Tennessee 5th Congressional District candidate Andy Ogles filed suit on Tuesday in the Circuit Court for Williamson County, Tennessee, at Franklin against the Tennessee Conservatives PAC, a super PAC connected to Kurt Winstead’s campaign for the TN-5 seat that recently started attack ads against him.
According to a statement made by the Ogles campaign, “[T]he suit calls on the PAC to take down an ad that falsely accuses Ogles of not paying property taxes, highlighting false accusations the PAC ran on television in Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District in an attempt to maliciously defame Ogles and harm his congressional campaign.”
“It’s disappointing to see my opponents working with left-wing special interest groups to spread malicious and blatant lies about my character. Let there be no doubt, I have always paid my property taxes in full and to this day they have been paid. We will continue to pursue legal actions against these false attacks meant to smear my character and hurt our congressional campaign, and I will never stop fighting for the people of the 5th District to ensure they have the full truth as well,” said the mayor of Maury County in the statement.
“Out of desperation, my opponents knowingly lied by claiming that I supported a property tax increase. This false claim demonstrates my opponents’ clear lack of knowledge of the 5th District and its citizens. From my first day in office, I stood against any property tax increase. Furthermore, I vetoed a proposed property tax increase just a few weeks ago. Lastly, and perhaps worst of all, my opponents should be ashamed that they are using a special interest group to attack the wonderful people of Maury County for voting to pass a sales tax referendum. Maury Countians deserve better than that,” said Ogles.
“The hardworking Americans across the 5th District of Tennessee won’t fall for these fake, radical-left attacks, and I will always fight for truth. We are excited to bring this election home on August 4th,” added the candidate.
The Tennessee Journal reported after the attack ad was released that Ogles did pay his taxes, although often in a tardy manner.
We delved into the records to see whether we could replicate the claims of the ad. We found that Ogles appeared as a co-owner of a Franklin home between 2005 and 2015, though for reasons unknown he was not listed on the rolls in the 2013 tax year. While it’s true that property tax payments were late on nine occasions, that includes years where the Ogles family was as little as one or two days behind the deadline. But in other years it took as many as 194 and 322 days to pay the tax bill.
“So did Andy Ogles fail to pay his property taxes nine times, as the ad claims? Not exactly. He did pay, albeit in a tardy fashion. And in some years he was later than others,” The Journal added.
The Tennessee Star previously reported that the ad starts with a female voice saying, “Andy Ogles failed to pay his property taxes nine times.”
A male voice then dramatically repeats the phrase, “Nine times.”
The female voice then states, “That’s right, Andy Ogles failed to pay his property taxes nine times, but as county mayor Ogles supported increasing the sales tax, didn’t oppose a property tax hike, or a marriage tax.”
The female voice continues, repeating the first message: “Andy Ogles failed to pay his property taxes nine times.”
The male voice again repeats, “Nine times.”
The female voice adds, “Andy Ogles didn’t pay his taxes, but supported raising yours.”
In the suit, Ogles is seeking an order from the court that says he always paid his property taxes and that the Tennessee Conservatives PAC ad is false, that the PAC “be further enjoined from disseminating false information about the Plaintiff,” and that he be awarded other relief “to which he may be entitled.
The TN-5 Republican primary is scheduled to occur on August 4, with early voting already underway.
[wonderplugin_pdf src=”https://tennesseestar.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Ogles-v.-Tennessee-Conservatives-PAC-Complaint-1.pdf” width=”650″ height=”866px” style=”border:0;”]
– – –
Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR, Twitter, Truth Social, and Parler.
Photo “Andy Ogles” by Andy Ogles. Photo “Kurt Winstead” by Kurt Winstead.
Andy Ogles is a PROVEN conservative. He stood against the tide of pressure by big government (even our own TN “conservative” administration). There are lots of lies being pushed about Andy to try and sway voters–such as ‘he pushed for a Maury Co. tax increase’. That was voted on by the county commission and voters of Maury county.
Beth has PROVEN not to be a true conservative. She has voted for illegal immigrants to get drivers’ license in 2000 and the gas tax hike of Haslam. And last but not least, she says she will support a Constitutional Convention (Con-Con or Convention of States)–this is a DANGEROUS path to get to term limits. If she wants to fight for term limits, do it the way ALL of our other Amendments were added–by a 3/4ths majority of the states ratifying it. If you open the Constitution up to change something through a convention, the whole thing could be changed and we could effectively lose ALL our rights. NO MATTER what stipulations those calling for a convention think they can put on it, there ae NO CHAINS to bind them once it is open!! Since on a whole our national leaders have little moral integrity, that would be DANGEROUS indeed!
Winstead is a democrat through and through.
SOOOO our only choice and BEST choice is Andy Ogles–a proven, conservative leader that doesn’t follow the mantra of the establishment.
Hey Andy, how about those ads your super PAC are running against Harwell and General Weathervane. Will you sue them as well?
When a candidate have to run on destroying their opponent that is a candidate that has no merits of his own to run on. Attack politics are a turn off. What they are doing is exactly what Nancy Pelosi described as their tactics to destroy people because once you put out a lie retracting the lie after the damage is doesn’t do much good. Those that put out this garbage are showing who and what they really are.
Only Ogles is the conservative that can win, say no to RINOS Harwell and Winstead
Redcoat, Beth has an American Conservative Union rating of 86%. If she is a ‘RINO’ what would you call Sam Whitson (78%) or Eddie Mannis (76%) or is a “RINO” simply any Republican who disagrees with Redcoat about anything any time.
So Stuart, it’s okay that Beth Harwell pushed and passed a gas tax increase in 2017 while she was Speaker of the House? Is that considered conservative? And this tax increase on Tennesseans was when the state had a $2 billion surplus. Seems to me that even use taxes don’t need to be raised when there’s a surplus for the state. I never heard a compelling reason justifying this increase.
As a matter of fact Aries given the fact that even we small government conservatives believe that the government needs some taxes to function, so of all taxes, conservatives much prefer use taxes to be paid by people who use government assets and functions like gas taxes. If Tennessee had a surplus it should have immediately cut or eliminated income taxes like the Hall tax and/or the sales tax on food and let those who use the roads pay for the roads as they used the roads.
Right now, what conservatives are faced with is electing the BEST person to become our next congressman and avoiding the worst person. Easily the worst is General Weathervane, a lifelong Democrat who became a Republican just as his retirement came into view and his political affiliation had to be adjusted to his post-retirement political ambitions and the growing Republican dominance in this state. Since Andy never got around to running a real campaign the only one who can beat Weathervane is Beth Harwell given her twenty years in the General Assembly. The American Conservative Union gives Beth an 86% for her tenure in the House which is good enough for me and easily trumps a 2017 vote on the gas tax in importance.
Go Andy!
Former lifelong Democrat General Weathervane doesn’t need PACs to win this thing. Not when he has Andy’s belated campaign that may very well deprive Beth Harwell (ACU-86%) of enough conservative votes so that the General is able to buy himself a seat in the House with about 35% of the vote.
Andy Ogles is the real Conservative that will put Tennesseans first! Winstead is the liberals choice! If you like little Bib Corker and Mitt Romney supporter Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty you will live RINO Winstead! Winstead is to risky for TN 5th! Beth Harwell is the real supporter of high taxes! How do you like Tennessee s high gas price? Harwell supported Bill Haslams high gas tax increase!
Ogles is the true Tennessee conservative!