Image Credit: Lee Mills – TNGOP State Committeeman District 32 / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –
A resolution opposing a bill that would strip GOPs of convention and caucus rights passed with overwhelming support from State Executive Committee (SEC) members at their spring meeting on Saturday.
House Bill 0855 (HB0855), sponsored by Freshman Representative Lee Reeves (R-Franklin-District 65) and its companion Senate Bill 0799 (SB0799), sponsored by Senator Jack Johnson (R-Franklin-District 27), began its journey in the legislative process as a sneaky caption bill and has since been denounced by local GOPs across the state.
As amended, the legislation effectively terminates autonomy of county political parties to conduct free and fair elections for their party officers. The bill forbids county parties from holding conventions to select Republican nominees and instead, would require officer elections via regular primary elections, placing those elections under control of the state.
At the SEC meeting on Saturday in Mt. Juliet, TNGOP District 32 State Committeeman Lee Mills presented a resolution to affirm the right of the Republican County Executive Committees to determine how candidates are nominated for public office – by caucus/convention or by primary election – with state interference.
The resolution passed almost unanimously, with only two members in opposition.
In a Facebook post, Mills stated that support for the resolution “sends a strong and unmistakable message.”
“The grassroots matter,” said Mills. “Local Republican leaders, elected by their peers, know their communities better than anyone in Nashville ever will—and they deserve the autonomy to choose the nomination process that works best for their counties.”
The full text of the resolution is as follows:
WHEREAS, Senate Bill 799 and House Bill 855 (SB 799 / HB 855) mandate that statewide political parties nominate candidates exclusively through state-run primary elections for all partisan offices, removing the right of parties to use conventions or other methods preferred by local members;
WHEREAS, The Tennessee Republican Party has a longstanding tradition of allowing county parties in all 95 counties to determine their own nomination processes, respecting local control, grassroots decision-making, and regional diversity;
WHEREAS, The fiscal note accompanying SB 799 / HB 855 confirms that the legislation imposes no additional cost to the state, revealing it as a blatant act of government overreach designed not for fiscal efficiency, but to centralize control over party operations;
WHEREAS, The courts have consistently affirmed that political parties possess a constitutional right under the First Amendment to determine their own nomination procedures, and SB 799 / HB 855 would infringe upon that right by mandating a one-size-fits-all process;
WHEREAS, SB 799 / HB 855 includes an arbitrary and discriminatory grandfather clause that allows certain counties to retain nominating conventions based on past practice, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by treating counties unequally;
WHEREAS, Republican voters have entrusted their elected leaders with a supermajority in the General Assembly to uphold party values and protect grassroots integrity, and this legislation represents a betrayal of that trust;
RESOLVED, That the Tennessee Republican Party State Executive Committee, meeting in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee on April 12, 2025, strongly opposes SB 799 / HB 855 and any legislative effort to strip political parties of their constitutional right to determine how their candidates are nominated;
RESOLVED, That the Tennessee Republican Party urges all Republican members of the General Assembly to vote against SB 799 / HB 855 and to defend the Party’s right to self-governance and freedom of association.
RESOLVED, That this resolution be distributed to the Governor of Tennessee, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Lieutenant Governor, and all Republican members of the Tennessee General Assembly.
One section was removed after a 50/50 vote, which would have added at the very end, “and that the Republican legislators be reminded that any vote in favor of SB 779 / HB 855 will be remembered as a vote against the very grassroots that built and sustain[s] our Party.”
In a recent op-ed, Mills wrote that HB0855/SB0799 was a “disgraceful” and unconstitutional overreach by the Republican supermajority in the state’s General Assembly that “has declared war on its own base.”
The legislation’s Williamson County sponsors could be suspected of engaging in retaliation shenanigans after the losers of their local GOP’s reorganization convention in March – Williamson County Conservatives (WCC) – challenged the results that saw a narrow margin of votes electing Elevate 2025 to party leadership.
On Saturday, that challenge was voted down unanimously by the ten-member Tennessee GOP due to a lack of evidence.
All 61 members of the SEC also voted unanimously to deny WCC’s claim calling to vacate the Williamson County GOP’s election and hold a new convention, stating that WCC had no case.
HB0885 is scheduled to be heard on the House floor on Monday, April 14th, 2025.
About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
