The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee. The House convenes, along with the Senate, at the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville.
The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee. The House convenes, along with the Senate, at the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville.
The Tennessee Senate is the upper house of the U.S. state of Tennessee's state legislature, which is known formally as the Tennessee General Assembly.
The Tennessee Senate has the power to pass resolutions concerning essentially any issue regarding the state, country, or world. The Senate also has the power to create and enforce its own rules and qualifications for its members. The Senate shares these powers with the Tennessee House of Representatives. The Senate alone has the power to host impeachment proceeding and remove impeached members of office with a 2/3 majority. The Tennessee Senate, according to the state constitution of 1870, is composed of 33 members, one-third the size of the Tennessee House of Representatives. Senators are to be elected from districts of substantially equal population. According to the Tennessee constitution, a county is not to be joined to a portion of another county for purposes of creating a district; this provision has been overridden by the rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States in Baker v. Carr (369 U.S. 182, 1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (337 U.S. 356, 1964). The Tennessee constitution has been amended to allow that if these rulings are ever changed or reversed, a referendum may be held to allow the senate districts to be drawn on a basis other than substantially equal population.
The secretary of state is an official in the state governments of 47 of the 50 states of the United States, as well as Puerto Rico and other U.S. possessions. In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, this official is called the secretary of the commonwealth. In states that have one, the secretary of state is the chief administrative officer of the state and is often the primary custodian of important state records. In the states of Alaska, Hawaii, and Utah, there is no secretary of state; in those states many duties that a secretary of state might normally execute fall within the domain of the lieutenant governor. Like the lieutenant governor, in most states, the secretary of state is in the line of succession to succeed the governor, in most cases immediately behind the lieutenant governor. In three states with no lieutenant governor (Arizona, Oregon and Wyoming) as well as the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, the secretary of state is first in the line of succession in the event of a gubernatorial vacancy.
Currently, in 35 states, the secretary of state is elected, usually for a four-year term. In others, the secretary of state is appointed by the governor with confirmation with the state's respective Senate; Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia are among the states with this practice. In three states, the secretary of state is elected by the state legislature: the General Assembly of Tennessee meets in joint convention to elect the secretary of state to a four-year term, and the Maine Legislature and New Hampshire General Court also select their secretaries of state, but to two-year terms. The longest serving state secretary of state in history was Thad A. Eure of North Carolina, who served from 1936 until 1989.
The Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR or The College System of Tennessee) is a system of community and technical colleges in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is one of two public higher education systems in the state, the other being the University of Tennessee system. It was authorized by an act of the Tennessee General Assembly passed in 1972. The TBR supervises all public community colleges and technical colleges in the state, serving over 110,000 students annually.
It was founded as the State University and Community College System of Tennessee. The TBR comprises 37 institutions: 13 community colleges and 24 Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology, which are listed below. The Colleges of Applied Technology were added to TBR control in 1982. Unlike the situation in most states, TBR component institutions did not have their own board of directors, board of trustees, or similar bodies; the TBR hired institution presidents and directors and approves the promotions of senior faculty and staff. In 2015, Tennessee governor Bill Haslam announced a plan for the six universities of the TBR system to gain their own governing boards, while noting that "TBR would continue to provide key administrative support to the six state universities."