Tennessee passed Governor Bill Lee’s voucher bill by one vote, and the FBI is investigating whether the change of that vote at the last minute was the result of an illegal bribe.
At the time, it appeared that the incentive for the one lawmaker was a promise not to offer vouchers in HIS district.
FBI agents have begun interviewing Tennessee lawmakers about whether any improper incentives were offered to pass Gov. Bill Lee’s school vouchers bill in the state House, NewsChannel 5 Investigates has learned.
That vouchers legislation narrowly passed the state House last month on a 50-48 vote. The vote was initially deadlocked 49-49, and House Speaker Glen Casada kept the vote open for 40 minutes until he convinced Rep. Jason Zachary, R-Knoxville, to switch his vote.
NewsChannel 5 has learned that agents are interested in discovering whether anything of value – such as campaign contributions – were offered by anyone in return for votes.
I must confess that my first reaction to this story was ho-hum; I couldn’t believe that the FBI is investigating whether state legislators vote because of incentives, since we often see them doing it in the open. And then there was the FBI raid on Gulen offices in Ohio, where they carried away boxes of papers. And nothing more was heard of it. And then there was the federal indictment of Ben Chavis of the American Indian Model Charter Schools in Oakland, who was alleged to have diverted $3.8 million from the schools’ bank account to his own businesses, as well as using federal charter funding to pay himself rent; and those charges were recently dropped on grounds that there was no material damage.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Law enforcement agencies like the FBI operate with an unwritten rule not to hold press conferences and divulge what they are doing during an investigation. As far as know, this has been the practice for as long as the U.S. has been around.
The only exception I have ever heard of was when Comey held press conferences and talked about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails before the 2016 election and by the time the FBI reported that no charges were going to be filed against HC, it was too late.
Comey was a registered Republican who I think is now kicking himself repeatedly for what he did that helped contribute to Trump stealing the White House with help from Russia and because Comey broke with tradition and lent credence to all the war-time propaganda the Russians’ were spreading about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
At the same time, I’ve read that President Obama was briefed about the allegations that Russia was meddling in the election and he decided not to hold a press conference about that.
Big mistake.
Obama checked with Mitch McConnell about whether to go public about the Russian interference, and McConnell warned him that he should not do it because he would be attacked for partisanship. Ha! the height of hypocrisy. Why did Obama listen to McConnell, who is rapidly changing the federal judiciary to one that will rule against civil rights, women’s rights, abortion rights, gay rights, separation of church-state, etc.
Sometimes I think McConnel is worse than Trump and the only reason we don’t know he is worse than Trump is that he doesn’t tweet and hold hate rallies.
McConnell is Trump’s puppetmaster
I believe that but sometimes Trump cuts the strings running rampant, and McConnell loses control.
I think Trump has been stuck in the Terrible Twos for 71 years.
bingo
But if Comey didn’t hold a press conference and HRC had won, we would still be in this state of chaos but it would be the Republicans making a stink. Comey was caught in a Catch 22. The problem is that both candidates had a sullied past and there were indiscretions from both sides. Until “we” (the voters/people) break this cycle, our politicians will never be free to enact legislation for the “common good”….instead of for corporate America.
Comey actually broke the Hatch Act and violated Department policy by intervening in an election so close to the vote.
No matter which side you are on, what he did was wrong.
Also, The FBI is not supposed to comment on investigations until they are concluded
So why isn’t Comey being held responsible for violating the Hatch Act? I think that whole election cycle was the dirtiest and slimiest I have ever experienced….from BOTH sides. It sickened me to watch both of them in the debates. Until “we” get rid of the old order, we will continue to have this non stop battling.
“Why did Obama listen to McConnell . . . ”
Please!
It’s because Obama is Obama, and he did and does everything for Obama and Michelle, and screw the working class, screw those who suffered from the 2008 crash, screw public schools, teachers, and local school boards, screw the children and adults of Flynt Michigan who did not have proper drinking water, screw the teachers at Central Falls, Rhode Island (https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/education/07educ.html) screw putting a public option for healthcare on the table, screw the children whose neighborhood schools in Chicago were shuttered with the Obamas’ help, screw – well – just about anyone and everyone if it means some kind of gain for the Obamas.
Obama is no different than most contemporary presidents before him.
And now between the book deals and the executive producer deal with public-school-hating Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, the Obamas are multi-millionaires and Michelle can prance around in yellow dresses that look like event planning tents and $4,000 Balenciaga toe-to-thigh sparkly boots to promote her trashy autobiography “Becoming”. And let’s not forget the home they intended to build on Honolulu Beach with half the cost being financed by Penny Pritzker’s private donations that she helped raise with her “friends” for the Obamas.
