New TNJ edition alert: GOP flexes on Nashville, new House rules to limit speechifying on floor
The latest print edition of The Tennessee Journal is out. Here is what’s in it:
— GOP flexes muscles in standoff with Nashville, but will it stick?
— New House rules will give less time to speechifying on the floor, try to keep killed bills dead, and give voice votes the seal of approval.
— Gov. Bill Lee names new members to charter appeals panel.
— Female majority on Supreme Court hangs in balance, grand divisions get equal billing despite population differences.
Also: Someone almost stole $186,000 from the Harshbarger campaign, Mark Green lands a committee chairmanship, state House members’ parking skills scrutinized, and Tim Burchett discusses the perils of drunken rednecks.
As always, access the your copy of the TNJ here.
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Report: Mark Green among members of Congress texting Meadows about efforts to undo 2020 election
Text messages from U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-Ashland City) are among the hundreds turned over to congressional investigators by former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, according to a report by Talking Points Memo:
Other members of Congress sent Meadows questionable legal theories and wildly undemocratic plans to have the vote overturned at the state level. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) pointed to a segment on the far-right cable network Newsmax where the political operative Dick Morris argued Republican state legislatures had the power to “declare” Trump the winner based on unproven allegations of fraud.
The text log does not include responses from Meadows to these texts from Babin, Cramer, and Green. Green’s communications director, Rachel del Guidice, provided a statement to TPM that suggested his ideas came from people in his district rather than the congressman himself.
“Congressman Green was passing along what constituents were sending him to keep the White House informed on the sentiments of his constituents,” del Guidice said. “He wasn’t advocating for any specific course of action.”
Come and knock on our door: Senate GOP would have three districts meet in Nashville (UPDATED)
The figurative white smoke is rising above the state Capitol as Senate Republicans have announced they will reveal their redistricting maps on Thursday.
The Tennessee Journal has learned the Senate preference is for a three-way division of heavily Democratic Nashville that would entail the 6th and 7th districts currently held by Republican Reps. John Rose of Cookeville and Mark Green of Ashland City, respectively, grabbing portions of the capital city. (This paragraph has been updated to show it’s Rose’s 6th, not Scott DesJarlais of the 4th District, that would move into Nashville).
Green would retain only about a third of Williamson County, the traditionally anchor of the 7th District when now-Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Brentwood) held the seat. The remainder would become part of the new-look 5th District that has been held by Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper since 2003.
Rapidly growing Rutherford County would remain entirely within the 4th District, which would likely require an overall westward migration of the seat’s boundaries. DesJarlais is from the eastern side of the district.
The House GOP is scheduled to make its draft congressional maps public on Wednesday amid comments by House Speaker Cameron Sexton that Nashville could be split into two or three districts.
The two chambers have been understood to be at odds about how exactly to go about gaining an eighth seat, so the final shape of the plan could still change.
Mark Green is getting involved where now?
U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-Ashland City) has long been known for his pursuit of higher office, whether it is for governor, U.S. Senate, or beyond. He’s also been actively lobbying his former colleagues in the Tennessee legislature to not fundamentally alter his congressional district when they draw new political maps this winter.
But it turns out Green’s political interests aren’t limited to Tennessee — or even this hemisphere. The New York Times reports Green is now agitating in Brazil, where supporters of the country’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro are echoing many of the themes adopted by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
From the Times story:
Representative Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican who has pushed laws combating voter fraud, met with lawmakers in Brazil to discuss “voting integrity policies.” […] The American Conservative Union paid about $15,000 to send Mr. Green, the Tennessee Republican, according to a lobbying disclosure. His planned agenda included a discussion, over lunch, of voting laws with two Brazilian members of Congress who pushed to change Brazil’s.
The American Conservative Union has been in the news in Tennessee lately following the federal indictment of Green’s former state Senate colleague Brian Kelsey on charges he conspired to funnel campaign donations to the group through two political action committees. Kelsey has pleaded not guilty.
Green looks to raise money off ‘storming’ impeachment hearings he had access to
As a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-Ashland City) has access to closed-door hearings in the congressional impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump. That didn’t stop him from joining 40 Republican colleagues in barging into a secure hearing room where the hearings were taking place on Wednesday.
According to the Washington Post, 13 of those joining the protest were GOP members who, like Green, serve on committees giving them access to the hearings.
But in a fundraising appeal sent out Thursday, Green says “my colleagues and I have been barred from accessing certain testimonies.”
“That’s why yesterday, my colleagues and I stormed the committee rooms where they are conducting the depositions in secret,” he said. “And, unsurprisingly, Shifty Adam Schiff wouldn’t let us in.”
It’s unclear why Green would have been blocked from a hearing he has authorization to attend.
“I need you to join me in standing with President Trump,” Green writes. “Will you chip in $25 today to help me continue to fight for the truth?”
Haslam to decide on Senate bid within 3 weeks
Former Gov. Bill Haslam (right) and U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander attend the state Republican Party’s annual Statesmen’s Dinner in Nashville on June 15, 2019.
Republican Bill Haslam plans to make up his mind about a U.S. Senate bid within the next two or three weeks, the former governor told reporters at the state GOP’s annual Statesmen’s Dinner fundraiser.
Haslam said it’s been his intention to decide about whether to make a bid to succeed U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Maryville) within six months of leaving the governor’s office.
The former governor sat a table alongside Alexander, junior Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Brentwood), and U.S. Ambassador Bill Hagerty.
Hagerty would be expected to give the race some serious consideration if Haslam doesn’t run. U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-Ashland City) is also mulling a campaign. Surgeon Manny Sethi of Nashville announced his candidacy earlier this month.
Haslam said he enjoyed being back in political circles.
“I loved the job, and when you come back and see a lot of people you haven’t seen, you miss that,” he said. “But being a private citizen has its upsides, too.”
Club for Growth launches website targeting Haslam
Gov. Bill Haslam gives his farewell address before the inauguration ceremony for Gov. Bill Lee in Nashville on Jan. 19, 2019. (Erik Schelzig, Tennessee Journal)
The Club for Growth, a conservative Super PAC, is taking aim at former Gov. Bill Haslam’s potential candidacy for the U.S. Senate. The Knoxville Republican is expected to make a decision about whether to run this spring.
The group has expressed support for U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-Ashland City) to jump into the race to succeed Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Maryville) next year. Club for Growth agitated on Republican Marsha Blackburn’s behalf in her successful bid for the Senate last year.
“Deciding to run for the United States Senate would be different than deciding if I am going to go work for this bank or that insurance company or whatever,” Haslam said a Freed-Hardeman University forum last week. “At the end of the day, for all of us, it’s about where can we be the most useful. Where can our gifts and the world’s needs intersect.”
The Club for Growth ad and the related DirtyBillHaslam.com website take aim over the scandal at the Pilot Flying J truck stop chain controlled by the former governor and his family.
“Governor, don’t run,” Club for Growth Action President David McIntosh said in a release. “You have a legacy as governor and clearly don’t have the fire in the belly nor desire to serve in the U.S. Senate.”
Green to host swearing-in fundraiser featuring Lee, legislative leaders
It’s never too soon to start raising money. Especially in newly-elected U.S. Rep. Mark Green’s case, given that he’s made no great secret about mulling a bid to succeed Sen. Lamar Alexander in 2020.
Green is holding a fundraiser “celebrating the swearing-in” of the congressman on Jan. 23 — 20 days after he was actually sworn in. Also attending are Gov.-elect Bill Lee, Senate Speaker Randy McNally, House Speaker Glen Casada, and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson.
It will be interesting to see whether any of those legislative leaders distance themselves from Green if term-limited Gov. Bill Haslam decides to jump into the Senate race. 
She’s back! Kurita selected as interim state senator
Former Sen. Rosalind Kurita, whom Democrats stripped of their party’s nomination after she broke ranks to vote for Republican Ron Ramsey to become Senate speaker in 2007, has been appointed as an interim replacement for Sen. Mark Green (R-Ashland City) after his election to Congress.
The Leaf Chronicle of Clarksville reports Kurita emerged the winner Monday after 13 rounds of voting by the Montgomery County Commission.
“It feels wonderful to be selected by the County Commission, and I appreciate the support I have received here this evening,” Kurita told the paper.
Kurita is expected to caucus with the Republican supermajority. She said she won’t be a candidate in the special election to fill the remainder of Green’s term (the primary is March 7 and the general election is on April 23).
The year after voting for Ramsey (the chamber was tied 16-16 with one independent at the time, making hers a crucial vote), Kurita survived a primary challenge from fellow Clarksville Democrat Tim Barnes by all of 19 votes. Barnes filed a challenge with the Democratic Executive Committee, with his attorneys contending that “Republicans crossed over en masse.”
Kurita’s lawyers argued the crossover wasn’t out of the ordinary. But after a day-long hearing that also included allegations that Barnes voters were directed to vote in the Republican primary and that Kurita had violated the 100-foot barrier in polling place (to go to the restroom, her attorneys said, deriding the allegation as “potty gate”), the Democratic panel voted 33-11 to strip Kurita of the nomination on the basis of the outcome of the primary having become “incurably uncertain.” She mounted a write-in
campaign, but lost to Barnes, 62% to 39%.
Kurita was a candidate for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in 2006, but bowed out before the primary.
Ramsey appears pleased with Kurita’s appointment:
Democrats stole an election to prevent her from returning to @tnsenate.
NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTED.
Extremely glad to see Rosalind Kurita back in the @tnsenate. https://t.co/WQIvyuxNJ1
— Ron Ramsey (@RonRamsey) January 15, 2019
Green adds $200K in new self-funding to build fat money lead over competing Democrats
Though without opposition in the 7th Congressional District Republican primary, state Sen. Mark Green loaned his campaign another $200,000 in the first quarter of 2018 – making a total of $500,000 in self-funding so far — and collected $267,949 in contributions, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission.
