Host Leahy and All-Star Panelist Clint Brewer Unravel Morgan Ortagus Voting Record Statement to The Tennessee Star

 

Live from Music Row Thursday 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 all-star panelist Clint Brewer in-studio to discuss the Tennessee 5th Congressional District’s candidate Morgan Ortagus’s candidate eligibility and newly obtained voting record.

Leahy: Since it is Thursday, we are joined in-studio by our very good friend, all-star panelist, recovering journalist, and public affairs specialist Clint Brewer. Good morning, Clint.

Brewer: Good morning, Mike. Thanks for having me on.

Leahy: We’re always delighted to have you on here. I always get some calls saying [people] like it when you two guys go back and forth.

Brewer: I don’t know. We might agree on a lot today.

Leahy: Usually, we agree on like, 95 percent of things. It’s at five percent where we kind of have slightly different worldviews. But here’s the one thing that we have in common: We try to base our arguments on facts.

Yes, Every Kid

Brewer: Yes.

Leahy: We try not to make stuff up.

Brewer: Novel idea.

Leahy: A novel idea for journalists. I want to talk about the 5th Congressional District race here in Tennessee. And for those of you who have been asleep for a year, what’s happened in the 5th Congressional District is, that district, since 1993 has been represented by Jim Cooper, Democrat.

Ninety percent of it was Davidson County. They’ve redistricted it in the Tennessee General Assembly. The district is the lower third of Davidson County, the western half of Wilson, eastern half of Williamson County. I’m in the district, by the way.

Brewer: Oh, wow. Okay.

Leahy: And then all of Maury, all of Marshall, all of Lewis counties. It’s gone from a plus-22 Biden district to, depending on who you talk to, plus-7, plus-11 Trump. So this is a lean Republican district, a likely Republican pickup, important in the entire race for the House of Representatives.

Well, Donald Trump threw a big curveball into this, because a week before she announced, he endorsed Morgan Ortagus, former State Department spokesperson, who’s never lived in Tennessee until this year.

She registered to vote in November. And it caused big brouhaha allegations of “carpetbagger.” And then we’ve got this Robert Starbuck Newsom, a California transplant, who also is subject to those new-arrival carpetbagger allegations.

And then we have actually some Tennesseans who’ve announced: Kurt Winstead, Baxter Lee announced, and Natisha Brooks. Waiting in the wings, former Speaker of the House Beth Harwell.

She may get in. Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles may get in. And so the national press is trying to portray this as “which version of MAGA do you like, Ortagus or Starbuck?”

And locally people are saying, are you kidding? This is about Tennesseans versus carpetbaggers. So that’s sort of the frame of it. Now, I have some interesting news for you.

Brewer: All right.

Leahy: You don’t know this. Remember, there are two issues about eligibility. One is the Republican Party state bylaws, that’s one. And then this recent bill that, we’ll get into that, sailed through the state and local committee sponsored by Frank Niceley, which sets a residency requirement of three years to qualify for the primary ballot.

It doesn’t keep anybody from running as an Independent in the general election. But to get on the primary ballot you have to be a resident for three years.  We’ll get to that in the next segment. Here’s the deal: Remember, one of the standards to be qualified as a bona fide Republican to get on the ballot is you have to vote in three of the four most recent primary elections.

We’ve established beyond a shadow of doubt that Robby Starbuck does not meet those standards. Two out of four best, and probably less than that, because he did not vote in the two primaries in Tennessee in 2020.

So, Morgan Ortagus announced last Monday. They have not communicated with us at all. Haven’t been on the program until yesterday we got a statement from the Ortagus campaign, and it’s quite interesting.

Remember that standard, three out of the four most recent statewide Republican primaries – you have to have voted in those to qualify.

Well, she lived in D.C., she’s lived in New York, and then she lived in D.C. before that. Sorting it all out is very interesting. And we wondered, did she vote in three of the most more recent primaries? We know for sure.

Brewer: Three of the most four recent primaries in the state?

Leahy: It says statewide. It says statewide primaries.

Brewer: Does it say Tennessee statewide primary?

Leahy: It does not say Tennessee. And if you talk to chair Scott Golden and other members of the state executive committee, they tell us that the discussion before that said, we think those primaries should be imported from other states.

Okay. That’s what they said. It’s not in the text of the law. You could read the text either way, but there seems to be a general consensus that the intent was to allow importation of those records.

I would probably argue contrary to that, but I think if you’re in a meeting and everybody said, yeah, we talked about that what we really meant was this. Okay. So the standard is we got her voting records, we believe, from New York state.

And we looked at it and said, okay, a 2020 presidential preference primary? Yes. 2018 New York state GOP primary? No. 2016 presidential preference primary? Yes. 2014 GOP primaries. No. That’s the voting record.

We got a statement back from the campaign, and basically – are you ready? Her voting record shows she voted in every election in which she was eligible. But in New York, the liberals who oversee elections do not make it easy for Republicans to vote.

There was not a single contested statewide Republican primary in New York state in 2018 or 2014 that she was eligible to vote for. There’s no opportunity to record a vote if there’s not a contested statewide primary in your area! How about that for a little bit of a curveball?

Brewer: This is very complicated.

Leahy: It is. It is. Eyes are glazing over.

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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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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One Thought to “Host Leahy and All-Star Panelist Clint Brewer Unravel Morgan Ortagus Voting Record Statement to The Tennessee Star”

  1. Randy

    The Tennessee Republican Party By-laws clearly state that “1 Pursuant to the minutes from the December 3, 2011 SEC Meeting, the phrase referencing “the last three Republican primaries in his county of residence”, was approved with the understanding that this would not require one to have voted in three primaries in the same residence. This allows for an individual to have moved from county to county and state to state. Only an attorney or a sleazy politician would attempt to dispute the by-law intent regarding voting record.

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