Racist Chickens with their Heads Cut Off (with Rep. Gloria Johnson)

Hello, and welcome to the next level podcast. I’m Tim Miller here for an exciting Sunday show. We’re designed to do something a little bit we’ve been trying to make these Sunday shows, a little bit lighter fare, bringing people from outside of politics. But given the unbelievable news out of Tennessee with first the horrific shooting and then the expelling of two black state reps from the House. We decided we wanted to do something a little bit more on the news, and we are so blessed and lucky to have the third member of the Tennessee three state rep Gloria Johnson, who survived the expulsion vote, but it’s still very much, you know, tied to the efforts in Tennessee to pass gun reform to push back against the anti democratic activities of the Republican super majority in the state house.

It’s a great conversation. I hope you’ll stick around for it. And then we’ll be back with you Wednesday for a regular next level with JBL and Sarah. So up next is Gloria Johnson. At first, our friends at acetone Representative Johnson, thank you so much for doing this.

I know you’ve got to be unbelievably busy. We’re grateful to have you in the Bulwark. In the green room, we said I could call you Gloria. Is that okay? Can we do Gloria?

Absolutely. And thank you for having me. Now you’re pretty busy, so I’m guessing you did not see that RuPaul crowned a new drag superstar last night, Sasha Colby. You were not able to watch the RuPaul’s Drag Grace finale?

No. I did not see that. Okay.

Well, I figured you never know. I thought maybe you had, you know, taken a break after a long week and flipped it on. No. Are we worried in Tennessee? I wanna, obviously, we’re gonna get to the newsweek, but I wanted to start here though.

Are we worried that we couldn’t have drag events now in Tennessee. Can you talk to us about what’s happening with that bill? We’re taking this on Saturday morning. Right? So, you know, morning after usually, you know, there’s a world tour.

You know, we celebrate our new drag queen. Nashville seems like a natural place to stop. Is that even gonna be allowed? What are the rules now from the free speech party in Tennessee?

Yeah. Right. The bill is interesting. It’s confusing. Very poorly written.

We pointed that out over and over. But there’s a lot of confusion on what is allowed and what isn’t. And so, typically, your nighttime in the club drive show is fine to go on you know, they say their big concern is safety of children. Yet what we see in policy across the state, has no concern whatsoever with safety of children. So it’s kinda hard to believe what they tell you.

Is Hooters still legal in Tennessee? I haven’t been to Tennessee in a while. Have the Republicans shut down the Hooters?

No. They have not. Interesting. As a matter of And if you have been to drag shows as I have, you know that they’re wearing lots of layers and lots of clothes And, you know, I I always bring the point because in Knox County where I live, we have a WWE wrestler as mayor. And Drive Points wear more clothes than he did in wrestling, including a skit, where he took his opponent, handcuffed him to the rails of the ring, hooked him up with jumper cables to a battery, poured up water over him, and he hooked the jumper cables to his testicles, and electrocuted him.

But apparently drag is bad.

That feels brilliant to me.

It does not

brilliant.

Absolutely. We’re talking about WWE, which is at least a third full of children.

Who is the mayor? I didn’t know that you had a wrestler mayor.

The man is Kane.

Okay. And I did know this. Kane. The undertaker’s brother is the mayor now.

Yes. Yes. And he also did this get where, I mean, this my goodness. When I found out about it, he’s complaining about drag. He did a skit where his girlfriend had died and she was in a coffin and he pretended like he was having sex with her dead body in the coffin as one of this gets.

Mhmm. But drag is bad.

Well, I mean, can joke with it, and there’s a lot to make fun of them on this point. But I get a little bit worried about pride coming up in all these states.

Yeah. Right?

I I got into this with Sarah Longwell Hutkeby’s staff. Heard an article about this, Arkansas has a similar bill. And, you know, they were like, well, no, we’re not trying to ban pride. Mhmm. Like, what have you ever been to a pride?

There’s some stuff that is happening there that some body might think, you know, isn’t appropriate for kids. Now, you know, I think parents have to decide whether or not to bring their kids to pride and, like, which functions are appropriate for them, but it’s very reasonable to think that gay pride might be in threat in in certain counties in Tennessee, certain parts of Tennessee?

