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 the director of Tennessee’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, Aaron Gulbransen in studio to talk about the group’s 2023 agenda.
Leahy: We’re just having too much fun. In studio, the official guest host of The Tennessee Star Report, Aaron Gulbransen. By the way, Aaron, a programming note. You’re aware of this. Just wanted to share this with our audience. Friday, I’m off to D.C. Doing the CPAC thing.
I’ll probably be on WarRoom with Steve Bannon live, which is always a big adventure. But you are here. You are running the show Friday from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. Don’t you love getting arriving here at 4:45 or 4:30?
Gulbransen: Coffee day for Aaron.
Leahy: But it’s fun.
Gulbransen: It’s a load of fun.
Leahy: And you’ve got a lot of your political pals that you’ll be putting on the air.
Gulbransen: We’ll have a couple of legislators on, and we’ll have some fun guests on the show. I think Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs is going to be joining us as well.
Leahy: Your pals with him because you guys have the WWE thing going on. He was a superstar, and you are a super fan.
Gulbransen: There you go. Exactly.
Leahy: I suppose I ought to go to a WWE just to see the experience. I’ve never done that.
Gulbransen: It would be worth the experience.
Leahy:Â So talk a little bit about the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s agenda up on Capitol Hill and Tennessee General Assembly of this session. What bills are you looking at?
Gulbransen: There’s a number of bills that we’re fairly certain we’re going to fail, but you want to do your due diligence, one of which is definitely going to fail, but we want to go on record as opposing it. Senator Lamar and State Rep. Camper, which is before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, has what they call the Fundamental Right to Reproductive Health Care Act, which I call a radical pro-abortion bill. So there’s that. It needs to go bye-bye.
Leahy: By the way, just so you know, our lead story today at The Tennessee Star, is an excellent analysis of that bill by Susan Berry, and I think the point that she makes is similar to yours.
Gulbransen: It just needs to go by.
Leahy: But will it?
Gulbransen: Yes. Among the many pieces of ill-advised legislation presented by State Senator Heidi Campbell, along with State Rep. Bo Mitchell, we got SB 1024, which Faith and Freedom are opposing because it repeals the Tennessee Education Savings Account pilot program.
Leahy: Oh, my goodness. By the way, did you see that Heidi Campbell has a new campaign manager, Phil Williams?
Gulbransen: Yes.
Leahy: From News Channel 5? Boom.
Gulbransen: I knew it. He likes to relitigate old campaigns apparently.
Leahy: He would be a great Democrat campaign manager because he’s the only one who can throw a punch, and her previous campaign manager just wasn’t able to throw a single punch. He’s doing a very good job of throwing punches. I think he’s in the wrong career. He should be a Democrat political operative. I think he’d be very successful there.
Gulbransen: Yes, there’s another bit of legislation. I think I’ve mentioned this in the past, but the Senate version is SB 285 by Senator Oliver. The House version is our favorite. I’m kidding when I say this, and very sarcastically.
New State Rep. Justin Jones. They want to get ID cards issued by colleges, which was abolished years ago, so you can use them as your voter ID card at a polling place. Which okay, no! We didn’t see election fraud with that.
Leahy: That’s what ruined Wisconsin, for instance, where they do that in Madison, which is a far-left city in the University of Wisconsin there, by the way. Madison is a beautiful city, and it’s got the most beautiful state capitol in the country, but they’re overrun with left-wing lunatics.
Gulbranen: Another one is, and there are a couple of these by Heidi Campbell. SB 1519 basically targets charter schools and the charter school commission. So, of course, we’re opposing that one. And this is just a silly election one. But you got SB 1483.
The gist of it is, if you’re an independent candidate, she’s forcing your campaign to spend money to hand out information at the polls, that you’re an independent candidate. It’s like, okay. It’s just kind of a silly mandate on campaigns on how they can spend their money.
Leahy: That’s a pretty good agenda. And think you’re going to be busy up there on the Tennessee General Assembly, Capitol Hill today.
Gulbransen: It’s going to be a fun day.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
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.
