Live from Music Row Wednesday 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 Tennessee State Executive Committeewoman Michelle Foreman to discuss the process by which challenged candidates go through if not bona fide.
Leahy: You are on the 12-member state executive committee that will adjudicate those challenges.
Foreman: That’s right.
Leahy: What’s going to happen there? Will these three carpetbaggers be thrown off the ballot by the Republican Party and this committee you’re on? What’s the state of that situation right now?
Foreman: Well, first of all, there’s a lot of opportunity in Tennessee, straight across the board. A lot of opportunities and a lot of political opportunities and excitement regarding redistricting.
And at the congressional level, you do have people that come up and they want to run well, really, at any level. But, again, that redistricting has several candidates who have thrown their name in the hat.
But what the state executive committee is charged with doing is adjudicating by an objective standard. So we do have criteria. You meet it or you don’t meet it. If you don’t meet the criteria, you’re challenged.
If you’re not challenged, then you are automatically assumed to be a bona fide candidate, which, again, that’s just how the bylaws are stated at this point. But you need to be challenged first.
Leahy: Our sources tell us all three of these carpetbaggers, Morgan Ortagus, Robert Starbuck Newsom, and David Vitalli have been challenged.
And Scott Golden, the chairman, tells us once the challenge is made, you’re off the ballot and the adjudication process is to determine whether or not you get restored.
Foreman: And we have not been made aware of those challenges yet.
Leahy: But you will be.
Foreman: We will be. We will be. And then Chairman Golden will he’ll tell us about the challenges. We will then hear a vouch, or we should, to those challenges. If someone comes to vouch then we will determine who ends up on the ballot.
Leahy: When will this final decision be made?
Foreman: That decision will be made as soon as Chairman Golden calls us to meet and to discuss to hear the challenge.
Listen to the full 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.