No, absolutely. And because, you know, we have pride floats and there are Drive Queen’s on the float and they are dancing. So you’re talking about dancing and music, but I’ve had people send me pictures of just drag queens and saying, this is obscene. A picture of them fully closed is obscene.

Yeah.

You know, so what are we talking about here? It’s it has such a chilling effect, and we just had a situation where I think it was Williamson County. The prod group had applied for their permit for the parade. And it took the mayor voting to get them over the top to be able to get, to have the parade However, after he voted for it, he said, you know, if you do this, this, this, and gave a long list, like, you are on a very short leash. And if you step across the line.

That’s it. It’s remarkable.

It is just Orwellian that, like, the free speech party here. The party that cares about children is, you know, going after you guys for trying to make it safer at schools going after drag, you know, despite like getting on their high horse about canceled culture and all this. It’s just it is unbelievable. Okay. Let’s get to the actual business here.

You know, just for listeners, I I think maybe some of them like me, you know, saw the news of what happened with all you guys and and, like, we’re catching up to it a little bit late. Right? I obviously saw the news about the horrific covenant shooting. Let’s just start with can you kinda walk us through, you know, the shooting happens at the school And then what happens that leads to you guys getting on the floor that then leads to the expulsion or I guess the expulsion attempt in in your case?

Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s it’s it was before the covenant shooting, of course.

I’m a teacher, been in a school that had a school shooting. Sorry to interrupt. But which school was that? I saw you say that in another interview and I googled it, and it’s like there’ve been multiple school shootings at Knoxville. So it’s like was it sent

to you, I know, which is

horrible. That like, American life is Central High or was it one of the other one?

It was Central High School in two thousand and eight. I taught Special Ed and it was one of the Special Ed students who who was killed Ryan McDonald. Mhmm. He was not my student, but knew him well. He was kind of a a prankster.

He was a funny kid. Like to do jokes and stuff like that. But, you know, once you have seen the terror on kids’ faces when that happens, it happened in our cafeteria in the morning right before everybody went to class when they were having breakfast. And so I’m getting my classroom ready and I just look up the hill to the doors of of the school, and they open up and kids are running out screaming and crying and terrified them. And they’re coming running into my classroom And it was a few minutes before I could even get them to articulate to me what happened.

And then it was just, you know, a couple of hours spent trying to calm them, trying to let them know that they were safe, figuring out, you know, how we’re gonna get parents to the school, and and how we’re gonna get everybody home, and it was just so much trauma for those young people, for the staff as well. But just for those kids, I mean, this generation currently that are so vocal about gun violence have had to grow up knowing that school shootings happen everywhere and they can happen anytime. When I was in school, that was not a worry we had. That was not a thought that was there. And this is literally you know, something they think about every day when they walk in those doors.

The unbelievable thing hearing about the trauma of what you guys went through at central and just in that experience is that doesn’t even make a mark on our national dialogue anymore. Right? Like, I I didn’t even remember that shooting. And it’s just a horrible testimony to kind of what life is like here. And I think kind of speaks to why we do need Right?

I mean, is that did you try to bring that to the conversation at all before, you know, you were silenced?

Always. I mean and then just within a couple of years of that, we had one of our elementary feeder schools. In the central area, we had two principals shot at the elementary school by a teacher actually who was being told that they weren’t going to be coming back went out to his car, got a gun, came back in and shot two principals. And they had very serious life threatening injuries, but they did survive and are, you know, doing okay now. So it’s so prevalent.

And I feel like they think it’s not gonna happen to them or someone in their family for some reason. I don’t know why they think they’re immune because none of us are immune. They just have no empathy and understanding of what these kids and teachers and principals and staff go through every day.

So take us back then again. So the covenant shooting happens, horrific shooting. What happened in the intervening period between that you know, those horrible deaths, those little babies, and, you know, what got you guys to the house floor?

It’s just been a cycle of them silencing our voices, cutting our mics, all of that. And so, you know, we want the opportunity to have conversations about gun violence. And they are just not interested in having those conversations at any time. And anytime we try to bring it up, they’ll say, well, we’re off the bill. Or it’s not the time to talk about that.

