The fallout from the Nashville Mayor Megan Barry scandal continues to reverberate. As The Tennessee Star reported in February, Republican candidate for Governor Bill Lee made a $500 donation to the Megan Barry mayoral campaign in 2015.
Now, The Star has learned that the Barry campaign made a donation to the reelection campaign of Republican State Senator Bill Ketron on January 9, 2017. The $250 donation to the Ketron campaign from “Friends of Megan Barry” is contained in Ketron’s Amended 2018 Yearly Supplemental Report filed with the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance on 3/31/2017.
Ketron confirmed the contribution in a statement emailed to The Star on Monday.
“I did receive a contribution from her, but do not approve of the way she conducted her office,” Ketron said.
“Therefore, I will be taking that contribution and giving it to charity,” he added.
Ketron was an early supporter of Megan Barry’s transit plan for Nashville and has expressed his hopes to expand it to Murfreesboro. The nearly $9 billion Nashville transit plan and the tax increases needed to pay for it are scheduled for a referendum vote on May 1, 2018 in Davidson County. Ketron is currently running in the Republican primary for County Mayor of Rutherford County which is also being held on May 1.
The Star continues to review the financial records of ‘Friends of Megan Barry’ and will report on other names of note that either contributed to or received contributions from the disgraced former mayor’s campaign.
[…] was more than a year later, and immediately subsequent to a March 13, 2018 story in The Star reporting on the Barry donation that Ketron announced he would donate the $500 donated […]
[…] to his State Senate campaign. After she resigned from office Ketron claimed he was donating the tainted funds from Barry to an unnamed […]
Selling out for 250.00 to be a carnival barker for that disgraced crook’s fraudulent transit plan says it all.
I am pretty sure Senator Ketron has taken money from quite a few liberal groups as well. You got to love big government Republicans, they have no shame, but they all run with the conservative banner. Shane Reeves is learning the hard way that you can’t take money from the left and hide. Ketron needs to learn the same lesson.