August 18, 2022
By:
Four Constitutional Amendments will appear on the November ballot, according to the DeKalb County Election Commission.
The amendments deal with issues ranging from employment rights to a process for the temporary exercise of power of the governor to forever prohibiting slavery to deleting a section which prohibits ministers from holding a seat in the legislature.
“There will be a summary of each amendment on the ballot for voters to read and review before casting their vote,” said Dennis Stanley, Administrator of Elections. “A copy of the sample ballot will be released late next month and voters should review the language of the amendments in advance,” he said.
In general terms, Constitutional Amendment #1 would add a new section to article X1 to make it illegal for any person, corporation, association or the State of Tennessee or its political subdivisions to deny or attempt to deny employment to any person because of the person’s membership in, affiliation with, resignation from, or refusal to join or affiliate with any labor union or employee organization.
Constitutional Amendment #2 would add to Article III, Section 12 of the current constitution a process for the temporary exercise of powers and duties of the governor by the Speaker of the Senate (or the Speaker of the House if there is no Speaker of the Senate in office) when the governor is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.
Constitutional Amendment #3 would change the language in article I, section 33 of the current constitution with “slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.”
Constitutional Amendment #4 simply deletes article IX, section I of the current constitution which prohibits ministers of the gospel and priests of any denomination from holding a seat in either House of the legislature.
“Once a sample ballot is released later, voters will see that the Amendments will be placed on the ballot directly after the Governor’s race,” Stanley said. “Amendments are presented as yes or no questions. A “yes” vote is a vote to amend the Constitution and adopt the proposed language in the amendment. A “no” vote is a vote to NOT amend the constitution and keep the current language in the Constitution unchanged,” he added.
For any amendment to pass, it must get more “yes” votes than “no” votes; and the number of “yes” votes must be a majority of the total votes in the gubernatorial election.
The November ballot will include three state offices and one local office only in District 4.
Candidates for Governor are incumbent Republican Bill Lee; Democratic Nominee Jason Brantley Martin and Independents Constance M. Every, John Gentry, Basil Marceaux, Charles Van Morgan, Alfred O’Neil, Deborah Rouse, Michael E. Scantland and Rick Tyler.
Candidates for U.S. Congress District 6 are incumbent Republican John Rose and Democratic Nominee Randal Cooper.
Candidates for State House 40th District are Republican Nominee Michael Hale and Democratic Nominee Tom Cook, both from DeKalb County.
In the 4th District of DeKalb County, Constable will be on the ballot again as the office is currently vacant and no candidate qualified for the May primaries or August General Elections.
Because of the law relating to vacancies, a party nominee must be chosen by the respective parties and the candidate’s name reported to the local election office no later than Noon September 14. Independent candidates for Constable can qualify by petition and the petition must be returned by the same deadline.