Live from Music Row, Tuesday 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 Aaron Gulbransen, the director of Tennessee’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, in studio to discuss his mission continue the fight against human trafficking and urge Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for yearly reports.
Leahy: Now, in studio, the official guest host of The Tennessee Star Report and the Tennessee state director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, Mr. Aaron Gulbransen. Aaron, we’ve been talking during the break about human trafficking, which is in essence, taking young girls and young boys to become forced into prostitution.
Gulbransen: Yes.
Leahy: It is widespread and apparently the state of Tennessee has historically not been really leading the way and fighting back against it. That’s one of the priorities of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
Gulbransen: On the national level and in the state. It’s very important to me and one of our board members, Aaron Spradlin, who’s been on the show a fair amount. He’s the chairman of the Mission America Foundation, and that is the only thing that they fight about. It’s a nice little partnership there. But yes, we’re in discussions on legislation. Of course, today is the last day to file anything.
Leahy: Let me just stop for a moment. And this is a little bit of housekeeping. Today, January 31st is the last day to file legislation in the Tennessee House of Representatives, in the Tennessee State Senate.
That day is February 15th. A little bit later. Now there’s a little bit of wiggle room there because you can file what’s called a caption bill. Can you tell our listeners what a caption bill is?
Gulbransen: In layman’s terms, the caption bill is a placeholder where they have generic language, and then it’s a paragraph or something, and then they fill in the details of the bill later, just so to reserve a spot. So you’re satisfying the deadline requirement. It’s done that way in part of the rules of the House and the Senate.
It’s not necessarily a constitutional thing. We’re in the middle of getting a caption bill filed, and we’re going to have the details probably next week, which I can talk about further on it. But we’re working closely with a couple of members of the General Assembly. I always say this, every meeting I have on the subject, if there’s one child in the state that is affected by human trafficking, then our work is never done, and we have to continually move the ball down the field.
One of the things that shocked the daylights out of me is the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation prepares reports on various topics and they haven’t had to, I don’t know if they’ve been asked to or not, but they haven’t done a report on the state of child and human trafficking in the state of Tennessee for at least nine, and probably, I believe it’s 10 years.
Leahy: Are they required by statute to provide such a report? Or is this just something that they haven’t done?
Gulbransen: The biggest thing that I’m trying to accomplish through this legislative process and through Tennessee Faith and Freedom, and obviously, we’re supporting a number of bills, and you’ve heard me talk about the ad nauseam on other topics, but I want to see them do, and I don’t see why they’d have a problem, but it’s a perfectly reasonable thing.
It’s giving information to the public and the General Assembly on ways that they can help and give them more tools. I would like to see them do a report every single year. As an aside, there is an easy way of putting it.
Is there a commission that exists that studies medical marijuana in the state of Tennessee? They are directed to prepare a report once a year. So we could at least get one of our agencies to prepare a report once a year on the state of child and human trafficking.
Leahy: That sounds like a reasonable request. And the reporting. What is the state of it?
Gulbransen: We are going to have legislation filed on that topic today. There’s this is something I’d like to see in there too. I’d like to see it done in consultation with our great Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
Leahy: Appointed by the Tennessee Supreme Court to an eight-year term on September first of this year, has already turned out to be a conservative rock star among attorneys general.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this 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.
Background Photo “Faith and Freedom Coalition” by Faith and Freedom Coalition.
