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Shelby County Dems Call for Resignation of House Speaker Cameron Sexton

Credit: Tennessee Democratic Party/Facebook

Shelby County Democrats called for Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) to resign Wednesday, and a watchdog group wants an investigation of Sexton’s government allowance for lodging. 

The Tennessee Democratic Party (TNDP) passed a resolution this weekend “demanding” Sexton’s resignation. The group also began a public campaign that will include billboards and a petition.  

“Speaker Sexton has got to go,” reads the petition. “Not only did he lead the racist charge to expel Reps. [Justin] Jones (D-Nashville) and [Justin] Pearson (D-Memphis), he may not even live in the district he represents.”

The House expulsion of Pearson and Jones drew national interest. This raised Sexton’s profile, with many criticizing him for allowing his party to use such extreme measures for a modest charge of breaking decorum rules. Sexton called the protest “an insurrection.” 

Reports then surfaced that Sexton secretly bought a Nashville home in 2021 and that his daughter attends a Nashville school, in a story first reported by the Substack Popular Information. This has drawn scrutiny on state residency requirements for lawmakers and put into question the per diem — the daily, taxpayer-funded allowance for food and hotel stays in Nashville — Sexton has claimed, even though he lives there.

Tennessee House Speaker’s multiple homes raise questions about per diem

A WKRN report then found that state Rep. Scotty Campbell (R-Mountain City) had been quietly found guilty by a state ethics committee of workplace harassment on charges of having inappropriate conversations with a 19-year-old legislative intern. Sexton did not move to expel Campbell, who resigned hours after confronted by a WKRN reporter about the situation.  

credit: State of Tennessee I How it started.
credit: State of Tennessee I How it’s going.

The Shelby County Democratic Party (SCDP) joined the state party’s calls for Sexton’s resignation Wednesday morning. The group’s major complaint was the expulsion of Jones and Pearson. They also listed the residency concerns, the non-action against Campbell, and a certain disregard for House rules. 

But they also complained about the “shocking comments” from GOP state Rep. Paul Sherrell’s (R-Sparta) during a debate on the death penalty. Rep. Scott Powers’ (R-Jacksboro) bill would have added firing squads to the state’s options for state executions.

credit: State of Tennessee

During a hearing of the House Criminal Justice Committee, Sherrell asked if Powers would add “hanging by a tree” to the proposal. He did not. Sherell issued a rare GOP apology about his statement the following day. Later, he was quietly stripped of his seat on the committee. 

SCDP said Sherell likely knew about the “racist nature of his suggestion.” Also, they said Oklahoma officials were recorded to have made similar statements. 

”Had even a censure been imposed on [Rep.] Sherrell, it might have discouraged the spread of such a senseless attack on a body of people harmed by such a callous and insensitive expression of hatred,” the group said in a statement. 

Also on Wednesday morning, the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Accountability (CFA) asked the Davidson County District Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee to investigate Sexton’s per diem requests for potential tax fraud. 

“Tennessee law makes clear that only those legislators who live more than 50 miles away from the Capitol are permitted to receive a lodging per diem,” CFA executive director Michelle Kuppersmith said in a statement. “Speaker Sexton is not above the law and must be held accountable for any possible violations.”

The group claims Sexton ”appears to have gone to great lengths to hide his new Nashville residency, purchasing the house through the ’Beccani Trust,’ with only his wife’s one signature was on the deed.” 

CFA analysis found that Sexton’s lodging per diems total about $79,954. They said the payments could violate Tennessee law. If so, it’s a Class B felony that could come with eight to 30 years in jail and $25,000 in fines. Sexton may have also violated federal tax law, CFA said, if he failed to report the money as taxable wages. 

CFA’s complaint reminds judicial officials that the Davidson County District Attorney general prosecuted then-Nashville Mayor Megan Barry for similar charges. Those were theft of property charges stemming from domestic and international travel expenses the mayor and her bodyguard, with whom she was having an affair, improperly charged to the city of Nashville.

CFA also mentioned that, at the time, Davidson County DA Glenn Funk said, “it’s the role of the district attorney to bring charges when crimes have been committed even if those crimes are committed by public officials.”