Obama is disgusting, but so what. So are most federal level politicians. I hope Obama’s karma will come back to bite him and his wife good and hard. Same for most of D.C.
KARMA gets everyone in the end. Sad that good people have to suffer for politicians’ GREED and EGOS.
I’m with you! I live right outside of DC and it is a horrible place to try and raise moral and ethical kids when the adults are just terrible human beings. All we got with Obama were slogans….Hope and Change. The only ones who got any hope or change were the ones that were already wealthy and wanted to get wealthier and garner more control/power. The common worker bee got nothing but a dwindling paycheck and longer working hours with less benefits. As soon as Obama started naming his cabinet selection with the likes of the Goldman Sachs’ crowd, it was a done deal for us 99%. I can’t wait to see Karma in action in this area….it will be monumental. Feel the Bern!!
Obama is a neo-liberal, a corporate democrat.
What is McConnel, is he the same is Obama?
Personally I thought Obama did 2 very good things domestically. TARP turned the country from heading for Great-Depression2 to recovering from Great Recession. And Obamacare (besides insuring 1/3 of the uninsured) turned the conversation toward affordable healthcare for all. Neither met progressive muster, nor was a progressive solution to either in the cards politically. A progressive could hardly have been elected after Bush; centrist Dem– which then meant neolib– was inevitable.
That doesn’t mean I don’t hate what Obama did to ed. But Obama-trashing is over the top.
TARP was signed by President G. W. Bush before the election and under Bush, the $700 billion allocated was going to be given away with no requirement for it to be paid back.
President Obama revised TARP with a requirement that the money given out was to be paid back and most of it was. His administration also cut TARP in half so they only gave out like about $350 billion. You can check for the exact number.
Obama also bailed out the auto industry separate from TARP, but that wasn’t free either. The government got stock from GM and Chrysler for its bailout money and when they sold that stock a few years later after the auto industry recovered, the feds made a profit but you won’t hear the Republicans and the FAKE media that supports the GOP talk about that.
The GOP with help from Fox and Sinclair media have done a great job of turning TARP into a failure and blaming Obama for the whole thing.
Right? A lot of joe-blow-lo-info Reps think Obama caused the recession & Trump cured it – I’d roflmao if it didn’t irk me so.
Something funny happened in Tennessee.
First, there’s the case of the original vote. Any politician knows that these votes are not decided by representatives ‘on the spot’. Commitments had been made long before the vote came to the floor. A politician that breaks such a commitment to vote in a particular way has cut off ties with any who trusted him in the past. To ‘flip’ is a serious breach of etiquette and the inducement to do so had to be great.
Secondly, holding the vote open until the ‘right’ result came about indicates to me that the pressure for passage came from a source outside the Legislature, and I can see why it looks so suspicious to the FBI.
However, the way things are done makes it sometimes hard to pin down the illegality. Money flows to ‘campaigns’ in mysterious ways, and so do offers of positions once a politician decides to leave office. Most of these transactions are verbal (emphasizing the serious nature of a ‘flip’). If nobody was wearing a ‘wire’, I suspect little will happen… But, following the ‘flipper’s’ career for the next decade or so could be an interesting hobby.
One final note: (seems odd to be replying to myself, but we old folks sometimes do that).
I went to the original article and noted that Rep. David Hawk was cited, as well as Rep. Ron Ramsey (former Lieutenant Governor). I have personally dealt with both of these gentleman and can assert that they both (in my experience) have a very high level of integrity. Once they (finally) give their word, they follow through.
I was glad to see, first, that David is still in office, and surprised to see that the same was true of Ramsey, who is almost my age. But, at least in Tennessee, it appears that not everyone is bought.
Disclaimer: Both David Hawk and ‘Senator Ramsey’ are Republicans, and I’m a ‘Leftie’, so it’s safe to say that I didn’t agree with every stance these two legislators espouse, but they are honest men. Now, they appear to be in a spotlight neither wants but finds ‘necessary’.
And… just in case you didn’t know, the Tennessee Legislature typically only meets for about 5 months a year, and the official ‘compensation’ for Representatives is very meager, so low that the disruption in their normal business activity probably erases the gain from their Legislator’s ‘salary’.
