Stockard on the Stump: Tennessee Republicans hooked on Musk-Trump slashing

by Sam Stockard, Tennessee Lookout
February 21, 2025

While roughly half of the country is bemoaning the end of American democracy, Tennessee’s Republican leaders are delighted to see the axe fall on anything President Donald Trump and his billionaire friend Elon Musk despise. Who cares about congressional approval?

Gov. Bill Lee recently touted the work of the Department of Government Efficiency by Musk, the world’s richest man, in eliminating millions in spending just by giving a thumbs down. Legislative Republicans are falling in line too, saying massive reductions, even by an unelected person, are perfectly fine, since Trump approves.

How easily they give up.

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed to roll back the Musk-Trump slashing, which affects everything from United States Aid for International Development programs designed to display American compassion to Medicaid and nuclear facility oversight, as well as the president’s executive orders redefining birthright citizenship and foreign aid freezes affecting agriculture and solar power programs for low-income folks.

“I don’t think it’s illegal at all,” House Speaker Cameron Sexton said Thursday. “The president has the capability of making the determination on cutting personnel and doing other things. People can take him to court if they want to.”

With national debt at $36.2 trillion and the deficit at $1.8 trillion annually, Americans want the federal government to get a hold of itself, Sexton said. He added people elected Trump to do exactly what he’s doing.

“I applaud him for it,” the Crossville Republican said.

Interestingly, congressional Republicans gathered at Trump’s Doral golf complex in Florida this week to figure out how they were going to cut Medicaid. The poor babies.

Democratic lawmakers in Congress also called for the Internal Revenue Service, which is undergoing its own personnel cuts, to answer questions about Musk’s access to tax information as filing season arrives. Labor unions and former and current government employees have filed numerous lawsuits to stop Musk from eliminating agencies.

But Sexton said he hopes Democrats continue to oppose the Musk-Trump team because he believes the American people will side with Trump, based on polling.

House Majority Leader William Lamberth of Portland is just as enthusiastic, saying the state already has its own version of DOGE, the “TOGE,” since Tennessee is required to balance its budget. (Some have said the legislature should do nothing but pass a budget and go home.)

Rep. John Ray Clemmons of Nashville said Thursday that Democrats favor “trimming fat” but that hacking away at “vital” government programs affects a host of items such as Social Security and veterans benefits, delays in federal tax returns, nuclear jobs at Oak Ridge, medical research, tourism around the Great Smoky Mountains and more.

“Any elected official who supports these purposeful blows to our local economies and harm to working families should reconsider their priorities,” Clemmons said. “Our loyalty should be to Tennessee families, not our political party or radicals promoting the inherently flawed theory of the ‘Unitary Executive.’”

With that in mind, the question is not whether the federal government should cut spending but whether those reductions should go through Congress, which is allegedly made up of elected representatives.

Of course, if Congress capitulates to Musk-Trump, it won’t matter anymore. 

All those people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 could move in and set up tents since the president pardoned or commuted their sentences. They wouldn’t have to fight the Capitol police again, because they would be invited, and no one would die as they did in 2021 — a tell-tale sign of late-stage democracy if ever there was one.

Saving farms?

Talk about needing a “TOGE,” Lee wants to spend $25 million to pay farmers for conservation easements designed to stop development from encroaching on farm land.

The bill, which is sponsored by Lamberth and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson of Franklin, passed the Senate Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee this week after dying there last year. They had to install Sen. Shane Reeves of Murfreesboro as chairman after the bill stalled last year because of concerns raised by Sen. Steve Southerland.

Former state Rep. Andy Holt, a Dresden Republican now an assistant commissioner with the Department of Agriculture, tried to smooth everything over, but according to hallway talk, which is sometimes accurate at Cordell Hull, the more Holt opened his mouth, the shakier the support grew. 

Tennessee governor revives farm conservation bill with $25 million fund

At least one person called the measure “vouchers for Williamson County farm owners.” That would include the governor, who owns a cattle farm there, though he needs no subsidy unless traveling to Florida to speak to ultra-conservative groups.

The measure passed 5-4, squeaking its way to the Senate finance committee. Voting yes were Chairman Reeves and Sens. Bobby Harshbarger, Adam Lowe, Jessie Seal and Page Walley, all Republicans. Voting no were Republican Sens. Janice Bowling and Mark Pody and Democrats Heidi Campbell and Charlane Oliver.

