Abraham Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg of a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Do we have that in Tennessee?

“Of the people,” I guess maybe so. There’s no proof that the legislative pool includes any species other than human, though a few occasionally demonstrate the mental acuity of livestock.

But let’s consider “by the people.” A resolution by Rep. Yusuf Hakeem of Chattanooga proposes to amend the state constitution to allow Tennessee registered voters “to propose laws by initiative, independent of the General Assembly.”

Ballotpedia tells us 26 states have some sort of initiative or referendum process or both. Depending on the type, they allow residents to propose new statutes or constitutional amendments to be placed on the ballot or to uphold or reject statutes already enacted.

Sometimes it works well, sometimes not. And sometimes both.

Take Mississippi, where, in 2020, almost three-quarters of voters approved Initiative 65, a constitutional amendment mandating a medical marijuana program. But the results were challenged in court because the initiative process – itself placed in the state constitution in 1992 – required petition signatures to be collected equally from each of the state’s five congressional districts.

The problem was, by 2020 the state had only four congressional districts. So the state Supreme Court rejected the clear will of the people and killed both medical marijuana and the initiative process.

Efforts to restore either have failed so far. In the current legislative session, the House has passed an initiative bill, but it would specifically bar a few issues, including abortion laws. Gee, I wonder why...

Hakeem’s resolution for Tennessee addresses only statutes, and sets up a procedure that requires petition signatures amounting to 5% or more of the votes cast in the previous election for governor.

But as a means of circumventing the legislature, it’s toothless. Even if a proposed statute won approval by a majority of voters, it would still have to be approved by a majority of legislators – or for the legislature to take no action – to go into effect.

You might think legislators would be content to have veto power over the people, but you’d be wrong. They don’t even want the people to have a say. A similar resolution by Rep. G.A. Hardaway of Memphis last year containing the same legislative veto right failed on a voice vote in a panel of the Local Government Committee.

(The Venn diagram of where my beliefs overlap with the Tennessee Conservative’s “news” website is vanishingly small. But we both hate anonymous voice votes.)

Hakeem’s resolution has been referred to a different committee than Hardaway’s – State Government – but I have little reason to think it will get a better reception. Both Hakeem and Hardaway are Democrats, in case you hadn’t guessed.

Which brings us to the idea of government “for the people.” I invite your conclusions. I have my own.

A sidebar: A Kentucky legislator got some grief recently when it turned out a bill he’d introduced to strengthen incest laws would have – inadvertently, he said – legalized sex between first cousins. He has refiled the bill to keep it illegal.

Well, guess what: Unless I’m misreading state law, it’s already legal in Tennessee.

The statute covering incest, Section 39-15-302, prohibits “sexual penetration” by a person with his or her “natural parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, stepparent, stepchild, adoptive parent, adoptive child; or the person’s brother or sister of the whole or half-blood or by adoption.”

I don’t see “cousin” in there. On a related note, companion bills introduced by Sen. Jeff Yarbro and Rep. Darren Jernigan would make it illegal for first cousins to marry.

And an update: My prediction that some legislators might balk at a resolution honoring Phil Williams, Channel 5’s investigative bulldog, for a national journalism award was wrong. The measure, citing Williams’s “unbridled respect and admiration of his colleagues and the worthy approbation of the general public,” sailed through the House and the Senate with nary a dissent.

Some legislators were probably too scared to vote against it.

Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.