MATTHEW BURNETTE, Staff Writer

Tennessee State Senator Janice Bowling and State Representative Rush Bricken fielded questions on a variety of topics at the Manchester Area Chamber of Commerce’s January luncheon.

Both legislators were featured speakers at the event and then teamed up to answer questions from the audience of Chamber members.

Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Act was the most widely discussed topic.

“The bill deals with parental choice,” explained Bricken. “I could survey everyone here and nobody would probably have a fault with parental choice. Where do you want to send your child to school? You as a parent have that right to choose.”

“The detail’s always in the details,” he added.

The bill creates 20,000 scholarships, part of which would be distributed based on income and the others will have no qualifiers attached, that can be used to pay for tuition to private schools for Tennessee students. Bricken says the bill will have no effect on funding for local school districts otherwise termed local education agencies (LEA).

Also included in the bill are what Bricken called “carrots,” a $2,000 bonus for teachers and a change in designation for the 80% of money raised through sports betting from the Lottery Scholarship, which focuses on secondary education, to building infrastructure needs of public schools.

Bricken said he voted against the vouchers last time they were brought to the House but could be in favor of the bill if certain “tweaks” are made such as an income cap for recipients.

Manchester City School Director Dr. Joey Vaughn urged Bricken to continue to not support the bill.

“What it’s going to do is it’s going to create a green divide,” said Vaughn. “The kids that can’t go, they’re going to stay on their buses and they’re going to still walk to school when they can’t go to private school. Those that can will continue to do so. In public schools, everybody, everyday gets the same… push, so I think we have to be real careful not to create that green divide within public education that’s state-funded.”

Sen. Bowling was asked if she is going to reintroduce her Medical Cannabis legislation which she confirmed she is.

“Medical Cannabis has been pushed down by Big Pharma… because it’s not addictive, there’s never been an overdose, and we have thousands of people dying yearly with overdoses of the pain medication,” said Bowling.

Bowling’s bill would legalize medical cannabis use for patients with qualifying conditions, including cancer, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, opioid addiction, severe psoriasis and other ailments. A similar bill was passed in Alabama.

“There are thirty-nine states that have medical Cannabis programs. It’s very controlled. It’s not something that’s in a brown bag on the street corner,” said Bowling. “This is a very highly controlled project where this has been researched, and there are certain diseases and conditions that are greatly helped by medical Cannabis. That’s not a supposition, that’s an actuality.”

To start off his remarks earlier in the event, Rep. Bricken picked a topic to “get the audience’s attention.”

“I wanted to first talk about porn,” said Bricken to a laugh from the audience before discussing a bill that passed in Tennessee last year.

The bill requiring age verification on pornographic websites was blocked before it could take effect this month by U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman in Memphis citing free speech concerns.

“Your children cannot go into an adult bookstore, or they cannot buy pornography,” said Bricken. “We’ve always had safeguards for our kids in that regard. (Social media and websites) We have to put up some guardrails there.”