Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti predicts that 2024 will be “a year of clarity,” in which the progressive agenda, which had previously advanced behind the scenes, in government agencies and corporate boardrooms, will come to light.
In his first year as state attorney general, Mr. Skrmetti elevated Tennessee to a state that’s taking the lead in pushing back against the expanding powers of the federal government, racial discrimination, and antitrust violations from the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement; addressing social media health threats to children; and stopping transgender medical procedures on minors.
Mr. Skrmetti has bumped heads with the Biden administration on several occasions, including in a court battle over a Tennessee law that bans transgender medical procedures on minors.
The Epoch Times spoke with Mr. Skrmetti about what his first year in office has brought and what he sees coming down the road in the year to come.
We have seen a lot more litigation coming out of the federal government, directed at the states. We’ve seen a lot more federal overreach that impacts the ability of the states to make their own decisions, so that’s driven a good bit of it.
The other issue is, I think the elected officials in Tennessee have seen what some of the other attorneys general have been doing, both on the Democratic and Republican sides, depending on which party is in the White House, engaging in push-back against that overreach. And I think there was an expectation that whoever the new Tennessee attorney general was, they were going to be actively engaged in asserting federalism and separation of powers.
If Tennessee is not pushing back, then the system doesn’t work. Our checks and balances built into the Constitution require each actor to do their part to protect the integrity of their piece of government.
We try to be careful in case selection, to make sure we’re putting the state on the best possible grounds for winning. In some of the big corporate cases, it’s a multi-state effort.
It’s a little comforting to be in the foxhole with some other states when you’re up against these titan companies.
Given what the Constitution says and given the composition of the courts, where you have a very originalist interpretation coming down from the U.S. Supreme Court, I think we have the legal opportunity to check the federal overreach.
It’s a little curious to me that we see this flurry of federal regulatory activity that just doesn’t have a good basis in law. I don’t know if it means that the federal government is hoping that its vision of a more regulatory state will ultimately prevail, and they’re just trying to break down the existing legal barriers against it; or if the goal is more political in nature, just to make these statements and then see it hashed out in litigation, without much regard for the ultimate policy impact.
I think you'll see opportunities to have a more profound impact on human freedom than you’ve seen in a long time because of the ability to leverage technology. Here, the potential for some sort of overarching, very intrusive mechanism is bigger than anything we’ve seen.
And you look at the Chinese social credit system, and it shows some hints of the potential for abuse here. We’re in a particularly sensitive inflection point right now where I think everybody needs to be very cautious about the scope of technology and ensure that we don’t see any permanent losses to our freedom.
We see people move here because this is where they want to raise their families. That seems to be the biggest driver, in my experience, for why people come here. They want to raise their kids in a place that shares their values, and it gives them the opportunity to put family at the center of their lives in a way that’s consistent with their core beliefs.
We have a dynamic system, and anytime there is a move toward more expansive government, people need to push back. And if we don’t push back, if the other institutions of government don’t check individual branches of government that are getting bigger than they’re supposed to be, then we’re going to see a gradual erosion of our ability to govern ourselves and our ability to be free.
There’s never any guarantee that any place is going to be perpetually liberty-oriented, but I think in Tennessee, you have some deeply embedded cultural values that are well established. And you’ve seen a lot of pushback from Tennessee; it is a traditionally ornery state.
Over the last couple of years, there was this big trend toward corporations, and particularly the big financial corporations, engaging in policymaking. And I think people got out over their skis.
We just need to make sure that there’s clarity for investors. There’s no law prohibiting a company from offering ESG-laden products. There’s no law prohibiting a company from saying we are going to tailor these investments to try to advance a particular environmental, or any other, policy.
The key is, it has to be transparent. And I think things have gotten muddled over the last few years; I think you have seen a number of companies make statements or take actions to try to get back on track. I think they realize that they’ve gotten off track and gotten tangled up in some things that probably aren’t in the best interests of their long-term success.
And so, 2024, I expect, will be the year of clarity. We’re not going to see ESG go away, but I think we’re going to see a world in which consumers and investors are able to make informed choices, and where the people who are managing their assets and are engaged in determining how their shares are voted are going to renew their interest in open communication, clear articulation of where they’re coming from.
And the people who own these investments are going to have more of a voice.
There are so many strategic advantages that we enjoy, that nobody ever thinks about, because of the ongoing success of the United States. But the country was founded on the idea that it is made up of different components with different interests. And we’ve lost that over the years.
But for a lot of these really controversial, especially culture-war issues, it’s clear that there’s a big difference of opinion. And you see federal efforts just overwhelming any opposition to some of these ideas that are best determined at the state level.
Instead of letting federal bureaucrats resolve major policy questions that significantly affect individuals in their day-to-day lives, that’s something where government closer to the people is better. And if we can take some of the contention out of the federal process, if we can remove some of the things that people are disagreeing about there and send them to the states where they appropriately belong, and let the states have differences of opinion, which are perfectly okay under our constitutional system, that in turn should help develop a more competent, more effective federal government.
The narrative is clearly that anybody on the right who’s protesting is trying to overthrow the government, regardless of the facts on the ground; anybody on the left is basically a cheerful hippie from the ‘60s.
We’ve seen the type of thinking that drives this come to a head with the Israel–Gaza conflict, where, because there’s this anti-colonialism narrative that Hamas has been really working to promote, you end up with these horrific atrocities that are excused by a shockingly large percentage of the American population. You’re talking about mass rape and torture and the murder of babies, and well over 1,000 people killed, and there are a bunch of people who shrug their shoulders and think that this is just the necessary process of liberation.
So that double standard leads to a terrible place. I think we’ve seen that terrible place in Israel, and we need to make sure that we don’t get there in America.
Ultimately, if the system is not treating people equally, it loses its legitimacy.
We don’t know what’s going to happen in the 2024 election, and as a result, I think you’re going to see the administration really ramp up efforts to push through regulations. Given their prior track record, I anticipate that we‘ll have constitutional concerns, and we’ll likely end up litigating some of those issues.
I think in social media, which is a consumer protection area where I’ve been very concerned and very active along with every other state, we’re going to see some more clarity and hopefully see some positive moves toward protecting kids.
The mental health impact of social media is increasingly identified as a significant source of youth mental health issues. And there are things that companies can do to improve the situation of kids in America, so I’m optimistic that we will see developments on that front. If not, we'll keep litigating.
One other thing that I do want to mention is the Colorado Supreme Court decision. You talk again about threats to liberty—there are a number of legal issues that President Trump is dealing with, but the other ones don’t impact the ability of the American people to pick their leader.
But the Colorado decision is an escalation of lawfare that I have real concerns about. And particularly because if you look back at the history of the 14th Amendment, in 1869, you had an opinion from the chief justice that said Congress had to make the determination of whether someone was disqualified.
There are many arguments that we could have about the definition of insurrection and whether that applies to anything that President Trump has been accused of. But as a matter of process, the states can’t willy-nilly disqualify presidential candidates.
I think the magnitude of that decision of stripping the ability of the people to vote for somebody who has already been elected, and who is very likely to be one of the major party candidates for president, is a really dangerous expansion of the judicial role.
The more the government takes the decisions away from the people, the less likely the government will be able to do that for long because it’s going to see its legitimacy completely erode.
So, the Colorado decision is particularly dangerous, and I think the U.S. Supreme Court will likely be taking it up. You’re seeing similar actions in other states.
All the rest of them have been unsuccessful at removing him from the ballot, but this is, I hope, the high watermark of government efforts to limit voter choices because this is a precipice that we need to step back from.
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