VIDEO: Rep. Jim Cooper Fires Up The Crowd At The CLC Lunch

This week Rep. Jim Cooper visited the Central Labor Council lunch in Nashville and spoke to a rapt audience about the need for unity and togetherness in the coming election, when the labor movement would be a key part of a “winning strategy” in the hopes of preserving key programs like Medicare and social security.

Cooper spoke about rampant inequality the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Gilded Age, acknowledged that the system isn’t fair, but reminded everyone that “the rich people are out there voting”.

Watch the HIGHLIGHTS:

Rep. Cepicky Votes For Statewide Charters & Vouchers Despite Running on “Local” Control

This past couple of weeks we’ve seen two major pieces of education legislation pass through the education committee.

Last week it was the “Statewide Charter Authorization Board” which gives charter schools who don’t get local approval a way to appeal.

This week it was Lee’s “Education Savings Accounts” aka School Vouchers, which would allow public funds to be taken away and used at private schools.

Both are major steps forward in the Republican effort to privatize education, an effort we’ve seen in other states which we have yet to see positive results.

It has come to our attention that Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) was asked specifically about both of these issues in the one debate he had with Democrat A.J. Holmes during their race in 2018, and in both instances Cepicky said he believes vouchers and charters should be subject to “local control”:

Cepicky, a member of the Education committee, voted in favor of both bills, a clear departure from his campaign rhetoric.

The privatization effort nationwide is backed by the Koch Brothers, and it’s a big part of the reason Betsy Devos is where she is.

As a reminder, Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson was recently heard saying he backs vouchers “1000%” – as long as they don’t affect Williamson County, where he, Speaker Casada, and Governor Lee are all from.

Opponents of both bills are warning that they are opening the “floodgates” for vouchers and charters to make their way everywhere throughout Tennessee.

A look into Cepicky’s campaign finance disclosures reveals a few noteworthy contributions on this topic. Cepicky received $1000 from “Tennesseans for Putting Students First”, a pro-voucher group:

Another $2000 from the PAC of House Majority Leader William Lamberth, who co-sponsored the vouchers bill:

And then another $1000 from Lord Casada himself, who just demoted Rep. David Byrd one day after Byrd voted against Lee’s Voucher proposal:

That all seemed to outweigh the $500 he received from the teachers union PAC:

When reached for comment, Cepicky’s 2018 opponent AJ Holmes had this to say:

“While this is indeed infuriating, this could create a moment of unity among us all. Independents, Republicans, and Democrats alike can still agree on a few things. We can all agree Rep. Cepicky’s move makes him one of the worst kinds of politicians, as it’s the move of one who sold to the highest bidder… we need campaign finance reform.”

When even Rep. David Byrd has more of a backbone on an issue than you do, it might be time to rethink somethings.

If you have a problem with representatives saying one thing during their campaigns then doing another when they get into office, holler at Cepicky HERE.

BREAKING: Casada Removes Byrd as Education Sub-Committee Chair

Sometimes, people do the right things for the wrong reasons.

At 10:30 a.m., the Tennessean broke the news Tennessee Speaker of the House Glen Casada had removed Rep. David Byrd as chair of the House Education Subcommittee.

Byrd, of course, is the former girls basketball coach accused by several of his former high school players of sexually assaulting them – some in exchange for court time – in the 1980s. In a taped conversation with Christi Rice, one of the victims, Byrd apologized to her saying he “prays every week” about what he did to her, although he doesn’t give specifics on what he asks forgiveness for.

For months, supporters of Rice and other women involved have been asking Casada to remove Byrd as chair of the committee: It’s a clear slap in the face of education supporters to appoint an accused sexual predator to chair an education committee, but Casada maintained in a taped face-to-face interview with former congressional candidate and Holler editor Justin Kanew: “(Byrd) will do a good job.”


However, today’s removal of Byrd comes one day after the former educator voted against one of Casada and right-wing Governor Bill Lee’s pet projects: Education vouchers.

So, did Casada strip Byrd of his duties because a) the pressure from victim advocates got to him, b) the father of daughters and grandfather of girls finally saw the problem with having a molester as chair of a committee, or c) he wanted retribution for Byrd’s vote?

Casada hasn’t said, but sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Emily Tseffos, leader of Enough is Enough -Tennessee, had this to say:

“This is a good first step but it’s not enough. This campaign will continue until David Byrd is no longer in public office.”

Casada strips Byrd of chairmanship

This is a developing story.

VIDEO: VOUCHER VOTE HIGHLIGHTS

Governor Lee’s effort to steer public dollars to private schools through “Education Savings Accounts” aka School Vouchers passed committee yesterday with John Deberry, Jr. the only Democrat in support.

Watch the HIGHLIGHTS

And watch Rep. Harold Love and Rep. Antonio Parkinson react:

NEW VIDEO: “WILLIAMSON COUNTY’S DIVERSITY DILEMMA”

After a handful of incidents, Superintendent Mike Looney and Williamson County Schools formed a Diversity Council and made cultural sensitivity videos for teachers which mentioned “white privilege”, triggering some in the community.

