HE’S BAAAACK…MAYBE.
Former House Speaker Glen Casada’s Chief of Staff, Cade Cothren, looks to be considering a political comeback! Cothren picked up a petition to run for the Tennessee House of Representatives in District 71 this week. The district includes Wayne County and parts of Lawrence, Hardin, and Maury counties.
He resigned from his role at the Capitol in 2019 amid a series of scandals and was later tried and convicted in a jury trial in federal court on public corruption charges. Although he was sentenced to several years in prison he and Casada were both pardoned by President Donald Trump before reporting to prison.
Their fellow conspirator, former GOP legislator, Robin Smith, plead guilty and promised to cooperate with prosecutors. She was originally sentenced to eight months in prison, but it was later reduced to probation just as she was being required to report to prison. Her felony conviction remains in place as she was not pardoned by Trump.
VOUCHER APPLICATION CHAOS. State officials and voucher proponents are pointing to the fact that over 50,000 applications were attempted for the voucher system (that is “intended” to help students move from poor-performing public schools to better private schools) in the first 24 hours as evidence of the overwhelming support for the plan. But it is not clear how many of those applications were inflated by resubmissions due to the system crashing repeatedly during the first 24 hours. And despite claims of the Governor Lee voucher deal being “transparent“ they continue to hide how many students receiving the taxpayer money are already in private schools rather than moving from public schools to private schools. In fact, the application does not even ask if a student is already attending a private school. It does ask which public school a student is attending, but a response is optional. Why is the state so determined to hide the fact that likely 80% of those receiving the taxpayer funds we’re already in private school before they accepted the money? At the very least they should stop using the word transparent. Ever.
Meanwhile, plans to expand the program by another 5,000 students from the 20,000 level currently in place, maybe be hitting a significant roadblock due to lagging state revenue, not to mention rural legislators finally recognizing that their districts are receiving virtually none of the money. Not a great look during an election year.
“SHOW ME THE MONEY!” The sixth congressional district Republican primary to fill the seat being vacated by GOP congressman John Rose is shaping up to be an expensive one. State Rep. Johnny Garrett and former Congressman Van Hilleary (more recently Rose’s Chief of Staff) each reported raising about $600,000 in the last family report last October. Now, Garrett reports having over $1 million cash on hand with the year end reporting period having just ended, with over $400,000 reported raised in the final quarter of 2025. Hilleary is expected to report similar numbers soon.
Steve Gill is editor and publisher of TriStar Daily.
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