Looking back at tenure of Bill Lee, Tennessee’s 50th governor

What This Story Is About

• Bill Lee is set to wrap up his time as the 50th governor of Tennessee, a tenure that featured many achievements, but also some controversies.

What Happens Next

• Lee’s term officially ends on Jan. 16, 2027.

For Context

• A seventh-generation Tennessean, Lee won the 2018 election with 59.6% of the vote and was reelected in 2022 with 64.9% of the vote.

Catch Up

• Lee’s administration oversaw lots of policy achievements across several key focus areas, including economic development across the state, education, legislation and public safety.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Bill Lee is set to wrap up his time as the 50th governor of Tennessee, a tenure that featured many achievements, but also some controversies.

A seventh-generation Tennessean, Lee won the 2018 election with 59.6% of the vote and was reelected in 2022 with 64.9% of the vote.

Lee’s administration oversaw lots of policy achievements across several key focus areas, including economic development across the state, education, legislation and public safety.

Economic Development

Thanks in part to a favorable tax structure, Lee oversaw major economic development in Tennessee. This included Korea Zinc choosing the Volunteer State to be its first operation in the United States, setting up in Clarksville and Gordonville, and Ford building BlueOval City in Haywood County. In East Tennessee, Lee helped bring major development and infrastructure to Oak Ridge to help advance nuclear energy and manufacturing, continuing on the city’s legacy of being a nuclear hub.

Education

Lee also implemented the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement K-12 funding formula during his time as governor. Launched for the 2023-24 school year, TISA replaced the Basic Education Program and shifted Tennessee to a student-based funding approach. This provided a base funding for schools, with additions through percentage “weights” to support specific student needs and performance-based bonuses to reward and encourage student academic achievement.

Legislation

Lee helped protect the music industry with the passing of the ELVIS Act in 2024, which helped protect it from unauthorized artificial intelligence generation.

There were also other high-impact pieces of legislation, including allowing handguns to be carried without a permit, the FAIR Rx Act (which faced pushback from major pharmaceutical companies) and the Deadly Force Law, which expanded the legal circumstances in which people can use deadly force to protect property against crimes like burglary, theft or arson under specific criteria.

Public Safety

Lee championed major grant funding, state trooper expansions, school security initiatives and regional task forces during his time as governor. This included funding to improve security in downtown areas across the state and supporting local law enforcement with evidence-based strategies. Additionally, he passed funding to add over 100 troopers to the Tennessee Highway Patrol and ensured that hundreds of School Resource Officers had updated safety and response training.

These achievements did not come without controversy, however. Lee received pushback and criticism on some main topics, including school vouchers, healthcare and the death penalty.

School Vouchers

Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarships, commonly known as the school voucher program, faced widespread criticism from educators, lawmakers and public school advocates.

While Lee defended the program by saying that families deserve educational freedom and parental choice, critics claimed there was a lack of transparency and that the program drained resources previously dedicated to public schools.

Lawmakers have also warned of rapid program expansions that puts a strain on the state’s budget.

Healthcare

During Lee’s time in office, critics say Tennessee has ranked near the top for rural hospital closure and access. A report released in August said more than a third of the state’s rural hospitals are at risk of closure due to financial losses.

This has hit close to home in East Tennessee several times as Campbell County’s Jellico Hospital has repeatedly had to close its doors over the past decade.

Memphis Safe Task Force

Launched in coordination by President Trump and Lee, the Memphis Safe Task Force faced criticism with the deployment of the Tennessee National Guard without a formal request from local officials or approval from the General Assembly.

Lee has defended the move as being essential for long-term safety, saying it is necessary to combat crime, stabilize neighborhoods and bring more resources to Memphis.

Death Penalty

Lee has most recently been criticized about the state’s death penalty, marred with the botched execution of Christa Gail Pike. Lee first paused executions in 2022 after an investigation found the drugs used in lethal injections hadn’t been appropriately tested. The Tennessee Department of Corrections then got the green light to continue with executions in 2024 under a new execution protocol, one that was shortened from over 100 pages to just 44.

Following this, Tennessee saw three successful executions in 2025 before the failed execution of Tony Carruthers after the team could not establish the required IV lines. The state successfully executed Anthony Hines in August but was unable to execute Pike in September despite administering two doses of pentobarbital.

Following Pike’s botched execution, Lee paused all remaining executions in Tennessee and ordered an independent investigation into the protocol failures.

Lee’s term officially ends on Jan. 16, 2027.