The Republican bona fide status of two candidates for the Republican nomination for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District, recent Tennessee arrivals Morgan Ortagus and Robby Starbuck, have been challenged, sources tell The Tennessee Star.
Once a challenge to a candidate’s Republican bona fide status has been filed and verified as valid, that candidate is off the August 4 Republican primary ballot. The burden of proof to be restored to the ballot lies with the candidate.
Tennessee GOP (TNGOP) Chair Scott Golden told The Star on Friday that the party has received challenges to a number of candidates who have announced their intention to run in the August 2022 Republican primary, but the party will not begin the process of verifying the validity of those challenges until later in this coming week:
We have received letters concerning the credentials of Republicans wishing to be on the August primary ballot; however we have not verified their validity. And we will not be begin that process until the May primary ballot is set on March 3rd. The protest period for the August primary ends at noon on April 9th.
“All August 4th primary challenges will be verified in the next couple of weeks,” Golden added.
The sources who filed challenges to Ortagus and Starbuck have confirmed to The Star that they are bona fide Republicans who live in the 5th Congressional District and that the challenges they have filed will be verified as valid when the TNGOP reviews them later this week.
The Star previously reported that TNGOP bylaws state in Article IX that a candidate must be considered a bona fide Republican in order to qualify to seek the Republican nomination. The bylaws first describe a bona fide Republican as being actively involved in the local or state Tennessee Republican Party or recognized affiliate.
Then, the candidate must satisfy one of two conditions: having voted in three of the last four statewide Republican primaries or be vouched for in writing “(to the satisfaction of the decision makers defined herein) as a bona fide Republican by an officer of the TNGOP or a member of the CEC, excluding SEC members, of the County and/or District where said individual resides. The decision makers defined herein may require additional verification that said individual is indeed a bona fide Republican.”
The challenge process that sources tell The Star that former State Department spokesman Ortagus and music video director Starbuck are about to go through is described in the TNGOP bylaws as:
The challenge is made to the State Chairman from two or more registered voters from within the district that the candidate is running in. A statewide candidate could get challenged from any area of the state, while a congressional candidate could only be challenged from that congressional district. All the individuals making the challenge must “voted in at least three (3) of the last four (4) most recent Statewide Republican primary elections. Such a challenge must be made no later than five (5) days before the deadline for removal of a candidate’s name from a ballot under TCA Section 2-5-204 or otherwise, or any other applicable deadline.”
The Star reported last week Golden said any Republican 5th Congressional candidate whose bona fides are challenged prior to the April 7, 2021 petition filing deadline are considered off the GOP primary ballot unless and until they provide the Tennessee Republican Party State Executive Committee (SEC) with evidence that they do indeed qualify as bona fide Republicans.
A challenged candidate is able to restore their eligibility by providing a voting history document that shows that they voted in three out of four of the most recent statewide primary elections or they are vouched for as a bona fide Republican in writing. A majority of a 13-member committee of the SEC would then have to approve their bona fide status in a majority vote.
A hurdle that Ortagus may face during the challenge process is that she only registered to vote in Tennessee less than three months ago and does not live in the district. Starbuck previously admitted to not voting in Tennessee primaries, which means he doesn’t meet the three-of-four standard.
Former Speaker of the Tennessee House Beth Harwell, businessman Baxter Lee, Natisha Brooks, and former Brigadier General Kurt Winstead are the other publicly announced candidates in the race.
The Star confirmed that Speaker Harwell’s voting history satisfies the three-out-of-four requirement. Baxter Lee’s voting history showed that he voted in three of the last four statewide primaries, but one of them was the 2020 Democrat presidential preference primary. Natisha Brooks has posted her voter history on her campaign website, which shows that she satisfies the statewide requirement for voting in three of the last four primaries.
Geni Batchelor of Lebanon, former Williamson County GOP Chair Omar Hamada of Franklin, Timothy Bruce Lee of Nashville, Annabelle Lee of Madison, Alan Clement Sharp of Nashville, and David Vitalli of Brentwood are collecting petitions for the Republican primary.
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Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR.
Photo “Robby Starbuck” by Robby Starbuck.
