Live from Music Row Monday 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 Tennessee State Representative Susan Lynn (R-Mt. Juliet) to announce that she is not running for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District and several bills currently up for a vote.
Leahy: We are joined in studio by our good friend, State Representative Susan Lynn. Okay, ready for the big question, Susan? Here it is.
Lynn: I’m ready.
Leahy: Will you be a candidate for the 5th Congressional District GOP primary?
Lynn: I thought about it long and hard. I live in the district.
Leahy: Unlike many others.
Lynn: I have a little bit of name ID. I’m not sure that everybody knows who I am, but a little bit of a name ID. But after thinking about it long and hard, I decided I am not a candidate. (Chuckles)
Leahy: We made news because you must be the only person not running for the GOP nomination. (Laughter)
Lynn: It’s true. (Laughs)
Leahy: There are like 22 people that are running for it.
Lynn: Twenty-two people. I know. I never even seriously considered it, Michael. I mean, honestly, 60 percent of their time is spent fundraising up there, and they literally have to sit in a booth and fundraise.
The travel time back and forth, the time away from your family, there are only so many hours in life and so many days in life, and I just don’t want to spend my time doing that. I’m so much more effective in the Tennessee General Assembly.
Leahy: By the way. April 7th, the [Wilson] County Republican Party is holding a meet-and-greet in Lebanon, 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. I’ll be there. I’ll be moderating the event with 22 candidates.
I think like 15 or so 16 are Republicans. I think all the candidates will be able to do is say, hi, my name is and I’ve lived in the district for …(Laughter)
Lynn: They should start out with that one.
Leahy: Well, yes, I think they should. I think they should. Now, there are a number of bills in the Tennessee General Assembly that are of interest. You have a couple that you wanted to talk to us about today. You’ve got an ivermectin bill. Tell us about that.
Lynn: My ivermectin bill would make ivermectin available behind the counter at the pharmacy so that if you have COVID, you can go up, show your test result. You have COVID and you can get a blister pack of ivermectin with a consultation from the pharmacist.
So the pharmacist will just ask about your weight. Look for other drug interactions. There are actually only two drugs that interact with ivermectin unfavorably, so you wouldn’t want to take it with those drugs.
And then you will be given your blister pack of ivermectin and you can go home and take care of yourself. And you will also be given a sheet.
And naturally, you want to be taking zinc with the ivermectin, because what it is is the ivermectin drives the zinc into the cell. The zinc gets into the cell and it kills the virus.
Leahy: Now, where is this bill?
Lynn: It will be in full health the day after tomorrow. The full committee in the House. We did get it out of the subcommittee and are very happy with the support. I think it was a unanimous vote.
And that it took a couple of few weeks to get through the committee because there are a lot of bills on that committee and it is ready for the floor in the Senate. If this passes and with another round of COVID coming on, boy would this be helpful.
Leahy: Who’s the Senate sponsor?
Lynn: Senator Niceley.
Leahy: Senator Niceley. A medical doctor, right?
Lynn: No, he’s a farmer. (Chuckles)Â
Leahy: I’m thinking of Joey Hensley, a doctor. He’s a farmer. Sorry, Frank. (Chuckles)
Lynn: He’s saying “I’ll need to renew my license.”
Leahy: That’s funny. We just promoted him to something. He’ll crack up at that one.
Lynn: I’ll let him know.
Leahy:Â So you have another bill, Big Tech.
Lynn: Actually, this is not my bill. This is Representative Powers’ bill, one of my favorites.
Leahy: He was on the show the other day. Nice guy.
Lynn: He’s wonderful. He is the subcommittee chairman of the committee. It’s the Banking Subcommittee of Commerce. And what a great chairman.
He runs the committee so well. So anyway, he has a bill on Big Tech, and it’s really meant to protect Tennesseans’ freedom of speech on social media.
And we did pass it out of Commerce Committee on Tuesday. And it would prohibit a social media platform from intentionally banning a user for certain reasons, including political ideology, viewpoint, discrimination, or personal animosity.
Leahy: There’s not much personal animosity out there these days, is there?
Lynn: My husband at this point due to personal animosity every time I turn around, he says, I’m in Facebook jail again. I’m like, honey, what did you do? He said, I just posted an article from The Wall Street Journal.
Leahy: That Wall Street Journal, boy, is pretty controversial.
Lynn: Very controversial.
Leahy: That bill looks like it’s going to pass, don’t you think?
Lynn: I do think it will pass. What it says is that social media will be a common carrier and they will be regulated by the Tennessee Public Utility Commission.
If they’re found to have wrongly banned a user, the Commission could fine the social media company anywhere from $25 to $100,000.
And what’s been going on is just not right. I was talking to a group of people the other day. There was someone who wasn’t sure that they liked the bill. And I said, well, what phone service do you have?
Do you have Sprint, Verizon, or T-Mobile? Imagine if you’re driving along and you express a political opinion and they say, we’re cutting you off.
We’re stopping this phone call right now. And then if you tried to call anybody else, well, they just didn’t hear their phone ring because they’ve shadow-banned you. You can’t call anybody else. So it’s really akin to that.
Leahy: I think that’s a good bill. I think it will probably end up passing. I have a big question mark about this basic education program refunding. It’s complicated. It’s a complicated formula. It’s been around for 30 years.
About 10 percent of K-12 public education funding comes to the feds. About 50 percent comes from the state on average, and 40 percent from the locals. That varies by county. The wealthy counties pay more.
The less wealthy counties pay less. Now the governor has had this proposal to change the funding program. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what that entails. Can you enlighten us a little bit on it? Where does the bill stand?
Lynn: The way he’s changing the funding formula is it used to go by county average and now it’s going to go by each student. There are several parameters. And if your student falls into any of those and your student can fall into many of those parameters.
Leahy: Certain categories of students get more money. Is that right?
Lynn: Exactly. And it’s by the student, so not a district average. So really districts are being provided money for what it really takes to educate a student.
Leahy: Let’s take school district A, let’s say, in Williamson County, Wilson County, or any of the counties. And it has let’s say, I don’t know, 1,000 students in that district, and so they’re changing the formula.
And those 1,000 students could fit into three or four different categories, each with different funding levels. So the money that goes to that school then is going to be based upon the formula for the students in that district, do I have that right?
Lynn: Yes, but for each individual student in that district and there will be accountability. So for providing funding for a student who has a particular disability that is able to be serviced with services from the school. We’re going to look to see if those students have those services.
Leahy: Got it.
Listen to the full interview here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