A few fanned the flames of conflict.

Others are using it as a healthy, teachable moment. Dr. Looney still has the board’s support.

Watch HIGHLIGHTS from this week’s school board meeting:

Lee’s Vouchers Pass Committee, DEBERRY The Lone Dem Vote In Favor (again)

After a lengthy debate, Governor Bill Lee’s pet school vouchers initiative passed the education committee today with 14 votes in favor, 9 against, and 1 – Kirk Haston, a teacher from Lobelville – being recorded as “present not voting”.

Read more

Tennessee Star Attacks Trio of Women Reporters

The Tennessee Star, the far-right, Koch Brothers-funded “news outlet” has a problem with women – particularly smart, young women – as evidenced by their recent spree of attacks on Tennessean reporters.

In the last week, the Star, which likes to refer to itself as the alternative to Nashville’s daily paper of record, accused the three reporters of bias in their reporting, posted photos of the women taken from personal social media pages, and used language from far-right movements to characterize them.

Amelia Knisely, Elaina Sauber, whose name the Star misspelled twice as ‘Stauber’, and Emily West all cover Williamson County for the Tennessean’s local Williamson section. Knisely covers education, Sauber covers municipal issues in Brentwood, and West covers Franklin city issues.

Staff at the Star, including writer Chris Butler, whom Knisely says called her and “aggressively” demanded her sources on a story, were apparently triggered by coverage of a recent flap over cultural competency training for teachers in the Williamson County School System. Knisely has been covering the story for the last few weeks.

But, it seems no coincidence all three reporters are women, and women who are 30 or under. Although the Tennessean has male reporters covering similar topics for other municipalities, the Star has remained mum on criticizing men.

Last week wasn’t the first time the Star aggressively trolled one of the Tennessean’s female journalists. In August 2018, writer Chris Butler, the same reporter who harassed Knisely last week, wrote a story accusing reporter Natalie Allison of being “chummy” with “left wing activists.”

Those accusations came following protests of private prison giant Core Civic. The Star’s report said “Allison signaled likely coordination with the protestors” citing her use of the protestors’ hashtag during her live tweets of the protests.

The Star posted a photo of an angry-looking woman, with veins standing out on her neck, at the head of the Knisely story, published March 19.  Although the photo is not Knisely, it is meant to imply to readers it is, and abuts a headline accusing Knisely of “rage tweeting.”

Photo intended to represent Tennessean reporter Amelia Knisely, taken from Tennessee Star, March 19.

On March 25th, the Star referred to Sauber and West as “social justice warriors” – a right wing term intended as a pejorative – in a headline and lambasted them for using Twitter to interact with readers about stories. The attack on Sauber resulted from the reporter providing a list of racial incidents that have occurred in Williamson County schools over the last several years as proof the cultural competency training is needed. 

Here’s Tennessean reporter Amelia Knisley describing her conversation with Tennessee Star reporter Chris Butler:

A source close to the group of reporters say at least one has received death threats since the Star’s harassment began.

LAMAR ALEXANDER: “I Believe Climate Change Is Real, Caused By Humans”

With so much going on right now, we almost missed Lamar Alexander saying something few Republicans will these days: That climate change is real, and caused by humans.

This is not something you hear Republicans say every day.

Donald Trump hasn’t admitted it. Most Republicans have spent their time recently mocking and misrepresenting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, which attempts to address the realities of Climate Change in ambitious ways, but without offering ideas of their own.

Meanwhile President Trump has appointed a former coal lobbyist as the head of the EPA.

As a reminder, much of the dark money that funds these climate change denial efforts can be traced back to the Koch Brothers, who have a strong presence here in Tennessee.

In a Politico article today Alexander seems to be attempting to address that:

“I believe climate change is real. I believe humans are a major cause of it, and I think a new ‘Manhattan Project for Clean Energy’ is something that most Republicans could support, and I would hope most Democrats could too.”

The article also points out that more and more Americans see climate change as a major issue:

“Polls back up the importance of the issue for 2020. Likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, home of the nation’s first presidential caucus, now rank climate change as the second-most important topic facing the nation.”

Just last week high school kids across the globe walked out in an attempt to highlight the problem – a problem even Exxon’s own scientists have been warning them about for decades. Children seem to be really understanding the negative impact of climate change, whilst some adults refuse to accept that climate change is happening. There are so many ways that humans can add to the existing climate change. It could be as simple as driving your car. If you’ve recently taken a long car journey, it might be worth visiting https://www.cooleffect.org/content/travel-offset to pay the travel offset of the journey. That goes towards companies that are trying to slow down climate change by reducing carbon emissions. It might be a nice way to help the environment. The more people who start accepting climate change, the quicker things can be done to prevent it.

It remains to be seen how far Alexander is willing to go, and since his time is almost at an end it seems unlikely he’ll be able to see anything through, but it’s nice to see the ice around climate change denial begin to thaw even a little. Especially since the warnings lately have been extremely dire.

