Tennessee state House speaker owns house outside his district, stiffs taxpayers on 236-mile commute
Journalist Judd Legum reveals more potential trouble for Sexton. Seems Sexton hasn’t paid property taxes on the Nashville house—and only paid 2022 property taxes on the Crossville condo after Legum turned on the hot lights. The 2021 property taxes remain unpaid.
Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, Cameron Sexton, led the charge to expel three Democrats from the state House for participating in a protest calling for gun reform. The GOP supermajority voted to expel Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis. The third and sole white representative up for vote, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, survived by just one vote.
But it turns out that Sexton may have other problems. He nominally represents a swath of exurban and rural territory between Knoxville and Nashville, but Judd Legum of Popular Information has compiled mounting evidence that he actually lives year-round in Nashville—contrary to the state constitution’s requirement that state legislators are residents of the districts they represent. His son is enrolled in a school outside Nashville, and Sexton rarely sets foot in his nominal hometown. Moreover, he only spent a little over a month in Nashville last year on official business when the legislature wasn’t in session.
The evidence that Sexton doesn’t really live in the district he represents grew exponentially on Thursday, when Legum revealed that Sexton used some, shall we say, novel means to buy a house in Nashville. This is probably the strongest evidence yet that Sexton does not actually live in his district—and thus is not qualified to serve in the legislature.
RELATED STORY: Expelled to reinstated: Pearson returns to Tennessee House