AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4; Title 8; Title 20; Title 33; Title 38; Title 40; Title 52; Title 55; Title 62; Title 63; Title 68; Title 70 and Title 76, relative to the Less is More Act of 2025.
SB1316, titled the “Less is More Act of 2025,” is a broad administrative cleanup and regulatory reform measure that amends numerous Tennessee Code provisions across state government, open meetings, professional licensing, and board governance. A major component of the bill revises Tennessee’s open meetings law to expressly allow state boards, agencies, and commissions to conduct meetings with members participating by video or audio conference, while imposing detailed public-access requirements such as real-time viewing/listening, notice and agenda disclosures, public comment access, meeting recordings, roll-call votes, and annual physical-quorum requirements.
The bill also shifts regulation of court reporters from the Tennessee Board of Court Reporting to the commissioner of commerce and insurance, including licensing, discipline, rulemaking, fees, continuing education, complaint investigation, and administration of the court reporting fund. It updates licensure standards for court reporters, preserves existing board rules until changed, and renames the related fund. In addition, the bill makes targeted changes to several other occupational and regulatory boards and commissions, including term lengths, vacancy procedures, confirmation requirements, and membership composition, and it creates a general reciprocal-licensing framework allowing regulatory authorities to enter agreements with other jurisdictions for cross-state practice.
Beyond governance and licensing, the bill makes narrower statutory changes affecting disability and behavioral-support facilities, geologist and soil scientist funding terminology, real estate license reactivation and continuing education, CPA mobility and certification requirements, and a few other professional or regulatory provisions. Several sections take effect July 1, 2025, while the CPA education-related sections take effect January 1, 2026, and rulemaking authority begins upon enactment.
The overall sentiment in committee was favorable, as the bill advanced through multiple Senate committees with strong majority support and no committee vote against it until later stages, where it still passed. The pattern suggests broad agreement with the bill’s administrative streamlining and modernization goals, especially the move toward clearer licensing administration and more flexible meeting participation rules.
The main points of contention appear to center on the open meetings changes and the consolidation of court reporting oversight under the commerce and insurance commissioner, since those provisions affect transparency, public participation, and professional regulation. The bill’s broad scope, touching many unrelated titles and boards, may also have raised concerns about whether the package goes beyond simple cleanup and instead makes substantive policy changes across multiple regulatory areas.
The bill amends a wide range of Tennessee statutes, but its most significant legal effects are to modernize the state’s open meetings framework for electronic participation and to transfer court reporting regulation from a standalone board to the commissioner of commerce and insurance. It also changes board composition, appointment terms, vacancy rules, licensing standards, and fund names across multiple professions and agencies, while creating a new reciprocal-licensing authority for state regulatory programs. Affected parties include state boards and commissions, court reporters, CPAs, real estate licensees, barbers and cosmetology professionals, geologists, disability-service providers, and other regulated occupations.
Committee action indicates generally positive sentiment toward the bill. It passed the Senate Government Operations Committee unanimously and then moved through the Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, Commerce and Labor Committee, and State and Local Government Committee with clear majorities. The votes suggest that most members viewed the bill as a practical regulatory and administrative update, though the presence of some no votes in later committees shows that not all lawmakers were fully comfortable with every provision.
The most notable contention likely involves the revised open meetings rules, because they expand and formalize electronic participation while also imposing detailed public-access and recording requirements. Some lawmakers may have viewed that as a helpful modernization, while others may have worried about transparency, quorum integrity, or the possibility of remote participation becoming too routine. Another likely point of debate is the transfer of court reporting oversight from an independent board to the commissioner, which changes professional self-regulation and centralizes authority within the executive branch. The bill’s broad, multi-subject structure may also have drawn criticism from those who prefer narrower legislation.