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The Tennessee Conservative [By Kelly M. Jackson] –
Voter turnout earlier this month across the state of Tennessee was an abysmal 13.9% according to recent reports.
These reports indicate that although the voter registration numbers have trended upward since 2016, fewer and fewer Tennesseans are heading to the polls to vote during primary elections.
According to Secretary of State Tre Hargett’s office, Tennessee has 4.6 million registered voters, in a state where the population hovers around 7 million.
That number is a notable increase from 2016, where there were only 3.9 million voters registered in the Volunteer State.
For those crunching the numbers, the increase should make a lot of sense.
From around 2019 through present day, Tennessee has become a top destination / domestic refugee state for those fleeing other states with excessively restrictive policies being imposed on their citizens due to the Covid 19 pandemic.
Forced lockdowns, masking and vaccination were influential factors for people coming in from states like California, New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Illinois to name just a few.
It would make sense that those who have made Tennessee their new home for the reasons stated here, would be enthusiastic about participating in a voting process where republicans have substantial influence, versus the states from which these voters originate.
Unfortunately, the surge in voter registrations is not translating to an increase in voter participation, and progressive groups like Planned Parenthood are taking notice.
According to a report released last week the organization held a press conference in Nashville at The State Capitol, announcing its new initiative to flip some of the Republican Supermajority seats in the state House and Senate to an official that will be more amenable to pro-abortion policies, thus eliminating the law banning most abortions in Tennessee when The Supreme Court overturned Roe Vs. Wade in 2022.
The leaders of Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood (TAPP), Planned Parenthood’s electioneering arm, CEO Ashley Coffield said during the press conference “Stopping the supermajority in Tennessee is not going to be easy, we have a plan this year to flip four seats and three after that so we break the supermajority before redistricting in 2030.”
Melissa Sauter, TAPP Campaign Director stated during the same press conference, “We were 50th in voter turnout in the 2022 election, but the good news is the only way we have to go from there is up.”
If new conservative Tennesseans, and well settled ones, believe the state is too red to be overtaken by a “blue wave” in the state legislature, according to Democrat Representative Aftyn Behn, there are 5 seats the democrats see as “flippable” and all in what have been determined to be the fastest growing areas of the state: “Republican representatives John Gillespie (District 97) of Shelby County, Jeff Burkhart (District 75) of Clarksville, Robert Stevens (District 13) of Smyrna, Mike Sparks (District 49) of Smyrna, and Elaine Davis (District 18) of Knox County are all targets, Behn says, because their districts are growing, had more Democratic voters in 2020 than in 2016, and have Democratic challengers in November.”
The republican supermajority has existed in the Tennessee state legislature for about a decade, and democrats have exactly 2 more election cycles to change that before the redistricting occurs again in 2030.
Organizations like Planned Parenthood are dumping huge amounts of money into these races, in order to mitigate the republican domination that has all but nullified any power democrats have with respect to policies for top democrat issues, such as abortion and gun control.
And as we have recently learned here in Tennessee, money makes all the difference when PACs come in to target specific legislators that provide an obstruction to policy initiatives highly desired by those PAC’s and those who operate them.
Research has determined that roughly 72% of Tennesseans identify as “conservative,” which for many new transplants is good news after possibly having lived in a state where progressives dominate policy formation in their state and county level government.
But what many have discovered after moving to “red” Tennessee is a republican supermajority, who despite being able to essentially pass any sort of legislation it is determined to pass, is passing laws on issues such as abortion that are contradictory to conservative values.
A very germane example is the attempt by establishment republicans, back during the 2023 general session, to in essence, punch a hole in the ban they passed just 4 years prior known as The Human Life Protection Act.
Back during the 2023 general session, Senator Ferrell Haile and Representative Iris Rudder filed a bill to weaken Tennessee law that is protecting the right to life of ALL unborn children.
The bill (HB1440/SB857), co-sponsored by Representatives Patsy Hazelwood, Esther Helton-Haynes, Mark White, Sam Whitson and Senators Richard Briggs, Becky Massey, Bill Powers and Ken Yager, would remove protections for some of Tennessee’s most vulnerable citizens by allowing some children to be aborted through certain exceptions.
Some of these exceptions were rape and incest, with a criminal penalty for physicians who perform the procedure. However, the way the legislation was originally written, the penalties for medical professionals had no mechanism for enforcement, causing a concern that the only thing between a woman and the termination of her perfectly viable pregnancy would be a checked box on a form.
Only due to the combined efforts of Tennessee’s populist conservative grassroots, like Tennessee Right To Life and Tennessee Stands along with the reporting of The Tennessee Conservative getting the public engaged, were the bills were amended which dramatically mitigated some of the damage done to what was considered one of the strongest full stop bans on abortion in the country.
In May of last year, the legislation that provides clarification of Tennessee’s abortion ban was signed into law by Governor Bill Lee. The legislation removes affirmative defense for physicians who perform an abortion if the life of the mother is at risk or if there is risk of irreversible harm to any major bodily function.
Additionally, it clarifies that treating ectopic pregnancies, molar pregnancies, and miscarriages are not a violation of the abortion ban.
The removal of affirmative defense only applies to a risk to the physical health of the mother. The bill states that mental health concerns are not eligible exemptions.
Despite this victory for conservative grassroots, the reality remains, that the issue was created by seated, establishment Republicans, who sought to do damage to the very same laws they helped to pass, in a post Roe existence they assumed would never be.
These recent facts demonstrate the need for Tennesseans to not only become more engaged in the primary voting season, but to also do their due diligence to determine if the “republicans” they are electing to these seats are indeed the stalwart conservatives they purport to be.
If Republican voters choose to remain complacent because they believe Tennessee to be impervious to progressive efforts at turning key districts blue, then Tennessee is statistically fated to eventually go the way of those states transplants were fleeing from in the first place.
About the Author: Kelly Jackson is an escapee from corporate America, and a California refugee to Tennessee. Christ follower, Wife and Mom of three amazing teenagers, she has a BA in Comm from Point Loma Nazarene University, and has a background in law enforcement and human resources. Since the summer of 2020, she has spent any and all free time in the trenches with local grassroots orgs, including Mom’s for Liberty Williamson County and Tennessee Stands as a core member. An outspoken advocate for parents rights, medical freedom, and individual liberty, Kelly also has a YouTube channel @Tennessee_Truth_Teller and is planning on expanding out to other channels soon. Kelly can be reached at kelly@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
2 Responses
Trump was able to get three Federalist Society picks onto the Supreme Court. During their hearings they swore up and down about how Roe v. Wade as “precedent” and “settled law,” blah blah blah. THEN, as soon as they had the opportunity, they overturned it. And now even women who would personally never choose to have an abortion are a bit ticked off, because they see women in red states losing a BIG measure of their self-determination in ways that men have no frame of reference for. After all, there have never been any laws passed that affect MEN’S reproductive choices.
Come November, Florida will become the latest in a long list of states where abortion care has been enshrined by a popular vote. Women aren’t going down without a fight.
Yup, lucifer’s dimmercrap baby killers.