And then that morning, when we went to the floor, one of our members who, that’s his district, he did speak to covenants specifically and what happened there and was sort of acknowledged them and acknowledged the children and the staff that died. But we normally have what we call welcoming and honoring in the morning. And after he finished talking about covenant, there was no welcoming and honoring, and it was our intention to welcome the families and the protesters and the kids that were there, thousands that were gathered in the gallery, in the rotunda, and then out on legislative plaza. And several that I knew, several staff had reached out to me because I’m a teacher from covenant. Just people that we knew who were there, we wanted to recognize we wanted to say, you know, these protesters are here because they’re concerned about the safety of their children.

And these children are here because they’re concerned about the safety of themselves and their peers. And we just wanted to recognize that they were their recognize the issues that they cared about and let them know that we were there for them, we wanted to do something, and we were gonna do everything we can to do something. And we were not given that opportunity. My other colleagues, both Justin’s, tried to get it in speaking on a bill. They would speak on a bill.

And at the end of that, say, I’d like to recognize, and they’d get gabbled down for being out of order. Then another time, I had my hand raised for quite some time because it was a voucher bill, which is something I’m passionate about I wanted to speak on, and they wouldn’t call on me to speak. This

has gone for a couple days after the

this was in this one morning. We had tried to talk to it before and got shut down.

Got it. This

was just this one day in session the day that we went to the well. I think it was right after that voucher bill when we said we just got to do something. So we decided one member had just finished running their bill. We decided between bills to walk up to the well, and that’s what we did. So are

you guys on the floor having this conversation? Are you meeting about snickers machine, take us behind the scenes. Like, how do you decide to do it?

Everybody kind of gathers around my desk. My desk is up front. The well is just to the side. And so the two Justin’s were at my desk, and we just were saying, this is crazy. They’re not letting us talk.

You know, these people are standing out here. They want to be heard. They want us to say something about gun violence. And so we went to the well. When

you went there, did you have any expectation that these guys would respond, like, as insanely as they did?

I never thought they would respond so insanely. I mean, it’s just outrageous how far they went. I thought there would be a reprimand At the most, I thought we might lose our committees for the rest of this year. You know, that’s what I thought.

Yeah.

Never in my wildest dreams because of things I have seen on the floor did I think that they would try to expel us? Now understand that before four, you know, the two Justin’s just got there this year. I have been there and I have been extremely vocal a couple of years ago I stood on the floor with my hand raise for forty five minutes on an abortion bill, and the speaker refused to call on me. And that sort of gave me prominence across the state because people were horrified that one of the few women on the floor was not allowed to talk on that bill Yeah. And then a couple years ago, on the vote on the Republican speaker, I was the only member to vote no.

I’m just not voting for someone who tried to keep the bust of Nathan Beg to Differ us in our capital for somebody who has stopped Medicaid expansion for ten years. And so I was the only no vote and I was given a closet for an office.

Yeah. I read about that. And you ended up giving the closet to your staffer and you worked in the hallway or something like that?

Well, No. Then they told me I’d be arrested if I had my desk in the hallway. So I went back into the closet, and I said, I need a place for my staffer So, instead, in mind you across the hall is the empty office. There’s an empty member office across the hall from my closet office. They built in the alcove next to it.

They built a smaller office. It costs ten thousand dollars to build that little office that the when the news crew came, they said it’s exactly the size of a a

prison cell. It’s just, like, with a way that they abused you like that, like, it has be kind of gratifying just to see how much of a fool they’ve made of themselves over the past two weeks. I I I think this is my theory. I love to hear your take you with these guys every day. Do you get in this bubble?

You know, they’re in their little maga bubble? Right? And and, like, the idiotic opinions they have and rationalizations like sound good in the little boys club, you know. And then when the cameras get there, and the whole world is a chance to see it. The whole world is a chance to hear it at the Tennessee Holler audio of them talking about this vote to spell.

Right. I

mean, I wrote that I was like, it sounds like, you know, Veep meets Django unchanged. I mean, like, these guys are just dumb. And there’s, like, obviously, some racist and sexist undertones to all this, overtones, really. And it’s just, like, they thought it made sense, but they’re just so enclosed in this little MAGA bubble. They didn’t realize how stupid they were gonna look.

