonna be best for their kids. It's a logistical nightmare for schools. There's very little evidence that retention is beneficial over the long term. It can work for some kids, but then, evidence shows that for most kids it's not gonna work very well. And it just doesn't make sense. So there are a lot of ways that General Assembly members are trying to fix that.
Marsh Naidoo (21:32):
We have an exciting event coming back on the roster, and that's the Tennessee Disability Day on The Hill. Would you kindly speak more to that, Jeff?
Jeff Strand (21:43):
Yes, and I know I've been excited all morning, but I'm, I'm really excited about Disability Day on the Hill this year because it is back in person and I have never had the privilege of being part of an in-person D D H. So we've got four events leading up to and including So the very first event is the webinar. So we're gonna have a legislative webinar. We're gonna invite some people who are sponsoring our bills and some, some other important bills to come and chat with our community. So that is March, 2nd. Then March 7th, we're having a big party. We're calling out our community party. We're inviting anybody and everybody who's coming down to come to have some heavy apps, maybe a couple of drinks, talk with the other members of the community that you haven't seen for three years, and really just have that time together as a community to really just get ourselves ready for the big day, which is March 8th Disability Day on the Hill.
(22:46):
This year is March 8th. We are bringing everybody that we possibly can down to Cordell Hall, the legislative office, building the Capitol. We are going to clog up their hallways. We are going to fill up their offices. We're inviting a bunch of our partners to come in and set up tables in the lunch area. It's gonna be really exciting. I'm gonna do some Facebook Live from Disability Day on the Hill. So if you can't make it, I'm gonna put it in my pocket, my phone in my pocket, and you'll get a first-person view of what DDH looks like. It's gonna be a really fun time. And then the last kind of as a big celebration at the end to say, look at all we've done this year. Look at all we've done in the past. Look at all we're gonna do in the future. Disability Advocacy Day is March 11th. That's when Tom our brilliant comms person reaches out to literally everybody in the state who owns a building and asks if they'll light it up blue to celebrate disability advocates and all the great work that they've done. I'm really excited about this year and I, and I encourage anybody and everybody to come on down and join us.
Marsh Naidoo (23:57):
Jeff, thank you so much for joining us today and telling us about Tennessee Disability Day on the Hill and the upcoming events. Jeff, I believe it's the hashtag #My Tennessee Life. That is the logo for this year's So guys taking your pictures and posting on social media with that hashtag will also draw the community closer together for that common purpose. Jeff, I would like for you to come back at the end of the general assembly for a recap to let us know what has transpired and what has actually taken place as far as these bills are concerned. The other thing that I've found particularly helpful are the weekly updates we receive from the Coalition written by Jeff to put us on a timeline and let us know exactly what's happening every week. How can we sign up for that newsletter Jeff for those guys that might be interested in following along?
Jeff Strand (25:31):
Yeah, absolutely. So all you have to do is just send me an email. My email is jeff_s @tndisability.org. I will put you on my list.
Marsh Naidoo (25:43):
Looking forward to seeing you on Disability Day on the Hill. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Jeff Strand (25:49):
Yes. Thank you for having me. I hope to see everybody, like Marsh said, please head on over to our website, www.tndisability.org an,d RSVP by February 25th. I hope to see y'all and I look forward to recapping at the end of the session.
Marsh Naidoo (26:04):
Sounds good. Jeff you have an amazing day.
Jeff Strand (26:08):
Thanks. You too.
Marsh Naidoo (26:09):
Thank you so much for listening along to us today. And Jeff, we appreciate you kindly informing us of the policies that are on the table for this upcoming General Assembly. Tennessee Disability Day on the Hill is slated to happen on March 8, 2023. If you are unable to join in person, you can always participate by joining the virtual events as well as hashtagging your photographs on social media, #My Tennessee Life. And another way to participate as well as by joining the Facebook group, Tennessee Disability Advocates Group. Again, the reference for the website to check on the upcoming events is www.tn disability. Org. As always, guys, remember, to get to the top of your mountain. This is Marsh Naidoo signing off.
