You might have heard someone talk about “closing the primaries” here in Tennessee. What exactly does that mean?
In Tennessee, you simply become a registered voter, and at the time of registration; you do not declare an affiliated party. During a primary election, a voter simply declares their party affiliation at the time of voting. This is called open primaries.
Open primaries, unfortunately, lead to crossover voting, which essentially in the minds of many conservatives is a type of voter fraud. In contested Republican primaries, it is not uncommon for Democrats in Tennessee to switch over for that particular election and vote in the Republican primaries. And what you will typically see are those Democrats voting for the moderate candidate in an effort to defeat the more conservative candidate in the race.
And what is even more nefarious is sometimes, you will find that establishment and incumbent Republican candidates will work with Democrats in these efforts.
But the question is, what is a primary election actually for? Isn’t it the opportunity for members of a party to select their candidate that will move forward into the subsequent general election? And if so, why would you want members of another party voting in your party’s primary election? Well, the answer is, you wouldn’t, unless you know that it will pad the election results in such a way that it gives you the advantage. In the simplest of terms, it is election fraud.
For example, in a recent Republican primary in Williamson County, I challenged the incumbent Majority Leader Jack Johnson for the state senate seat. Clearly, I was the candidate a bit further to the right of the 16-year incumbent. In total, I came away with just shy of 49% of the vote and fell 787 votes short. But interestingly, there were roughly 2,500 voters in that Republican primary that had voted in the Democratic Presidential Primary in 2020. We can’t know for sure who those voters voted for. But we can certainly make an educated guess.
Conservatives across the state have been calling for closed primaries for years. Additionally, the Republican State Executive Committee (SEC) recently passed a resolution urging Republican lawmakers to pass legislation closing the primaries in our state and requiring voters to declare their party affiliation at the time of registration.
Yet, this effort was deliberately killed this past week in the House Local Government Committee by handpicked political puppet, Rep. John Crawford of Bristol, TN.
HB405 sponsored by freshman State Representative Bryan Richey out of Blount County would have closed the primaries in Tennessee. In fact, I do believe that for the first time, the bill made it out of subcommittee. Rep. Richey has come out of the gate swinging with some of the most conservative legislation filed this year to close the primaries, bring term limits to Tennessee state government, limit the Governor’s emergency powers, allow voters to recall school board members, clean up voter rolls, and secure religious exemptions to vaccines.
Rep. John Crawford, not so much. In fact, it was known in the committee that Crawford was vehemently opposed to the bill to close the primaries and was committed to ensuring that the bill died in committee. But how?
Now we are getting to the heart of the matter.
Our state constitution allows each chamber of the state’s General Assembly to set their own rules. In the Senate, all votes taken are required to be by roll call, meaning, each member must publicly declare their vote and it is recorded by the clerk by name. But no so in the House.
House rules allow committee chairmen to take votes by voice vote with no roll call, meaning, you do not necessarily know how each individual member voted and the committee chairman makes a judgment call as to how many Ayes and Noes there are for the vote. And the judgment call piece is where things get sticky.
Handpicked puppet of the state kills the bill to protect our primary elections.
You might have heard someone talk about “closing the primaries” here in Tennessee. What exactly does that mean?
In Tennessee, you simply become a registered voter, and at the time of registration; you do not declare an affiliated party. During a primary election, a voter simply declares their party affiliation at the time of voting. This is called open primaries.
Open primaries, unfortunately, lead to crossover voting, which essentially in the minds of many conservatives is a type of voter fraud. In contested Republican primaries, it is not uncommon for Democrats in Tennessee to switch over for that particular election and vote in the Republican primaries. And what you will typically see are those Democrats voting for the moderate candidate in an effort to defeat the more conservative candidate in the race.
And what is even more nefarious is sometimes, you will find that establishment and incumbent Republican candidates will work with Democrats in these efforts.
But the question is, what is a primary election actually for? Isn’t it the opportunity for members of a party to select their candidate that will move forward into the subsequent general election? And if so, why would you want members of another party voting in your party’s primary election? Well, the answer is, you wouldn’t, unless you know that it will pad the election results in such a way that it gives you the advantage. In the simplest of terms, it is election fraud.
For example, in a recent Republican primary in Williamson County, I challenged the incumbent Majority Leader Jack Johnson for the state senate seat. Clearly, I was the candidate a bit further to the right of the 16-year incumbent. In total, I came away with just shy of 49% of the vote and fell 787 votes short. But interestingly, there were roughly 2,500 voters in that Republican primary that had voted in the Democratic Presidential Primary in 2020. We can’t know for sure who those voters voted for. But we can certainly make an educated guess.
Conservatives across the state have been calling for closed primaries for years. Additionally, the Republican State Executive Committee (SEC) recently passed a resolution urging Republican lawmakers to pass legislation closing the primaries in our state and requiring voters to declare their party affiliation at the time of registration.
Yet, this effort was deliberately killed this past week in the House Local Government Committee by handpicked political puppet, Rep. John Crawford of Bristol, TN.
HB405 sponsored by freshman State Representative Bryan Richey out of Blount County would have closed the primaries in Tennessee. In fact, I do believe that for the first time, the bill made it out of subcommittee. Rep. Richey has come out of the gate swinging with some of the most conservative legislation filed this year to close the primaries, bring term limits to Tennessee state government, limit the Governor’s emergency powers, allow voters to recall school board members, clean up voter rolls, and secure religious exemptions to vaccines.
Rep. John Crawford, not so much. In fact, it was known in the committee that Crawford was vehemently opposed to the bill to close the primaries and was committed to ensuring that the bill died in committee. But how?
Now we are getting to the heart of the matter.
Our state constitution allows each chamber of the state’s General Assembly to set their own rules. In the Senate, all votes taken are required to be by roll call, meaning, each member must publicly declare their vote and it is recorded by the clerk by name. But no so in the House.
House rules allow committee chairmen to take votes by voice vote with no roll call, meaning, you do not necessarily know how each individual member voted and the committee chairman makes a judgment call as to how many Ayes and Noes there are for the vote. And the judgment call piece is where things get sticky.
In the instance of HB405, Rep. Richey did confirm after the fact that the votes on the bill were (9) Ayes and (8) Noes. So, in a roll call vote, the bill would have passed. But whereas the chairman has discretion to call the vote himself during a voice vote, he can essentially call it either way.
And when you have watched enough of these committee hearings and you have seen enough good bills die at the hands of a chairman’s judgment call on a voice vote, you eventually realize that these rules are set up with purpose. Many involved in the political process understand that committees are not in place to have good debate on legislation. Committees are in place to kill legislation at the direction of leadership and special interests through the function and control of the chairman, by the way, who is expressly appointed at the sole discretion of the Speaker.
And so that begs the question, how does someone like Rep. John Crawford work his way to an appointment as a committee chairman?
Well, I’ll offer some data and make a suggestion.
Crawford eked out a victory in a 2016 primary by a whopping 47 votes. And since 2018, he has never had a challenger in a primary or general election. And to make matters worse, his 2022 campaign fundraising shows 100% of contributions from PACs and 0% of contributions coming from within his district.
You can safely assume that Crawford is not an elected official, but a special-interest-selected official backed by the establishment and appointed by the Speaker as a chairman for one purpose and one purpose only, to carry out the bidding of the establishment
Bristol, you can do better.
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Gary Humble
Gary Humble