Ethics complaint filed over anti-Lundberg ads from PAC

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — Text messages to voters criticizing Republican Tennessee Senator Jon Lundberg’s voting record as too liberal, which come from a political action committee (PAC), have drawn an ethics complaint from the Tennessee Senate Republican Caucus’s chairman.

“Concerns” about potential collusion between the PAC and Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger and her campaign as well as Bobby Harshbarger’s campaign are at the root of the complaint.

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Lundberg faces a primary challenge from Bobby Harshbarger, Diana Harshbarger’s son, as he seeks a third state senate term. For the past few weeks, some voters in District 4, comprised of Sullivan and Hawkins counties, have received texts from the “East Tennessee Conservatives PAC.”

Those messages take Lundberg to task for — among other things — allegedly voting “to authorize in-state tuition to illegal immigrants” and killing a “bathroom bill” that would have allowed people to sue someone for entering a bathroom that doesn’t match their biological sex.

“Sen. Jon Lundberg refused to protect our daughters from men using girls’ bathrooms,” the headline of one such ad reads before going on to claim Lundberg made a motion that killed one such bill in committee.

Lundberg told News Channel 11 that the ads make false or misleading claims.

“I’ve done this for a long time,” said Lundberg, who served as a state representative from 2006-2016. “I have a record. I think it’s a very solid, strong record.”

“We’ve made it more difficult for illegal aliens in Tennessee,” Lundberg said of the state legislature. “We’ve protected women’s bathrooms. We’ve done that not just in the last few weeks, we’ve done that over the past years.”

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“So when people receive a text to go, let me let me pause, number one, and question it. Who’s it coming from? Is it a legitimate source?”

Content isn’t what prompted an ethics complaint that came after Lundberg told Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Ken Yager about the texts. Rather, Lundberg and Yager say they’re questioning the possibility of collusion and violation of campaign finance limits.

A representative for the PAC suggested those claims were far-fetched and a sign of desperation in the Lundberg camp as he faces his first primary challenge since 2016, when he easily won a bid for his first senate term.

The PAC, created in April 2023 and funded with $95,000 from the Alexandria, Va.-based “American Policy Coalition,” lists Thomas Datwyler as treasurer. Datwyler is also Diana Harshbarger’s campaign treasurer.

Tennessee Sen. Ken Yager (R-Kingston) filed a complaint on April 25 with the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance requesting an investigation “to determine if any ethical and/or registry violations” have occurred or are occurring.

“I’m concerned there is collusion between the Harshbarger campaign (both) and the PAC,” Yager wrote. “In addition to collusion between the campaigns, I believe there may also be an effort to skirt campaign finance limits.”

Bobby Harshbarger told News Channel 11 that any allegations about collusion or skirting campaign finances laws were “completely false” and that he “absolutely” doesn’t know any of the people affiliated with the PAC.

“I think it’s just political theater, in all honesty, because what this is doing is just deflecting from his voting record,” Harshbarger said.

“I’m scratching my head,” he added later. “I don’t understand why he had a colleague of his file this. I don’t know if this is trying to keep his reputation in line.”

William Young, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, said the Registry Board would “determine next steps on how to proceed” at its next regular meeting May 28.

Lundberg told News Channel 11 he alerted Yager to the text campaign after several constituents sent him some of the ads. He noticed the PAC listed at the bottom, and he decided to quickly check it out because he hadn’t heard of East Tennessee Conservatives.

He said a quick check turned up Datwyler’s name and people mentioned his work for Diana Harshbarger. Lundberg said colleagues raised “a couple potentially really bad issues here” before naming the same concerns Yager wrote of.

“It just happens that in this triangle he is the treasurer, runs this PAC, runs Congresswoman Harshbarger’s congressional campaign, runs her leadership PAC … there’s enough questions that I think it merits some further investigation in Tennessee,” Lundberg said.

‘Liberal Lundberg?’

Representatives tied to the PAC told News Channel 11 the call for an ethics probe essentially amounted to a fishing expedition, and that it was common for people to represent numerous political organizations and campaigns as treasurer. They sent links to Lundberg votes in Nashville they say back up the ads’ claims.

“It’s not surprising that Liberal Lundberg is resorting to lies,” Matt Wolking, a spokesman for the PAC, wrote in response to an email inquiry.

“He must be very worried about people finding out the truth about what he has been up to in Nashville. Liberal Lundberg has spent his career putting illegal immigrant and LGBTQ communities first, while putting Tennessee families last. We will continue to share Liberal Lundbergs (sic) record and hold him accountable.”

The ads strike similar themes to Harshbarger’s campaign messaging. In his April 3 announcement that he was running to unseat the two-term senator, who also served 10 years in the state house, Harshbarger referenced the same three issues — illegal immigration, pride flags and bathroom bills — claiming Lundberg had cast liberal votes on all three.

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Harshbarger said he first began digging into Lundberg’s voting record after learning about what he said was a non-conservative vote over a bid to keep the LGBTQ pride flag from being displayed in school classrooms.

“It all originated from a teacher displaying the gay pride flag in their classroom … and then that here comes the list of different flags that would be appropriate to fly in the classrooms and he voted against it,” Harshbarger said.

Facts, lies, or something in between?

Determining the ads’ accuracy is difficult. Wolking’s links to full chamber or committee votes show there’s at least some room for nuance in interpreting. On one immigration-related ad, Lundberg and Yager pointed to a 2015 vote, while Wolking sent a link to a 2014 vote.

