The week in politics: Franklin doctor to run for House after suing over TN abortion law

A Williamson County OB/GYN who has sued Tennessee over its abortion ban is now running for a General Assembly House seat.

Dr. Laura Andreson, running as a Democrat, will compete for House District 63 against incumbent Rep. Jake McCalmon. McCalmon was first elected in 2022 after embattled former House Speaker Glen Casada chose not to seek reelection.

Andreson's campaign platform heavily focuses on reproductive rights and health care, the issue that drove her to become more politically involved in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision ushered in Tennessee's abortion ban. Andreson joined a group of physicians lobbying lawmakers for increased exceptions to Tennessee's near-total ban, concerned for the health implications for their patients and the criminal implications for their profession.

The physician said she has some "very serious regrets" about how little she was politically involved previously. After two years of paying more attention to the General Assembly, she has a different perspective on local elections.

"I felt if I don’t get involved, if I don’t say anything, then who is going to," Andreson said. "I want to be somebody that steps up; I want to make a difference."

Andreson is now in an unusual position of running for public office while actively suing the state: She, along with fellow House candidate Allie Phillips, is a plaintiff in an ongoing Davidson County lawsuit challenging Tennessee's abortion ban, arguing the law blocks providers from providing essential health care in medical emergencies.

In addition to reproductive rights, Andreson said she wants to focus on gun safety reform and public education support, issues she thinks many Tennesseans agree on that are not reflected in the current General Assembly.

"It seems our supermajoirty wants to just vote with the activist or special interest groups, and they don’t want to really listen to what the people are saying," Andreson said.

Gun safety reform group raises $1.3 million

A prominent gun safety group founded in the wake of The Covenant School shooting and backed by the family of one of the victims has raised $1.3 million in the last year, a fundraising haul indicating long-term aims for the group as it has added staff members to its volunteer ranks.

Voices for a Safer Tennessee said in a statement the donations came from 2,400 individual donors in 52 counties across Tennessee. The group has drawn support from prominent political players such as former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist.

“Nearly 30,000 people have joined our coalition because they share our belief that the growing number of firearm tragedies in Tennessee is a trend that must be stopped,” Nicole Floyd Smith, vice chair for the group, said in a news release. “Tennesseans from the state’s largest cities and rural communities, many of whom own firearms, want to enact policy change that will protect our communities while also respecting the Second Amendment rights important to so many Americans.”

Among the gun safety reform groups that have become a constant presence at the General Assembly in the last year, Voices has been somewhat more measured in its approach, celebrating "incremental" wins such as blocking legislation that would have allowed permitless carry of long guns.

“We’re seeing a subtle but significant shift in the debate over firearm safety in the legislature,” Erin Rogus, policy director for Safer Tennessee, said in a statement following the end of the 2024 session. “We’re encouraged by the willingness of Governor Lee, along with the House and Senate leadership, to sit down with us and consider data-driven policies that will lift Tennessee out of the bottom tier of deadliest states in the U.S. for death by firearm, especially among children. There is an openness to addressing the problem that perhaps wasn’t there before the Covenant School tragedy in March 2023.”

Lee says ed chief should stay despite ethics complaint

Gov. Bill Lee says Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds should continue to lead the state’s education agency, despite an ethics complaint filed this week alleging that she violated state law and an executive order he signed prohibiting executive employees from accepting travel reimbursements from lobbying groups.

“Commissioner Reynolds is doing an excellent job,” Lee told reporters Thursday morning. “She’s proven to be qualified for this job, and I’m very proud of the work that we’re doing together, and I look forward to continuing that work.”

An ethics complaint filed Tuesday by Rep. Caleb Hemmer, D-Nashville, alleges Reynolds' acceptance of travel reimbursements paid for by a group that also lobbies the legislature violated state laws governing gifts to executive branch employees by lobbying organizations and executive branch standards.

Reynolds attended two out-of-state events last year with expenses paid by her former employer, ExcelinEd, a national advocacy group that works to expand education choice policies. ExcelinEd also employs a lobbyist in Tennessee who lobbied for Lee’s universal school choice proposal this year.

Will Lee sign red flag preemption bill?

Lee on Thursday received Senate Bill 2763, a preemption bill that blocks any local Tennessee municipality from passing their own version of an extreme risk protection order or "red flag" law, which could remove guns from individuals deemed a threat.

Republican lawmakers passed the bill in the final days of the legislative session, just a year after Lee tried and failed to push legislators to pass his version of a red flag law in the wake of the Covenant School shooting.

Whether or not Lee will sign the bill remains to be seen. It will almost certainly become law: Lee has never exercised his veto power, which is essentially toothless as the General Assembly holds a simply majority override power. But he could decline to sign his name to it, allowing it to go into effect within 10 days without his signature.

Ogles, Harshbarger attend Trump trial

Tennessee's U.S. Reps. Andy Ogles and Diana Harshbarger traveled to New York City to attend the hush money trial of former President Donald Trump on Thursday, criticizing the effort as “political persecution.”

“We are witnessing unprecedented actions of election interference emanating directly from the White House that are more akin to dictatorships,” Ogles shared in a social media post.

Harshbarger and Ogles both spoke briefly at a news conference outside the courthouse alongside Trump loyalist colleagues U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz, Anna Paulina Luna, Lauren Boebert and others during which Ogles called the proceeding “a joke of a trial.”

“If I started a story with a convicted felon and a hooker walk into a bar you would immediately know it's a joke,” Ogles said, attacking the testimony of Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels claiming they both have “a vengeance against the president.”

Harshbarger called the trial “the persecution of a patriot.”

“This is not a prosecution, this is a persecution,” Ogles said. “We have a two-tiered justice system in this country. And if a former president can be targeted by a woke and corrupt judge, then you can be targeted as well.”

Lee signs new law allowing death penalty for child rape

Lee signed into law this week a measure allowing the death penalty for defendents convicted of raping a child.

Lawmakers backing the bill during the legislative session admitted the bill is an effort to overturn a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling and could be constitutionally challenged.

But Lee said this week that a U.S. Supreme Court challenge was not his goal in signing the legislation.

“I think oftentimes, when legislation is signed, there's broad disagreement about whether or not it's constitutional and sometimes that has to be tested. I don't think the purpose of this was to test that — certainly that wasn't my purpose,” Lee said.

In the 2008 case Kennedy v. Louisiana, the high court struck down as unconstitutional a Louisiana law that permitted capital punishment in child rape cases that do not involve the victim’s death. Justices found that the death penalty amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Only seven other states have passed similar laws allowing the death penalty for non-fatal rape of a child under 12. Tennessee is one of 27 states that allows capital punishment and had not previously permitted capital punishment for non-homicide crimes.

“Those particular crimes against children are some of the most heinous that there are,” Lee said. “I think that's why the General Assembly considered and subsequently and ultimately passed that piece of legislation. And I decided to agree with them and sign it.”

Catch up on the week:

• Complaint: Tennessee Education Chief's travel reimbursements allegedly violate ethics code

• Republican governors Bill Lee and Spencer Cox say they want to forge alliance against partisan rancor

• Appeals court upholds Tennessee sex offender registry, reversing lower court ruling

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visiting Nashville. Will he be on Tennessee ballots?

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Franklin, TN Dr. Laura Andreson vies for House seat