TIPS AND KEY POINTS:

• make it personal. share why it's important to you that our courts stay focused on JUSTICE not POLITICS.
• No matter where we come from or what our color, most of us believe that our elected leaders should reflect the very best of every kind of American and govern for all of us, no exceptions.
• Rushing through this legislation to set up one of the nation’s first statewide trial courts will cost millions in taxpayer dollars and duplicates a process we already have.
• Rushing through this legislation to setup an entirely new, partisan court is extremely expensive to Tennessee taxpayers and duplicates a process we already have.
• This is a reckless power grab, and a conflict of interest. Allowing a court comprised of judges who are hand-picked at first by the governor to rule on legal cases challenging the governor’s own executive orders and any bills he signs into law is a recipe for disaster.
• This undermines Tennesseans’ right to a fair and impartial judiciary. And it targets critical issues affecting the rights of all Tennesseans, such as constitutional challenges and redistricting.
• This is too important a topic – with outcomes that are too consequential – not to take the time to get the mechanics right, and yet this bill was recklessly funded and recklessly pushed through the legislature at the last minute without any time to consider the consequences and the cost to Tennessee taxpayers.
• Politicians shouldn’t get to pick the players, the field and the referees. The drafters of our state’s constitution realized the importance of separation of powers. When one branch of government wields too much power, politicians work more for themselves rather than the people they are supposed to serve. These politicians and Gov. Lee shouldn’t get to pick their own referees, especially when we already have a court that works.
• This new court is as expensive as it is unnecessary. With a cost upwards of $1 million every year, many Tennesseans will be left wondering where their taxes might’ve gone instead: better schools, better roads, more support for small businesses struggling from the pandemic. Creating an unnecessary court using taxpayer dollars in the middle of a pandemic isn’t just irresponsible -- it’s cruel.
• If it isn't broken, don’t fix it -- and Tennessee’s court system is working fine. Supporters of this power-grab haven’t been able to make a single case for why such radical change is necessary beyond listing a few legal decisions that didn’t go their way.
• Ask Gov. Lee, and Tennessee legislature, to reject this power-grab and let our courts focus on justice, not politics.