RedState has reported that the Tenn. Republican Party removed three Tennessee senators from the election ballot due to a violation of bylaws governing residency and the number of times they voted in previous primaries.
According to the Tennessean:
Three potential candidates for Congress in Tennessee were removed by the Republican Party of Tennessee on Tuesday. One was a Trump-backed candidate whose campaign angered political insiders.
Morgan Ortagus, Baxter Lee and Robby Starbuck were voted off the primary ballot by the party’s executive committee, Tennessee Republican Chairman Scott Golden confirmed Tuesday
Republican officials confirmed last week that three official challenges were lodged against them, which resulted in a technical withdrawal from the ballot according to party bylaws.
While Ortagus and Lee made some protestations, they chose to accept the committee’s decision. Robby Sternbuck is the only candidate that has filed a lawsuit against Tenn. GOP. Starbuck is being represented by super lawyer and civil rights attorney Harmeet Dhillon, and leaks (it seems to be the week for them) to NBC News confirm the Tenn. GOP executive committee’s actions may not have been on the up-and-up.
“The same 24 hours where they kicked me off the ballot, the FEC approved and amended one congressional candidate, who had did not have three out of four primaries, and who had only a couple of vouching letters,” Starbuck said.
“And that’s it. It’s for a U.S. congressional race, you know. So, it’s the same office, different standards for him.”
It gets worse. Leaked opinions from a few people who voted against Starbuck’s removal were also released. It seems that their views do not align with those expressed by the Republican state body.
The tape then leaked. Apparently, NBC got it, they asked me for comment on it, and one of the things from it that I thought was interesting is like one of the people in the Davidson GOP said to one of the FEC members, ‘Look, I’m not going to lie: Robby has done more for the Republican Party than I ever have, and probably more than any of you have.’” Starbuck said.
“And the fact that they’re causing this division within the party is just really terrible, you know, I mean, because they also said in that video, the young Republicans’ chair from Nashville said that I had brought more members and more volunteers than anybody ever has to the young Republicans.
“They went from a group of 16 people to over 100 who are active now at everything, and the [young Republican chair] is like, we’ve never had anything like that.
“And then the County party said the same thing: they never had as many volunteers or donors as they have now. And they’re like, you’re just, you know, putting all that in jeopardy because of whatever it is you guys decided in that secret meeting and then you want to keep them off the ballot?”
Starbuck is able to show receipts that he’s been in the 5th district since 2019 and has voted at three of the four primary elections. Starbuck appealed against their decision. Petitioners were also made to the executive board asking for the reason behind Starbuck’s vote to remove.
Starbuck sent me the following text message from a member of an executive committee:
“I voted because of the new state residency law. [Ortagus]Starbuck was not subject to the new law. And Lee had voted for a Democrat,” Starbuck read.
Starbuck also got wind of commentary that because of his past work in the entertainment industry as a director of music video to certain rap groups, that his work did not represent “Republican” values.
“Then just like background wise, some of the things that we’ve heard since then have been that uh, you know, obviously the residency thing came into play, but also that some of the members considered things that are like just wildly inappropriate,” he said.
“Some of them, uh, apparently watched music videos I directed, and decided that I can’t be a Republican.
“It’s just ludicrous. Like do we want to lose forever as a party?”
It seems so. So much for the “Big Tent” party. Tennessee appears to hold litmus and purity testing as an unwritten standard.
They seem happy with their commitment to the old-timers who rose through the ranks of the party, but they don’t do anything to promote republicanism beyond their own bubble. The Tenn. GOP doubles down on failing, but it also weakens new faces that bring energy and recruits to the party. This is an excellent example of cutting your nose to spite one’s face.
The Tenn. GOP: snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, ya’ll.
But the “good ole boy” antics do not stop there. The original U.S. District Court judge assigned to Starbuck’s lawsuit was William L. Campbell Jr. Judge Campbell had to recuse himself because his mother is Tennessee Republican Party executive committee member Beth Campbell.
The best backroom electioneering.
This new judge, the Chief Justice of Middle Tennessee District Court is a well-respected individual who follows the rules.
“Everybody we’ve talked to says that he tends to be a stickler for procedure,” Starbuck said.
“So, I think that he may look at this and be able to, this is just kind of like reading tea leaves, to think he may look at something like this and see very clearly they didn’t abide by the procedures and the rules here because they were also supposed to notify me—yeah, wait, with a two-day period by certified mail—that I had two days to appeal after the vote, and they didn’t do that. But I appealed anyway, and they never responded to the appeal, and so that, plus the fact that we have evidence of FCC members voting on things that are not in the bylaws, it may lead him to the perspective: ‘What precedent is this setting,’ you know?”
No matter the outcome, those who supported and championed Starbucks will ultimately be the ones who get robbed. Starbuck is in agreement.
“Because it’s very clear, I mean, you’re disenfranchising thousands of voters here and you’re allowing, you know, an elected group of people to do that, he said.
“I think it’s enraging. You know, honestly, that a group of people would think that they should overrule voters.”
Starbuck did not prompt his followers to contact the Ten. To make their displeasure public, the Republican Party executive committee called.
“FCC members have turned their phones off because of phone calls, which is kind of funny, Starbuck said.
“This is just angry people looking up the FCC numbers. I kind of felt like it was not going to be helpful to us if we flooded them with thousands of calls, but apparently they’ve gotten hundreds and hundreds of calls anyway.”
Both Democrats and Republicans may be trying to manipulate the outcome of the midterms but both sides are likely to suffer a shock.
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