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‘Bogus Ballots’ to Exist No More, Orders Judge

Judge William Acree

Remember the sample ballots you always saw at election time purporting to be “endorsements” of a group of candidates by this or that “Democratic” organization? Glossy with color mug shots of the lucky “endorsees,” these broadsheets did their best to resemble official documents of the Shelby County or even state Democratic Parties.

In reality, advertisements for the candidates in question is all they ever were — advertisements paid for by their campaigns and tricked out to look like official party statements by the local entrepreneurs who sold space on them.

“Endorsements” they were not, except in the technical sense that they signified the support of the shell companies that published and distributed them, most of these with the word “Democratic” in their name.

It was the misleading aspect of these advertisements that made them targets of litigation by candidates, Democrats in the main, running legitimate campaigns for office and boasting no such false endorsements.

Now, several hearings over several years later, a judge has imposed a permanent injunction against such published products.

The ruling comes from Judge William B. Acree, a senior jurist from Jackson, after a January 6th hearing in the case of Tennessee Democratic Party and candidate John Marek vs. Greg Grant, individually, & d.b.a. Greater Memphis Democratic Club and M. LaTroy Williams, individually, & d.b.a. Shelby County Democratic Club. This was the climactic one of three hearings — the others having occurred on October 20, 2019, and October 3, 2020.

Those prior hearings had imposed temporary injunctions against the defendants and imposed penalties for renewed infractions.

Judge Acree based his judgment Thursday on TCA statute 2-19-116, which reads:

No person shall print or cause to be printed or assist in the distribution or transportation of any facsimile of an official ballot, any unofficial sample ballot, writing, pamphlet, paper, photograph or other printed material, which contains the endorsement of a particular candidate, group of candidates, or proposition by an organization, group, candidate, or other individual, whether existent or not, with the intent that the person receiving such printed material mistakenly believe that the endorsement of such candidate, candidates, or proposition was made by an organization, group, candidate or entity other than the one or ones appearing on the printed material.

Acree’s order states:

The court finds that the Defendants engage in the distribution of campaign literature on behalf of candidates seeking public office, are paid for such activity, and have violated the statute and restraining order on previous occasions. Thus, the Court finds a permanent injunction shall issue enjoining the Defendants from: Distributing literature, disseminating information, or, in any way, communicating, utilizing work, symbols, or graphical schemes reasonably implying endorsement of or affiliation with the Democratic National Convention, the Tennessee Democratic Party, or the Shelby County Democratic Party.

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Tennesesee Democrats Prepare to Select New Chair

Even as outrage mounts among Tennessee Democrats regarding the Republican state government’s involvement in a suit to overturn the presidential election, the Tennessee Democratic Party (TDP) is preparing to select a new leader for itself.

At least nine hopefuls have announced their candidacy for the chairmanship of the TDP in an election tentatively scheduled for mid-January, on the weekend after the state’s legislature reconvenes in Nashville.

Mary Mancini, who has guided the TDP for the past several years, has announced her retirement from the party helm, and the state Democratic executive committee will name a successor from the nine.

The contenders are: London Lamar, Theryn Bond, Wade Munday, Hendrell Remus, Frank Hundley, Robin Kimbrough Hayes, Jane George, Civil Miller Watkins, and Kate Craig.

The first five of those participated Wednesday night in a candidate forum sponsored by The Tennessee Holler on Zoom. Lamar, a state Representative from House District 91, and Bond are from Memphis, and Remus is a former Memphian.

A second forum is scheduled for Thursday night involving the other four candidates.

Wednesday night’s participants in party chairmanship forum

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Dumping on DeBerry

The yard sign.

Are we to believe that state Representative John DeBerry, who is having to run for re-election as an independent in House District 90 because he was removed from the Democratic party ballot, is now campaigning with large yard signs boasting his picture alongside that of Donald Trump?

Or that DeBerry legitimately belongs to something called “The Republican Club,” the heading of a handout flyer that includes his picture, along with those of bona fide GOP candidates, under this description: “Eliminate Public School Funding; Remove Woman’s Choices; No Masks Needed; Pro-Life; remove Voice of Protestors; Limit Healthcare; No Unions; Easy Access fo Guns; Voter Restrictions”?

