Nashville’s Metro Council members will not be trading their nameplates for mugshots after all. Tennessee’s attorney general and Davidson County’s district attorney agreed Wednesday to a proposed settlement that would block enforcement of a 2025 state law that made it a felony for local officials to vote in favor of sanctuary-style immigration policies. The deal would resolve a lawsuit brought by seven Metro Council members and civil-rights attorneys, who argued the law trampled the First Amendment and violated legislative immunity. Under the agreement, the state would also pick up the councilmembers’ legal tab.
In a press release, the ACLU of Tennessee said the proposed settlement wraps up a June 2025 lawsuit and confirms that Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk "will not bring criminal charges or removal proceedings" under the contested parts of the statute. The proposed order would also formalize Skrmetti’s September 2025 announcement that his office could not defend those sections and direct the state to pay roughly $61,200 in attorneys’ fees and court costs, according to Tennessee Lookout.
AG Says Law Collides With Legislative Immunity
Skrmetti did not mince words about the constitutional problem at the heart of the case. "Every legislator, whether at the federal, state, or local level, has a constitutional guarantee against prosecution for how they vote," he said, adding that while sanctuary policies remain illegal in Tennessee, city and county officials cannot be jailed for casting votes in favor of them, the attorney general told WPLN News. That concession knocks out a legal theory that would have let prosecutors pursue felony charges against local elected officials for their votes, a step critics had already branded unprecedented.
What The Law Was Set To Do
The disputed provisions were folded into Senate Bill 6002, passed in 2025, and targeted so-called "sanctuary policies" at the local level. A vote in favor of such a policy could have been treated as a Class E felony, carrying a potential prison sentence of one to six years, and the law would have allowed the attorney general to seek removal of offending officials, according to reporting by Tennessee Lookout. Opponents warned that the wording was vague enough to chill local leaders from fully representing immigrant communities, while supporters argued it was a straightforward reinforcement of state authority over immigration-related local decisions.
Local Response And What Comes Next
On the Metro Council side, the mood was celebratory. Councilmember Clay Capp, one of the plaintiffs, called the settlement a "victory for free-speech and self-government," and other council members said the agreement shields their ability to represent immigrant residents without worrying that a controversial vote could land them in court or in jail, WPLN News reports. At the Capitol, state lawmakers have introduced a bill to strip the felony provision from the books entirely; if that measure passes, it would simply lock in what the settlement already accomplishes in practice.
Broader Legal Ripples
Legal observers say the settlement is a pointed reminder of the strength of legislative immunity, the doctrine that protects lawmakers from prosecution over their official votes, and that it may make similar criminal penalties a tougher sell in other jurisdictions, the ACLU of Tennessee noted. The proposed order instructs the attorney general to notify district attorneys, sheriffs and police chiefs across Tennessee that the state will not pursue enforcement under the disputed sections.
The deal is not quite a done one yet. The settlement still needs approval from the chancery court, and until a judge signs off, it remains a proposal on paper. If the court agrees, the immediate threat of criminal prosecution over local immigration-related votes would be off the table, even as lawmakers and judges continue to wrestle with where state oversight ends and local self-government begins.
