John Harris, Executive
Director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, states “The Speaker of
the House is the third most powerful position in state government. That
office holds unilateral control over most of the significant affairs of
the House, such as appointments and removals of committee chairs. It
would be an unquestioned breach of the public’s interest and trust to
have a person in that office who is now proven to be willfully false in
his dealings with news reporters and in responding to matters of
significant public interest.” Harris continued, “since the Speaker is
selected by the House members, it is ultimately the duty of all House
members under their oaths of office and as public stewards to make sure
that their selected leader is a person of unquestioned truthfulness,
integrity and character.”
News reports from Nashville over the
last 48 hours document without dispute that Speaker Glen Casada has been
willfully dishonest when he attempted to cover up his involvement in the
lewd text messaging and misconduct scandal, some of which involved the
use of illegal drugs by the Chief of Staff while in government offices,
involving himself and his former Chief of Staff. These reports reveal
that Glen Casada knew who released the text messages to Channel 5’s Phil
Williams as early as Tuesday of last week but that Casada intentionally
questioned the existence and source of the text messages in a subsequent
interview with Phil Williams and in a radio spot with Phil Valentine of WWTN 99.7 FM (” Now we know that
@GlenCasada
lied to me when he made up this vast left-wing conspiracy theory (à la
Hillary Clinton) just to cover for this idiot Cothren whom Casada had
the bad judgement to make his chief of staff. Time to go.” – Twitter
post on May 8, 2019).
Elected members of the Tennessee General Assembly take an oath that is set forth in Article X, Section 2, of the state’s
Constitution
which contains this sworn declaration: “… I will, in all
appointments, vote without favor, affection, partiality, or prejudice;
and that I will not propose or assent to any bill, vote or resolution,
which shall appear to me injurious to the people, or consent to any act
or thing, whatever, that shall have a tendency to lessen or abridge
their rights and privileges, as declared by the Constitution of this
State.” As such, the members of the General Assembly are sworn to
protect the interests of the public and to do so with the highest
fiduciary and stewardship principles.
Harris commented “the
members of the Tennessee Legislature have an affirmative and fiduciary
duty to the people of Tennessee to protect the office of Speaker from
being held by people who lack the integrity, truthfulness or trust that
must be unquestionably present to serve in that office. Speaker Casada,
by his conduct and willful dishonesty in a matter of public interest,
has unquestionably shown to the other members and the public that he is unqualified to
serve in of the highest offices of public trust in the State.”
The
members of the Tennessee Legislature individually and collectively owe a
duty to the people of the state of Tennessee to set aside personal
friendships, loyalties and partisan partialities that they may have and
act now to remove Glen Casada from the office of Speaker and to
carefully select a replacement who can be fully and unquestionably
trusted by the people of this state in this high office. The public
has a right, set forth in Article I, Section 23, of the state’s
Constitution to demand of their elected officials that they take action
now to restore the office of Speaker by purging its current holder from
power and the public should be exercising that right to demand accountability and integrity in all branches of public service.
About the
Tennessee Firearms Association. The TFA is a nonprofit Tennessee corporation that is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(4) issue advocacy group. TFA's focus is on issues that relate the rights and interests of Tennesseans under the 2nd Amendment as well as related interests in hunting, sport shooting, collecting and state sovereignty. TFA has been repeatedly
recognized by the Tennessee Legislature for its dedication to protecting the rights and interests of Tennesseans.