Clearly, neither DeBerry nor the actual Republican candidates pictured along with him would publicly identify with the premises of such a handout. As for the yard sign, it is highly unlikely that voters in the ultra-Democratic District 90 would respond favorably to a candidate’s so blatantly coupling himself with Republican Trump.

The handout flyer.

Both these exhibits, in other words, are clearly attempts to mislead voters, or to suggest a common purpose linking DeBerry to official Republican Party purposes. (By contrast, the other side of the handout flyer, whose authorship is not claimed by any organization, pictures Democratic officials under the heading, “Vote Democrat Up and Down the Ballot.”)

To be sure, DeBerry was expunged from the Democratic ballot earlier this year by the state Democratic Committee because of his alleged affinity with Republican views on abortion and school vouchers. It is also true that DeBerry has incurred favorable mention at Republican rallies and has at least once addressed a Republican club during this campaign year. (In doing so, however, he did not identify with the GOP but merely made a pitch for his own candidacy. As he says, “I don’t have a party label. I have to make speeches where I’m invited to.”)

The reality is that negative advertising of one sort or another is unusually prevalent in this campaign year, and it is not the province of a single political party. DeBerry is opposed on the November 3rd ballot by Democratic nominee Torrey Harris.

flip side of the handout

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It’s No Go for Three Democrats Appealing Ban from Primary Ballot

M. LaTroy Alexandria-Williams

Oh-for-three. That’s how things turned out Wednesday Night, April 15th, as a trio of would-be penitents — most notably 13-term State Representative John DeBerry — pleaded in vain for the members of the state Democratic executive committee to restore them to the positions on the August 6th primary election ballot from which they were purged last week.

In the course of a virtual meeting of the state committee that was conducted by telephone and sprawled for nearly four hours, DeBerry’s pleas were rejected for reinstatement in the House District 90 race, as were those of Michael Minnis for House District 93, and M. LaTroy Alexandria-Williams for the 9th Congressional District. All the appellants were from Memphis.

Although the cases against DeBerry and Minnis were of a radically different nature — DeBerry’s consisting of alleged anti-Democratic votes and actions, Minnis essentially of not meeting the requirement of having voted in 3 of the last 5 Democratic primaries — the votes against them were remarkably similar — DeBerry’s appeal falling short by a vote of 24 Yes to 40 No, with one abstention, while Minnis’ failed 24 to 39 with two abstentions. Alexandria-Williams went down 8 to 34, with 14 abstaining.

Although DeBerry’s chances for reinstatement on the primary ballot were not regarded as strong (he had been voted off the week before by a vote of 41 to 18 with two abstentions), he probably did not help them much by declining, unlike Minnis and Alexandria-Williams, to take part in a pre-vote Q-and-A with state committee members.

In the five minutes granted him by state party chair Mary Mancini to make a verbal appeal, DeBerry talked about his past chairmanships on legislative committees and his efforts on behalf of civil rights. He asked that committee members look at “my record in toto, my character, the way I carry myself, and my ability to build a consensus when Democrats are a super-minority.”

Among the minority of yes voters were state Senator Raumesh Akbari of Memphis and Representative Mike Stewart, the House minority leader, both of whom said the question of DeBerry’s party bona fides should be settled by the voters in a primary. The nay-voting majority coalesced around complaints about DeBerry’s seconding Republican positions on abortion, vouchers, guns, and much else; his acceptance of support from GOP financial sources; and his participation in the right-wing ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council).

Committeeman Will Cheek of Nashville said his vote of no was not predicated on matters of party “loyalty” but on Democratic “resemblance.”

Though several members commended Minnis for his involvement with a nonprofit working on behalf of criminal justice, the outcome for him, as indicated, was similar to that for DeBerry.

The debate over the appeal of Alexandria-Williams was both the strangest and the lengthiest. At root the issue with the candidate (formerly known simply as M. LaTroy Williams) was his historical involvement with pre-election sample ballots from the “Shelby County Democratic Club,” a shell organization unaffiliated with any organ of the actual Democratic Party and the occasion of several lawsuits pitting Williams against the Party.

