Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, presides over a session of the Tennessee Senate Monday, March 21, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

By Richard Locker of The Commercial Appeal

NASHVILLE — The state Senate voted Monday to send the controversial de-annexation bill back to committee for review, delaying a floor vote at least until Thursday and possibly to next week.

Senators also voted to call a special meeting of the State and Local Government Committee for noon Wednesday to review more than a dozen amendments filed on the bill, as well as the House-passed version of the bill that would limit citizen-led de-annexation to five Tennessee cities: Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Kingsport and Cornersville.

After winning House approval March 14, the bill’s momentum was halted Monday morning when Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, told reporters that he would vote against the bill and questioned both the fairness and constitutionality of limiting its application to just the five cities. Ramsey had filed one of the proposed Senate amendments on Friday, to remove Kingsport — the largest city in his Northeast Tennessee district — from the bill.

Senators wrangled for nearly an hour on whether to proceed with a vote as scheduled on Monday afternoon or whether to refer it to committee.

Sen. Ken Yager, R-Kingston, chairman of the State & Local Government Committee, successfully argued that the bill approved by the House is substantially different from the statewide bill recommended by his committee last year, mainly because it limits its impact to five cities. He also questioned the constitutionality of such an action.

The bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. Bo Watson, R-Chattanooga, argued vigorously against sending the measure back to committee before the full Senate considered and acted on the Senate amendments, but the Senate voted 19-14 in favor of Yager’s motion for more committee review.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, who spoke by phone with Gov. Bill Haslam Monday morning in opposition to the bill and monitored the Senate floor discussion from his Memphis office, said he was pleased with the Senate’s action.

Earlier Monday, Haslam reiterated his concerns about the bill but again declined to say whether he would veto it if it wins legislative approval. He said the bill is of special concern for Memphis.

“Everybody knows Memphis has had financial challenges around pensions and everything else. I think doing that at this point in time raises some concerns,” Haslam said.

Three top executives of the Greater Memphis Chamber were also present in Nashville lobbying against the bill. Phil Trenary, president and CEO, said the chamber’s work to attract and retain jobs “is tied closely to our ability to market our community as a place conducive to growth — and that means ensuring a fiscally stable environment with tax rates that are predictable.”

The bill creates a process in which at least 10 percent of the registered voters of areas annexed into the five cities since 1998 could petition for de-annexation referendums for their territories, and with a majority vote in the referendums, could separate themselves from the cities.

Asked if he believes it’s fair for the General Assembly to target only five cities, Ramsey said: “That’s a good question. That’s the reason I’ll vote no on the bill.”

Ramsey also questioned the fairness of the bill given that cities legally annexed territory under state law at the time, and that the General Assembly approved a new law two years ago that gave residents of areas proposed for annexation the right to vote on whether they’ll be annexed.

“For decades — if you look back at my first campaign material when I ran for the House in ’92, the House again in ’94, the Senate in ’96 — every piece of campaign material I had said citizens deserve the right to vote on annexation. We finally passed that (in 2014) after decades of trying. …

“We set a line in the sand (in 2014) that from this point forward, anybody that’s annexed has the right to vote on this. But now we’re reaching back to get those that were annexed, legally under the law, by contract. And there is a way (under current law) to be de-annexed if (the cities) are not fulfilling their plan of services” to annexed areas.