TN Senate Bill That Would Disqualify Congressional Candidates Ortagus & Starbuck Fast Tracked To Committee
Image Credit: MorganOrtagus.com – Robby Starbuck / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative [By Jason Vaughn] –
Last Thursday, The Tennessee Conservative broke the story about a bill in the Tennessee General Assembly that would disqualify two Tennessee Congressional candidates for District 5 should they pass into law.
The Senate version of the bill appears to have been fast tracked and will be heard by the Senate State and Local Government Committee tomorrow, February 15th.
Read on for the Contact information for the Committee members.
Should this bill pass into law, it would stymie the campaigns of Republican congressional candidates Robby Starbuck and Morgan Ortagus for the District 5 U.S. Representative seat.
Under current law, the minimum qualifications call for the candidate to be at least 25 years old, a resident of the United States for at least seven years and when elected, the person must be a Tennessee resident. The new bill seeks to place more restrictions on qualifications to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Tennessee.
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House Bill 2764 (HB2764), sponsored by Representative Dave Wright (R-Corryton-District 19) and Senate Bill 2616 (SB2616), sponsored by Senator Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains – District 8), as introduced, would prohibit a person from being nominated as a candidate for United States senator or member of the United States house of representatives unless the person has voted in the three previous elections in this state (Tennessee).
Robby Starbuck, a former Hollywood music video director/producer, moved to Williamson County a bit over two years ago and launched his campaign to turn District 5 from Blue to Red.
Starbuck has garnered a host of endorsements for office including those from Senator Rand Paul, Candice Owens, Charlie Kirk, Madison Cawthorn, Ric Grenell, Jenna Ellis, Ralph Norman, Rudy Guiliani, Ken Buck and Kelli Ward, among others.
Ortagus is a recent Nashville (Germantown) transplant hailing from Florida that most recently served as a financial and national security analyst and spokesperson for the United States Department of State from 2019 to 2021.
Ortagus announced her campaign for the District 5 seat following an endorsement from former President Donald Trump early this month.
For more information about the candidates, please read our previous article HERE.
Section 2 of the new bill currently being considered in the Tennessee General Assembly states that the “act will take effect upon becoming a law.” So should the bill pass both houses of the legislature and is signed by Governor Lee, it would effectively halt the congressional aspirations of the two candidates in the 2022 midterms.
** If you support or oppose this bill, contact the Republican members of the Senate State and Local Government Committee members below prior to their meeting tomorrow, February 15th.**
Senate Standing Committee – State and Local Government
Richard Briggs (chair) – sen.richard.briggs@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-1766
Todd Gardenhire (vice-chair) – sen.todd.gardenhire@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-6682
Page Walley (2nd vice-chair) – sen.page.walley@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2368
Ed Jackson – sen.ed.jackson@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-1810
Brian Kelsey – sen.brian.kelsey@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-3036
Bill Powers – sen.bill.powers@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2374
Ken Yager – sen.ken.yager@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741 -1449
In response to the new bill, Starbuck told the Tennessee Conservative, “It’s no surprise to me that some folks continue to try every trick in the book to silence the people’s voice. They know we’re winning this race and they’ll try everything to stop us. This is American though. In America, we let the people choose their representative, not a small group of the elite. Our Constitution makes clear what the requirements are for running and I meet those requirements. If they weren’t afraid of me winning, then there would be no need for this bill.
The reason they fear our campaign is because we actually represent the people and they know my decisions will be predicated off of what’s best for the people and not what’s best for lobbyists or special interests. Enough of our legislators value the voice of the people that this attempt to stop us will fail but it says a lot that it’s been attempted,” Starbuck concluded.
When we reached out to the office of Ortagus for comment on the new bill, her spokesperson replied, “As a true conservative, Morgan will leave state decisions up to state legislators and the Governor. She is honored to have President Trump’s endorsement.”
About the Author: Jason Vaughn, Media Coordinator for The Tennessee Conservative ~ Jason previously worked for a legacy publishing company based in Crossville, TN in a variety of roles through his career. Most recently, he served as Deputy Directory for their flagship publication. Prior, he was a freelance journalist writing articles that appeared in the Herald Citizen, the Crossville Chronicle and The Oracle among others. He graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a Bachelor’s in English-Journalism, with minors in Broadcast Journalism and History. Contact Jason at news@TennesseeConservativeNews.com
I have been surprised to see this move After the current primary has begun without grandfathering in existing declared candidates or without making the law applicable only to future elections. Whether one agrees with the bill or not, it doesn’t seem fair to change the rules after the game has begun.
Is this Constitutional?
“Can These Qualifications be Changed?
The U.S. Supreme Court has on several occasions confirmed that neither a state legislature nor the U.S. Congress itself may add or modify the qualifications to serve as a member of Congress, without a constitutional amendment doing so. In addition, the Constitution, in Article I, Section 5, clause 1, expressly empowers the House and Senate to be the final judge of the qualifications of its own members. However, in doing so, the House and Senate may consider only the qualifications set out in the Constitution.
For years, people have questioned the lack of term limits for members of the U.S. Congress. While the President of the United States is limited to serving no more than two terms, members of Congress may be reelected to an unlimited number of terms. While congressional term limits have been proposed in the past, they have been found to be unconstitutional as additional qualifications for office. As a result, imposing term limits on members of Congress would require amending the Constitution.”
https://www.thoughtco.com/requirements-to-be-a-representative-3322304
That Bill goes too far and is unwise. It
won’t result in the beat people and seems designed to prevent people from running. It favors the local Republican activists who don’t have any ideas and haven’t done anything except vote.
This sound like they are trying to protect the establishment. What are the afraid of, Carpet Baggers” ? How about you let them run, layout their ideas and LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE.
This is TURF Gerrymandering at it’s best. All running now should be Grandfathered in or not go into effect till the last days of the current House/Senate in 2023. By no means can we let this type of obvious and blatant Turf Gerrymandering pushing out folks that followed the Laws in existence at the time they Filed. They seem to be acting like the RINO’s they are– aren’t they. The Reps/Senators that have signed on to these proposed Bill(s) must be looked at by their constituency as being as detrimental to Election Integrity and no different than Stacy Adams on Georgia–changing the rules right before the Primaries. No Difference!!
If enacted, it should go into effect for the 2024 election cycle. Some candidates have spent money to campaign, outsiders or not, what is the legislature trying to do? Did some of the “good ole boys” not get the message that Davidson County was going to be a triple play? 2024 Election cycle.
This just doesn’t pass the logic test. Why would you introduce a bill to go into effect immediately when the primary is less than 6 months away? The voting requirement is excessive and how are they going to track that going forward? Who are they trying to prevent from entering the race and why? 7 candidates have registered, 1 Dem, 1 Independent and 5 Republicans for Rep Jim Cooper’s seat. It doesn’t pass the smell test. I just called all the senate members on the committee and the bill sponsors offices. Curiously, Rep Wright’s staff couldn’t answer any question about his sponsored bill and referred me to Senator Nicely. I would encourage all to contact the committee members asap and vote this down now. TIme is of the essence.
It would probably be ruled unconstitutional. Read the US Constitution
How convienant that they just now want to inact this. Tennesse is getting some flaming conservative refugees from blue states. I know because I’m one of them.
Hillary Clinton was able to take the new York senate seat despite never having voted there, and purchasing a house there less than a year before the election.