Can a Tennessee bill about a Blount County river be amended to address a Rutherford County road?

Plain-English summary

Representative Bill Harmon asked whether House Bill 3230, captioned "AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4; Title 54 and Title 69, relative to the Little River in Blount County, Tennessee," could be amended to direct the Department of Transportation to convert a tract of land in Rutherford County into an uncontrolled access road.

AG Robert E. Cooper, Jr. said no. Article II, Section 17 of the Tennessee Constitution requires that a bill embrace only one subject, expressed in its title. Tennessee courts have a longstanding distinction: a "general or broad" caption can hold many germane provisions, but a "restrictive" caption (one that carves out a particular part of a subject) confines the bill to that narrow topic. The HB 3230 caption was restrictive because it specified "the Little River in Blount County, Tennessee." A Rutherford County road has nothing to do with that subject, so adding it to the bill would violate the single-subject rule.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2010. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

Q: What's the single-subject rule trying to prevent?
A: "Logrolling," combining multiple unrelated provisions into one bill so that legislators face an all-or-nothing vote. Article II, Section 17 forces each bill to be about one subject so that legislators and the public can understand what they're voting on, and so that one provision can't ride into law on the back of another popular one.

Q: What's the difference between general and restrictive captions?
A: A general caption ("AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 54, relative to transportation") can carry any provision germane to transportation under Title 54. A restrictive caption ("relative to the Little River in Blount County") narrows the bill to a single, specific subject. Drafters use restrictive captions to control what amendments can be added during the legislative process.

Q: Who wrote a restrictive caption to begin with?
A: Often the bill's original sponsor, sometimes deliberately to prevent unrelated amendments, sometimes by accident. Once a restrictive caption is in the title, every amendment must fit within it; a broader amendment risks invalidating the whole bill.

Q: What's the test for a permissible amendment?
A: The provisions must "relate directly or indirectly" to the captioned subject and have "a natural connection thereto." (Cannon v. Mathes, 55 Tenn. 504 (1872), still good Tennessee law on this point.) Amendments germane to a broad caption are fine. Amendments outside a restrictive caption fail.

Q: What happens if a bill passes with an out-of-caption amendment?
A: The bill or the offending provision can be challenged in court and held unconstitutional. The Tennessee Supreme Court has invalidated bills on this basis when the body diverges materially from the caption.

Q: How can a sponsor work around a restrictive caption?
A: Either pass a separate bill on the new topic, or, if the bill hasn't been finalized, replace the caption with a broader one through a properly noticed amendment. The amendment changing the caption itself must be done in compliance with legislative rules.

Q: Was there a way to fix HB 3230 to allow the Rutherford County amendment?
A: The opinion didn't suggest one, but the practical answer is yes: amend the caption first to broaden it (e.g., to add Rutherford County or to remove the river reference). A "broader" amendment to the caption would itself need to be allowed under legislative rules.

Background and statutory framework

Article II, Section 17 of the Tennessee Constitution reads: "No bill shall become a law which embraces more than one subject, that subject to be expressed in the title." The provision dates to the post-Civil War era when state legislatures across the country were criticized for combining unrelated provisions in single bills. The Tennessee Supreme Court has interpreted the provision as both a single-subject rule and a "title-must-match-body" rule.

The leading authorities are Cannon v. Mathes (Tenn. 1872), Chattanooga County Hospital Authority v. City of Chattanooga (Tenn. 1979), and Tennessee Municipal League v. Thompson (Tenn. 1997). The framework is permissive when captions are general: any provision "naturally and reasonably connected" with the captioned subject is allowed. The framework is strict when captions are restrictive: the body of the act "must be confined to the particular portion expressed in the limited title."

The HB 3230 caption used both a general element ("AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4; Title 54 and Title 69") and a restrictive element ("relative to the Little River in Blount County, Tennessee"). The presence of the restrictive element controls. The proposed Rutherford County road amendment had no factual or substantive connection to the Little River in Blount County, so it failed the restrictive-caption test.

This opinion is part of a long line of pre-passage AG advisory opinions that legislators rely on to test whether proposed amendments will survive constitutional challenge. Catching the problem before passage is much cheaper than litigating it after.

