GALLATIN, Tenn. (AP) – Shortly after being sworn in final fall, the brand new majority of the Sumner County Commission in Tennessee acted to replace certainly one of its official paperwork. The new model mentioned county operations wouldn’t solely be orderly and environment friendly, however “most importantly reflective of the Judeo-Christian values inherent in the nation’s founding.”
It was an vital second for the 14 commissioners who had campaigned below the banner of the Sumner County Constitutional Republicans. The group had waged a political battle on fellow Republicans they considered as insufficiently conservative on this fast-growing area north of Nashville throughout a bitter major a couple of months earlier than.
Since taking management, that majority has halted plans for a brand new constructing, rejected federal grants and tried to provide away a historic property, actions it mentioned have been according to its dedication to fiscal duty, defending property homeowners and managing development. The group additionally has been concerned in an escalating feud with the county’s election fee in ways in which have prompted considerations about whether or not preparations for the 2024 presidential electin will likely be affected.
Those early strikes have been cheered by their supporters. But some Republicans and neighborhood members say the commissioners are working exterior political norms, inviting lawsuits and jeopardizing elections and different county operations.
“What’s happened here is the Sumner County constitutional conservative Republican group, they don’t believe in government,” mentioned Baker Ring, a Republican who’s serving his fourth time period on the county fee and isn’t aligned with the brand new majority. “They’re opposed to government. But now they are the government.”
The tensions are just like these enjoying out in communities throughout the United States the place conservative teams have been operating candidates for native workplaces lately and generally profitable majorities, upending the way in which native governments function.
They have been motivated by pandemic restrictions, false claims associated to the 2020 presidential election, disagreements over race and gender training, or a want to reign in what they see as unaccountable bureaucracies, with a aim of taking management of college and library boards, county commissions and metropolis councils.
With thousands and thousands of Republican Party voters persevering with to consider former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, lots of the new majorities overseeing county governments are contemplating modifications to how elections are run, from eliminating voting machines to eradicating poll drop containers.
The strain has led some native election officers across the nation to stop. In a couple of circumstances, they’ve been changed by individuals who promoted election conspiracy theories.
While their success at profitable workplace has different, the implications once they do have gotten obvious in locations akin to Sumner County, the place they’ll wield energy – akin to budgeting authority – that would have implications for a way elections are run and votes are tallied.
“If we don’t fund it, you don’t get to do it,” one county commissioner, Jeremy Mansfield, informed the election administrator and chair of the election fee throughout a contentious assembly final fall.
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Sumner County is simply northeast of Nashville, the place city sprawl meets open land. Horse and cow pastures give method to deliberate communities with bucolic names like Durham Farms and The Retreat at Norman Farm that encompass the principle cities of Gallatin and Hendersonville.
Census figures present the county’s inhabitants, now practically 204,000, grew 22% between the 2010 and 2020, pushed partly by transplants from California and Texas who have been lured by a mixture of conservative politics, decrease housing costs and no state revenue tax. The county is dominated by Republicans and backed Trump with 69% of the vote in 2020.
The development has led to a necessity for extra authorities providers, together with colleges and academics, whereas offering a chance for a right-wing factor throughout the native Republican Party to achieve energy.
“They appeal to people who moved here from other states saying, ‘If we don’t get elected, our Sumner County will become like your county that you came from, and you don’t want us to become like you, so you need to vote for our people,’” mentioned Ring, a semiretired highschool authorities instructor. “And that works in a lot of parts of the county.”
Eight Republican commissioners have been defeated within the May 2022 major by challengers aligned with the Constitutional Republicans. That paved the way in which for the group to type the bulk after an August normal election wherein lower than 15% of registered voters solid ballots. Helping gas the group’s rise have been two property tax will increase accepted by the county fee over the previous decade or so.
Ring didn’t have a major challenger and has discovered himself referred to as a “RINO” – Republican In Name Only – regardless that “for most of my life, I’ve been the most conservative person in the room.” He is amongst greater than two dozen present and former native officers featured on a “Wall of Shame” that the Constitutional Republicans created on their web site.
The group’s social media exercise consists of common updates on what the fee is doing, together with frequent swipes towards others of their get together.
“The Republican party (GOP) is not your friend! They do not like us!” learn one current put up.
“We exist to smoke out these Rinocrats,” mentioned one other.
Patrick Flowers, a Democrat who’s on the board of some Sumner County nonprofit organizations, mentioned he was saddened by the discourse. He has seen lifelong conservative buddies labeled as “left-wing Democrats” by the Constitutional Republicans group.
“The newly elected folks have this war mentality,” he mentioned. “It’s not, ‘Let’s listen and talk.’ They think they have instructions from God, and there is no one who can change their opinion.”
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When the county’s election administrator got here earlier than the fee final fall in search of cash to pay election employees for the November midterms, commissioners refused and pointed to cash she nonetheless had within the financial institution.
The election administrator, Lori Atchley, has continued to ask, warning the fee that she is working at a deficit as a result of the employees needed to be paid. Commissioners haven’t budged.
It was at that assembly that Mansfield, in his second time period on the fee and an influential member of the Constitutional Republicans group, mentioned two weeks of early voting, as required by state regulation, “just seems excessive for this county.” He has expressed help for modifications to how elections are carried out, together with utilizing paper ballots crammed out by hand that may be hand-counted in native polling locations solely on Election Day.