“So long, farewell”

U.S. District Court Waverly Crenshaw turned down former Sen. Brian Kelsey’s last-gasp request to avoid prison on a federal campaign finance fraud conviction and Kelsey is set to report to federal prison in Kentucky on Monday. Kelsey pleaded guilty to masterminding a scheme to run more than $100,000 from his state campaign account through two political action committees to the American Conservative Union, which bought advertising to support his failed 2016 congressional campaign.

Kelsey, a former Germantown Republican, reneged on the plea in 2023 and asked the judge to let him go to trial because what he did wasn’t a crime. He claimed he didn’t understand the law although he is an attorney who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. Kelsey also said his decision was clouded by the birth of twin sons who made it hard to sleep and the illness of his father, who later died. But to tell a judge you don’t understand the law when some of the best attorneys in Middle Tennessee represented you, is a stretch — at best.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up Kelsey’s case, and the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered him to start serving a 20-month sentence.

Crenshaw chastised Kelsey to some extent in his latest ruling, which pointed out the former lawmaker committed perjury by saying he didn’t do the things he earlier admitted he did. Kelsey also claimed insufficient counsel and prosecutorial misconduct by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

“The Court will give Kelsey the benefit of the doubt and assume he merely misread the Court’s statements at sentencing, but it sees no reason to address this argument any further. What matters is that, at bottom, Kelsey has not demonstrated any exceptional circumstances here that deserve special treatment in the interests of justice,” Crenshaw’s ruling said.

It appears Kelsey is out of straws. And for what? To make a miscalculated effort to win a seat in “the swamp”? He finished far out of first, and if he’d accepted the sentence in 2023, he might have served his time by now

“I believe it’s time for me to fly”

Kelsey’s co-conspirator, Josh Smith, pleaded guilty in the campaign finance scheme and cooperated with federal prosecutors, accepting probation and a $250,000 fine.

Smith, proprietor of The Standard, an upscale restaurant club where they cut the deal and exchanged a check, has paid his fine and completed more than 151 hours of community service, according to a recent court filing.

Next stop? Mexico, Italy, Africa and the Caribbean.

Since he’s complied with his sentence but remains on probation, Smith asked the court for permission to get a passport to travel to Mexico, his wife’s home country, from Feb. 28 to March 8 for his birthday and to see extended family. 

After that trip south of the border, Smith wants permission to travel to Irsina, Italy in April and September where he’s building a home. He needs time to inspect work and finish the job, which is understandable. (Making steaks at The Standard must pay pretty well.)

In addition to those excursions, he wants permission to go on an African safari. And, of course, his family is planning an annual holiday cruise to the Caribbean in late November and early December 2025, according to the document.

His attorney told the judge the probation office has been notified and doesn’t object. 

With all due respect to Judge Crenshaw, I say: Let him go. He never lied to the court — as far as we know.

In perpetuity

One of the most critical pieces of legislation Tennessee lawmakers will take up this session is headed Monday for the House Naming and Designating Committee, a panel created by former House Speaker Glen Casada to pay back lawmakers who put him in that vaunted seat — albeit for only seven months.

You might be asking: What is this important bill? You might also be telling yourself, “This is not my beautiful house” and “This is not my beautiful wife.” How did I get here?

Anyway, Rep. Gino “Bathroom Bill” Bulso and Sen. Paul Rose are backing HB346, which will name the desk of House chamber seat 60 as the “Legislative Desk of Representative John J. Deberry Jr.” and directs the clerk to design and install a plaque on the desk recognizing it as Deberry’s desk forever.

Readers might remember Deberry as a Memphis Democrat who was bounced by the Tennessee Democratic Party from its ranks after he voted for Gov. Lee’s first voucher bill in 2019, then followed up with a vote to ban abortions. He ran as an independent but was soundly defeated, then took a job as Lee’s senior advisor, which pays $227,364, plus a $5,000 bonus, possibly for his efforts in passing the governor’s private-school voucher bill this year.

Whether Deberry should have been kicked out of the party is debatable. But one thing that can’t be argued is that he took the golden parachute.

Incidentally, Bulso chairs the Naming and Designating Committee, so look for this little tid-bit to pass.

“There is water at the bottom of the ocean.” *

* Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.

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