WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (WKNO HOST): The phrase "the chickens have come home to roost" may mean one thing to a poultry farmer, but something else entirely when used in the political realm. With us to parse some contemporary examples of that is Memphis political analyst Otis Sanford. Welcome back.
OTIS SANFORD: Thank you, Chris, and we did have chickens on our farm. So, I think I can relate to what you're talking about.
BLANK: That will be useful today. Otis, for a few years now, Republican lawmakers have wielded the power of their supermajority in Nashville to pass a slate of laws appealing to the extreme right wing. One recurring theme for these lawmakers is that public schools weren't doing enough to cater to the views of religious parents. So the state passed what was called a Parental Rights law requiring written parental permission for any kind of health-related services. We know that the underlying motive was that it prevents teens from seeking birth control or counseling about sexual identity without their parents knowing. Democrats say its real function is to intimidate school systems into being more conservative. But as an unintended consequence school nurses this week have announced that they can't so much as give out a bandage or an ice pack without a parent's permission on file. Otis, what does it say about a state where a fourth grader with a skinned knee can't get a Band-Aid because lawmakers don't want teens asking about condoms?
SANFORD: Well, what it says is we are living in one of the most regressive states of the fifty United States. We have a legislature, Chris, that does not think about all of the possible consequences when they are passing these laws. And your premise is correct. The whole purpose for this law is to make conservative values a part of everyday school life. And they don't want health-related things that could creep over into indoctrination or sexual identity even mentioned in schools.
But when they passed this law, it did not define a lot of what they were saying in the law. And so now you do have nurses and others at the school saying, "if I don't see a consent form in her file, the bleeding is going to have to continue." This is an example of a legislature that does not think before it acts.
BLANK: Partly the reason for concern that these nurses have is that the penalties for doing something like giving a Band-Aid without a permission slip is you could lose your license as a state nurse. You could be fired from the school system. So why would you even take that risk?
SANFORD: This is ridiculousness, and I believe that the legislature may try to go back and put more specifics into the law, but the sponsors are digging in their heels and they say the law is just fine the way it is.
BLANK: It has been noted that some of these laws don't explicitly dictate policies, so much as just create fear around testing these ideas. And one example of that tactic in another area was a recent instance of the Tennessee Division of Elections sending notices to 14,000 people casting doubt on their US citizenship. The notices were aimed at registered voters who were also immigrants. And one of them, it turns out, is the owner of Memphis's Majestic restaurant, who is Irish. He became a full citizen in 2011. And he described the state threatening him with felony voter fraud as a "gut punch." Democrats say this is essentially voter intimidation. After all, states don't determine citizenship; the federal government does. And the Tennessee Attorney General doubled-down by hiring a law firm at $450 per hour to defend this practice against a possible lawsuit. And I wonder, Otis, if you see a pattern here of unethical behavior -- maybe not illegal -- in just the willingness to spend taxpayer dollars as a bulwark against criticism.
SANFORD: Absolutely I do. And, of course, our state Attorney General has already shown where his loyalties lie. It's not lost on me that the person he hired to defend this is a former Trump person. Very conservative. So that speaks for itself. Yes, this is an intimidation tactic. I mean, how did they come across those 14,000? What kind of process did they use to pick the names? This is nothing but intimidation, again, to try to address a problem that really does not exist.
BLANK: So you don't see this as a way to protect the vote against people who are voting illegally?
SANFORD: I don't think there are a lot of people in Tennessee who are voting illegally. Our big issue is getting people to vote at all. We have one of the lowest voter turnouts in most elections. Just look at the August 1st election. In Shelby County it was like 12 percent turnout. The issue is getting duly registered voters to actually go to the polls and vote. It's not to try to intimidate people who are registered, and I just don't know how the state is coming up with the names to send these nasty letters to.