Though, as was attested to in the debate, these “ballots” — many of which have favored the candidacies of Republicans as well as Democrats — bore his name as “coordinator,” Williams persisted in denying any ownership of involvement in them. Unspoken to in the committee’s discussion was the fact that the favored candidates featured on them pay considerable sums to have themselves so listed.

Besides denying his central relationship with the sample ballots, Williams mentioned his alleged past association with the athletes Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and, strangely, conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. “Nobody’s done more for the Democratic Party than I have,” Williams insisted. To no avail.

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Rep. DeBerry to Appeal Removal from Democratic Ballot, Has Black Caucus Support

CREDIT: JB

JB

Rep. DeBerry

It ain’t over yet. Apparently, state Rep. John DeBerry, who was voted off the August Democratic primary ballot by the state Democratic Committee on Wednesday, has legal recourse against that action, as well as support for his intended appeal from within party ranks, notably from the legislative Black Caucus.

DeBerry said Thursday he had not yet, as required by statute, received a formal letter from the committee notifying him of its action and of his right to appeal but that he is already busy preparing that appeal, which apparently would need to be completed and submitted to the committee by Thursday of next week.

The 13-term legislator said he had been “ambushed and blindsided” by the action against him, which had been “timely done” from the standpoint of his critics, put before the committee “after the filing deadline and in the middle of a pandemic.”

DeBerry said he had received no advance notice and learned of the pending removal action only on Monday night, not in any official way from the committee itself, but from his House colleague G.A. Hardaway, chair of the Back Caucus, which would go on to send the committee a letter of support for DeBerry as someone who had “faithfully served his constituents in the 90th House District” and “had earned the respect of his Democratic colleagues and the respect of other lawmakers across the aisle.”

Opponents of DeBerry had cited a pattern of his votes they declared to be in violation of the party’s interest, on such subjects as abortion and private-school vouchers, of receiving significant financial support from Republican sources, of voting for Republican Glen Casada over Democrat Karen Camper in the 2019 House Speakership race, and of making a substantial cash contribution to an election campaign of Republican state Rep. Bill Sanderson.

The case against DeBerry had been formally submitted to the Democratic Committee in an April 1st letter by Memphis activist Janeita Lentz. The letter said that DeBerry had “utilized the power of his office to work against the constituents in which he serves, undermining the voice of the people and the ‘vision’ of the Tennessee Democratic Party.”

The committee would end up voting to oust DeBerry in a virtual session on Wednesday morning by a vote of 41 to 18, with two abstentions. Among those publicly opposing the ouster move were members of the Back Caucus, including the aforesaid Camper, as well as Hardaway and state Senator Raumesh Akbari, both of whom were no votes on the committee.

Echoing an accusation made by another Black Caucus member, state Rep. Joe Towns, DeBerry said the case against him was supported by “a group of people who don’t look like us,” suggesting that there was an element of racial bias in the removal action.

He denied absolutely the alleged financial contribution to Sanderson and said his 2019 vote to make Republican Casada Speaker of the House was in conformity with an arrangement made between Democratic leaders and Casada in which House Democrats were promised a number of perks. The arrangement was later disavowed by the party caucus, which opted to support Camper, “but I had already given my word to Casada,” DeBerry said.

As for his votes on various subjects, DeBerry defended those as expressing the wishes of his constituents. On the voucher issue, he added that he had himself, as a high schooler in Crockett County, had the opportunity to attend a school previously reserved for whites, had profited from the experience, and thought vouchers would open such opportunities for others.

Aside from his formal appeal of the committee’s action, which he seeks to have reversed, DeBerry said he was also interested in investigating whether the Anti-Skulduggery Act of 1991, sponsored by then state Senator (now Congressman) Steve Cohen, might apply to his situation. The Act was prompted by a last-minute withdrawal of candidacy in 1990 by then state House incumbent U.A. Moore of Millington, whose friend, then Millington alderman Ed Haley, became an automatic primary winner by virtue of being the only remaining candidate on the ballot.

The purpose of the Act, which allows a seven-day grace period for new filings past the withdrawal deadline, was to prevent such de facto prearrangements. Whether the act applies to this week’s committee action, which theoretically might favor one of the remaining Democrats on the primary ballot, would have to be adjudicated.

