Tennessee GOP rejects millions in funding to avoid LGBTQ+ mandates

In Tennessee and other Republican-led states, lawmakers are rejecting federal funds that don’t align with their culture war objectives, turning away billions earmarked to benefit their constituents in need.

In January, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) announced his administration was rejecting $8.8 million in federal funds provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for HIV prevention and treatment.

Related:

Trans sex worker & ACLU sue Tennessee over HIV criminalization law

The law turns one misdemeanor into a felony, but only for HIV-positive people.

Left unsaid was the fact that some of those dollars had made their way to programs run by groups associated with transgender healthcare. After a months-long outrage campaign by right-wing media, Gov. Lee threw the baby out with the bathwater and deprived the state of millions in federal dollars.

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Tennessee recently rejected federal grant dollars to help monitor teenagers’ sexual behaviors in an effort to lower rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. That money was spurned in the name of “parental rights.”

“I think the real issue has to do with restrictions around sexual orientation and gender,” said state Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Democrat from Memphis. “That’s something [Republican officials] do not want to have to comply with.”

It’s a pattern that’s playing out over and over again in Tennessee and other Republican-led states, where rejecting federal dollars and the strings attached allows them to impose culturally conservative mandates of their own.

Those rejections come as red states consider an unprecedented number of bills hostile to LGBTQ+ identity and rights, with Tennessee among the most prolific.

“We should do everything that we can to be whole and autonomous and independent from the federal government,” Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton told the Associated Press last week. “When you take federal government money, their philosophies and what they want you to do is different than probably what the state wants to do.”

Sexton defended the Republican strategy, saying the state has “backfilled” rejected federal funds with state dollars, and that he isn’t advocating for cutting services.

Instead, lawmakers are imposing mandates of their own.

For example, public schools risk losing state money if they allow transgender athletes to participate in school athletics, teach prohibited concepts on race and racism, or implement COVID-19 mask mandates.

Despite Tennessee ranking among the lowest per-pupil spending in the United States, GOP lawmakers in the state are now considering whether to reject federal education funding, an amount of money that dwarfs other federal subsidies.

The state currently receives nearly $1.8 billion in federal education dollars, which translates to 20% of Tennessee’s $8.3 billion education budget.

“The consideration of some lawmakers to reject critical federal funding at a time when Tennessee needs more great leaps in funding as quickly as possible is irresponsible,” said Tanya Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association. “You don’t have to look hard to see where Tennessee elected officials have set up their own system of threatening districts with a loss of state funding through a series of arbitrary and often harmful legislation.”

In the case of the rejected HIV funding in January, the federal government worked around Tennessee lawmakers and awarded federal funds directly to the organizations denied funding by the state.