Tennessee State Representative Lee Reeves (R-Franklin) said a bill he introduced in the Tennessee General Assembly would require all party nominations across the state be conducted as primary elections instead of caucuses or conventions.
The bill, filed as HB 0855/SB 0799, has since gained the support of House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), who is sponsoring the bill in the state senate.
On Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Reeves explained that under the bill, all county elections would be conducted as elections for statewide races and congressional races are currently run.
“[The bill] essentially says that going forward for county elections, we will have those run similar to how congressional elections and statewide governors and senators and house elections currently run because those were already required to be a primary format,” Reeves said.
Noting how most county elections are already conducted as primaries, Reeves said outlawing caucuses and conventions altogether would allow all voters across the state to take advantage of a full day of voting and early voting.
“The people who get shut out [of caucuses and conventions] are the single moms or the working moms, or police officers and firefighters who have to work during that period of time, EMS workers, college students who aren’t there but still want to have a say in their local races, military members that are serving our country who cannot participate, seniors who can’t get there…With a convention, there is no early voting, there is no full election day where you can show up, cast your vote, and then get on with the rest of what you have to do that day. It doesn’t exist in a convention,” Reeves explained.
“We’re going to lock in [primaries] so that people have the right to vote and show up at and take advantage of early voting and have a full day of voting…It increases participation over what a convention would, and you’ve got the election integrity issues with a convention that we won’t have under this scenario,” Reeves added.
Noting the recent election integrity issues reported out of the Williamson County Republican Party reorganizing convention, Reeves stressed the need for ensuring local elections are administered by local election commissions.
“[Primaries] are administered by our local election commissions and they do a great job. They’re trained, they’re unbiased. There’s a reason why Tennessee ranks number one in election integrity, and who says that? The Conservative Heritage Foundation. They say that we are number one in election integrity and I believe that’s true, and I think those ought to be the folks who are administering an election – not the people that actually have a vested interest in one slate or the other,” Reeves said.
Watch:
TN State Representative @LeeReevesTN joins @michaelpleahy to discuss his bill on Tennessee elections, requiring party nominations be conducted under a primary election instead of a caucus pic.twitter.com/0U3uedm4Z7
— Tennessee Star (@TheTNStar) March 31, 2025
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
