Watching everyone fold under the pressure of Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher push has given me a newfound — with a billion caveats — respect for Cade Cothren.Â
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It’s hard to sum up who Cade Cothren is in a short paragraph. He was chief-of-staff to Republican former state House Speaker Glen Casada. Some poor dumbass woman tolerated him for literally a minute (by his own estimation) in the Party Fowl bathroom. He used the N-word. He spoke disparagingly of women. He allegedly did drugs, including cocaine, in his office. (We say “allegedly,” but it was he who alleged a lot of this.) He called Casada “Daddy.” He is now on the verge of going to trial for his part in a kickback scheme.
He resigned from his role in Casada’s office after the racist and sexist texts came out, and the kickback scheme seems to have been set up as a way for Cothren to continue to be taken care of by state Republicans and to influence Republican politics behind the scenes.
Then he got caught, and Republicans were all, “Cade Cothren? Who's that? You mean Deathstroke?” “No, that’s Slade Wilson.” “Oh, right. You mean Deadpool?” “No, that’s Wade Wilson.” “Wade Wilson? Slade Wilson? And they both wear masks. Really makes you think. I wonder if they’re related.” “They’re not even ... my God. One is Marvel and the other is D.C. They can’t be related.” “Who do you think would win in a fight?” “Deadpool, for sure.” “Me too. Well, look at the time. I must be going.”
You could argue that Cothren was already a villain, but from the outside, it really looks like it was all these Republicans pretending like they've barely ever even heard of the guy that turned him into a supervillain — like, “I will smear you with the reputation you’ve given me.”
Until last week, I had been most delighted by him running around telling everyone how much he helped current state House Speaker Cameron Sexton. From Sam Stockard’s story over at the Tennessee Lookout:
Cothren also has claimed he helped Rep. Cameron Sexton win the House speakership in 2019 before being paid tens of thousands of dollars through his business. He sought to subpoena phone records from Verizon Communications and Confide Inc., an encrypted message service, to show numerous communications between him and Sexton during 2019 and 2020 when he says he was a confidante of the Crossville Republican and worked on his speakership campaign before being ditched.
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It’s so gloriously villainous. I thought, surely, linking yourself to Cameron Sexton, using just the order of facts to insinuate that Sexton used Cothren’s business as a reward for helping him politically, and then telling everyone that the speaker of the House (whose communications about his role in the government should be accessible to everyone who pays his salary) uses an encrypted service to keep stuff hidden from taxpayers ... I thought that had to be the pinnacle of perfect political revenge.
Folks, no. On the second day of the legislative session, Cothren’s lawyers had a federal marshal deliver subpoenas to legislators who might know something about Republican support of Cothren’s business dealings.
This is the action of a man who is all out of fucks to give. He just wants to make these poor fools miserable no matter the cost. And I appreciate that. Because if there’s one thing state legislators need to be reminded of, it’s that all the promises leadership might make to you don’t really mean shit. They will cut and run and leave you holding the bag if sentiment turns.
Which brings us to school vouchers. Our own Eli Motycka wrote about how state legislators and other bigwigs seem to be falling in line to vote for Lee’s school vouchers.
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The Lookout's Stockard wrote about that too:
Republican Sen. Richard Briggs of Knoxville said Wednesday the special session should focus on only one issue.Â
“I’m not sure it’s legal, but I’m not sure it makes any difference either,” Briggs said, referring to the governor’s call to deal with three disparate topics.
“I’m not sure it’s legal.” I don’t know, man. Seems like, with federal marshals and the FBI sniffing around, you’d want to be sure that everything you’re doing is legal. In fact, you might want to question why your leadership would be asking you to do something illegal.Â
When this voucher shit blows up in our faces, and public schools lose money or close, and few people but rich people can actually use the vouchers, and the kids on vouchers aren’t performing any better than the kids in public schools, and teachers don’t want to work here, and so on and so on, it’s not going to be Gov. Lee on the hook. And it won’t be on Republican leadership, if they can help it.
Supervillain Cothren is sending you guys a message: Ultimately, Republican leadership will hang you out to dry if it benefits them. When public schools are destroyed, it’s going to be the rank-and-file politicians who are handed the brunt of the blame. Cothren’s message in his revenge crusade is clear, but I don’t think state legislators are receptive to it or, even if they know it’s true, they don’t have the guts to stay loyal to their constituents. They’ll sell out their districts, assuming leadership will protect them.
This is a stupid assumption.
