Tennessee Senate Republicans issued a statement Friday condemning deceptive “middle of the night” robocalls made to voters by the far left Tennessee Justice Center opposing a bill introduced by State Sen. Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield).
The bill “directs TennCare to submit a waiver to the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to require able-bodied working age adults, without dependent children under the age of 6 to work for their benefits.”
“State Senator Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) and Lt. Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) today strongly condemned the Tennessee Justice Center for placing robocalls in the middle of the night regarding legislation Roberts is sponsoring in the Tennessee General Assembly. Roberts said the unethical calls were made by Justice Center with the ‘call back’ number going to his legislative office. The calls were made during the late hours of Thursday and the early hours of Friday morning,” the statement issued by Tennessee Senate Republicans said.
“These robocalls are outrageous and the information disseminated is false and misleading,” Roberts said in the statement.
“They were conducted in the middle of night with the call back number, for those who thought that it might be a dire emergency due to the late hour, going to my legislative office which is completely deceptive. The Justice Center also falsely listed a phone number on their Facebook which they represented as mine, so that calls were directed into their office and then transferred. This practice of harassment and intimidation will not be tolerated,” Roberts added.
Lt. Gov. McNally also condemned the calls.
“These phone calls by the Tennessee Justice Center are beyond the pale. They are harassing and ultimately unproductive. It is intimidation, pure and simple,” McNally said.
“The calls are coming at all hours of the night scaring and confusing many elderly citizens. The Center needs to make a public apology to Senator Roberts, his district and to the people of Tennessee. This is not how public advocacy is done. I am reaching out to law enforcement today to determine if any laws were broken in making these phone calls,” he added.
Sen. Roberts told The Tennessee Star that he has asked law enforcement to investigate the phone calls.
According to the statement issued by Tennessee Senate Republicans, those authorities included “the Tennessee Public Utility Commission, the Consumer Division of the Department and Commerce and Insurance and the Attorney’s General’s Consumer Division.”
The Tennessee Justice Center issued a statement on its Facebook page Friday, claiming they were “surprised” to learn that the calls were made in the middle of the night. You can read their statement here:
