Tennessee lawmakers voted Tuesday to shelve a bill that eliminates parental responsibility for vaccinating children in accordance with federal and medical association guidelines.

The bill by Juliet Mountain Republican Rep. Susan Lynn and Tallahoma Sen. Janice Bowling proposed stripping provisions from Tennessee law encouraging parents and legal guardians to vaccinate their children in accordance with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the American Academy of America.

Lynn argued before the House Population Health Subcommittee that the current law is unconstitutional. Because it “delegates” the authority to set up vaccination guidelines for federal agencies as children.

“We are not considering the ever-growing CDC vaccination list in our ever-growing vaccine schedule. We’re not looking at that at all. So we’re simply delegating all the rights to the CDC. We’re waiving everything to the CDC,” Lynn said.

“This is in the law [if] Parents don’t do that, you can say they are violating the law,” she said. Lynn told her parents that “if you fail to comply with (current) law, you will not be charged with a misdemeanor.”

Legislative lawyers contradicted both Lynn’s claims.

“As far as I know (the law) is not unconstitutional,” said lawyer Heather Asbel.

Asbel also said the current law does not include legal penalties for parents who fail to comply. “Parents are not civilly liable or criminally charged for not only remaining liable for vaccinating their children under current law,” she said.

Tennessee law refers to CDC guidelines on vaccines in childhood, according to Democrat John Ray Clemons, Democrat of Nashville.

“The CDC is the country’s leading science-based, data-driven services organization that protects the health of our citizens,” he said. Tennessee doesn’t have that resource.

“We’re looking at kids dying of measles in 2025. That’s a concern. Tetanus children, these types of issues. These are about things we should be concerned about whether public health is a priority for us,” he said.

Lawmakers ultimately voted to send the bill to a summer investigation. This is a mechanism to shelved discussions on the remaining measures of the legislative meeting.