DeBerry said that he had no intention, however, of spending months before the election researching other legal loopholes that might invalidate his removal from the ballot.

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DeBerry, Four Others Dumped from Democratic Ballot

John DeBerry

State Rep. John DeBerry, who has represented District 90 in the state House of Representatives for 26 years, has been voted off the August party primary ballot by the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. The committee, meeting online in virtual mode Wednesday, voted 41 to 18, with two abstentions, to oust DeBerry.

The board also acted to remove four other candidates from the party’s primary ballot. They were: William Frazier, in State House District 84 seat; Michael Minnis, state House district 93; M. LaTroy Alexandria-Williams, 9th Congressional District; and Tharon Chandler, U.S. Senate.

DeBerry’s comeuppance was long in coming. Democrats, including local ones, had been vocal for years about the businessman/minister’s tendency to vote as a de facto ally of Republicans on a variety of issues, notably on bills to outlaw abortion and to legalize taxpayer-supported private-school vouchers.

Michael Minnis, who filed to run for the Tennessee State House District 93 seat, was removed without a vote of the board.

The now ex-Democratic candidate expressed himself stoically about the ouster vote: “The Tennessee Democratic Party has decided that a 26-year representative that spent 12 years as a committee chairman, conducted himself with integrity, served the party well, sponsored meaningful legislation, and built bridges across the aisle to get bills passed is no longer a Democrat. And so, I’m not,” he said.

Since the two major parties have control over their own primary ballots and the deadline for filing, even as an independent, has passed, DeBerry’s only option for re-election is via a write-in campaign, a very long shot. The remaining Democrats on the ballot are Torrey C. Harris, Anya Parker, and Catrina L. Smith.

State Democratic chair Mary Mancini of Nashville said, apropos the ouster of the five candidates from the party’s ballot: “After a long meeting in which we heard challenges and evidence, we did what we thought was best to protect the Tennessee Democratic Party and the values we stand for.”

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Talking Politics Online

Those of you who cannot live without political dialogue are in luck — at least if you’re Democrats. The Tennessee Democratic Party is hosting a town hall of sorts on Facebook every Thursday for the duration of the pandemic. The first one is at 4 p.m. today (Thursday, March 26), accessible via the state party’s Facebook page, facebook.com/tndem.

Subjects to be discussed: “the current stage of TN’s legislature, where we are beginning this campaign year, the expedited budget process, and COVID-19.” Hosts are party chair Mary Mancini and State Rep. Mike Stewart, House minority caucus chair. (Scroll down for “Cocktails and Questions.”)

When we learn of equivalent Republican efforts, we’ll pass on information about those, as well.

Meanwhile, the proceedings of the now-suspended legislative session — including videos — are accessible at legislature.state.tn.us.

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Gubernatorial Candidates Dean, Fitzhugh Have Democrats Back in the Game

CREDIT: JB

The very fact that two name Democrats — former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and state House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh — are competing in a primary to become the party’s nominee for governor is something of a throwback phenomenon.

There was a time, lasting for the better part of a century, when victory in a statewide Democratic primary was inevitably reported in the press as “tantamount to election.” That sense of a solid Democratic South has expired pretty much everywhere by now, although the case can be made that in Nashville, and only in Nashville, it  JB

Karl Dean

still exists.

That’s because, for whatever reason, it’s still routine in Nashville for Democrats, both black and white, to win local elections there. And, to be a Democratic office-holder in Nashville, especially the office of mayor, is still, ipso facto, to have an eye on the governorship. It is no accident that the party’s last major statewide winner was Phil Bredesen, who was mayor of the capital city when he won the first of his two gubernatorial terms in 2002. (Bredesen is also, of course, the now out-of-power party’s hope to win a U.S. Senate race this year.)

It is no accident, either, that Karl Dean, a recent Nashville mayor, is a current candidate for governor. What’s more unusual is that he has an opponent, in Fitzhugh of Ripley, from a rural part of the state. West Tennessee rural, at that. A competitive Democratic primary for governor almost got started in 2010, but that was the year when all of the prospective Democratic candidates discovered — in the words of one of them, then state Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle of Memphis — that all the state’s yellow-dog Democrats had somehow become yellow-dog Republicans. All but one Democrat, Mike McWherter of Dresden, son of a former governor and eventual loser to the GOP’s Bill Haslam, would drop out.

