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Stockard on the Stump: Tennessee Supreme Court should pay for state’s legal losses • Tennessee Lookout [1]
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Date: 2024-08-01
These vices are becoming habits.
Gov. Bill Lee and the Republican-controlled Legislature took another legal beating this week when a court panel ruled against their plan to cut the Metro Nashville Council in half, just one of their efforts to control the capital city.
The Tennessee Supreme Court should pick up the tab for enabling this silliness with a questionable decision allowing Lee’s first private-school vouchers to take effect. That ruling bypassed an argument by Nashville and Memphis that the education savings account program violated the state’s Home Rule Amendment, which requires local approval for bills targeting one or two entities.
The decision emboldened Republicans to go after the Metro Nashville Council for refusing to let the Republican National Convention come to Nashville. That move was spurred, in part, by the gerrymandering that split Davidson County into three congressional districts and killed Nashville’s chance at having its own D.C. rep.
It all seems ridiculous now, since Milwaukee played host to the RNC – without much disturbance – and the state’s lawyers have spent nearly two years fighting Metro in court.
Regardless of who fired the first shot, the Legislature’s moves to take over Metro Nashville’s sports authority, airport authority, convention center and fairgrounds board are proving to be a waste of time and money.
But it might not be over, depending on Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s next step.
Lt. Gov. Randy McNally says he disagrees with the decision and looks forward to an appeal.
“The law is of general application and currently applies to at least two other counties that have metropolitan governments. Home rule should not apply in this case,” McNally says.
Practically-speaking, though, the law targets only Davidson. Tennessee has only two other counties with metropolitan forms of government, Trousdale and Moore, and both already have around 20 county commissioners.
Democratic state Rep. Bo Mitchell, who loves to turn the knife, says Tennessee’s Republicans have logged more time in court than former President Donald Trump, recently convicted of paying hush money to cover up a porn-star tryst.
Yet Republican lawmakers don’t hate Nashville. In fact, they love to bring friends, family and officials from across the state to enjoy the nightlife.
“As soon as we get out of committee or session, look out because they’re headed down that hillside to show them around the touristy part of downtown Nashville,” Mitchell says.
While the Supreme Court opened the door, the state’s top Republicans share the blame for these legal losses because courts can avoid the Home Rule protection for only so long.
Lee and House and Senate leadership have said countless times they can’t make laws based on the Constitution. They just pass whatever they want and let the courts sort it out, which seems a bit of a backwards philosophy.
An AG’s opinion might help. But the state Attorney General’s Office doesn’t even have time to take on such minor work as campaign finance complaints filed with the Registry of Election Finance. The AG’s Office pronounced recently it is not an “investigative” body.
Gov. Bill Lee and House and Senate leadership have said countless times they can’t make laws based on the Constitution. They just pass whatever they want and let the courts sort it out.
Maybe he should have directed that money toward legal opinions or beefing up the defense of Tennessee’s unconstitutional laws. Then again, not even Davy Crockett had enough money to fight all those battles.
Election scuttle-butt
The outcome of Tennessee Senate races could determine the winner in the next race for the Senate speakership.
It’s a little early to detail every Republican senator’s vote, but it’s shaping to be East Tennessee vs. Midstate.
With Lt. Gov. Randy McNally nearing the end of his tenure, Republican Majority Leader Jack Johnson of Franklin and Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta are lining up against each other for the second most important seat in Tennessee politics.
Outcomes in East Tennessee where Sen. Frank Niceley and Sen. Jon Lundberg are facing challenges from Jessie Seal and Bobby Harshbarger could go a long way toward deciding the outcome. Niceley, if he wins, is likely to align with Bailey, while Lundberg’s allegiance is unclear if he survives the election. Seal and Harshbarger likely would back Bailey.
Sen. Becky Massey is believed to be safe in her race against Monica Irvine in Knoxville, while Sen. Ferrell Haile is said to be on steadier ground against challenger Chris Spencer in Sumner County. Massey and Sen. Richard Briggs of Knoxville are wild cards in the speaker’s race.
If you thought the primary elections would decide a handful of seats alone, think again. They’ll determine the Senate’s direction for several years.
