Michael Patrick Leahy, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Tennessee Star, vowed to help “lead the charge” to retire Tennessee State Representative Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill) in response to the lawmaker’s vote against Governor Bill Lee’s proposed school voucher program.
Last week, state lawmakers on the K-12 Subcommittee voted 6-2 to pass the House version of the governor’s school voucher program, which would make Education Freedom Scholarships worth $7,000 available to students in every county of the state.
Warner joined Democrat State Representative Sam McKenzie (D-Knoxville) in voting against the voucher program.
Leahy said on Thursday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report, “nothing would please me more than to lead the charge that would take Todd Warner and retire him from the Tennessee General Assembly, because that’s where he belongs.”
“He’s not going to get anything done at all; he’s just there to align with the Tennessee Marxists. That’s the reality of what he’s doing and he needs to be kicked out,” Leahy added.
In regards to the representative’s vote against the school choice program, Leahy said that “multiple sources” have come forward saying Warner was voting based on former political candidate and fringe theory lobbyist Gary Humble’s direct orders.
“Multiple sources tell me that he was in that committee meeting Gary Humble was texting him what to say and little puppet Todd Warner was repeating, reading his cell phone texts as he was questioning witnesses,” Leahy said.
Leahy went on to argue that if Warner had a legitimate concern regarding the school choice bill, he should have voiced his concerns, “compromise, and work it out.”
“If you are operating in good faith, what you do is you go detail by detail and you compromise and you work it out. You don’t try to blow up your party leader, the governor’s, main legislative agenda for no good reason other than that you hate the leadership,” Leahy said.
“If you live in Southern Williamson County or Marshall County, Chapel Hill we need to find a candidate that will actually be a true conservative to challenge Todd Warner in the primaries,” Leahy added. “He’s already identified himself as a fringe person in the Tennessee General Assembly. He’s not respected at all, and he has sidled up with the grifter pro-Marxist crowd.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “State Rep Todd Warner” by State Rep Todd Warner.
