Real estate investor and attorney Lee Reeves, who is running in the August 1 Republican primary election for Tennessee State House District 65, sat down with The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy on Wednesday to discuss his stance on different issues affecting the state.
House District 65 is currently represented by State Representative Sam Whitson (R-Franklin), who announced he would not be seeking reelection to the seat.
Reeves is facing candidates Brian Beathard and Michelle Foreman in the August 1 primary.
During Wednesday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Reeves agreed with host Leahy that the issue of school choice is “the most important issue in the entire State of Tennessee” going into next year’s legislative session of the Tennessee General Assembly, saying he’d vote in favor of the governor’s universal school choice bill if elected.
“The answer is yes, I’m voting for the bill. I think it’s important that parents have the ability to choose where their children go to school. Listen, I think the state government should care that children get educated, not where they get educated. I think parents are best positioned to know what’s right for their child,” Reeves said.
“My wife and I have made that decision for our kids. All of my kids have gone to public elementary school, but for my two older girls, we’ve decided that for middle and high school, we wanted a Christian education for them. Now, we don’t know what our son is going to do as he just finished second grade at the local public elementary school. He may go to public middle and public high school and that may be right for him, but I think every parent deserves to make that decision and shouldn’t be limited by their zip code or their race or their socioeconomic status in being able to do that,” Reeves added.
Reeves also pointed out that the $140 million needed for the governor’s school choice plan is already included in the state budget.
“I like the way that this bill is set up. The funds were already allocated,” Reeves said.
“Our budget actually went down this year, by quite a bit. So, about $10 billion less than the prior year, and we can still get this done. I think it’s imperative that we give parents that choice across the state,” Reeves added.
Reeves, who said he has knocked on approximately 1,900 doors in Williamson County for his campaign bid, said the second biggest issue he hears from voters is illegal immigration.
“People are concerned about illegal immigration. They understand that we’re not a border state, but that really every state right now is a border state because of how the Biden administration has opened the border…The state House is limited in what it can do, but what we can do is demagnetize our state and make Tennessee one of the last places that an illegal border crosser wants to go. And so you asked what kind of legislation I’d be involved with. That will be one of the first bills,” Reeves said.
When it comes to issues specifically affecting the people of Williamson County, Reeves said transportation and infrastructure are among the “biggest priorities” he would address if elected.
“We’ve got some communities that are growing quite rapidly in Williamson County. Over the last four years, Williamson has grown as a percentage more than anywhere else in the state, and that’s projected to continue. Fairview, on the far west side of Williamson is scheduled to grow about 50 percent in population. They’ve already got 3000 homes approved,” Reeves noted.
Watch the full interview.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
