Kirk Haston

Chairman Kirk Haston, (R) Chairman of the House K-12 Education Subcommittee. Chairman Haston voted with TLRC on almost all of our scored bills, earning him a commendable 97% vote score. He co-sponsored five of our favored bills:

SR0023 – Rudd – Resolution creating a bi-cameral panel to research the recall of Judge Ellen Hobbs Lyle (failed in House Civil Justice subcommittee).

A media story on the subject

SB0230/HB0016 – Hensley/Cepicky – Teacher’s discipline freedom, creating a path for the removal of unruly student (passed)

SB0228/HB0003 – Hensley/Cepicky – Protects female athletes by prohibiting biological males from participating in women’s sports (passed).

SB0623/HB0580 – Bell/Ragan – The teaching of Critical Race Theory is prohibited in TN public schools (passed).

SB0828/HB1181 – Rudd / Bowling – Fetal remains must be disposed of by burial or cremation, making it prohibitive to harvest or sell fetal body parts (passed).

Also, to his credit, he refrained from supporting:

SB0783/HB1204 – Massey/Zachary – Authorizes a special sales and use tax allocation to finance Randy Boyd’s Baseball stadium in Knoxville at the expense of Tennessee taxpayers—Boyd is a mega-millionaire (passed).

Media stories on the subject:
Boyd Sports to Profit from Events Held at Taxpayer-Funded Stadium – Tennessee Star

Member of Senate Committee Considering Legislation for Randy Boyd’s Taxpayer-Funded Baseball Stadium is Employee of Law Firm That Could Benefit From Bill’s Passage – Tennessee Star

Five Sponsors of Bill Enabling Randy Boyd’s Taxpayer-Funded Baseball Stadium Received More Than $90,000 in Campaign Funds from Individuals with Ties to the Project – Tennessee Star

Chairman Haston earned a commendable 9.5 on constitutional fidelity.

Haston’s support of the following bills cost him a few points on his vote score and leadership grade:

HR110 – Hardaway – Resolution to honor Pastor William J. Barber II (sent to Summer Study). Barber is a black theologist CRT advocate whose rhetoric is anti-American in the tradition of Jeremiah Wright.

SB0736/HB0141 – Johnson/Lamberth, a Governor’s bill giving a special tax exemption for the film and video industry (passed). TLRC opposes special treatment for certain industries, picking winners and losers with tax-payer money.

His opposition to SB902/HB0801 also cost him points:

SB902/HB0801 – Stevens/Griffey– Would require employers of 6 or more to utilize an e-verification program in hiring and removes immunity for an employer’s reliance on other forms of verification (failed in s/c Banking & Consumer Affairs Subcommittee of Commerce Committee).

This bill resulted in a lot of drama as described in these media stories

Haston sponsored sixteen bills and an impressive eight of them passed. We are grateful to have Chairman Haston representing District 72 and all Tennesseans that must live under the laws passed in the General Assembly. Kirk Haston could emerge as one of our champions of liberty. We encourage a little more consideration of the constitutionality of some of the bills that seem accepted.