Is that your sense? Or are they just drunk with power since they have a super majority now. Like like, what made them do so much self harm here?

It’s really all of those things. They literally think that they cannot be touched. So there’s the drunk with power aspect, but they’re also just they’re really not that bright. You know, this brought sunlight into that room and I love it so much that the world literally saw what was going on in the Tennessee House. And that call to me, and I, you know, I know people aren’t gonna like it when I say it, but it sounds like a bunch of confederate strategizing the civil war.

To say that we are enemies and that there is a war that is such a disservice to the people. Who want us to come to the table and write policy that helps Tennessee families. Who

are the enemies, by the way? This is a great point. I’d love to have the chance to be able to press one of those wish that one of them would be willing to come, you know, talk in a in a in a non safe space and a non aga safe space. It’s good. It’s like, are the kids there protesting the enemies?

Who’s part of this war? Right? Are the people who don’t wanna get shot up in their school, the enemies? Are the, you know, are my people the never Trump Republican moms who are like, dads for that matter, like, like, I wish we had less government and smaller taxes, but, like, we need some same data. Like, who Like, who do they see are the enemies?

And the savor, everyone in Nashville in Memphis, all the black people in Memphis maybe are the enemies? I don’t know. Right?

Anybody who doesn’t agree with that. It’s shocking to me because when Democrats win, I don’t expect that everybody in my district agrees with me now. Right. They think if they win, Well, okay, you have to agree with us now. There’s no dissension.

We won, what are you doing? You can’t disagree with us. And they’re terrified of debating their bills because well, they’re so terrible, but they will not allow discussion on bills. It’s just remarkable to me how ridiculous. And when you talk about being in that bubble, literally, I think most of these folks don’t live in the real world.

They they go to their Republican meetings and they go to their churches and they hang with each other. You know, I’m a Democrat in deep red, East Tennessee. And every part of my day is hanging out with Republicans and interacting with Republicans. They living my entire family, but that’s not what they do every day. And it’s obvious that they don’t understand and they don’t care what the majority of Tennesseeans want.

Because Democrats, we are fighting for Medicaid expansion. We’re fighting for people to have healthcare. We’re fighting for public education, and our governor and super majority want to bring in this Hillsdale junk. And we’re fighting for paid family leave, cannabis reform, high wages. Every single one of those things that I named are overwhelmingly supported by both parties.

Yet, they will entertain none of them. They won’t even let them out of sub committee. But they are doing the bidding of the billionaire special interest. It’s in Array, in the Tennessee firearms Association. If you’ve heard that guy, wow.

I

haven’t heard that, Kevin. I know I’ve just wrote about the Colorado version of him. So if there’s anything, it’s probably worse. And so I get the gist, but I want to just really clear, I do wanna credit you with your you’re pretty close to directly quoting all the president’s men there with the truth as these are not very bright guys and things got out of hand. As an explanation for that was the Watergate explanation as an explanation for their strategy.

But I wanna I wanted to ask you with this. You aren’t you’re in Knoxville right now. You’re being in from there. You said you you engage with a lot of Republicans at Deep Red Tennessee. The fair guy being a former Republican had this kind of thing I can see things a little more clearly sometimes or or maybe that’s wrong.

So I wanna hear you’re take, but a lot of Democrats are scared to go at the gun issue because they’ve just been bit you know, they’re snake bit on it. I think the game has changed a little bit. Just all of these shootings and, you know, I’m not saying you’re gonna win over the Tennessee gun guys. Right? But I think that there are Republican voters who think some reasonable reforms, red flag laws, making sure teenagers can’t buy assault rifles.

Right? Like,

Yeah. And

that these can be a winning issue. And I’m just wondering, is that do you feel that way? Have you ever been hearing from people who are Republicans I’m sure you’ve been hearing from Republican, Sandy, nasty names. But have you been hearing from Republicans who appreciate what you’ve been doing?

I hear from far more Republicans that appreciate what I’m doing than Republicans who are opposed. I can promise you that. And this is not new to me. I’ve always advocated for a gun since slation. I brought to red flag laws and had them killed on a party line boat.