If you agree, holler at Lamar HERE.

TN STATE SENATE CANDIDATE POWERS “AGREES” LGBT MOVEMENT IS “DEMONIC”

A special election is happening in Tennessee right now in state senate district 22, a race to replace Rep. Mark Green in the state senate. The seat encompasses Stewart, Houston, and Montgomery Counties.

Juanita Charles is on the ballot as a Democrat. She’ll face Bill Powers – who won the Republican primary – in the election on April 23rd.

Powers is a self-identified “constitutional conservative” who supports president Trump, as he recently told a Facebook commenter. The commenter then went on to say that she “will not vote for anyone who is willing to make any concessions to the LGBT movement” because “it is Demonic”, and that she opposes the “Muslim agenda” because Muslims want to “change America”.

Powers says he “agrees with everything” she said.

Here’s THE POST.

It’s worth noting that Clarksville has a significant LGBT community, particularly at Austin Peay State University.

Clarksville also has a Muslim community.

If you feel a state senator should be someone who wants to represent all the people in their district, holler at the Bill Powers campaign and let him know HERE.

And more on his opponent Juanita Charles can be found HERE.

Again, April 23rd is the election.

Did Rep. Doggett Vote For The Anti-LGBT Adoption Bill Without Knowing What Was In It?

This week the Tennessee House Judiciary Committee voted to advance HB 836 (SB 1304), a bill that would create a license to discriminate in child welfare services, to the House of Representatives for consideration.
Anti-equality lawmakers have also introduced another discriminatory child welfare bill, HB 1152 (SB 848), that has not yet advanced from committee. HB 836 will be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday March 26th. According to the Human Rights Campaign:

“If passed, these bills would allow state contractors who provide taxpayer-funded adoption and foster care services to refuse to make child placements with qualified, loving families if the family doesn’t share all of the agency’s religious beliefs. Under these proposals state-licensed child-placing agencies would be allowed to disregard the best interest of children and turn away qualified Tennesseans seeking to care for a child in need.

This would include LGBTQ couples, interfaith couples, single parents, married couples in which one prospective parent has previously been divorced or other parents to whom the agency has a religious objection.”

Apparently this is confusing to some legislators.

Jessica Yokley, a Lawrence County resident who ran against Doggett in 2018, posted on Facebook that she spoke with Rep. Clay Doggett (R-Lawrenceburg) yesterday, who seemed to not understand that the bill would allow adoption agencies in receipt of taxpayer funds to discriminate without fear of losing government contracts.

From Yokley’s post:

“Rep. Doggett called me yesterday. He stated his support of this bill was related to business owners having liberty and that this bill does not apply to entities who use tax dollars which is why he supported it. Rep. Doggett said he would not support the bill if it included entities who receive tax dollars or facilitate adoptions for children in state custody. He has already voted for the bill in Judiciary Committee. The fact is, not only does the bill NOT EXCLUDE entities who take tax dollars, it specifically allows the organizations to receive them!

You can read this for yourself in Paragraph C of the bill below. I have also sent this to Rep. Doggett so that he can see I am speaking the truth.”

Yokley then includes the text of the bill in her post, which you can read in its entirety here.

In the comments underneath the post, another Lawrence County resident posts an excerpt of her exchange with Doggett in which he says he’s “looking into it”… which is concerning since he already voted FOR the bill in committee.

This begs the question – how many other bills is Doggett voting on without understanding? And how many other Tennessee legislators are voting to allow discrimination with taxpayer dollars without even knowing that’s what they’re doing?

Whether or not you agree with the policy, we should all be able to agree that voting on a bill without understanding the fundamentals of what’s in it is a problem. Lawrence County residents are well within their rights to ask Doggett how that could be the case.

To hear more about the bill and why it’s “bad for kids”, watch our video from last week HERE, or check out this other post from Yokley, an adoptive parent herself, which initially called out Doggett and started their dialogue, including:

“How dare you risk a child’s chance at a stable home.”

And here’s more on the ramifications of the bill from HRC:

Preliminary findings from HRC and Clark University’s National Foster Care and Adoption survey found that:

  • Eighty-eight percent of LGBTQ people living in Tennessee are considering welcoming a child into their home via adoption or foster care in the future;
  • Further, 92 percent fear they will be discriminated against because they are LGBTQ while pursuing adoption or foster care;
  • Eighty percent have potential concerns about finding an LGBTQ-inclusive adoption or foster care agency in their city; and
  • Sixty-seven percent would be less likely to pursue adoption and foster care if a law allowing state-sanctioned discrimination was on the books in Tennessee.

These statistics are alarming, especially when the Tennessee legislature continues to push these harmful bills that ultimately lessen the pool of qualified foster and adoptive parents. Children should not be forced to age out of foster care without a family connection, or wait indefinitely in foster care when qualified families are ready to adopt or foster the child. This legislation exacerbates the problem and leaves more and more children waiting for forever homes.

If you agree that this bill is bad for kids, holler at Doggett or your reps.

The Holler has reached out to Doggett for comment.