Live from Music Row 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. – host Leahy welcomed State Representative Terri Lynn Weaver (R-TN-40) to the newsmaker line to discuss her 2022 priorities and the new state budget.
Leahy: On our newsmaker line, state Representative Terri Lynn Weaver. Representative Weaver, thanks so much for joining us today.
Weaver: Absolutely. Good morning!
Leahy: It’s great to have you on – and by the way, the very best singer in the Tennessee General Assembly. If you’ve never had the opportunity of listening to Terri Lynn Weaver sing the national anthem, oh what a treat that is.
Weaver: Oh, thank you. It’s always an honor to sing the other verse as well.
Leahy: Exactly. So, Terri Lynn, what are your big priorities for your district? You represent the area around Lancaster, Tennessee. What are your priorities this session?
Weaver: Well, in fact, I’m on my way to a coffee conversation that I have in my district every Friday. And I sit with my constituents, the folks I work for, and I listen to them. And they’re very concerned about how we have in the last two years become almost like, if you think on your own, you’re silenced, you’re shut up, you’re jailed, you’re fired from your job, all these kind of areas.
And so I’m doing all I can to push back to sponsor legislation that gives us the freedom to make our own choices. So that seems to be the issue at hand. People are losing their job only because they’re being dictated that they must have a jab or they won’t have a job. And this is just not American.
Leahy: So you have introduced HP 2452. What would that do? It addresses that problem. And where does that stand?
Weaver: Well, I really believe that we have a good chance at seeing this make its way through the sausage system, mainly because, for one, I’m excited about it because it puts the status of vaccination as unlawful, in other words, for you to be discriminated against on basis of your vaccination, jab or not. So it would be, you can’t discriminate race, color, gender, vaccinations.
Leahy: And so you think that might pass this session?
Weaver: I tell you what, I’m going to fight all I can. I’m going to do all I can. I hope that the people in my district and across the state will call in and send in emails and letters. I mean, it’s a team effort.
I’m going to carry the bucket, but I’m going to do all I can. We have to have this passed. This is crazy that we cannot think on our own, when we’re being told to take a vaccination that is an experiment.
Leahy: Now, let me ask you this. We wish you good luck as that bill meanders through the Tennessee General Assembly – I don’t mean meander … moves through. A lot of it depends on how the leadership is going to look at it.
Here’s a big question for you. I was quite surprised by some numbers in the governor’s proposed budget this year in the State of the State.
He proposed a budget this fiscal year that would increase the current budget of $41 billion to $52 billion. That’s about a 25 percent increase in one year. What are your thoughts on that proposed budget, State Representative Weaver?
Weaver: There’s a country song about that, Patrick. It’s called “What Part of No Do You Not Understand?” Since I have been in the state House my first year, the budget was $27 billion.
Leahy: That was what, 2009?
Weaver: Yes.
Leahy: So this is like almost double in a little bit over a decade. The state budget.
Weaver: Yes. And now this budget, in one year, wants to double by 10 billion. That’s insane. And I’m not the only one that’s thinking this.
Leahy: Let’s be clear on the language here. The proposed budget is insane. No one is saying that the governor is insane.
Weaver: Well, if he authors it, that’s insane. (Leahy laughs) And I will tell him to his face, because it’s nuts.
Leahy: Did he ask you State Representative Weaver, before he proposed a budget, did he say, hey, Terri Lynn, I’m thinking of proposing a budget that would increase the state spending by 25 percent in a single year. Did he ask for your advice before he did that?
Weaver: Oh, no, absolutely not.
Leahy:Â Does he talk to you? Do you talk to the governor at all?
Weaver: No. This is his proposed budget. And I’m not the only one that’s saying this is nuts because there’s so much in this budget that’s reoccurring. So that’s unsustainable.
There is, I think, a billion re-occurable, and then there’s a billion one-time as well. We’re growing the government in Medicaid, Medicare, the amount of money that’s going into education. That’s insane as well, because we have put more money into education, and our outcome has not given it back.
Leahy: That’s a very good point. When was the last time you actually had a conversation with the governor?
Weaver: Oh, jeez, it’s been a while. It’s probably not so much his fault as it is mine. I just don’t go up there because, after a while, when you talk to people and you don’t feel like they’re listening to you, what’s the point?
Leahy: Who does he talk to in the General Assembly? Does he talk with Speaker Sexton and Lieutenant Governor McNally and no one else?
Weaver: They talk to leadership. Our leadership on the House side and on the Senate side, and then he has his folks around him. So again, they just gave us this budget.
And I will tell you this: there are many of us that are not including the BEP formula, we’re really not seeing the details. We just know we’re just going to dump a bunch of money in it.
Leahy: And so BEP stands for Basic Education Program. It’s how the various counties get the money, how much money they get allocated for their education. They’ve talked about changing the formula, but you’re telling me you have no idea what that change is, is that right?
Weaver: No, we haven’t broken that down yet. It definitely is a process that needs to be changed again. We have put more money into education and we have done the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And that’s defined as insanity.
Leahy: So I have a bit of a curveball for you. Are you ready? I asked this of every member of the Tennessee House or the Tennessee state Senate that comes on. Are you ready for a curveball?
Weaver: Sure.
Leahy: Okay, here it comes. I’m winding up. I’m about to throw it. Would you be willing to introduce or vote for a bill that would tell the federal government that the state of Tennessee does not want a single penny from the department of education, because with that money comes strings, and those strings usually lead to bad things. Would you be in favor of such a bill?
Weaver: You’re singing my song, my friend.
Leahy: Wow!
Weaver: I’ve been talking this since my first year down there with the comptroller. I asked Mr. Wilson, I said, “What is the amount of money that Tennessee can send back to the federal government and say ‘not in our Volunteer State’? And it took him by surprise.
I remember this conversation, but it can be done. We are so blessed in this state and it’s about time that the states read the Constitution and understand that the states create the feds, not the other way around.
Leahy: So are you going to introduce such a bill?
Weaver: Well, I have talked about it with some other colleagues, but we don’t have it for this year. No.
Leahy: If you’re re-elected, would you introduce it next year?
Weaver: I would do that in a heartbeat. I’ve had legislation on our 10th Amendment right. We actually went all the way to the Supreme Court to fight against the federal program of the refugee resettlement. Do you remember that?
Leahy: I do remember that – the Supreme Court threw that out I think because it didn’t make it. They wouldn’t consider it because the governor didn’t support it, it only was a resolution from the Tennessee General Assembly and therefore it didn’t have standing. And this was Governor Haslam who wouldn’t back it. Governor Bill Lee wouldn’t back it.
Weaver: That’s correct. Because they want the money. It’s just this money coming from the federal government. And it’s sad, because here we are.
That started the tidal wave of the feds telling the state of Tennessee, they ruined our definition of marriage in our Constitution between one man and one woman. We had that established in our Constitution.
Leahy: State Representative Terri Lynn Weaver, we thank you so much. Would you come in-studio sometime with us here on The Tennessee Star Report?
Weaver: Sure!
Leahy: Thank you so much. Have a great day.
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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.
Sure wish my representative Lamberth had the same values as Representative Weaver.
One of President Reagan’s unfulfilled campaign promises was to do away with the DOE that Carter began. Wish he had fulfilled that promise while the DOE was still young and new.