There Were Better Results In Tennessee…
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Note from The Tennessee Conservative: Editorial statements in this column are the sole opinion of the author; they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the staff of this publication.
Submitted by Trent D. Laviano –
The 2026 elections have ended and the results have been announced. Although the outcome was disappointing on a national level, there are some interesting conclusions that can be drawn from the results in Tennessee. The election of Marsha Blackburn as the next Governor was a clear victory for Tennessee conservatives. She has also announced that she will not resign from the Senate until she takes office as Governor. This will enable her to choose her successor in the Senate and ensure that the next Senator from Tennessee will be a true Constitutional Conservative. Bill Hagerty was also reelected for another 6-year Senate term by a very comfortable margin.
An interesting development in Tennessee was the result of the Congressional elections. This has resulted in 8 of the 9 Tennessee Congressional seats being held by Republicans. This will maintain the current ratio. A real surprise was that incumbent Congressman Scott DesJarlais narrowly lost by only 280 votes. This appears to be the result of two independent candidates who received a total of over 4,600 votes. However, it was especially gratifying to see that Tennessee was spared the embarrassment of seeing the ridiculous Justin Pearson getting elected to Congress and being anointed as a celebrity by the leftist media.
The highest profile race was the election for Governor. Marsha Blackburn won that contest as expected. Jerri Green is a leftist who never had any realistic chance of winning a statewide election. This massive amount of advertising by David Hatley was nothing but a distraction. His campaign ads stressed his business experience and asked voters to overlook the fact that he had previously been convicted of fraud. Although he claims that actions were simply a “mistake,” fraud is something that involves intentional deception and is not something done in the spur of the moment. He did not get his voting rights restored until 2025.
Although David Hatley is long on self-promotion and lacking in both substance and character, he did manage to convince more than 195.000 voters to support him. However, he is a warning of what can happen when there are multiple candidates on the ballot. That is the same thing that happened in 1992 when Ross Perot drew many votes that would have otherwise gone to George H.W. Bush and thus ensured the election of Bill Clinton.
He was also the latest in a long series of candidates to claim that he was “not a politician.” That is not only a cliché, it is also totally disingenuous. Even someone who has never previously been a politician instantly becomes one at the moment of filing a petition to run for office.
While most of the attention was focused on the elections for various offices, the referendum on the three proposed amendments to the Tennessee Constitution is something that will have long term effects on the future of the state long after every current office holder has left the scene.
Each of the amendments passed by a very comfortable margin, and all of them will have a positive impact. I will address each of them below:
Amendment 1. Limits the presumption of bail for 6 of the most serious criminal offenses. However, it does NOT entirely eliminate the ability of a judge to grant bail in such cases. What it does do is to require that a judge doing so will be required to provide a written opinion setting forth the rationale for such a decision and to place that into the record. What it will do is to eliminate the ability of a “woke” Soros type prosecutor to rubber stamp the granting of bail to individuals whose past and present actions provide clear indications that allowing them to remain at large during the current case poses a threat of significant danger and/or a flight risk. It is also highly significant that the most serious potential problem of this amendment is directly addressed within the text of the amendment. This limits its applicability to the most serious offenses (i.e., those which require that someone convicted must serve at least 85% of any sentence) as of 3 November 2026. That will prevent a future legislature from having a backdoor means to apply this policy to some minor offense.
Amendment 2. This “prohibits the Legislature from imposing a State property tax on real, personal, or mixed property.” This was long overdue and it is entirely consistent with the previous referendum which resulted in amending the Tennessee Constitution to prohibit any future passage of a state income tax. Both of these amendments are clearly intended to prevent the state from getting enough money to spend on things which are not legitimate functions of government. There are too many politicians in both parties who really like the idea of having enough money available to spend on their favorite causes and pet projects as a means to buy votes and to engage in corporate welfare through the subsidy of things which are owned and operated by their cronies and political allies. The most egregious example of that was the massive expenditure of tax money to build “Nissan Stadium.” It really should have been called “Tennessee Taxpayer Stadium.” If a private entity chooses to spend the money to build a professional sports venue and can sell enough tickets to turn a profit, that is a good thing for them. However, it is certainly not a proper expenditure of public funds.
That type of thing can’t be done if the state simply does not have the money. I vividly recall what happened when the previous amendment to prevent a state income tax was on the ballot. It was opposed by then Governor Bill Haslam. He stated that while he was “personally against a state income tax,” he “did not want to limit the options which would be available to a future governor.” He seems to have entirely failed to grasp this was the precise reason why such an amendment was absolutely necessary. Don Sundquist was elected to two terms by pledging to oppose a state income tax. However, once he was reelected and securely ensconced in office for his second and final term, he suddenly discovered the urgent need for a state income tax.
The entire point of such amendments is to prevent the state from having the resources to spend on things that are not legitimate functions of state government and which the public certainly does not believe to be proper recipients of taxpayer money.
Amendment 3. This clarifies the existing rights of crime victims and also ensures that they will receive notice of public trial proceedings as well as parole hearings regarding the defendant. It guarantees their rights to confer with the prosecution concerning the status of the case and to be heard in all proceedings This amendment does absolutely nothing to limit the substantive and procedural rights of criminal defendants. It simply ensures that victims can also participate in what is already an adversarial process.
The passage of these three items a is good illustration of why the constitutional amendment process offers a tremendous opportunity to ensure that Tennessee remains a conservative state on a permanent basis. There are many things that are too important to be vulnerable to hasty political decisions. That is why the passage of the Bill of Rights was an essential prerequisite to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
There are a number of other issues that should also be addressed in the Tennessee Constitution. These are things that would greatly protect and enhance individual rights. One of the best ways to do this is by enacting further amendments that “would limit the options which would be available to a future governor.” These should include things like the proper scope and functions of state government, ending corporate welfare, defining the permissible uses of tax funds, strengthening the right to keep and bear arms, and the protection of parental rights to make decisions concerning their children.
There are still a lot of “Republicans” who are nostalgic for the time when they could pull a Don Sundquist type of bait and switch. Marsha Blackburn represents a real challenge to that faction, and she will have a chance to really change things for the better in contrast to our last four Governors. The party establishment has never really supported Marsha Blackburn and she certainly does not owe them any favors. The Governor is the single most influential individual in state politics. She will have eight years to move the Tennessee Republican Party and the state as a whole in the right direction and it appears that she fully intends to take full advantage of this opportunity. The next session of the Legislature will convene in January. She needs to meet with the senior Republicans in both houses of the General Assembly in order to actively pursue a strong conservative agenda beginning on the first day of the next session. She has already stated that she wants to establish closed primaries The current open primary system has allowed Democrats to vote in Republican primaries. This has enabled individuals who are not conservative to run for office as Republicans. It is now the time to put an end to that.
She explained during an interview on Breitbart News Daily in December 2025 that she wanted to. “make Tennessee the most conservative state in the country.” “President Trump is sending power and authority back to the states every single day. Whether it is regulations or benefits or health care, education, energy, employment, I think this is going to be a great time to reshape how our states work.”
About the Author: Trent D. Laviano served in Iraq and is retired from the U.S. Army. He is currently an attorney in Tennessee.
