Democrats in Tennessee Call on State House Speaker to Resign

A 2019 image of Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton. (Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Calls by Democrats in Tennessee asking for Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton to resign his position have been escalated, as the Tennessee Democratic Party (TNDP) Executive Committee passed a resolution over the weekend “demanding the resignation” of Sexton.

“TNDP Executive Committeewoman Anne Ferrell Quillen presented the resolution, and she also ran against Sexton for the 25th House District in 2022,” a press release stated. “This resolution affirms the TNDP’s commitment to protecting and upholding democracy. We are urging the Tennessee Republican Party and Governor Bill Lee to join our call for Speaker Sexton to resign in order to restore public trust in our state government.”

The move from the state party came shortly after the Democrat party in Sexton’s district called for his resignation following the expulsion of two black Democrats from the House for violating decorum rules.

Local Parties Call for Resignation

The Democrat parties in Cumberland County where Sexton lives and Putnam County, which is part of the district he represents, called on Sexton to resign on April 14.

They did so following a report from the website “Popular Information” which claimed investigative findings showed “Sexton lives in Nashville rather than in Crossville.”

The Epoch Times reviewed property records and Sexton owns a home in Crossville (Cumberland County) and Sexton has since said he has a second home in Nashville, but denied he spent more time in Nashville than Crossville.

The parties called for the resignation based on the claims made by Popular Information, stating in a release to left-leaning website the TN Holler demanding Sexton resign not only as speaker but as a member of the House.

In the state party’s resolution, the TNDP calls on the Tennessee Republican Party as well as Republican Gov. Bill Lee to join them in calling for Sexton’s immediate resignation as speaker.

“Sexton represents a rural area with different needs and issues than metro Nashville, especially in healthcare and education,” Quillen said in the release. “His decisions negatively impact rural Tennessee and District 25, but because he lives in Nashville, they don’t affect him or his family.”

TNDP called on the Republican party to join the “call for accountability and transparency” and Lee to act to “restore public trust” in state government.

“We urge all Tennesseans to stand with us in this call for accountability and to demand that our elected officials act with honor and integrity in all of their actions and decisions,” the party release states. “That our elected officials work to protect and not erode democracy.”

The chair of the party, Hendrell Remus, said the Republican supermajority has “demonstrated a disregard for democracy by promoting false narratives and undermining democratic values.”

“Speaker Sexton has gone to great lengths to shield the misdeeds of Republican House members while rewriting the rules to inflict political retribution on Democratic House members,” Remus said. “Leadership without integrity or ethical standards poses the greatest threat to any governing body.”

Spotlight on Tennessee GOP, Sexton

Sexton and the Tennessee Republican Party in the state House have caught the attention of national media in recent weeks as well as the ire of Democrats far and wide, including President Biden.

Controversy began following a protest calling for gun control inside the state capitol following the deadly Covenant School shooting in Nashville in late March. Three Democrats faced expulsion votes following violations of decorum by leading chants from the podium of the House, with two black lawmakers expelled and a third lawmaker spared by one vote.

Protests continued in Nashville and at the Capitol as those same two Democrats were sent back to their House seats in the interim of a special election by governing bodies in Memphis and Nashville. Those three lawmakers gathered national media attention and were coined the “Tennessee Three” amid the national spotlight on Tennessee—and the three were invited to The White House to visit with the president on Monday, April 24.

Last week, as the legislature rushed to close the legislative session early, a Republican leader in the House GOP Caucus resigned abruptly just hours after the release of an ethics complaint that had not been part of the public domain previously, adding to the media attention focused on Sexton and his colleagues.

The Epoch Times reached out to Sexton, the House Republican Caucus, and the Tennessee Republican Party for comment but did not yet hear back.