Live from Nashville, Tennessee Friday 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. Tennessee state Representative John DeBerry (D-Memphis) joined host Michael Patrick Leahy on the newsmakers line.
During the third hour, DeBerry talked more about the Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee’s secret vote to remove him and that it was his pro-life and Godly beliefs that had sealed his fate. He explained how this was not his father’s Democratic Party that he grew up on and how the principles of the Democratic party have changed progressively left.
Leahy: We are joined now by state Representative John DeBerry. Until earlier this week a long time Democrat from Memphis. Welcome state Representative DeBerry.
DeBerry: Thank you for having me today sir. Thank you so much.
Leahy: We had a brief opportunity to speak with you yesterday. But we have a story up. I want to just read a little bit of it that our own Laura Baigert wrote. And I’ll just kind of get your reaction to it.
DeBerry: OK.
Leahy: The decision to remove long servicing House member state representative John DeBerry from the 2020 Democratic primary ballot is not reflective of the vision or bi-laws of the Tennessee Democratic Party. The executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party voted Wednesday 41-18 to remove DeBerry after he served in the House for 26 years.
According to our vision of the Tennessee Democratic Party of the 11 bullet points describing how Tennessee Democrats are fighting for a better future. The last two declare “the protection of every Tennessean from discrimination or injustice for any reason or any time on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability we will have your back no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you live.” Apparently that doesn’t apply to you state Representative DeBerry.
DeBerry: Apparently it doesn’t because I have been opposed at every step on the things for which I stand. The things which I believe. Those principles that I held when I went into office in 1995 were the same principles taught to me by my parents.
My father who was a minister for over 50 years. My mother who was a civil rights worker right along aside of him. Those were the principles that were believed when they marched with Martin Luther King right here in the city of Memphis during the times of the civil rights movement. Those obviously are not the principles that are leading the Democratic Party today. At least in the state of Tennessee.
Leahy: What are those principles? They look like a dictatorship, toe the line, be a far-left progressive or else we will kick you out.
DeBerry: Well that’s the message that’s being sent at this time. If you believe in the sanctity of life as I was taught by my father as I sat at his feet Sunday after Sunday listening to him preach the Gospel and quote the book of Jeremiah Chapter 1. Before I formed thee in the womb I knew thee. If you knew that a child in the womb of its mother which ought to be the safest place on planet earth is a human being than obviously these are not principles that are espoused by the current progressive Democratic Party.
And because I held those beliefs and because I had the audacity of saying something had a heartbeat it was alive, I have been punished and thrown out of the party because I believe in the scriptures and God who having created man and created marriage. If I have the audacity to believe those principles then according to those who voted this past Wednesday I am not a Democrat.
Leahy: Well the other thing about this is how secretive and mysterious they were. How behind your back they were in doing this nefarious throwing you out of the party after you served it so well for 26 years. And highly respected, highly respected everywhere that I can tell. Everybody thinks highly of your personal integrity except apparently the left-wing authoritarians who run the state Democratic Party.
DeBerry: I have had Democrats and Republicans around this state who are appalled by what they have done. I was given absolutely no notice. I found out on late Monday and got details on Tuesday. And the vote was on Wednesday. And that’s how fast it went. How quickly it went. I was given no time to mouth a defense or to say anything.
Leahy: They don’t want you to mount a defense because apparently according to them you are not entitled to a defense.
DeBerry: It seems to be obvious. And I had several colleagues and they were not listened to. At this particular point, a group has taken over the party. This is most certainly not my father’s Democratic Party.
Leahy: It sounds to me like it’s more a Vladimir Lenin’s Democratic Party. Or Che Guevara or Fidel Castro’s Democratic Party. They have more in common with them than John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther, King or any other icons of the Democratic world.
DeBerry: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that is a shame because if we are going to have inclusiveness both within the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, no one party has exclusive control of over the mindset and ideology and philosophy and theology of any one group. I think that there are certain people who have been taken for granted by the party. And they feel that they can do whatever they wish.
When you have a group like this who reached down into District 90 of Memphis, Tennessee and exert their will regardless of what the people of District 90 have said over and over and over they’ve always known what my stance was on this issue. And even though I’ve had very formidable, credible, and intelligent opponents who disagree my folks have elected me over and over and over.
Leahy: The filing for this seat closed last week after the filing period ended. They kick you out of the party. So now who’s left standing? Are there the favored left-winger Che Guevara Fidel Castro-like guys in the party of people that are now on the ballot?
DeBerry: Well what this had done is empowered special interests that dilate the moderate and conservative mindset of many of the people of my district. When Planned Parenthood and various groups have that much power within the party that they can throw out a 26 year elected official who has served this state.
Not just the party but served the state and built consensus on both sides of the isle worked with Republican and Democratic governors. Republican and Democratic legislators. Now what’s left standing are their hand picked candidates who could not beat me at the ballot box and they knew it. If you can’t compete, you have to eliminate the competition. And that’s what these organizations have done.
Leahy: Basically they are cheating and trying to manipulate the laws to win unfairly what they couldn’t win fairly. So in terms of recourse to this you’re not going to appeal to this biased group of left-wing stalwarts on the executive committee.
We talked a little bit yesterday about whether or not this is a violation of election law. It looks a little murky. What have you found out in the past 24 hours about a possible legal challenge to this nefarious action by the Tennessee Executive Committee Democrats?
DeBerry: I think that what has happened as far as the statute is concerned something I have seen many times when we had zero tolerance years ago about children taken drugs to schools. Zero tolerance. And the legislative intent was lost to where little girls with aspirin that were sent by his mother or a little boy in his boy scout uniform with his boy scout knife was arrested and was put out of school for having a weapon. I think that this is something that we’re going to have to address and fix because the legislative intent has been lost to where subjectively by their own opinion we just don’t like you.
They have decided that there is a litmus test of being in accordance to their will and they have used the statute to exert their will. What I have left is basically to make an appeal to the same tribunal and then stay in court for weeks and weeks trying to enjoin them and basically once I make the appeal the rest is really unattractive to me being in court just fighting and knowing that I’m not going to have a good outcome.
Leahy: Yeah. That makes sense to me.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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