Teenage protesters, and a few parents, fill the Tennessee House of Representatives gallery on March 30, 2024 to ask for safe gun laws.(Photo: John Partipilo)
If you think the rules are unfair for getting a gallery seat to heckle Speaker Cameron Sexton in the Tennessee House, they just got a little stricter.
Under a new policy designed to ensure “fair and organized access,” Sexton announced a new policy this week requiring visitors to reserve tickets. They’ll remain free for those who want to put themselves through the ordeal of seeing the House in action, but no more showing up unannounced.
Tickets will go to those who sign up first. Some are available on the same day, others in advance. People can reserve them up to two weeks in advance and each ticket allows access to a reserved seat on a specific date. Group reservations are available as well.
At this rate, sitting in on a House session could become the ordeal of going to a Titans game. They tell me the Titans are struggling to persuade personal seating license holders who’ve had season tickets since 1999 to re-up for the enclosed stadium under construction. This is especially true since PSL prices are going through the roof, and the stadium won’t be retractable after all.
Still, Speaker Sexton tells us the new ticket system, which expands on last year’s first-time ticket policy through lawmakers, is supposed to foster “transparent government and inclusivity.” Gee, and I thought President Trump just got rid of “inclusion.”
“This system ensures our galleries remain open, fair and accessible to all Tennesseans, not just those who live close by,” Sexton said in a statement. “This improved ticketing system gives everyone – from Mountain City to Memphis and Tiptonville to Turtletown – an equal chance to reserve their seat and witness democracy in person.”
Sexton instituted the first phase of gallery ticketing last year, giving tickets to lawmakers to pass out to constituents, and leaving one side open for the general public.
That came along with stricter rules for lawmakers after three Democratic members led an anti-gun rally on the House floor in 2023. Since then, gallery rabble-rousers have continued to harass Sexton for repeatedly calling down lawmakers such as Democratic Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville for going off-topic and calling the speaker “drunk with power.”
House Democratic Leader Karen Camper criticized the policy, calling for an alternative because some Tennessee residents don’t have access to a computer or email address.
“We’re not Congress and this isn’t Washington, D.C. We need to stop acting like it and act like Tennessee and be open to all the people,” Camper said.
Last week’s House sessions were relatively mild, and public action in the Capitol lobby was subdued, especially compared to some opening days when protesters were so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think, which apparently only bothers lawmakers who pretend they don’t hear the fuss or just don’t respond to it.
We’re not Congress and this isn’t Washington, D.C. We need to stop acting like it and act like Tennessee and be open to all the people.
– House Democratic Leader Karen Camper
The problem is that many of the frequent problem children live in Nashville and spend their days throwing jabs at lawmakers who don’t like the capital city, unless they’re partying down on Lower Broad, the last place most Nashvillians want to visit anymore.
If we could just move the Capitol to Hohenwald, everything would be hunky-dory. They could do it, too, with enough votes. But don’t give them any bright ideas.
Tell us what you know
The Tennessee Registry of Election Finance is finally ordering the campaign treasurer for Republican Sen. Bobby Harshbarger to come clean.
The registry board voted unanimously Thursday to subpoena Thomas Datwyler and Robert Phillips III, the two members of the East Tennessee Conservatives political action committee, about alleged “collusion” involving Harshbarger’s campaign as he defeated incumbent Sen. Jon Lundberg in the Republican primary last August. In addition, the board subpoenaed Datwyler to testify about another group that campaigned against newly-elected Rep. Michele Reneau of Signal Mountain.
Sen. Ken Yager, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, filed a sworn complaint last year claiming the East Tennessee Conservatives PAC and Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger’s campaign, both with Datwyler as treasurer, illegally coordinated in the Lundberg-Harshbarger Republican primary after two groups, including American Policy Coalition, poured $600,000 worth of dark money into the race. The Registry has only a mail drop box for the American Policy Coalition, not a person to contact.
East Tennessee Conservatives didn’t report expenditures as either in-kind or independent, “which is improper,” Registry attorney Lauren Topping told members Thursday. Based on text messages the Registry and Attorney General’s Office reviewed, the expenditures should have been reported one way or the other, but they’ve refused to provide more information and also balked at talking to the Attorney General’s Office, according to Topping.
“Given that we believe the disclosures provided by the PAC are likely improper … it is impossible for us to determine whether a conduit existed based on the information we have. I do find it very likely that violations, at a very minimum of the reporting requirements, have occurred,” Topping said.
The Registry attorney recommended requesting information and holding a show-cause hearing for Datwyler, Phillips and Sen. Harshbarger to give their side of the story. She said that if the hearing shows campaign contribution limit violations, more Registry review would be needed.
Registry members, though, opted to issue the subpoena, something they’ve wanted to do since last October.
Datwyler’s attorney previously told the Lookout that news reports confirm the attorney general found no basis to support the collusion accusation and said the complaint should be dismissed.
Registry member Tom Lawless said he believes Datwyler and Co. are “frustrating” the Registry attorney’s ability to do her “statutorily-required job.”
“There’s no transparency,” Lawless said.
Registry member Paige Burcham-Dennis agreed, saying it’s a “slap in the face” for information not to be provided to the Registry’s attorneys.
Other members said they’re tired of being nice and opted, at last, to get serious.
On the chopping block
U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett of Knoxville, a former state senator, has been appointed to the Department of Government Efficiency because of his “strong” advocacy for limited government, Americans for Prosperity tells us.
The former Knoxville mayor received the Pioneers for Prosperity award from AFP in 2024.
Oddly enough, Burchett will be serving in a new department created by President Donald Trump (bigger government) to tell him how other departments spend too much money. Already, department head Elon Musk wants to eliminate the penny, which means we won’t have anything to pinch any more, except for old ones, of course.
This from someone who sells electric cars that cost anywhere from $42,500 to $95,000-plus.
Kansas City-area man files defamation suit against U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett over social media posts
Burchett, though, knows a lot about saving money. He didn’t want to see dead deer go to waste, so he sponsored the Tennessee bill that allowed people to take roadside carcasses home and cook them.
Last year, Burchett made a social media post that identified the wrong man as a suspect in a shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory parade. He also claimed the man was an undocumented immigrant, before deleting the post. A federal judge dismissed the libel case because Burchett never went to Kansas City.
Maybe he’ll do better with cutting unreasonable spending. If they get hungry at committee meetings, maybe Burchett can serve deer chili, straight off Highway 64.
More Schwinnanigans?
President Trump recently announced that “Peggy Schwinn,” the former Tennessee Department of Education commissioner, will be the next U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education.
You might be saying, “You’ve got it wrong. Her name is Penny.”
Technically, it was the President who repeatedly referred to her as “Peggy” in his Truth Social statement. Ah, details, shmetails.
Schwinn served as Gov. Bill Lee’s first education commissioner and captain of the State of the State cheerleading squad before becoming vice president of PK-12 education at the University of Florida.
We won’t get into the spate of run-ins Schwinn had with lawmakers, including one over directing a $2.5 million no-bid contract to Florida-based ClassWallet, using Career Ladder funds for teacher salaries to run the state’s private-school voucher program for low-income students.
Some lawmakers said good riddance when she left the post. Little did they know Lee would hire Lizzette Reynolds out of a pro-voucher group to run from reporters and struggle with answers in Senate hearings.
In this post, Schwinn will be the second most powerful education person in the country. But with Congress wanting to eliminate that department, she might not have much job security.
“I had a job in the great north woods working as a cook for a spell / But I never did like it all that much and one day the ax just fell.” *
*”Tangled up in blue,” Bob Dylan
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