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 Karen Moore, candidate for the Davidson County Republican State Executive Committee in-studio to discuss yesterday’s rally against Nashville’s mayor and city council Amendment One proposal.
Leahy: In-studio right now, our very good friend Karen Moore, who is a candidate in the 20th district here and for the Republican State Executive Committee. Good morning, Karen. How are you doing?
Moore: I’m great, thank you. Good morning.
Leahy: Well, we’re glad to have you in. And this is your second time in-studio with us?
Moore: Yes, it is.
Leahy: How much radio have you done before?
Moore: This would be it.
Leahy: This is it. So you’ve been in-studio twice? This is the second time.
Moore: Yeah, I’m old-hat.
Leahy: Now I want to talk about, so you’re running for State Executive Committee? We’ll get to that in a minute. There was a rally in which you were part of a group opposing Davidson County’s Amendment One. What is Amendment One? Why is it important?
Moore: Amendment One changes the Nashville Charter on how citizens can petition the government, what hoops they have to jump through. Amendment One quadruples the number of hoops that citizens have to go through.
Leahy: Quadruples it in such a way that it would be virtually impossible, correct, for any of these charter amendments to get on the ballot?
Moore: Absolutely. Not only does it grow the bureaucracy or have a commission that has to approve petitions and wording, but citizens have to know how much it’s going to cost the city.
But the most egregious part of it is going to increase the number of signatures that’s required by about 500 percent. 500 percent.
Leahy: Yikes. Yeah. And it’s what you need, over 48,000. It has to happen in a very short period of time.
Moore: Exactly. It’s taken it from a percentage of the active registered voters that voted in the last general election to 10 percent of the entire registration population. So it goes from about 12,000 up to over 70,000.
Leahy: So it is, I guess you could call it, an attempt by the city council and the mayor’s office to prevent the 2020 petition against the 37 percent city property tax hike from ever happening again.
Moore: I think it’s retaliatory. It feels that way. I was part of the grassroots effort that worked on those petitions, and it’s very difficult ,and it’s in a short time frame making it almost unattainable.
Leahy: So it sounds like the mayor and others in the city council don’t really want the citizens to have a voice against profligate spending.
Moore: Well, I think they forget who the government is: we the people, and that they’re just there to do our work, to help the city run, to help do city services. And here they’re totally tying our hands from being able to.
Leahy: So the recommendation is “no” on Amendment One.
Moore: Absolutely. I encourage everyone on both sides of the aisle. This is not good policy.
Leahy: If you want citizens to have the right to change the charter amendment, as has been the case since 1965 when we went to the consumer consolidated government approach here.
Moore: We’re larger than other cities, metropolitan, and that’s why we have that exemption.
Listen to the interview:
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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.
