State Senator Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains) has introduced a bill that would, if enacted into law, restrict people who haven’t lived in Tennessee for a certain period from running for Congress.
Specifically, the bill prohibits someone from accepting a nomination as a candidate for U.S. senator or as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives unless he or she voted in the state’s three previous elections.
Niceley told The Tennessee Star on Thursday that he has an amendment that will rewrite the measure, SB 2616.
“Everybody likes this bill, but we decided we would change it to a three-year residency. The Tennessee Constitution says you have to live in Tennessee for seven years to be governor. You have to live here five years to be a judge or a district attorney. You have to live here three years to run for the state Senate or the state House. If you want to run as an elector for the president’s race you have to be qualified to run for state representative, so that makes three years,” Niceley said.
“We thought that since everything else is based on three years residency, five years residency, and seven years residency, we have a bill that says you can’t run in a primary. You can run in the general as an independent. We can’t stop you from running in the general. That’s federal. But the primary is left up to the states. We can control the primaries. The new amendment, which will rewrite the bill, will just say that you can’t run in a primary in Tennessee unless you have lived here for three years.”
Niceley said Republican legislators abolished several taxes — and that prompted people from California, Texas, Florida, Texas, and other states to relocate to Tennessee.
“Everybody wants to live here now,” Niceley said.
“As we have more and more people move in, we thought, ‘Well, it’s time to have a residency requirement.’ Most of us didn’t know that there wasn’t one.”
The Star asked Niceley if this bill is designed to keep out carpetbaggers.
“Well, that is what a lot of people call it. Carpetbaggers came from the North. I guess this bill will keep people from coming from the North and from the South too. I don’t use that carpetbagger word too much,” Niceley said.
“We have a lot of good people moving in here. They just need to live here long enough to learn how to pronounce the names of our counties. It’s a simple short bill, to the point, and it’s hard to argue with.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star and The Georgia Star News. Follow Chris on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, and GETTR. Email tips to [email protected].
Background Photo “Tennessee House Floor” by Ichabod. CC BY-SA 3.0.