When a fellow commissioner mentioned the county would quickly be including vote facilities – polling locations the place anybody within the county can vote – Mansfield replied, “Well, we can always change that, too.”
Whether the county makes use of vote facilities or has a number of early voting areas falls below the authority of the 5 state-appointed members of the county election fee, which hires the native election administrator. But county commissioners management funding, and the newly elected conservatives say the election funds is larger than comparable counties and that modifications akin to vote facilities are laborious to justify with out proof they are going to improve turnout.
The election fee’s want to maneuver its operations to a bigger constructing is on the heart of one other dispute between election officers and people now main the county fee who say the transfer was by no means licensed and so they need the house for different makes use of. Election officers say they solely wanted approval from the county mayor, which they obtained earlier than the present fee took workplace. They say they have already got been utilizing the brand new location for storage, coaching classes and conferences, and are asking the county for $300,000 to cowl the prices of the transfer and the vote facilities.
The election fee says the bigger house and extra safety it offers are wanted to retailer the county’s new voting machines, that are bigger and heavier than the present ones. Nevertheless, county commissioners voted in March to require the election operations to vacate the constructing.
The election fee responded by submitting a lawsuit towards the county, arguing the dispute and compelled transfer “threaten the integrity of the 2024 election before a single vote has been cast.”
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Mansfield mentioned he wouldn’t describe elections within the United States as safe or reliable and that he believes the native election administrator has contributed to an erosion of confidence in the neighborhood. Among different issues, he pointed to a current misdemeanor quotation issued to Atchley over a personal property dispute unrelated to her job.
“Elections should be about integrity and trust,” he mentioned.
Atchley referred questions in regards to the lawsuit to the election fee’s legal professional and didn’t reply to a message in search of remark in regards to the quotation and Mansfield’s criticism. Tom Lee, the election fee’s lawyer, mentioned members regard the quotation as a “private matter.” There have been no reviews of large-scale election issues within the county, and the state lately reappointed members of the election fee.
Commissioner Matthew Shoaf, one of many Constitutional Republicans elected final yr, mentioned considerations stem from election officers making purchases and signing contracts related to the transfer to the bigger constructing with out authorization from the fee. He mentioned he was stunned to see the election fee rent a lawyer and threaten a lawsuit earlier than they’d an opportunity to work by the disagreement.
Lee, the election fee’s lawyer, mentioned election employees continues to work with the county because it seeks readability from the court docket and prepares for the state’s presidential major early subsequent yr.
“We filed our lawsuit because frankly we have plenty to do right now that is pressing business, and we need to be about that business,” Lee mentioned. “We have a job to do, it’s an important job and we’re intent on doing it well.”
Shoaf wouldn’t speak particularly in regards to the election fee’s lawsuit however mentioned the elections division was not being handled any in a different way from different county departments when requested to justify their funds requests.
“Everybody says, ‘I’m fiscally conservative,’” mentioned Shoaf. “Saying and doing are two different things.”
Both he and Mansfield described what they mentioned have been frustrations in the neighborhood with those that sat on the earlier county fee.
“People want small government and government they can trust,” Mansfield mentioned. “But they feel like they can’t trust government because locally they don’t feel the government has been responsible with the tax dollars they have been entrusted with.”
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Charlena Aumiller by no means imagined she can be attending so many conferences of the Sumner County Commission and its committees.
A lawyer who beforehand labored for the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office, Aumiller has develop into an area authorities watchdog. She has chronicled the county fee’s actions with common posts on a public social media web page and filed a lawsuit towards the fee that claimed, partly, violations of the state’s open conferences regulation.
A Republican and mom of two, Aumiller mentioned she turned involved in regards to the rise of the Constitutional Republicans group through the pandemic and makes an attempt to push their agenda in native colleges.
“At one point, I was ignorant, totally oblivious with what is going on — whoever is in office, it’s all interchangeable. That’s because I believed there were safeguards,” she mentioned. “What I am seeing, they don’t care about laws. They don’t care about rules. I have never seen anything so fragile as our government.”
Elected to his first time period final yr, County Commissioner Wes Wynne is a Republican and Christian, however he’s not a part of the Constitutional Republican bloc and is anxious by the bulk’s actions, citing the submitting of 4 lawsuits because the new commissioners took workplace.
Wynne mentioned he has been pushed apart, assigned to only one committee when others usually serve on three. He mentioned he additionally has been focused with an ethics criticism after questioning the {qualifications} of an individual nominated to serve on an area board.
Wynne mentioned he has been disheartened to see Christian values invoked by commissioners solely to be adopted by actions he views as questionable. He mentioned he struggled over how he would vote on the Judeo-Christian query, seeing it as an pointless authorized threat.
“You know, I’m sworn to do the business of the county but also I’m called, too, to follow the direction of God,” mentioned Wynne, who finally abstained. “That was one that I felt was more of a gotcha-type of vote. If you support it, great. If you don’t, then we’re going to use that against you later.”
Wynne mentioned he doesn’t perceive why there’s been a lot animosity between the county fee and election officers. He provided a movement that introduced a compromise on utilizing the bigger constructing, however mentioned it was ignored.
“So far, our commission has done a fabulous job at grinding every ax that they can find against people they don’t like,” Wynne mentioned.
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