There is always something rotten in the state of Tennessee. Makes Denmark look pristine in its morality. You can see it on our beautiful capital building lawn, the capital where William Strickland, famous in Philadelphia, lies comfortably in its walls. It was his proudest design, full of the hope of a European utopian fantasy that was the early national feeling in the new country. Now outside his edifice, strickland can gaze on statues of Andrew Jackson, who sacrificed the Cherokee to the idea of union, Sam Davis, young confederate spy with good post-war public relations, and Edward Carmack, maryter to the cause of prohibition in the eyes of his contemporaries. All those people memorialized for their values that ran counter to conscience.
But today we see another step off the precipice. A legislature ruled by subterfuge. A dedication to the rights of the economic minority, the moneyed aristocracy, dripping with its millions as its peons starve. How long before these corrupt men are brought to justice? Must we wait until time wipes them from the face of the earth and feeds them to the decay coming to all men? Or can we convince three quarters of the voting public that they have been left at the altar in their wedding dress by a false lover, turning out the corruption in a ballot box and a courtroom rather than a steer mob?
Roy, you have a gift with words.
“We all like compliments. Congressmen, humorists, burglars, all of in the trade.”
–Mark Twain as quoted by Hal Holbrook in his wonderful portrayal some years ago
Autocorrect turned street into steer. Sorry
Monies people here just won’t go to bat for “other people’s children”. And money talks. And I am afraid the masses will not vote out these forces of evil or hold them to account. So very sad and I just don’t know what to do about it.
Funny how the FBI saw no “”material damage” in Chavis’ $3.8+million shenanigans. If this legislator indeed flipped in exchange for a promise not to put charters in his district I wonder what if anything they could charge. Is dirty pool a fed crime? We can thank them, tho, for giving this carnival show more publicity. Let the voters look & think.
I wish I thought the public was going to care. The public has shown time and again their disdain for urban public education and despite shenanigans this looks like it will haunt us for years to come.
Please define what you mean “by the public”?
Everyone does not vote the same and many do not vote. The public is very diverse.
And you say “The public has shown time and again their disdain for urban public education”
If the public has shown time and again their disdain for urban public education, please exlpoain these rulsts from Gallups Education poll:
How would you rate the performance of your children’s teachers — as excellent, good, fair or poor?
81-percent of K-12 parents rated their children’s teachers as excellent and good. Only 6 percent thought their children’s teachers were POOR.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1612/education.aspx
To be clear, I focused on the one question related to actual parent experience with the teachers that taught their children and stayed away from questions that focus on opinions without any direct experience. Opinions without knowledge can easily be manipulated by propaganda and the charter school industry churns out misleading propaganda faster than a machine can make noodles. Many opinions are based on misleading propaganda.
Lloyd, TNalso most likely is referring to the Tennessee public. Altho Tnalso speaks of the monied unwilling to share wealth, it is the 8th poorest state, w/poverty rate a hair behind the 10 w/highest poverty rate. The state is 93% rural. Who’s got the wealth? I suspect little love is lost between rural & urbs; small wonder poor rural folks uninterested in whether poor urbans are getting a raw deal…
I am writing about Rogue Lawyers, and how they have facilitated the new elite class of billionaires…the ones like Trump who say, when caught at grand theft of taxes, that “everyone does it.”
The purchase of the legislature has been accomplished long ago. The attorneys who represent this new power elite, are adept at maneuvering people in government and finance to do their bidding, or as Michael Cohen demonstrated, practiced in ‘strong-arm’ tactics to maneuver people into doing the deeds that make it possible, to ‘settle for chump change, as the banks did, (until the regulations in place to stop this abuse have been eroded or removed.)
The rogue lawyers who find the loopholes that allow the wealth of our nation to be sequestered off shore
Money always controls society, and the death merchants in this group need chaos and war, and THEY OWN THE MEDIA!
But, if you want to see full-blown ROGUE… READ MY NEXT COMMENT.
TALK ABOUT ROGUES and how they get away with everything.
Please, please READ what (some time ago during the Bush era) Wilkerson, told Bolton about a nuclear strike on North Korea –and what Bolton replied.will demonstrate the imminent danger we face, and IT IS NOT from charter school fraud.
THIS WILL TURN YOUR BLOOD COLD, because this man leads Trump by the nose.
