Tennessee has been a Right to Work state since 1947. So why make RTW part of Tennessee’s constitution? That’s the point of Amendment 1, which will be on the ballot in November.

The “Yes on 1” campaign hasn’t gotten rolling yet. But I expect we’ll soon be inundated with slick ads featuring people in hardhats and safety vests smiling purposefully into the camera, ennobled by their status as workers in a Right to Work state. The message will be clear: Without RTW, Tennesseans are SOL.

Nah.

Amendment 1 was introduced by TN State Senator Brian Kelsey. For those of you keeping track of our federally indicted state legislators, Kelsey’s the one who was indicted for campaign finance violations and then announced that he wouldn’t be running for reelection “due to an exciting change in my personal life.” (I don’t know what the exciting change is, but I can’t wait to find out!)

Kelsey is an attorney for the Liberty Justice Center, the legal arm of the Illinois Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank that has opposed progressive tax rates, expanded mail-in voting, tobacco-control policies, and unionization. It has financial ties to well-known deep-pocketed right-wing donors.

In other words, Sen. Brian Kelsey probably didn’t introduce Amendment 1 out of concern for his working-class constituents.

The “Yes on 1” campaign is being pushed by the usual suspects. Bill Haslam and Bill Lee are on board. The campaign executive committee includes the TN director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses; the president and CEO of the TN Chamber of Commerce; and the president and CEO of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, which killed Haslam’s 2015 effort to expand Medicaid in TN. (I guess they made up.)

That’s our politics now that “corporations are people.” When corporations dictate policy, people lose.

This fall, when your friends and neighbors are being encouraged to vote “Yes on 1,” tell them about the big money behind it. Knowledge is power.

Allison
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