State Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), who eked out a narrow victory in 2018 over Democratic challenger Gabby Salinas, indicates he will try again, despite the obvious handicap of an indictment, delivered Monday, on charges of violating federal campaign laws.
On a Zoom call with reporters following the news of the indictment, Kelsey defiantly professed his innocence. “Look, this is nothing but a political witch hunt. The Biden administration is trying to take me out because I’m a conservative and I’m the No. 1 target of the Tennessee Democratic Party. I won my seat [by] only 51 percent to 49 percent last time, and the Democrats think this will make the difference. They’re wrong. These 5-year-old, unfounded allegations have been reviewed and re-reviewed. They were wrong then, and they’re wrong now. I’m totally innocent, and I look forward to being cleared at trial.”
Among other things, Kelsey’s reminder that he only won by a whisper the last time out is a unique boast for a candidate. And clearly, as his statement indicates, the senator has more things to worry about than his electoral future. He is in immediate jeopardy of losing his chairmanship of the influential Senate Education Committee; according to the Senate’s code of ethics, he has 10 days to ask for a hearing before an automatic suspension of his chairmanship takes effect.
Kelsey was indicted, along with alleged co-conspirator Joshua Smith, a Nashville social club owner. The five counts of the indictment charge that, beginning in February 2016 and continuing through mid-October 2016, Kelsey and Smith conspired with others to violate federal campaign finance laws to secretly and unlawfully funnel “soft money” (funds not subject to the limitations, prohibitions, and reporting requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Act) from Kelsey’s Tennessee State Senate campaign committee to his authorized federal campaign committee.
The indictment names two unindicted co-conspirators, identified by The Tennessee Journal editor Erik Schelzig as Jeremy Durham, a former Republican state representative expelled from the House in 2016 amid charges of rampant sexual misconduct; and Andy Miller Jr., who was in charge of the ironically named, federally licensed organization Citizens for Ethics in Government.
Four other individuals are mentioned but uncharged in relation to the circumstances of Kelsey’s action, one of whom is Amanda Bunning, Kelsey’s wife, who was director of government affairs for the American Conservative Union, a participating organization in the reorienting of campaign funds.
• As was noted here last week, incumbent Sheriff Floyd Bonner saw a serious roadblock to his re-election removed when the Republican Party of Shelby County disclosed that it would offer no opposition to the election of Bonner, who will run again, as in 2018, as a Democrat. Bonner will have at least one opponent, though: Keisha Scott, a 25-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department, who will run as an independent, indicating that her concerns include the issue of jail reform.
At the moment, Sheriff Bonner is appealing a federal consent decree requiring the Sheriff’s Department to reform its procedures so as to end what federal Judge Sheryl Lipman calls the “deep peril” afflicting inmates and visitors to the jail facility, which has attained only a 25 percent rate of vaccination for Covid-19. Judge Lipman has termed the Sheriff’s Department’s response to the situation as woefully inadequate.
The consent order was the result of litigation on inmates’ behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.
The executive committee of the Shelby County Democratic Party has scheduled a review of the jail matter for its forthcoming November meeting.