And because it is an important issue to me, last year when I was running, I pulled this issue. In Red Knox County, in my district, I pulled red flag laws and safe storage. Those are typically the bills that I carry. Red flag law and safe storage. And I pulled those in my district.

Overwhelmingly, the majority more than fifty percent I can’t remember the number I think it’s in the upper fifties supported red flag laws. So the majority of Republicans, independents, and Democrats in my districts that favor red flag laws Ron DeSantis storage as well. So it’s very clear that Republicans will even public and local Republican elected officials in Knoxville have contacted me and said you’re doing the right thing. So

you feel good walking around Knoxville, you’re not people aren’t? Shout names at you? No.

No. People are thanking me. I mean, overwhelmingly regardless of what side of the aisle they’re I

wanna just go ahead a couple of Republican criticisms of you and let you address them. The first one, well, one of them is of you and other one’s of Justin Pearson, which we’ll get to in one second. You mentioned the fact that you brought up Red Fly Golf a couple times before. I talked to Justin Kanew over Tennessee Holler and asked him to do a little preprep for this. Sitting here was like, make sure she get her about that.

Like, this is not something that just happened. Right? This is something she’s been working on. And yet, I see, you know, on these Mega Social Media sites like there was one meme I saw that really grossed me out. Right?

Which was you and and the Justin’s, like, in front of the gravestones. Of these kids, like acting as if you guys are trying to get attention here. I would love for you just you’d have an opportunity to talk about, you know, what is the real motivator here for you?

The real motivator are those kids in those classrooms. You know, right now, yes, we are being in the press, but we are being in the press because we are bringing attention to this issue. And we have heard that the young people are so great, and they’re so organized. And they’re gonna keep this conversation going. We’re gonna build a movement.

We’re gonna maintain it. And it’s important to put this issue in the forefront. You know, they can do that, but we are doing it for those kids and for that staff. And all of us have lost friends to gun violence. And that’s what we’re about.

We’re also bringing to the forefront an issue that the majority of all of our districts care deeply about. The people who elected us want us to talk about this issue, and they want us to speak up any way we can. They have told us that Now you know, what people don’t understand is Justin Pearson’s district is a deep blue, easily democratic district that has seen so much gun violence. Justin Jones, his district in Nashville, is also a deep blue, Democratic district where gun violence is prominent as well. I’m in deep red, East Tennessee.

And still yet, my constituents want me to talk about gun violence. You know, if they hadn’t messed up and kept me there, Right now, there’d be a Republican in my seat. The mayor had already said he was going to appoint a Republican, and our county commission is nine Republicans and two Democrats. And so it’s really strange that somehow they messed up

on my vote. We would have lost a seat. It’s making a tangible difference. So what what’s your sense? So Bill Lee did actually do something, get off his ass, and they did pass the executive order.

Yes. These guys wanted to silence discussion on this. Right? Like, they wanted to focus it on the trans issue. Right?

Right. Like, that’s what they want. To do. And so had these things gone a different way, maybe Billy wouldn’t have acted. I don’t know.

What’s your sense for the executive actions that he’s taken? You

know, I don’t know. Think that it has to be a lot about the thousands of people that have been showing up at the capital. You know, I give them the credit. Yeah. But I think — Mhmm.

— when you stand up for people and make a bold mood to stand up for folks, they recognize that. It energizes them and they want to keep you know, it’s easy to show up with a whole lot of people, and then the the issue kinda goes away in a few days. But I think a lot of what has happened has really built a bigger momentum. And we’ve got folks that are planning on being there all the time. Like, when we get back Monday, Reverend Barber will be there, and there will be an event on Monday.

And on Tuesday, I know some Nashville musicians plan on bringing a letter to Governor Lee. So this is not going away. And I’m just excited that I think that we are going to be able to maintain this movement until there is action.

I’m sure you’ve seen this, but I’d like to get your reaction as this is just kind of this shows you where they’re going with this. And I think it’s a sign of weakness. FRANKLY.

