Joel Ebert and Richard Locker

jebert@tennessean.com; locker@commercialappeal.com

One day after sending a letter to Gov. Bill Haslam to express opposition to the federal government's directive on transgender bathrooms, Republican lawmakers began considering the idea of holding a special session over the controversial guidance and officially sent a letter to the state's attorney general asking him to take the issue to court.

State Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, wrote the letter to Attorney General Herbert Slatery. It was signed by 13 senators and 20 House members, all of whom Republicans. In the letter, Bowling accused the Obama administration of “mobocracy” and “bullying” to “accommodate students with gender identity disorder at the expense of the mentally healthy enrollment.”

Bowling is up for re-election this year, and faces opposition in the August Republican primary and the November general election.

Slatery's office confirmed it received Bowling's letter.

"Our Office is just as concerned with the joint guidance letter issued by the Education Department and the DOJ as the Governor and many state legislators are. It is the most recent, and all too familiar, example of federal agencies (not Congress) telling states and now universities and local education boards what to do," Slatery said in a statement.

"We are monitoring the predictable litigation that has resulted. To the extent that our Office can assist and advance the best interests of our State, we will do so.”

Slatery received the letter around the same time that House Republican Caucus Chairman Glen Casada sent out a survey to his fellow Republicans in the House asking them whether they supported holding the special session.

Casada, R-Franklin, said the directive, announced by the Obama administration on Friday, concerned him because he believes it is unconstitutional.

“I want our school systems to know that they can tell the (American Civil Liberties Union), who would bring lawsuits, or the Department of Justice that the state of Tennessee is going to stand with them,” he said, pointing out that he was not speaking on behalf of the Republican caucus.

Two hours after Casada sent out the survey, he said, 16 out of the 22 respondents were supportive of holding a special session. Five members were “a flat no” and one was undecided, he said.

It would take two-thirds of members in both chambers — 66 in the House and 22 in the Senate — to call for a special session. Republicans hold 73 seats in the House and 28 in the Senate.

Adam Kleinheider, a spokesman for Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, said he is not aware of any effort in the Senate to survey members about the prospect of a special session, which Casada admitted would be unnecessary if Slatery publicly expressed plans to oppose the directive.

Last year, Haslam called lawmakers into a special session to take on Insure Tennessee, the governor's plan to provide health care to more than 200,000 Tennesseans.

Republicans previously considered calling a special session after the Supreme Court's 2015 same-sex marriage decision.

The latest developments came after 26 of the 28 Republican state senators sent a letter to Haslam on Monday urging him to join other states “in legal action if necessary” to oppose the Obama administration’s action. That letter was authored and circulated by Sen. Mark Green, R-Clarksville, a likely candidate for governor in 2018.

Bowling’s letter is addressed to the attorney general, who would file any legal challenge. It also asks Slatery to notify all Tennessee school districts that the federal guidance is nonbinding.

“When the constitution and/or the law do not result in the advancement of their far left social agenda, they seem to resort to their preferred tactic: bullying," Bowling's letter reads. "Bullying through the threats of withholding the legal return of our pass through dollars and bullying through their unique deployment of mobocracy seem to be interchangeable weapons in the arsenal used to achieve assumed unilateral authority."

It says that “the sovereign states” of North Carolina, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas have filed legal arguments “against this current federal overreach."

"Creating directives in the absence of legal authority of supporting laws must be challenged. In ever increasing ways, the federal administration has devolved into the antithesis of the rule of law,” the letter says. “Our children’s future must not be held hostage by an overreaching federal government.”

Also on Tuesday, Rep. Sheila Butt, R-Columbia, began circulating an online petition asking Tennesseans to sign onto a letter she plans to send to Haslam on the issue.

On Friday, the U.S. departments of education and justice issued a guidance letter notifying public school districts across the nation how the Department of Education intends to enforce Title IX, the federal law that bars discrimination in education, in regard to the emerging transgender restroom issue. The letter says schools should allow transgender students to use the restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.

While the guidance letter does not carry the force of law, it does threaten the loss of federal education money because Title IX is tied to federal funding. "This guidance further clarifies what we’ve said repeatedly — that gender identity is protected under Title IX," U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. said Friday.

Haslam issued a statement Monday saying that he disagrees with the directive and that such policies should continue to be made at the local level. But he stopped short of the angry rhetoric directed at the Obama administration by some top state officials elsewhere.

“The White House itself has said what they issued last week is not an enforcement action and does not make any additional requirements under the law. Congress has the authority to write the law, not the executive branch, and we disagree with the heavy-handed approach the Obama administration is taking,” the governor’s statement said. “Decisions on sensitive issues such as these should continue to be made at the local level based on the unique needs of students, families, schools and districts while working closely with the local school board counsel, understanding that this is an emerging area of law that will ultimately be settled by the courts.”

Reach Joel Ebert at 615-772-1681 and on Twitter @joelebert29.