State Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) told his constituents on Friday that he will not run for reelection, and he intends to spend more time with his family.
“It has been a true honor to serve you for 18 years and to work with you to pass more constitutional amendments than any other Tennessee legislator in history — including one to forever ban the income tax,” Kelsey wrote on his Facebook page.
“But now my service to you is best spent fighting for American values in the court system and stopping the Biden Administration’s failed policies like the attempted OSHA vaccine mandate. I’m happy to return any recent campaign contributions, and, Lord willing, I hope that you will give me the opportunity to run for elected office in Tennessee again in the coming years.”
Members of the Tennessee State House of Representatives last week voted to approve Senate Bill 29, which would allow first responders to live where they choose. Kelsey sponsored the legislation. The bill would ban residency requirements for police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical services workers.
The Tennessee state Senate approved the bill last year.
The Senate version of the legislation applies statewide, while the House version only applies to Memphis. The two versions will undergo a reconciliation process. Kelsey said his proposal will increase public safety and fight rising crime rates.
Last October a federal grand jury in Nashville indicted Kelsey on a five-count indictment charging him and another man with violating multiple campaign finance laws. Prosecutors said Kelsey and Nashville social club owner Joshua Smith allegedly violated multiple campaign finance laws as part of a conspiracy to benefit Kelsey’s 2016 campaign for Congress.
Kelsey said at the time that he was innocent and the target of a political witch hunt.
ABC News reported that the allegations against Kelsey “resemble a complaint against Kelsey’s campaign filed with the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice in 2017 by the Campaign Legal Center.”
“That complaint claimed that independent expenditures made by the American Conservative Union in the 2016 race were coordinated with Kelsey’s congressional campaign,” ABC News reported.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star and The Georgia Star News. Follow Chris on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, and GETTR. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Brian Kelsey” by Brian Kelsey.
Sen. Kelsey refused to respond to my emails earlier this year. I simply wanted to hear his reasoning for voting against then-senator Katrina Robinson.
Should he decide to run again, I will not support him.
As a long-time financial supporter of Brian’s (ACU-87%) I am so sorry to see him go. He is an intellectual giant in the General Assembly as well as a staunch conservative. Hopefully, he can put these legal difficulties behind him without suffering too much damage so he can re-enter politics to serve Tennessee once again.
One of his constitutional amendments made Soviet style judicial elections permanent in Tennessee.