Rubbing shoulders
The Attorney General’s Office might not have much of a stomach for campaign finance investigations. But AG Jonathan Skrmetti found time Saturday to attend a Bitcoin conference where former President Trump spoke.
Besides seeing his hero, Skrmetti posted a picture online saying it was “great to meet the brilliant @VivekRamaswamy and I appreciate his support for our great state of Tennessee.” Ramaswamy is a venture capitalist who also believes people have turned COVID, climate change and gender identification into secular religions. I’m not so sure about that, but I know plenty of people who lose sleep over transgender folks.
You never know who you’ll run into at #Bitcoin2024! Great to meet the brilliant @VivekGRamaswamy today and I appreciate his support for our great state of Tennessee 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/dMCKbZMTuK — TN Attorney General (@AGTennessee) July 27, 2024
Immediately after the event, questions surfaced about Bitcoin’s reliability and whether it’s a scam. And while the U.S. dollar hasn’t been backed by gold since the early 1970s, at least it’s propped up by the federal government’s ability to generate revenue.
They tell me Bitcoin is a digital currency in which new units are generated by “the computational solution of mathematical problems.” It functions independently of a central bank.
Hah! Turns out they’re both a circle of deception. But I’ll certainly take some more of the old stuff.
A kind butt kicking
A nicely-worded letter to the editor in the Hendersonville Standard by local resident Don Claussen questions House Majority Leader William Lamberth for his online post in the immediate aftermath of the Trump assassination attempt.
Lamberth, a Portland Republican, wrote shortly after the shooting, “Today’s leftist attack on our democracy just created millions of patriots.”
Based on the facts at the time, Claussen points out Lamberth could have been just as accurate if he’d said the assailant was “a green man from outer space.” Since then, the FBI has said it couldn’t find a motive for the shooter, and reports have noted he was looking at the country’s other top elected officials as targets.
Claussen writes that Lamberth’s statement was “harmful to our state, causing passions to be unnecessarily inflamed at a moment when wild speculations and conspiracy theories were being thrown around, sometimes by political leaders such as yourself.”
Claussen notes that people depend on elected leaders to make “fact based and rational statements concerning terrible events.” Otherwise, there’s no hope for a calm exchange of differing views.
“You must set an example, and I believe in this case you failed the citizens of this state,” Claussen writes.
Still, he says he looks forward to seeing Lamberth’s “smiling face around town” and says he might even buy him lunch.
Lamberth, whose outlook runs between rose-colored glasses and a vision for 75 House Republicans, can turn a little political at times. This might have been one of them. He was too busy to read the letter and respond Wednesday.
What are ya waitin’ fer?
Nearly a year after the Legislature told the Department of Safety and Homeland Security to start a public service campaign on safe gun storage in vehicles, something might be happening.
State Rep. Caleb Hemmer recently told the Lookout he was disappointed with the state’s efforts to produce spots encouraging people to lock weapons in their cars.
The only thing the department has done is put out a spot urging people to put safety devices on weapons stored at home.
The Lookout hasn’t been able to get much of a response out of the safety department. But Hemmer says he’s been assured by Safety Commissioner Jeff Long that an ad is coming out – one of these days – asking people to lock up their guns when they have to leave them in cars and trucks. Apparently, such a public service spot was produced but then had to be dialed back because it was too much like the car insurance “mayhem” ads.
It must be noted that gun thefts from vehicles dipped a little bit over the last few months. But it wasn’t because of any safety campaign.
The Legislature put about $1.6 million toward this project. It should have attached a deadline on the ads too. Funny how those things work.
A love-fest
Lee didn’t have time this week for public appearances, at least not any for the media. He was spotted last week, though, glad-handing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Washington, D.C., and then jetting back to Tennessee for a trip to Perry County, home of good people.
While there, he told Chalkbeat he has no problem with all the dark money entering the state’s political races, including $2 million for people who support his private-school voucher (bankrupting) plan. Yet he complained earlier this year about the money being spent by pro-Bobby Harshbarger forces to beat Sen. Jon Lundberg in upper East Tennessee, according to the Tennessee Journal. Lundberg supports the voucher deal.
The question is: Which one is it? Or does it depend on the audience?
“I am not your rolling wheels / I am the highway.” Audioslave
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