Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said pressure is intensifying among Tennessee Republicans for the removal of Oscar Brock, the Tennessee Republican Party Executive Committee member and committeeman to the National Republican Committee, after he announced he would no longer support Republican incumbents in protest of the recently-ended federal government shutdown.
Last month, Brock said he would be ceasing all support for Republican incumbents in Tennessee over the shutdown.
Brock made the statement in an October post to Facebook, writing at the time, “I’m not being partisan. I’m simply sick and tired of Congress being unable or unwilling to do the job we elected them to do. In the meantime, I’m going to make a donation to our local food bank. And I’m not going to support ANY member of Congress who runs for reelection next year.”
With regard to his social media post, Brock told The Star last week that Republicans were wrong to accuse Democrats of keeping the government closed because they sought to secure funding to provide free healthcare to illegal immigrants.
To this, Pappert, on Thursday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, emphasized how Brock’s response criticizing the suggestion that Democrats sought to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants has only intensified calls for his resignation.
“There’s been about a half dozen calls for his resignation,” Pappert said.
Among the Republican activists and officials that have called for Brock’s resignation so far include founder and executive director of the Tennessee Conservatives Coalition Aaron Gulbransen; State Representative Clay Doggett (R-Pulaski); documentary filmmaker and conservative political pundit Robby Starbuck; State Representative Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby); and The Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy.
Pappert noted that Brock’s actions appear to violate the Tennessee Republican Party bylaws, which require members to support Republican candidates, and agreed that if Brock refuses to resign, the state party must act to remove him.
“We’ve reached out to the Tennessee Republican Party Chairman, Scott Golden, to ask if there is going to be a meeting of the executive committee, at which point they could call for his resignation,” Pappert said.
Pappert went on to point out how Brock has yet to acknowledge the Republicans’ success in ending the shutdown on Wednesday without caving to Democratic spending priorities.
“[Brock] has yet to acknowledge that the Republicans successfully ended the government shutdown without negotiating or really surrendering to the Democrats. In fact, I think this is going to be universally praised as a Republican success story…Now we have a government that is not funding Items against the interest of its own citizens,” Pappert said.
“Oscar Brock apparently has no comment on that,” he added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