These paragraphs are towards the end of piece on Bolton called “On The War Path.” John Bolton on the Warpath | The New Yorker on the warpath, bolotn the atlantic
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/06/john-bolton-on-the-warpath
“Shortly before joining the White House, Bolton described a grimly constrained set of options to deal with North Korea, which seemed to preclude diplomacy. “You’re getting down fairly quickly to a binary choice: live with a North Korea with nuclear weapons, or look at military force,” he said. “These are not attractive options, but that’s where we’re headed.” In fact, Bolton believed for decades that these are the only two choices. In the early two-thousands, as the Bush Administration was negotiating to limit North Korea’s nuclear program, Bolton stridently ADVOCATED WAR!
“Wilkerson was so concerned that he brought Bolton into a private meeting on the consequences of military strikes: “I gave him a ten-minute brief on what a war with North Korea would look like—a hundred thousand casualties in the first thirty days, many of them Americans. The Japanese that would die. The Chinese that would die. The fact that Seoul, one of the most modern and forward-looking cities in the world, would probably be reduced to the Dark Ages. I told him, ‘That’s Passchendaele, John. That’s Ypres.’ ”negotiating to limit North Korea’s nuclear program, Bolton stridently advocated war. Wilkerson, Powell’s chief of staff, was so concerned that he brought Bolton into a private meeting on the consequences of military strikes: “I gave him a ten-minute brief on what a war with North Korea would look like—a hundred thousand casualties in the first thirty days, many of them Americans. The Japanese that would die. The Chinese that would die. The fact that Seoul, one of the most modern and forward-looking cities in the world, would probably be reduced to the Dark Ages. I told him, ‘That’s Passchendaele, John. That’s Ypres.’ ”
Wilkerson said” that Bolton was unmoved: “John looked at me and said, ‘Are you done? Clearly, you do war. I don’t do war. I do policy.’ ”
That man, who cared not for the carnage, has sent a battle fleet to bully Iran, and who knows what he will do now that No. Korea’s Krazy Kim is actively shooting missiles. Escalation and Tension With Iran, North Korea, and China: The Politics Daily – The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/05/us-iran-deal-north-korean-missiles-china-tariffs-politics-daily/589171/
So, How come no one knows this… But everyone in politics knows what a scumbag Bolton is… and He is President, now.
And Trump is ignorant enough, stupid enough, and arrogant enough to be easily convinced by Bolton that going to war in Iraq, North Korea, and Venezuela will make sure Trump wins the election in 2020.
But to do that, Trump will have to bring back the draft, and/or turn those wars over to mercenary armies led by people like Betsy DeVos’s brother Prince. The cost of those wars will be HUGE.
The national debt will grow faster than ever and body bags will start coming home.
The national debt is not popular to most Americans.
The draft is not popular in the U.S. — even Trump, Cadet Bone Spur, didn’t like the draft when he was younger.
War is not popular to most Americans. In fact, they are tired of war and want it all to end.
Body bags coming back from war zones are not popular to most Americans and Trump’s Great War will generate a lot of body bags.
Trump might end up like Benito Mussolini, one of Trump’s heroes, who was executed along with his mistress by Italian partisans who captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland — except Trump and his family will be attempting to flee to Russia and his plane can’t cross over or land in the EU because Trump’s popularity there is way worse than the U.S. In fact, it is almost non-existent and any EU fighter pilot that brings down Trump’s personal aircraft would probably end up making a lot of money from Americans that HATE Trump.
Someone will start a GoFundMe campaign for the EU fighter pilot that might shoot Trump’s private jet down as he is fleeing to Russia with his family to escape the U.S. justice system, and he/she will end up with millions; maybe even billions, enough to buy a private island and escape all of Trump’s worshipers that will want to hunt that pilot and shoot him/her.
Maybe that EU pilot won’t have to find a place to hide from Trump’s hardcore fascist followers since he/she will be a national hero in their own country.
And Putin will have no use for Trump so Russia won’t come to rescue him if his plane doesn’t make it to Moscow in one jump. In addition, American fighters are much faster than a passenger jet.
and returning to the way that the RULE OF LAW is used to rob our nation’s wealth….
I said, above, that It is rogue lawyers finding a way around the RULE OF LAW, that made it possible for the new elite— corporate entities, banks and hedge funds, ( who have the WEALTH once possessed only by Monarchs or by NATIONS) to sequester their stolen money offshore. I watched the Vice News Video, below, 2 years ago, describing what this incredible investigation uncovered… and then and as the new circus came to town –I also watched the memory of int DISAPPEAR—POOF– just as the EVERY debacle, or massacre fades from the media..