But here we are in 2018, amid talk, even in Tennessee, of a Democratic blue wave, and, though it is still likely that the word “tantamount” will be applied to the winner of the four-way Republican primary for governor, a sense of optimism — or, at least, of revived respectability — is observable among Democrats.

Which is why, at Friday evening’s debate between Dean and Fitzhugh at Fairley High School in Whitehaven, moderator TaJuan Stout-Mitchell, citing local party Democratic chair Corey Strong as her source, informed the small crowd in the Fairley auditorium that “we love both our Democratic candidates. And we intend to stay a family when this is over.”

Not that there has been any prior animosity between the two candidates, although Fitzhugh, as the less well-funded underdog, has, Hail Mary-style, thrown one or two effective barbs Dean’s way in the course of the electoral season.

Not Friday evening, unless you count the jest he got off when, as he rose to answer a question, his microphone cord almost got tangled up with Dean. “I don’t want to choke you,” Fitzhugh apologized, adding, “yet.”

JB

Craig Fitzhugh

The two candidates had been asked, a few minutes into the debate, to share the same table because Dean’s mic wasn’t working. Moving over, he had hazarded a quip of his own: “Shall I repeat everything I’ve already said?”

Actually, there wasn’t a great deal of difference in what the two of them said. They agreed that West Tennessee, and Memphis in particular, had generally received the shaft from the powers-that-be in state government. They both looked askance at the state-run Achievement School District, comparing it unfavorably to the I-Zone institutions of Shelby County Schools. They both rejoiced at a recent court decision against the state practice of lifting one’s driver’s license as a penalty for not paying fines. And they both thought the GOP-dominated legislature’s refusal so far to accept Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act to be a huge and catastrophic partisan folly.

Each also championed the principle of diversity, deplored the use of excessive force and racial profiling by law enforcement, and praised the Hope Scholarship Program and the governor’s Tennessee Promise program of support for free community college tuition, though Fitzhugh was somewhat more insistent that the Hope revenue stream not be tapped to fund Promise.

Dean touted his experience as a onetime Public Defender as a useful experience informing his concern for unempowered minorities. Fitzhugh similarly cited his background as proprietor of a “Bank of the Little Man” in Ripley.

The one issue on which a genuine difference of viewpoints might have materialized was somewhat finessed when Dean — who, unlike Fitzhugh, has been a supporter of charter schools — professed his opposition to “for-profit” charters. Fitzhugh also found a bit of air between himself and Dean’s use of the term “forgotten” as an adjective indicating concern for various classes of Tennesseans — West Tennesseans, in particular — both in Friday’s debate and in a TV ad Dean has been running.

“I don’t call it ‘forgotten,’” Fitzhugh objected, reprising his own frequently expressed concern that the same attention be lavished on “those who live in the shadows of skyscrapers” as on those “in the skyscrapers” themselves. “I don’t like the term
‘forgotten,’” he repeated, advising that voters take a look at his record of ameliorative legislation. “I’ve never forgotten.”

A rhetorical point, perhaps, and one intended essentially to demonstrate a shade of difference, but it is possible that it is on the grounds of such shades and nuances that Tennessee Democrats will render their decision. But there is no party fissure here; either one of these men will suit the party faithful, who are clearly hoping that the era of Democratic no-names with no chance of winning is, at the very least, about to be over.

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Bredesen, in Memphis, Sees Good Chance to Win Senate as Moderate Democrat

CREDIT: JB

JB

The former Governor schmoozed happily with a group of young Dreamers in Memphis.

Former Governor Phil Bredesen reintroduced himself to West Tennessee Democrats in a kickoff of his Senatorial campaign Thursday night in Memphis at the Old Dominick Distillery building downtown. A good crowd was on hand, a mix of old Democratic hands and a new wave of resistance people, with a  number of Dreamers present.

