Tennessee: Conservative group takes aim at Haslam. As former Governor Bill Haslam continues to ponder a 2020 run for U.S. Senate to replace the retiring Sen. Lamar Alexander, some conservative groups aren’t too keen on his potential candidacy. One such group, the The Club for Growth, has launched an ad campaign highlighting a federal investigation into a diesel rebate scam at Haslam’s family’s truck stop chain, Pilot Flying J. The group has urged Republican Congressman Mark Green to join the primary. Florida: Legislature disagrees on education budget. The Florida state House and Senate each released their own version of a proposed state budget this week, and there seems to be a disagreement over education. The House’s version contains more than $600 million less for k-12 education than does the Senate’s, a total of nearly $200 per student. The two chambers will be forced to come together and try to meet in the middle as they move towards passing a budget this spring. Arkansas: State rejects flag proposal. A proposal to change the meaning of Arkansas’ state flag was rejected this week by the state House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee. Currently the blue star above the word ‘Arkansas’ on the flag represents the Confederacy, but this proposal would have changed that meaning to the U.S. (currently represented by a different star) and then attached to that star the Native American nations.
