Report: Calfee says he heard Casada offer generalship during voucher impasse
Rep. Kent Calfee tells the Tennessee Lookout’s Sam Stockard he heard then-House Speaker Glen Casada propose a generalship to Democratic Rep. John Mark Windle in return for backing a controversial school voucher proposal in 2019.
With a vote knotted at 49-49 in 2019, Casada infamously kept the board open for 45 minutes to try to persuade someone to switch their position and keep first-year Gov. Bill Lee’s signature bill from an embarrassing defeat.
Calfee (R-Kingston) said he was standing on the balcony outside the House chamber when he heard Casada (R-Franklin) make the pitch to Windle, a Livingston Democrat who is a colonel in the Tennessee National Guard.
“I heard Casada say, ‘I can’t promote you, but the governor can. I’ll call the governor,’” Calfee told the Lookout.
“Now, the governor and I have discussed that, because he also, he called me up to the office,” Calfee recounted. “He said, ‘You know, you’re kind of talking bad about me.’ I said I told the truth.”
Lee was asked by reporters this week about the alleged offer of a generalship to Windle. He said he didn’t know anything about it.
Windle didn’t change his opposition to the voucher bill. But the measure passed after Rep. Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) agreed to flip in favor of the bill after being assured his home county would be exempted from the measure.
