Tennessee Republicans once flipped the state red—but today many act more like rebranded Clinton Democrats than MAGA conservatives. With 2A rights under attack, Tennesseans must ask: How red is Tennessee, really?
By Kelly M. Jackson | TruthWire News
On September 2, 2025, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, joined by Governor Bill Lee, filed an appeal against a three-judge panel’s unanimous decision striking down two of the state’s most restrictive gun control statutes: the “intent to go armed” law and the statute banning firearms in parks and recreational spaces. For many Tennesseans, this ruling was not only a long-awaited vindication of their rights, but a recognition that the state had been enforcing laws that clearly violated both the Tennessee and United States Constitutions. That victory now hangs in the balance as Republican leadership seeks to reverse it.
The contradiction is glaring. Tennessee has been one of Donald J. Trump’s strongest states in every presidential contest. He won here with 61.1 percent of the vote in 2016, 60.7 percent in 2020, and an even higher 63.5 percent in 2024. With margins like these, Tennessee should be the last place in the nation where Republicans in power move to defend Jim Crow–era restrictions on the right to bear arms. Yet that is exactly what is happening. These statutes, first imposed in the 1820s—barely five years after the Tennessee Constitution was ratified—were written in the spirit of control, not liberty. They were designed to weaken citizens’ ability to defend themselves, and for generations have stood as a relic of a government more concerned with power than freedom.
Republicans flipped Tennessee from Democratic control 21 years ago and secured total dominance 13 years back. But the question must be asked: has the state’s leadership actually governed as conservatives, or have they merely taken the reins from the old Blue Dog Democrats, inheriting their establishment mentality while cloaking it in Republican branding? The answer seems obvious in light of this appeal. Leaders such as Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, Caucus chiefs Jeremy Faison and William Lamberth, Senate leader Ken Yager, and Lt. Governor Randy McNally, who has been in office since 1978, all claim to be conservatives. Yet their record suggests otherwise. Their style of governance is cautious, protective of the status quo, and largely out of step with the bold standard for conservatism that Donald Trump set nearly a decade ago when he came down the golden escalator in 2015.
The defense and appeal of unconstitutional laws that strip Tennesseans of their most basic rights only underscores this point. Instead of embracing a ruling that restores freedom, Governor Lee and Attorney General Skrmetti are fighting to bring back laws that have no place in a state as deeply conservative as Tennessee. This is not leadership. It is Republican in Name Only—an establishment class acting as caretakers of bureaucracy rather than champions of liberty.
One exception to this inertia has come from the grassroots inside the legislature. Representative Monty Fritts has led the charge to push back on the appeal, organizing a group of lawmakers to stand publicly against it. Thanks to his initiative, Senators Brent Taylor, Joey Hensley, Page Walley, and Ed Jackson, along with Representatives Jody Barrett, Clay Doggett, Michelle Reneau, and Todd Warner, signed letters urging Governor Lee and AG Skrmetti to accept the trial court’s decision. This bloc is small but determined, and their leadership contrasts sharply with the silence of the Republican supermajority as a whole.
Fritts made the case plainly:
“Shall Not Be Infringed is really clear. The Hughes v. Lee decision took us toward verbatim compliance with that wording. To appeal on any grounds is a step away from liberty in Tennessee. And it is a big government action we would expect from a Biden or a Harris not from a Tennessee Governor. As the notice to appeal has been filed perhaps the Defendants, Gov Lee and the others, will reconsider for the sake of Liberty. Accepting the ruling and ridding Tennessee of what is a Jim Crow era infringement is the constitutional thing to do IMO. Hopefully the Nashville establishment has no plans to extend Jim Crow era laws into perpetuity. Several bills have addressed the matters of infringement only to be summer studied or killed by some maneuver. Tennessee employees working in legislators offices and testifying in committee meetings against the citizens Creator endowed rights must stop. Rather than manipulating legislation these employees should be working a Governor’s citizen helpline answering the concerns of the Tennesseans for whom they work.”
TruthWire also reached out to Rep. Todd Warner who had this to add: “What’s happening in Tennessee should shake every freedom-loving citizen to their core. Our governor and attorney general — who swore to uphold the Constitution — are leading the charge to strip away your 2A rights. This isn’t Biden’s DOJ, this is happening right here at home. And while they fight to dismantle freedoms, GOP leadership sits in silence. That silence isn’t weakness — it’s complicity. Tennesseans deserve leaders who fight for their rights, not ones who sell them out while smiling for the cameras.”
Meanwhile, media coverage of the appeal illuminated just how thin Republican pushback has been. Local outlets largely quoted Democrats like Sen. London Lamar of Memphis, who blasted the ruling as “reckless” and praised Lee’s appeal. Lamar claimed the ruling “ties the hands of police officers” and is a “recipe for tragedy,” while accusing Republicans of pandering to the “gun lobby.” That her comments dominated the narrative shows the deeper problem: the silence of Tennessee’s Republican supermajority leaves Democrats to define the debate. And when Republican leaders do speak, they sound less like MAGA conservatives and more like Bush-era establishment figures—nearly indistinguishable from the Clinton-era Democrats they replaced two decades ago. One might reasonably conclude that today’s Tennessee Republicans are simply Clinton Democrats rebranded, because that’s how they govern.
The appeal itself could take years to resolve, potentially dragging through the appellate courts and even reaching the Tennessee Supreme Court. In the meantime, Tennesseans remain under the weight of unconstitutional statutes. Rights delayed are rights denied, and this appeal is nothing less than a delay tactic that denies citizens the protections their constitution guarantees. The Tennessee Constitution requires every officeholder to swear an oath to support both the state and federal constitutions. That oath does not include defending laws already declared unconstitutional. Yet in defending and now appealing these statutes, Republican leadership is doing exactly that.
This raises a sobering question: how red is Tennessee, really? The voters have made their will clear, delivering overwhelming margins to President Trump in three consecutive elections. They have sent Republicans to dominate the state legislature with supermajorities. And still, the very leaders elected to defend constitutional rights are now working to keep the infringements in place. Tennessee is a conservative state with an establishment government, and the gap between the two grows clearer with every decision like this one.
Until Tennessee’s Republican leaders stop acting like bureaucratic caretakers and start defending constitutional rights with conviction, their claims of conservatism will ring hollow. For now, the appeal moves forward.
And as long as it does, Tennesseans are reminded that liberty delayed is liberty denied.
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