In the midst of Tennessee’s legislative session in March, California Gov. Gavin Newsom took aim at the southern state’s Republican Governor Bill Lee for signing a bill passed by the state’s legislature limiting drag shows in front of young audiences—making the claim Lee should be focused on Tennessee’s eighth place ranking in states with the highest murder rates instead.
California, with a population over five times the size of Tennessee’s, has a lower rate of murder, but the highest total number of homicides in the nation, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control.