That ad is titled “Giving In-State Tuition To Illegal Immigrants?” — Sen. Jon Lunderberg Says ‘Yes!’

After misspelling Lundberg’s name, it correctly spells it in the main text and claims Lundberg “voted to authorize in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.”

Lundberg responded by showing a vote from a 2015 bill that “exempts certain students from payment of out-of-state tuition at state institutions of higher education.” Then a House member, Lundberg voted no on that bill, which needed 50 votes to pass and got 49.

“I was the deciding vote against providing illegal immigrants in-state tuition,” Lundberg said. “So it’s not only factually wrong, but it is the exact opposite of what that ad claims that I did.”

Wolking sent a link to a vote a year earlier, also for an in-state tuition bill. That time Lundberg voted yes, along with enough Republicans to give the bill a 63-vote total and pass it into law. But its caption text clearly shows the law specifies that a student who qualifies “is a citizen of the United States,” among other requirements.

Erik Schelzig edits the Tennessee Journal, a weekly political newsletter covering state politics. He’s covered the Capitol for almost 20 years and said negative attacks are hard to defend.

“They don’t necessarily have to get into specifics or be overly accurate, and it can put incumbents on the defensive,” Schelzig told News Channel 11. “Incumbents always have a long record that has a lot of votes in it that can be spun and twisted and made to look worse than they are.”

He called text message ads, particularly with graphics that make them look a lot like direct mail pieces, “a relatively new phenomenon” in campaigning.

“How voters respond to these things popping up on their phones remains to be seen. Sometimes it works and other times people get angry and react in a way that isn’t beneficial to the people who are sending it,” he said.

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The ad claiming Lundberg killed a bathroom bill also draws disputed interpretations.

The PAC offered a link to a committee meeting to support the ad’s contention that the bill “giving victims the right to sue those entering spaces that do not match their biological gender was killed by Sen. Jon Lundberg’s motion in committee.”

That vote took place in the Judiciary Committee March 27. A bill that would have further enhanced potential penalties for people entering bathrooms that don’t match their sex at birth was sent to “summer study” on a motion from Lundberg. A man who “knowingly entered and remained in” a women’s restroom would be committing an offense, the committee’s attorney Elizabeth Insogna, is heard saying in the hearing.

Republican Sen. Kerry Roberts asked what that meant, and Isogna said “remain” wasn’t clearly defined, and Roberts said “I think we need to tighten that up.”

Lundberg can be seen saying Roberts’ questions are valid and adding that he’s “heard from the business community about some concerns they’ve got.”

Lundberg said, “I don’t want to rush something of this magnitude that could have an impact, a negative impact and I think this needs further work. I’d like to move this to summer study.”

Sen. Janice Bowling, a Tullahoma Republican who sponsored the bill, didn’t seem to interpret Lundberg’s motion as killing the bill. She said “if there needs to be clarification on that, I’m glad for that to go to a summer study, because I think this is a very timely bill.
“And I’ve heard from many parents in schools in particular where the boys go in and there’s a girl sitting on a urinal, where … the boys go into the girls’ bathroom and it’s getting out of hand and we do need to stop what’s happening for the sake of privacy and health.”

Lundberg said his motion and the move to summer study was for “a legitimate summer study” and not because “we just don’t want to deal with this bill.”

“We’ve got some of the strongest bathroom laws in the country in Tennessee,” Lundberg added.

Election registry not known for quick action

The Tennessee Journal‘s Schelzig said Yager’s involvement isn’t out of the ordinary. The caucus “is chiefly tasked with what we call incumbent protection and helping out Republicans who are already in the Senate,” he said. “It makes sense he would be the one to come out and raise the questions and try to get the registry involved and basically undercut the challenger at every step he can.”

He said the questions seem worth scrutiny by the registry, but he’s not sure how deeply they’ll look.

“This question of coordination has vexed the registry for decades and mostly they’ve kept a hands-off approach to it,” Schelzig said, adding that the combination of state-level rules with federal ones further complicates this case.

“The general feeling that I’ve observed at the registry is they don’t necessarily want to wade into the ins and outs of campaigns, which is a little bit ironic because of course that’s the whole reason they exist,” he said, adding their process usually stretches over several meetings.

“I’d imagine the registry won’t do too much decisively before we actually have voters go to the polls. The pressure’s on and the registry’s not known for acting quickly.

“From the perspective of the Lundberg campaign or the Republican caucus, they’re probably more interested in getting publicity out of it to the general public to the fact they’re raising these questions than any real hope that it’ll be adjudicated by the registry before voting begins.”

Early voting for the Aug. 1 primary election begins July 12 and ends July 27.

Lundberg said “dirty politics happens” and accused the PAC of “coming out of the bottom of the barrel.” He said he supports a look into the PAC but on the basis of campaign connections, not the disputed content of the ads.

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“The caucus chair, I think he has a good point of, you know, there’s enough smoke here to see if there’s fire. You can claim coincidence, but it’s like, boy, there’s a lot lining up in one spot and I agree with him there,” Lundberg said.

When asked if Lundberg was a liberal, Harshbarger said, “based on his voting habits, I think he leans more that way.” He said he believes Lundberg has become “a career politician” who’s begun voting in ways designed to ascend to leadership. “That’s the nature of the beast. You slowly climb up that ladder,” he said.

Harshbarger said the content in the ads and emails his campaign has sent out to the media is based in Lundberg casting votes that aren’t aligned with “East Tennessee values.”

“What’s going to put me over in this election is everyday voters,” Harshbarger said. “It’s not going to be the establishment in Nashville.”

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