Sam Stockard, Tennessee Lookout

This article has been edited by Raw Story.

Tennessee’s Ethics Commission could take action against Memphis area residents after dismissing their sworn complaint against Sen. Brent Taylor for critical remarks he made against participants of a “No Kings” rally there.

Commission members and state ethics director Bill Young raised questions this week about whether the residents tried to “weaponize” the process to go after Taylor, a Shelby County Republican who blasted people who rallied against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies in June, calling them “idiots” and warning the police would arrest them for an illegal protest. Taylor spoke on a Memphis radio station and then posted comments on the X, formerly Twitter, calling the protesters “purple-haired Jihadis.”...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents riled up folks when they conducted a dragnet in a South Nashville neighborhood a month ago and detained nearly 200 people.

But city streets aren’t the only place where federal agents are picking up immigrants for deportation. The Davidson County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Thursday it has released 283 inmates to ICE custody in 2025, notably higher than last year’s number.

Oddly enough, the sheriff’s office doesn’t have information on whether those inmates have legal documentation to be in the country. It sends fingerprints collected in the booking process to national databases, including those ICE is able to access, according to spokesman Jon Adams....

The prosecution’s chief witness in Tennessee’s political corruption case testified Monday that the identities of former House Speaker Glen Casada and his ex-chief of staff had to be “masked” because of their connection to a racist and sexist texting scandal.

On the trial’s fifth day, former state Rep. Robin Smith of Hixson explained how she, Casada and Cade Cothren met at a Nashville bar in October 2019 to plan the formation of Phoenix Solutions, a shadowy company that printed and sent out constituent mailers for lawmakers without their knowledge of who ran it.

Smith, who pleaded guilty to honest services fraud in 2022 and is cooperating with federal prosecutors in the kickback case against Casada and Cothren, described the state’s postage and printing program for lawmakers as “low-hanging fruit” because it would be an instant way to make money. House members receive $3,000 in state funds to send out surveys and informational mailers, both of which must receive approval from the Speaker’s office and the director of legislative administration. ...

Attorneys for a former House speaker and legislative staffer indicted in a federal corruption case say in a new court filing that House Speaker Cameron Sexton or someone on his staff likely wore a wire to provide investigators with information five years ago.

Ex-Speaker Glen Casada and his chief of staff, Cade Cothren, claim federal prosecutors are refusing to disclose the identity of people who secretly gathered information against them in a fraud investigation, thus keeping the pair from putting them on the stand as witnesses in a trial set for April 22. Attorneys for Casada and Cothren want the court to compel federal prosecutors to identify their informants.

Sexton became House speaker after Casada resigned from the post and is cooperating with federal prosecutors in the case. The filing says it is unlikely that former Legislative Administration director Connie Ridley wore a wire as part of the investigation and recorded House Republican Caucus Campaign Committee conversations, as a person identified as “CHS1” allegedly did. ...

Tennessee Republicans are bucking for a Supreme Court showdown to end the constitutional requirement for public schools to teach every child regardless of their immigration status.

But at least one member of the majority party says lawmakers are operating out of “fear” that they’ll run into primary opposition next year if they don’t vote for a bill allowing school districts to opt out of serving immigrant children without permanent legal status.

“There’s an old saying on Wall Street: When the ducks are quacking, you feed ’em,” said Sen. Todd Gardenhire, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “And the hysteria of anti-Hispanics is running rampant right now, and the ducks are quacking, so this bill is designed to satisfy the ducks and feed ’em what they want to eat.” ...