Citations and references

Tennessee Constitution:

• Tenn. Const. art. II, § 17

Cases (Tennessee Supreme Court):

• Cannon v. Mathes, 55 Tenn. 504, 523 (1872)
• Chattanooga County Hospital Authority v. City of Chattanooga, 580 S.W.2d 322 (Tenn. 1979)
• Tennessee Municipal League v. Thompson, 958 S.W.2d 333 (Tenn. 1997)

Source

• Landing page: https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/opinions.html
• Original PDF: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/attorneygeneral/documents/ops/2010/op10-072.pdf

Original opinion text

S T A T E O F T E N N E S S E E
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
PO BOX 20207
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE 37202

May 21, 2010

Opinion No. 10-72

Amending Transportation Act with Restrictive Caption

QUESTION

The caption of House Bill 3230 is "AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4; Title 54 and Title 69, relative to the Little River in Blount County, Tennessee." A proposed amendment would direct the Department of Transportation to convert a tract of land in Rutherford County to an uncontrolled access road. Does the proposed amendment fall within the caption of the bill as required by Article II, Section 17, of the Tennessee Constitution?

OPINION

The proposed amendment falls outside the restrictive caption of the bill and, therefore, would violate Article II, Section 17, of the Tennessee Constitution.

ANALYSIS

This opinion concerns a proposed amendment to House Bill 3230. The caption of this bill is: "AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4; Title 54 and Title 69, relative to the Little River in Blount County, Tennessee." House Bill 3230, as proposed, provides:

Section 1. The department of transportation, in consultation with the department of environment and conservation, shall redress recurring flooding near the Sunbright Community in Blount County, Tennessee, caused by clearing a landslide from the highway running parallel to the Little River into such river including, but not limited to, clearing boulders displaced into the river during the clearing process.
Section 2. The department shall utilize all available federal funding for such purposes.
Section 3. This act shall take effect upon becoming a law, the public welfare requiring it.

Senate Bill 94, as amended by the amendment with drafting code SA0953 01550973, provides:

Section 1. Subject to any mandatory federal approval, the department of transportation shall move or remove any barriers or obstacles on a certain tract of land adjacent to Interstate 24 in Rutherford County and shall convert such property to an uncontrolled access road to enhance the economic features of the contiguous area. Such tract of land being more particularly described as follows:
...
Section 2. No public funds shall [be] allotted or expended for the design, construction or any other cost for such uncontrolled access road[.]
Section 3. The Tennessee department of transportation is directed to report to the house and senate transportation committees by February 15, 2011, on the conversion of the tract of land described in this act to an uncontrolled access road.
Section 4. This act shall take effect upon becoming a law, the public welfare requiring it.

The request asks whether this language may constitutionally be added to House Bill 3230.

Article II, Section 17, of the Tennessee Constitution states: "No bill shall become a law which embraces more than one subject, that subject to be expressed in the title." Courts have used various tests for proper construction of this constitutional provision, but "'the true rule of construction, as fully established by the authorities, is that any provision of the act, directly or indirectly relating to the subject expressed in the title, and having a natural connection thereto, and not foreign thereto, should be held to be embraced in it.'" Chattanooga County Hospital Authority v. City of Chattanooga, 580 S.W.2d 322, 326 (Tenn. 1979) (emphasis in original, quoting Cannon v. Mathes, 55 Tenn. 504, 523 (1872)). If the title to the act is general or broad and comprehensive, all matters which are germane to the subject may be embraced in the act. If the matters are naturally and reasonably connected with the subject expressed in the title, then they are properly included in the act. Tennessee Municipal League v. Thompson, 958 S.W.2d 333, 336-37 (Tenn. 1997). If, on the other hand, the act has adopted a restrictive title where a particular part of a subject is carved out and selected, then the body of the act must be confined to the particular portion expressed in the limited title. Id.

In this case, while the subject of House Bill 3230 refers to amending three different titles in the Tennessee Code, it also contains the restrictive phrase, "relative to the Little River in Blount County, Tennessee." The subject matter of the proposed amendment relates to a tract of land in Rutherford County and, therefore, is not embraced within the restrictive caption of House Bill 3230. For this reason, the amendment would violate Article II, Section 17, of the Tennessee Constitution.

ROBERT E. COOPER, JR.
Attorney General and Reporter

GINA J. BARHAM
Deputy Attorney General

ANN LOUISE VIX
Senior Counsel

Requested by:
Honorable Bill Harmon
State Representative
24 Legislative Plaza
Nashville, Tennessee 37243