Griffey’s Anti-Immigrant Agenda Finds Little Traction in the State House

Bruce Griffey arrived in Nashville with a splash during his first term as a state representative.

The Paris, Tenn., Republican appeared on on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle in February to talk about his state bill that would have taxed remittances to Mexico to help pay for President Donald Trump’s wall on the southern border. The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition identified his legislative agenda, including the border-wall bill and a handful of other immigration-related proposals, as their lobbying priority for the year. 

But now, more than halfway through the General Assembly’s 2019 session, Griffey’s immigration agenda has sputtered. The border-wall bill failed in a House subcommittee. A resolution that would have commended Trump for questioning birthright citizenship failed in subcommittee. A bill that would have prohibited landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants was sent to summer study (a sort of legislative purgatory), and a bill that would have required prosecutors and other judicial officials to determine the immigration status of defendants also failed. 

Each time, Democrats offered expected objections to the proposals, but they seemed content to let Republicans on the committees bash their fellow Republican. 

“I’m somewhat surprised this bill got a motion and a second,” said Rep. Kent Calfee (R-Kingston), who called the landlord proposal a “terrible bill.”

“I’m glad you called for a roll call, because I want to go on record voting against it,” he added.

Two other Republicans on the committee questioned the constitutionality of Griffey’s bill, a concern that arose again during discussion of his bill that would have required prosecutors to determine immigration status. (Griffey, an attorney, was once a prosecutor himself.)

When debating the birthright-citizenship resolution — which would have celebrated Trump for efforts to “re-establish the original intent, purpose, and limits of the 14th Amendment” — fellow Republican Michael Curcio, the chair of the state House Judiciary Committee, questioned whether Griffey had his facts straight. Curcio checked the records from debates in the U.S. Congress over the 14th Amendment and determined that “they understood that they were talking about illegal aliens having children in the United States.” (Griffey had previously cited a contemporaneous statement from one lawmaker involved that made it seem like the 14th Amendment’s birthright-citizenship provision was not intended to bestow citizenship on the children of immigrants, but Curcio sought to add further context.) 

Democrats in the House were pleased by Griffey’s lack of success. Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) said the House committees “did the right thing” by killing Griffey’s legislation. But House Democratic Caucus Chair Mike Stewart of Nashville did not attribute the failure to a sudden leftward swing by his Republican counterparts.

“Rep. Griffey, for whatever reason, has found himself to be uniquely unsuccessful trying to pass that legislation,” Stewart says. “It sounds like it may be an internal political issue relating to that particular representative.”

Griffey did enjoy at least some support from Republican leadership, though, in the form of encouraging words (and an affirmative vote) from Majority Leader William Lamberth during one of the committee debates. And most of the Republican derision of Griffey’s legislative efforts seemed to stem from its effects on the business community rather than its treatment of the undocumented population. While Curcio voted against the birthright-citizenship resolution because he questioned its historical accuracy, he agreed on principle with Griffey that the United States should consider eliminating birthright-citizenship rights. 

“I don’t know that I’d consider it humanitarian or not,” Griffey said during one debate when prodded by a Democratic colleague. “I’m simply trying to enforce the law.”

TIRRC is celebrating the legislature’s rejection of Griffey, but not taking a victory lap just yet. 

“House committees have made the right decision and rejected many of the extreme, hate-driven bills that do nothing to improve our state,” says Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, policy director for TIRRC’s political arm. 

But Griffey still has a couple of immigration bills alive, including one that would require smaller businesses to participate in the federal E-Verify program when hiring. That bill is likely headed to the House floor, so TIRRC is turning its attention to the Senate. The immigrant advocacy group is urging the Senate to recognize the bill as “misguided and damaging.”