State Representative Bryan Richey (R-Maryville) on Wednesday issued an open letter to Governor Bill Lee calling on him to cancel the special legislative session that the governor called earlier this month.
State Representatives. Ed Butler (R-Rickman) and Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill) had already signed on to the letter at the time of its issuance, and the letter is open for any other legislator to sign on at any point. Richey and Butler are freshman legislators, while Warner is serving his second term.
“If our Governor calls the legislature back into a special session to discuss any issue, the Republican Caucus will certainly be ready, willing, and able to debate the best way forward for our state, just as we have done in five previous special sessions. We will continue to defend and preserve civil rights while ensuring every community is safer than it is today,” House Majority Leader William Lamberth said in response to Richey’s letter.
Richey and his colleagues urge the governor to abandon the special session proposed for August 21 in response to The Covenant School tragedy, because the General Assembly can discuss and consider legitimate measures to improve public safety when it reconvenes in January 2024.
While acknowledging that the governor has the constitutional authority to call a special session, the letters states that it “will be a political event to put pressure on conservative Republicans to grow government and ignore the will of their constituents in service to the national woke mob that will descend on the Capitol.”
As The Tennessee Star reported, far-Left agitators are planning to disrupt the special session including a plan to disable U.S. Customs and Immigration (ICE) vehicles, according to secret recordings obtained from an activism planning session held by a Tennessee-based Planned Parenthood political advocacy arm.
The legislators say that Left-wing activists using the special session to stage disruptive protests “will make the ‘Tennessee Three’ circus look like a dress rehearsal,” alluding to State Representatives Justin Jones (D-Nashville), Justin Person (D-Memphis) and Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) urging a crowd of more than a thousand gun-control rioters to breach the state House chambers during the March 30 floor session.
The governor was asked why he would want, through the special session, to provide a platform for such political theatre while also being an expensive, disruptive, futile and counter-productive publicity stunt to pressure legislators to pass a red flag law.
Contrary to strengthening public safety and preserving constitutional rights, as the governor has suggested, Richey says that red flag laws styled as an order of protection or any other euphemism that violate the Second Amendment rights of Tennesseans are adamantly opposed by and will not be acted upon by the legislature.
The letter reminded the governor that the 113th General Assembly adjourned its 2023 session without taking up or passing his proposed red flag law, and, in fact “deliberately – and prudently – chose to reject [the measures] this session.”
In addition, the letter pointed out, House Republicans have been adamant in their opposition to such measures and, as Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson stated publicly on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, “The Tennessee General Assembly will not pass any red flag law, period.”
The legislators assert in their letter that it is “wholly inappropriate” to call a special session when the General Assembly, which has a supermajority of members of the same Republican party that the governor belongs, has voted to adjourn, and there is no emergency, declared or otherwise to justify calling the legislature back into session in August.
Richey told The Star, “I am here to the work for the people, but a special session is uncalled for by the governor.”
Read Richey’s open letter to Gov. Bill Lee:
@GovBillLee we are calling on you to cancel the scheduled special session. This is an open letter that other state legislatures can sign on to at any point. pic.twitter.com/SMP7WCdBHI
— Bryan Richey (@BryanRichey20) May 24, 2023
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Laura Baigert is a senior reporter with The Star News Network, where she covers stories for The Tennessee Star.
You are correct!
The appeasers withing the Republican elected representatives will do everything they can to get this ill conceived legislation passed. Of course campaign cash will be thrown around as well as other perks. We shall see which legislators have any intestinal fortitude.