I WANT TO BRING EVERYONE TOGETHER, SAID JUSTIN PEARSON IN A VOICE THAT IF YOU CLOSE JURISE, you could easily imagine coming from a suburban orthodontist. Justin Pearson wasn’t white. That’s probably how we got into Boden in the first place. But he did a fantastic impression of it. What a nice young man, as he considered the apprenticeship program at Citibank?

That

was the old Justin Pearson before his transition.

He’s just a horrible person. Yeah. No. He is a horrible person. But what Those

comments were so racist. And, you know, it’s interesting because we’ve talked about this. And I haven’t talked about it with Justin Pearson. But with other colleagues, and it’s just like, years ago was different. You know, we do wanna work across the aisle.

We do wanna listen to all opinions. That should be the goal. However, we are working with people who see us as enemies in a war room.

Right.

So your tactics have to be a little different. You know, we’re gonna have to speak firmly and loudly to these folks. And and the idea that because somebody wants us all to come to the table and collaborate, there’s nothing wrong with that. But these folks aren’t interested. No.

This is a Christian school where the kids were dead. Right? Like, it’s not like the dead kids, like a part of the what ostensibly should be the Tucker Carlson tribe in this war that they’re imagining that they’re in this civil war. It’s like you think that there’d be although a moment, and I have to park when shooting. Rick Scott, not my cup of tea.

Right. They signed a red flaglaw. They did something. Right? Like, they met.

They came to the table. They didn’t do now, eight years later, to your point, eight years later, you have the highest rated host on TV. His response isn’t, oh, maybe, you know, we can find some area of agreement. With people across racial lines, across party lines. But instead, it’s like the one guy that speaks out about the shooting at the Christian school, I’m gonna make fun of him and say that he’s, you know, like, make fun of whether he’s changed his accent and say that he only got into college because he was Bulwark.

It’s sick. Yeah. And you see what our super majority did,

the same thing, that Tucker did, you know, verbally on his show, Our super majority, here’s about this horrific shooting, six people dead, three children, three staff, and what is their first action? Their first action is to expel the folks who talked about it and forced the conversation. That’s their first action, not to do something about gun violence, but to expel the members who spoke out.

What about the race element of this? Again,

I

was a Republican not that long ago. I’ve heard racist stuff in my time, but even I was, like, clutching my pearls, listening to I forget which what the guy’s name was the rep on the floor, talking about how Justin need to shut up and how he was doing this for attention. I mean — Yeah. — you ever feel that, like, that I guess, we’ll just put it to you this way. Like, the racism of your colleagues, like, is that something that that Stan has stood out to you?

Yes. I did. Every single day, you see it in committee. The racism, misogyny, they’re not even aware of it. It’s remarkable one interchange that representative Jones got into with representative Kumar was pretty much similar to something that happened in our government operations committee.

And it was just a a lecture to representative Jones about acting like us and dressing like us and speaking like us this whole assimilation thing, and it’s remarkable. And I was sitting in the criminal justice committee, not a month ago, I guess, when they have a bill to bring back the firing squad and the electric chair And then a member said, I love this bill. I think we should bring back hanging by a tree too. Jesus. And so he just advocated for lynching in committee — In

twenty twenty three. — it

was a year or two ago where one of our members had raised his hand to speak and then he’s always talking. So he gets in a conversation with somebody and the chairman of the committee calls on him to speak and he didn’t hear because he was talking. And the chairman said, oh, I think he’s getting a recipe for fried chicken. How

do these guys work with these people? I mean, how do you work with them? But, like, how do Justin’s go back? And you guys have other business that’s not this hot. Right?

Like, how do you even do regular order you know, roads and bridges business with these people after hearing fried chicken and noosing and all

this stuff. It’s really hard because we know what’s in their heart. We imagine what they say in private, but when you actually hear it on audio recording, it’s jarring. And I’ll go back to work. We all will, but we’re going to speak up and we’re not gonna stop.

And you saw that both of the Justin’s when they got reinstated, they went back in and they went hard. And we’re not gonna stop doing that because it’s what’s right and what people need to understand. We acted because it was just in our hearts. We had to go to that well. We didn’t plan it.

