UFCW Local 1529
Standing strong for working families
Powering · Labor Education
Two-Page Handout — Front and Back
Print it double-sided: the three questions on the front, the detail on the back. Put your local on it and print.
published by LaborEducation.org
3 Amendments. Vote No on All 3.
The Tennessee AFL-CIO recommends NO on all three, and so does this analysis. They are printed at the very end of your ballot, right after the governor's race, and a change to the Constitution outlasts every politician on the same page. Here is what each one does.
An amendment must get more yes than no and yes votes totaling more than half of all votes cast in the governor's race. Vote for governor and skip the amendments and your ballot still counts in that total. Vote all the way to the end.
Lets a court hold a person without bail before trial on six named offenses — capital, terrorism, second degree murder, aggravated rape of a child, aggravated rape, grave torture — plus any offense requiring at least 85% of the sentence served, frozen to the list as it stands on Nov 3, 2026.
A charge is not a conviction, but months in pretrial custody ends the job and the family's health coverage. TDOC had 41 Tennessee jails at 90% capacity or higher in July 2026, and paid $161.7M in county jail reimbursements last fiscal year.
Writes a permanent ban on a state property tax into the constitution. Tennessee has not levied one since 1949. City and county property taxes are not affected and are not on this ballot.
The same section already bans any tax on payroll or earned income (2014). Lock property too and sales tax is all that's left — the tax our members pay the biggest share of their income on. Schools stay tied to local bases, and Memphis already pays the steepest local rates in the state.
Deletes the current victims' rights section and replaces it with thirteen rights enforceable in court. The General Assembly defines who counts as a victim and may expand that definition. This is the Marsy's Law model.
Picket lines generate criminal complaints. If a supervisor is the complainant, right (6) covers protection from “the accused or any person acting on behalf of the accused” — broad enough to reach a rep. Thirteen enforceable duties arrive with no money for the clerks and DA staff who must carry them.
amendments-2026
published by LaborEducation.org
Why no, amendment by amendment
- No attendance or job-abandonment clause in our contracts survives months in pretrial custody. Just cause cannot protect a member who cannot report to work.
- Our corrections and deputy members absorb the added population: mandatory overtime, worse ratios, more assaults, more turnover.
- Because the text reads “at least 85%,” it also captures the 100%-service offenses — including aggravated robbery and aggravated child abuse. Voters see six crimes printed and one cross-reference to the sentencing code.
- The other way: the catch-all is frozen as of Nov 3, 2026, so no future legislature can widen it by statute, and judges must state their reasons on the record either way.
- On record: Tennessee AFL-CIO recommends NO. ACLU of Tennessee opposes. Tennessee Republican Party supports.
- Raised for YES through June 30, 2026: Tennessee Realtors $50,000 · Tennessee Chamber $25,000 · Farm Bureau $25,000 · Beacon Center $5,000. Total $109,500. Raised against it: $0, with no opposition committee registered.
- Also endorsing YES: Americans for Prosperity–TN, Americans for Tax Reform, NFIB–TN, Beacon Center.
- It does not lower anybody's current bill by a dollar — the bill a Memphis homeowner pays is local, and this cannot touch it.
- Renters get nothing: residential buildings with two or more units are assessed as commercial at 40% under this same section. Property tax is already in the rent.
- The other way: nobody is proposing a state property tax, local taxes are untouched, and a NO vote does not create a tax.
- On record: Tennessee AFL-CIO recommends NO. ACLU of Tennessee takes no position. Tennessee Republican Party supports.
- Right (9) creates a constitutional interest in speedy disposition. A member fighting a picket-line charge usually needs time; pressure for speed is pressure to plead.
- Rights (4), (5) and (11) give victims a formal role in release and parole, which tends to mean longer custody — straight into our second-chance and pre-apprenticeship pipelines.
- Thirteen enforceable rights with no appropriation. Court clerks, DA victim-witness staff and parole staff do the work. No fiscal note for Shelby County has been produced.
- What Tennessee left out matters: there is no anonymity or confidentiality right in the thirteen. That clause is how Florida agencies hid officers' names in use-of-force cases until their Supreme Court stopped it in Nov 2023, and how South Dakota's court allowed it in Apr 2026. But the definition of “victim” belongs to the legislature and may be expanded.
- The other way, from the text itself: it “must be interpreted to preserve and protect the rights of all persons to due process,” creates no basis for vacating a conviction, no cause of action for damages, does not restrict the District Attorney General or the court, and a victim asserts rights “not as a party.”
- On record: Tennessee AFL-CIO recommends NO. ACLU of Tennessee opposes, with the sharpest concern in juvenile cases. Tennessee Republican Party supports.
