⚖️ SUE NOW, FIND OUT LATER

For years in Tennessee, if you didn’t like a law, you didn’t have to wait for it to affect you. You could just… sue.

Put simply: you didn’t have to wait to get burned — seeing the match was enough. And it was perfectly legal. Seems a bit misguided, right? Lawmakers finally agreed — and decided to shut it down.

Last Friday, Governor Bill Lee signed SB1958 into law, and with it, a consequential door closed in Tennessee law. The bill repealed T.C.A. § 1-3-121 — a 2018 statute that permitted the litigation-inclined to sue the state prematurely — before anything had actually gone wrong.

What’s still standing is the pre-2018 framework — rooted in Colonial Pipeline Co. v. Morgan — meaning if a state officer tries to enforce an unconstitutional law, you can still sue to stop them. That’s been on the books since 2008, and the new law didn’t touch it.

So the courthouse doors are still open — you just don’t get free entry on hypotheticals anymore.

But why did things finally move?

Attorney Mark Pulliam laid out the pattern on his excellent blog, Misrule of Law, and once you see it, it’s impossible to unsee. For years, plaintiffs looking to challenge state law knew exactly where to go: Davidson County Chancery Court.

Pick your issue — abortion restrictions, school choice, immigration enforcement — and file before any new law ever touches you. The legislature saw the problem for what it was. They even spent $2.4 million in 2021 creating a special three-judge panel to slow it down.

Valiant try, perhaps… but the filings kept coming. After eight years, lawmakers decided they’d seen enough, and it was time to act. And that three-judge panel? Still out there somewhere, having accomplished nothing, collecting a salary, probably very proud of itself.

Which brings us to the opposition — and it’s one strange house party.

Without a clean left-versus-right fight, what’s left is the fringe crowd: jilted progressives and angry purists, now standing impatiently at the same closed door. Neither brought a dish.

Progressive groups wanted to preserve a tool they’d used for years — usually after losing at the ballot box. And their unlikely plus-ones? Gary Humble of Tennessee Stands, alongside the Tennessee Firearms Association, arguing that without pre-enforcement challenges, there’s no meaningful check on government power.

So we end up with polar opposite sides of the political spectrum — united, at last, in their outrage that they can no longer sue with reckless abandon.

Imagine that.

Not to be completely overshadowed, the Williamson County Republican Party played “me too.” In early March, they passed a unanimous resolution opposing the bill, citing Marbury v. Madison, Bruen, and the Tennessee Constitution, for scholarly measure. Then they hit send — straight to their legislative delegation — with, one assumes, the solemn dignity of people who have never been ignored before. Newsflash: they have.

The bill passed anyway.

The result? Maximum passion with zero impact. Their own Republican delegation didn’t blink. Even Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti supported the repeal, arguing courts had stretched 1-3-121 into a blanket sovereign immunity waiver it was never meant to be.

So much for suing prematurely.

But you can’t talk about premature litigation without talking about state Rep. Gino Bulso.

Rep. Bulso, unsurprisingly, voted against SB1958. It’s worth noting he’s also an attorney — not in the “has a law degree” sense, but in the “if you’re in his zip code, you’ve probably been served by now” sense. Bulso does love to sue… almost as much as he loves showing up to formal events dressed for a Saturday spin class.

Back on topic, what matters here is his most dramatic case filed last year: the TISA lawsuit, challenging Tennessee’s school funding formula. That’s not exactly what SB1958 was about — but the disease is the same: prematurity.

You see, Bulso didn’t build consensus — or even try.

TISA plaintiffs include School Board members Tony Bostic, Donna Clements, and Margie Johnson, along with County Commissioners Mary Smith, Barb Sturgeon, and Drew Torres. All elected officials — all apparently comfortable keeping their colleagues in the dark.

Bulso may one day have to answer why he didn’t seek a broader coalition from the full County Commission or the full School Board — which, in Williamson County, likely wouldn’t have been all that difficult given the local opposition to TISA. Instead, he ran with a small group of “grassroots” allies and rushed them headlong into a lawsuit.

Enough names to file? Sure. Enough to represent? That’s another question — especially given that much of the case has already been dismissed. What remains has been allowed to be refiled. Which is a legal way of saying: it’s not going great.

Filing early gets headlines. But winning? That becomes secondary when execution lacks discipline.

Regardless, the case is technically still alive. But the underlying problem hasn’t changed. And that problem is a legal term called standing. Standing means you have to prove the law actually hurt you, not just that you hate it. And that’s the bow tying this whole deliciously litigious mess together in a neat little knot.

Speaking of standing — you may recall the Tennessee Stands lawsuits during COVID. Humble ran into the same wall: lack of standing. Different issue, same outcome. Turns out, judging by Humble’s political defeats, losing in court isn’t exactly a résumé booster.

And that brings us back to the people who signed onto the TISA suit. The above-named public officials — some are up for reelection. One — Mary Smith — is even running for an upgrade: county mayor.

Attaching your name to a rushed, high-profile lawsuit with obvious procedural weaknesses — all as a sitting public official — isn’t just a legal misstep — it’s a credibility gap. A lack of judgment. A lack of discernment. And it becomes a wasted opportunity to right a wrong like TISA — or at the very least, a waste of taxpayer money.

Usually both.

Early voting starts today. Judgment — yours this time — is on the ballot.