Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
CROM CARMICHAEL:
Michael, Byron York wrote a really interesting column in the Washington Examiner talking about when Democrats attack democracy. And this relates to what’s been going on here in Tennessee. But essentially, the way the Democrats look at things is rules matter until they don’t matter or until they get in their own way.
After we review a bit of history, I want to talk about what Republicans, who have a supermajority in the legislature, should do. This is talking about when Nancy Pelosi became the speaker. She changed all the rules so that Republicans had virtually no voice at all.
There was one major rule that had been in existence since the beginning of the country, and she eliminated that rule that I’m quoting here from the legislative tool that has existed since the first Congress and for nearly 90 years has allowed the minority to offer the last amendment to the legislation.
The motion typically fails but are a way for the minority to highlight and provoke a debate on controversial questions. Nancy Pelosi eliminated that and punished any House member that tried to invoke that newly changed rule. Then Nancy Pelosi, when she was in the minority, and I’d forgotten about this, she led a sit-in on the house floor by putting John Lewis as the point person.
A bunch of Democrats walked in and took over the legislature even though they were in the minority. The Republican majority didn’t do a great deal about it other than it fizzled out and the Republicans continued to conduct business. The difference is that the Democrats at that time just did a sit-in. They didn’t bring a whole crowd and try to incite a riot.
That’s how Democrats treat things in Washington. But this is also interesting, Ron Widen is now encouraging the Biden administration to ignore the judiciary. The judiciary had a ruling, I don’t know that I agree with it because I haven’t had a chance to look at it in much detail.
But a judge in Texas did something judges had been doing now for a number of years, and that is set a ruling that would apply across the entire country. I don’t particularly like that as a policy, but apparently, when the leftist judges were doing it, the left liked it. And so now this judge is saying that the FDA did not go through the proper procedures on their approval of an abortion day. I think it’s called the day-after pill.
And by the way, that pill has had a number of deaths and severe reactions to it. Not a huge number but they’ve had some. This judge is now imposing that. And it’s a national ruling, but he gave a week in his ruling for the administration to reply, but Senator Ron Wyden is telling the administration to ignore the rule and continue on.
Then in California, the legislature there is now changing the way that referendums can be brought by the citizens. And what they’re doing is they’re making it virtually impossible. Just for openers, I’m quoting from the article here from The Wall Street Journal. “It would limit the time that campaigns seeking to block state laws have to collect some 550,000 signatures in 90 days.
The bill would require that at least 10 percent of the signatures be obtained by volunteers. By the way, this law says that unions are exempt from that provision. So in California, paid union people can get 100 percent of the signatures necessary but if you are anti-union, if you’re trying to reduce the scope of government, then you’re not. So in California, democrats are using their power to try to reduce democracy.
So now let’s look at what’s happening in another state and this should be our model. In North Carolina, there was a Democrat there named Tricia Cotham who deemed to think for herself and that upset her Democrat colleagues. I don’t know if they threw her outta the party, but they just pushed her to the side and she became a Republican.
She’s a former school teacher and she wants school choice, and now that she has switched sides the Republican supermajority in North Carolina is now pushing a school choice bill. This is what Republicans should do. We shouldn’t be walking around in our misery trying to figure out what we should or shouldn’t do about these two folks who tried to induce a riot and this white woman who came out there and essentially tried to help them.
Instead, we should be pushing school statewide school choice, and we should call them out for not supporting black children getting a quality education. Anybody who opposes a black child getting a quality education is, by definition, a racist. And you can be a black person and be a racist, so quality education should be the theme of the Republican Party.
The other thing Republican Party ought to consider doing is eliminating government employee unions in the state of Tennessee. We should not waller over and point fingers at what we should or should not be doing about these two people. We should accept them back in the legislature until they break the rules again.
Then we should deal appropriately with that. But in the meantime, we ought to be putting legislation in front of them to find out whether or not they care about black children. They obviously care about guns, but in their own communities, guns are used to kill children. So let’s see whether or not they care about that or whether or not they care about the government employee unions that back them in their position.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this Crommentary:
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The Tennessee governor and many of the legislators ran on an education salvation ticket. But it turns out – as usual – that they just throw more money at a disgusting system. It is sort of like putting more apples in the mouth of a horse that already chocked to death on apples.
I want proof not lip service and higher taxes with no improvement.