House Speaker Cameron Sexton said the special session he called focusing on COVID-19 mandates has a tentative date of October 27th.

The General Assembly is already slated to convene October 18th to discuss the Ford Company Memphis site. Sexton said with officials already in Nashville, it serves as a good time to enter a second session.

“The mask mandates that some local school districts are doing or these independent health directors are doing, parents are wanting to have parental choice if their kids wear masks, which I totally agree with,” Sexton said. “There’s a federal judge that did a universal mask mandate legislation from the bench, so we want to go in and look at that.”

Sexton said quarantining guidelines for students also seems to be an issue. Sexton said he wants to take a look at school systems that have different protocols and recommendations. Sexton said the session will likely last about two weeks.

“There’s a lot of discussion surrounding the six independent health directors in our state,” Sexton said. “How they can shut down businesses and impose mask mandates in the county and they’re not elected. They’re just bureaucrats that are appointed, and that’s something else we want to look at.”

This is not the first instance of a possible special called session regarding COVID mandates and parental choice. In August, the house drafted a letter asking Governor Bill Lee to call a special session.

“Now, we’re at the point where more and more people are realizing that there’s a lot of issues that we need to take care of to protect parents’ rights, students’ rights, businesses’ rights, employees’ rights and now is a good time to do it,” Sexton said.