Bredesen, looking much the same as he did when left the Governor’s office in 2011, was introduced by local Democrat Greg Duckett as “a bridge builder and not a bridge burner,” as someone Democrats could unite behind and who wants to start a process of galvanizing forces and uniting them, as a respected business person trying to bring sanity to into a process where there is none., to build bridges in Washington and get things done in the best interests of the populace.

After being introduced, Bredesen threw a bouquet or two to Memphis, saying it was an incredibly vital city, with “politics kinda wild, like Chicago.”

He then shared some of the thought processes he’d gone through before making his decision to run. Originally, Bredesen said, the idea of running for the Senate was Number 93 on his list of 100 things he might like to do. But after incumbent Republican Senator Bob Corker dropped out he started getting calls, and he began thinking a lot about how unhappy he was with how things were going in Washington – a state of things that didn’t just begin with Trump;

He began thinking that he, as the last statewide Democratic office-holder, had the best chance of being successful. He thought about how he’d always tried to bring people along, from both sides of the aisle. “I didn’t just start this last year. People just want some motion. They want the ball moved. They want to answer some questions.”

He talked about how he’d met some Dreamers early in the evening and how immoral it was to let these kids struggle to hang on. “We need to go find common ground in Washington to deal with that, I need to start moving the ball and make some things happen.”

Bredesen spoke of his expertise in health-cafe issues and his background in resolving Tenn-Care problems as Governor. He said he honestly thought he could be the Go-To guy in the Senate on health-care issues.

He addressed the issue of whether Tennessee was an unredeemably Red State or whether it was possible for him to win. “I’m a little old to be going on suicide missions. I really think there’s a way forward. We really can elect a moderate Democrat to this state in Tennessee.” He spoke of having conducted polls that demonstrate that such a person could defeat “a hard-rock conservative” in Tennessee and polls that showed him on the winning side in a race against putative GOP Senate nominee Marsha Blackburn.

Again: “If I can get people to help, it’s a very doable, winnable race. We’ve always sent moderate people to Washington. It’s time to do it again. I’d be honored and proud to serve as a U.S. Senator.”

In a private interview with reporters afterward, Bredesen amplified on some of his views.

ON THE ISSUE OF HOW HE, LIKE LAMAR ALEXANDER AND BOB CORKER BEFORE HIM, COULD TRANSITION FROM BEING AN EXECUTIVE TYPE IN GOVERNMENT TO A LEGISLATIVE ONE:
To be honest, it was one of the biggest concerns I had when I was thinking about this. Going from being somebody like a mayor or a governor thinking you can make something happening on Monday morning to where you’re a junior member of a hundred large egos is sort of challenging.
What I found when I talked about it, and I talked to several people who were former governors I had known who were now in the Senate, Marc Jordan of Virginia was one of them. Tim Kaine became a friend of mine. What they both told me was don’t come here and expect to be Governor, but if you’ve got some expertise, a policy interest in some area, if you get on the right kind of committee – Health and Welfare in my case – you can really be effective.
In transitioning from business to government, I found that everything is more difficult in government. And it’s even harder if you are dealing with the whole country. It takes more cooperation.

ON THE STATE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN TENNESEE: I’m not sure that the Democratic brand is damaged in this state. The issue is that Republicans are static in their party identification, while Democrats have started calling themselves independents. Now, Harold ford Jr. and I in 2006 we did stick together.

I wouldn’t be running against Bob [Corker], if he should get back in, or against Marsha. I just want to present myself, I want to learn Memphis issues. They aren’t the same as 7 years ago. I need to educate myself.

ON PRESENTING HIMSELF AS A MODERATE:
Oh yeah, because I am. I grew up in a small town with conservative ideas on fiscal solvency., I’m proud that as Governor I got the rainy-day fund up and got the state’s AAA rating back. We had to cut back on spending. There weren’t a lot of options.

ON THE SALVAGEAB8LITY OF THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT: I wasn’t a big fan of the ACA. I’m tempted to say ‘I told you so.’ But we’ve got to do something to stabilize those markets. Over the long run we’ve got to move into something bigger and better. There’s a lot I don’t know about how the Senate works, but I’m committed to coming into the situation and working purposely to find out how to get things done.