Aaron Gulbransen, Official Guest Host of The Tennessee Star Report and Executive Director of The Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition lays out important details about a new anti-human trafficking bill making its way through the State House and State Senate during this week’s special session.
TRANSCRIPT
Michael Patrick Leahy: 7:06 AM – Carol Swain is in the house; her new book is The Adversity of Diversity. Also in the house right now, Aaron Gulbransen, the executive director of the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition.
Aaron I guess we’re gonna have four days of special session.
Aaron Gulbransen: That’s what it looks like, yep.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Day one, I would say – if you’re going to count who won – it was a win for the Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly.
What’s on the agenda for day two?
Aaron Gulbransen: So, you know, you’ll have the second reading in the House of some bills. The Senate has a very, very brief floor session – as they are.
Then you will have senate committees today. Like, like at 2:00pm.
There’s another committee meeting at 10:30am. I don’t have any bills before it – it might be the education committee, I’m forgetting, but don’t hold me exactly to that one.
But at 2:00pm there will be the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting where our TBI Report Anti-Human Trafficking Bill will be heard today.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Just tell our listeners what that bill is and why it’s so important Because human trafficking – modern slavery in the United States – is a huge, huge problem that you’ve identified; Republicans have identified.
Democrats, apparently, don’t seem to care about modern slavery.
Aaron Gulbransen: Right; they don’t.
And our board chairman Aaron Spradlin. has been physically rescuing girls and children for seven years, himself.
It is exactly right.
The Marxist Left does not care about – at best, they don’t care about saving children and women for modern day slavery. At worst, they enable it and you know, it’s a hundred percent for sure that the Biden administration enables it with their policies at the very least.
But, so we have a bill and it’s HB741 and SB7088 filed by House Majority Leader William Lambert and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson and also co-sponsors Mark Cochran and Deborah Moody in the House, and the prime co-sponsor in the Senate is chairman Ken Yeager, which we appreciate.
And so what it does, it’s a very important tool that give law enforcement areas to identify. It’s a yearly report on incidents of child and human trafficking.
Now, child and human trafficking – we haven’t had one of those reports in over a decade. Who knows how many – who truly knows how many lives and victims have been lost and victimized to this scourge.
And so this is vitally important to do now, for special session not to wait. Because the purpose of the bill is to have a report done by December 1st. And what and why is that important? Well, you have benchmarks; you have a lot more intel. You even identify blind spots, so you can go into regular session and argue about money, basically – how much funding you’re gonna give, what new priorities you’re gonna have.
We need this report, we need it now because it’s an issue that – I mean, there are children enslaved to this day, and I don’t mean–
Michael Patrick Leahy: Within our listening audience. Right now.
In Middle Tennessee, there are children, many of them, that have been brought up from Latin America some, not – some from here in the United States – that are subjected to human slavery.
They’re forced to engage in prostitution and other types of activity that they’ve been forced into.
It is a great, great moral problem that the United States allows this to happen, and right here – you’ve done some ride-alongs.
Even Justin Jones’ district, the 52nd district, human trafficking is a huge problem.
Justin Jones doesn’t seem to care about it at all. He just wants to get his face on MSNBC and say silly things about, you know, how bad the Republicans are.
Aaron Gulbransen: It’s pretty ridiculous when you can drive through Justin Jones’ district and see it almost every block that we drove on, and also driving past the Justin Jones sign where, within a rock throwing distance, you’re witnessing the trafficking going on.
I’ve been on three of those missions, you know, we handed out flyers and did search and rescue stuff.
I mean, again, three times is not something to brag about, but it’s something I’ve seen and witnessed myself and I can later talk about.
Michael Patrick Leahy: So we have a modern slavery problem in the United States, and right here in Middle Tennessee, this is an opportunity in this special session to pass a bill that would require the TBI to document it.
Aaron Gulbransen: Right. And I would say this, I know there was a giant push for – I don’t know how big it was ’cause you look at the vote total – but there was a push among some corners, and probably some people listening right now, that wanted the general assembly to gavel in and gavel out.
I understand your perspective on that. It obviously hasn’t happened, and it’s not happening. So let’s move on just like we all opposed the special session to begin with and we moved on.
Let’s move on to saving children. Let’s move on to passing this bill. It’s a good bill.
You can take whatever position you want on any other bills.
I will say: no Red Flag laws.
There’s three Democrat Red Flag laws that have been filed, which we’ve already announced our opposition to, and we’re going to make sure that they don’t pass.
But this is a very important bill. If you care about children, if you care about women; if you are for children and for women, this is very important to pass.
Michael Patrick Leahy: So, I’ve been very clear that I have opposed this special session because it’s not a special session. It’s really another general session.
Nonetheless, the governor can proclaim it, even though in my view, it is a dramatic break from modern Tennessee political history.
I will say, that when we did the research on it, we found that there was another governor over a hundred years ago had a laundry list special session.
He was another Republican, Governor Ben Hooper, and so the governor can make such a call even though it’s a break from modern political tradition.
To me, I think that this would be a great success if the Tennessee General Assembly passes one bill.
One bill and that bill is the anti-human trafficking bill that Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson and House Majority Leader William Lamberth have proposed.
That’s my view.
Aaron Gulbransen: Well, I appreciate that, and I just want to add that this shows why it’s very, very important. To engage with people even when you’re in the middle of a disagreement. We’ve had some things that we’ve disagreed with Governor Lee on in the past. And we’re not gonna agree with everything, every legislator, where the entire body does from time to time.
But we made a point to come together on this issue and to make a joint commitment to fight for children on this issue. And it’s been amazing. It yielded this bill filed by Lamberth and Johnson – and it’s an admin bill and it’s very important.
So I appreciate everybody involved and demonstrating their commitment to saving the lives of women and children.
Michael Patrick Leahy: And we’ll see how it plays out.
I think that it is currently on a path to passing. And as I said, I hope it’s the only bill that passes in this session.
We’ll have more when we get back.
This is The Tennessee Star Report.
He’s Aaron Gulbransen; she’s Carol Swain. I’m Michael Patrick Leahy.
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio or Spotify.
Background Photo “Tennessee State House Chamber” by Antony-22. CC BY-SA 4.0.