No surprise as the media is owned lock, stock and Fox News— by the very people who control everything… the wealthy power-elite that Gary Brumback discusses in this new book. The purchase of the legislature has been accomplished long ago. The Senate is owned by the lawless elite, for whom the Rule of Law is a simple impediment.
The Paradise Papers: The True Story Behind The Secret Nine-Month Investigation (HBO) – YouTube
where 400 reporters from around the world, spent much of this year sifting through some of the more than 13 million files.
The data the journalists released in the Paradise Papers tell the REALITY of the dark money undoing us all, as the banksters and the oligarchs and criminals who own the world’s wealth, look to stash it.
https://www.icij.org/blog/2017/11/first-paradise-papers-data-added-icijs-offshore-leaks-database/
and you read it HERE!
Well, the scandal around the voucher bill seems to be growing, and some shady characters have been emerging.
But the TV report already has triggered a new round of resistance to the controversial legislation at a time when House Speaker Glen Casada — who played a key role in pushing it through — is under a cloud of scandal.
https://chalkbeat.org/posts/tn/2019/05/10/not-yet-signed-tennessee-voucher-bill-faces-new-scrutiny-amid-rumors-of-fbi-probe/
“Why he’s resigning is things that he did before he turned his life around,” Casada told WWTN-FM on Tuesday. The speaker also pitched the House’s “bold, conservative leadership” and called his own participation in sexual and derogatory messages with Cothren “locker room talk.”
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/07/politics/tennessee-speaker-casada-cothren/index.html
House Speaker Glen Casada held the board open for 40 minutes and openly worked lawmakers for one more vote when the House deadlocked 49-49 a month ago. Ultimately, Casada persuaded state Rep. Jason Zachary of Knoxville to change his vote based on the promise Knox County’s school district would be removed as being eligible for education savings accounts.
Zachary said afterward he didn’t receive any funds for Knox County Schools or projects for his legislative district after changing his vote. Nevertheless, Knox County did receive funds for its aquarium and zoo as part of a $750,000 joint initiative between the House and Senate.
[…]
The day of the vote, Republican state Reps. David Hawk of Greeneville and Bob Ramsey of Maryville said they were approached about their votes by Cade Cothren, now-former chief of staff for Casada, a key player in pulling votes out of lawmakers.
Hawk, a former majority leader who was exiled this year by Casada after running against him in the House Speaker race, described a situation in which Cothren tried to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“He asks me, ‘What can the speaker do for you, what do you want?’ And my answer was, ‘You and the speaker have nothing that I want,’” Hawk said.
Cothren, who resigned Monday after admitting sending sexist and racist text messages and snorting cocaine in his legislative office within the past few years, previously said he only wanted to know where Hawk stood on the bill. He noted he could tell Hawk was upset and “followed up to see if there was a way we could overcome that.”
https://dailymemphian.com/section/metro/article/5007/FBI-probes-House-voucher-vote
As I said above, Matt… Hawk is an honest guy (despite being Republican). I didn’t know that he had risen to the level of ‘majority leader’. I met with him many times, visited him on his home turf, and (after a year or two) convinced him that one of Tennessee’s treasures was it’s native oak (once oak/chestnut) forest that not only houses a surprising amount of biodiversity, but also attracts tourists from across the country and, to some extent, around the world. David listened, and understood that loosing that almost unique biosystem in order to promote ‘tree farming’ , the type of ‘forest’ promoted by paper industry giants, would be a mistake. So did a few other Republicans, in those days.
At that time, the influence of ALEC was still a bit weak in Tennessee, although the Chamber of Commerce was considered unbeatable. However, the Chamber didn’t totally control everybody, and their arrogance in thinking that they did proved to be a mirage.
I did not meet with Ron Ramsey that often (he was Senate Leader at the time), however I also found him to be a man of his word. He only met with me (I think) because many under his ‘wing’ asked him to do so. Still, once he gave his word, he followed through.
Of course, those were the ‘old days’ of less than two decades ago. Now, as you can see, those who served at a relatively local level, with concern for the people they honestly believed they were helping, are now being pushed to the sidelines as national forces take over State Legislatures. I’m sure Hawk was one of the ‘disposables’, used and then thrown away. Before (and during) going to the Tennessee Legislature, Hawk sold men’s clothing (a very small businessman in Maryville). Someone should write a biography, or even a novel based on the life (but I’m too old). Perhaps they did (is this, ‘An American Tragedy’? Well, not with the murder, for sure, but it involves the general theme).
We are watching the destruction of even the facade of democracy, and it’s happening at a speed I would never have thought possible.