We had talked about maybe some sort of action we could take like John Lewis who sat in on the floor of Congress, you know, that kind of thing. But we just really at that point none of us could just keep that in that we felt we had to recognize those people. And that’s what we did. And for them to say we did it for a tenant is outrageous. They gave us the attention because they wouldn’t stop cutting our mics.

I

wanna just do two other things really quick, then I’ll let you go. The first is related to this. I saw you mentioned this. I just wanted to hear more that you went to Colin Biden after the shootings. I grew up about a mile Columbine.

I would have I went to Joshua at high school. I would have gone to Columbus and knew some folks there. So, obviously, that was a formative time for me. But one of the ways in which it was formative was that it was so unusual. Right?

Like, that’s why it made such a big deal. Right? And I and I just I sometimes think about my sixteen, old seventeen, however old it was your old self and think like, if you would have told me that I’d be forty, twenty years later, that this will be happening all the time and that nobody would have done anything. I think I would have thought everybody was insane. They’re crazy.

And so anyway, I’m curious just to hear about your experience going there. And how, like, that perspective has shifted over time. Howard Bauchner:

Yeah, it was it was really fascinating. And to see the difference, how Colmar and how Jeffco, which is the schools to mine was teaching in. Oh,

so you were living there then?

Yeah. I didn’t

realize that. Which school were you teaching in? I had to cut a ridge. Oh, Dakota Ridge. Okay.

Yeah. It wasn’t far from me. Some

of the students that couldn’t go back to Colomont came to Dakota Ridge. Okay. And so they either went to Dakota Ridge or Chatfield. If they didn’t wanna go back to column I. And so I was at Dakota Ridge and I’d come from this great program in Knoxville where we addressed Mental Health, we had counts floors in the room, just a fabulous program.

So once I got there, I realized they really need a program like this. That addresses mental health. So I run a grant for a program similar to what we had in Knox County and they gave it to me. So we created a class that had that in it, you know, that that element of mental health and all of that, but it was really, really necessary there. And it’s necessary everywhere, quite frankly, even in regular ed.

But that’s what I did there, and it was very helpful. Because for me, with my kids, when and whenever I’ve been able to get there, their head right, I guess, you know, we’ll talk about those mental health issues. They learn quickly. You know, they’ve got to have the ability to talk about what’s going on at home or whatever to be able to dive into the studies. And so that’s what this classroom was able to do, and it’s always been successful.

When I was at central, my graduation rate, in my high school, in my specialized classroom was higher than the school’s graduation rate because we were able to address mental health issues as we were doing our academics.

So do you see a difference in the kids? I mean, just I mean, obviously, mental health issues are trauma, trauma. But — Yeah. — like, from that first columbine experience to now I mean, because now these kids have come up are living through, you know, drills and all that. I just

wonder if like now,

if you’ve seen any change over time.

I guess, like, kind of like you said, I see that it is more prevalent in their thought, you know, that because there have been so many sense column on, it is in the front of their mind, not in the back of their mind. You know? I think that it’s just god forbid becoming a normal thing that we have to deal with. And it’s absolutely not normal. I didn’t

know you’re over at Dakota Ridge. I was a regist where close to one another. We had an overlap back then. Okay. So what there’s one other issue I want to talk about.

Abortion is another one that there’s some extremes and I I think maybe some on the some of the particulars. We might have some maybe some differences, but that’s good. Right? You can be able to talk across certain differences, but there is one particular issue — Yeah. — I wanted to talk to you about which is this question related to life of the mother and issues in Tennessee law.

And and I guess you had an experience when you were twenty one with a with a medical you did have a medical abortion, you spoke about that. And now I think some of the laws in Tennessee that are just so draconian. That’s all these things again. Like, again, the eight years ago. Eight years ago, it’s like, oh, you know, maybe there’ll be a twenty week ban with exceptions, and we can agree and disagree with twenty week ban with exceptions.

That’s very different than a six week ban with, you know, letting a literal death panel decide whether a mom can get an abortion or not, you know, if she has a medical issue. Right? So talk to that you know, kind of the extremism and how that and your experience with that?

Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s terrifying to me that right now, we have no exception for life of the mother, zero. We are working on an exception which is the original exception written by a Republican who is a physician was a decent exception for life of the mother, I would vote for it. The right to life guy has rewritten it and it’s virtually nothing again. It’s only ectopic, pregnancies, and dead fetuses.

And so in my situation, I would have died. Right now with people who have cancer and are pregnant, what are they gonna do? It’s not gonna account for that. And so it’s remarkable that they will sacrifice women to make sure that these fetuses are brought to term. But it’s horrifying to me.

As far as I’m concerned, women in Tennessee are second class citizens. We do not have equal rights. If we don’t have bodily autonomy, we do not have equal rights. And the fact that women are gonna be dying, young girls are gonna be dying, the idea that we’re forcing nine year olds to carry a pregnancy to term, horrifies me, horrifies me. They won’t let them learn about about Martin Luther King in school, but they will force them to carry a pregnancy to turn.

Crazy.

Well, we could do two hours, unfortunately. I mean, all that you had a great thread a while back. I was maybe last year just shows you and it’s gotten worse, like, just about all the extreme stuff going through the Tennessee legislature.

Yeah. And it’s,

like, it’s hard to keep track of it. I don’t know if you have one broader comment of that before I let you go.

And we haven’t even talked about all the indictments and all the federal investigations and all the horrific things that are going on right now. We have a speaker who doesn’t live in his district who is accepting per diem every week from the district he doesn’t live in. He now lives in Davidson County, if you live within fifty miles of the capital, you’re not supposed to get all that per diem. But he’s getting at saying he lives in Crossville and he does not. But we’re the ones who get it spelled for speaking without permission?

Well,

as this goes back to the drunk with power. Right?

Yeah. It’s like

they feel like they can do what they want. They can say racist stuff, they’re not gonna get called on it. They can, you know, shit silence. You guys are not gonna get called on it. They can take, you know, they can be corrupt play inside baseballs or acting it called on.

And that’s why people need to actually vote. And this is what it comes down to. Right? It’s getting, you know, the folks who who understand this and who maybe you know, so what the Bulwark and what our work has been all about. Right?

Who maybe might have some ideological differences with Democrats would say, this is too far. Like, these guys have gone way unbelievably has to be bent on a wide variety of issues on corruption. And, hopefully, we can unite some of those folks together. Thank you for doing this. We have tradition on the Sunday show, we do a couple fun or rapid fire questions.

I’m gonna do them really quick. It’s been serious topics, but, you know, we gotta leave people on a Sunday afternoon with a little bit of a a lighthearted note I want you to give me your Tennessee Mount Rushmore of people who are Tennessee famous people, residence heroes, you know, people that inspire you. I’m giving I’m explaining this a lot or so you can think you gotta have to give me your top Tennessee and your top volunteers. What do we call people live in Tennessee? Tennesseans?

Yeah. Volunteers. I would have to go with Dolly Parton —

Obviously. —

obviously. The obvious choice. Pat had Summit. Great

choice. I was gonna I was gonna nominate Pat Summit if you didn’t. So we’ll have

you go right in there. Elvis — Elvis. — and Ottery Wells.

Ottery Wells. That’s good. Outtery only was t Martin winning that national title. Well,

another team that’s cool. Tina

Turner. Tina Turner. Oh, okay. Boy. Alright.

We’ll we’ll we’ll put five bus up there. Okay. Favorite dolly song? Gotta be Jolene. Such a good one.

Potential new boyfriend is a sleeper for me, though. Love potential new boyfriend. Okay. Last question. You were born in Colorado, right, and spent some time working in Colorado.

So I’m a Colorado and so I need you to give me one area in which Colorado is clearly superior to Tennessee. I don’t wanna get you in trouble at home, but, you know.

Well, you know, it’s truly fascinating because it’s absolutely beautiful. I mean, the mountains are beautiful. But the mountains are so different than our mountains here. So people wanna compare. Our mountains are better than their mountains, but they’re different.

Yeah. But the Rockies are spectacular. You know, we have over mountains here. They’re greener. So it’s a different kind of beautiful but the Rocky Mountains are spectacular.

I used to go up to Mount Evans. It was one of my favorite places. I would go up to Mount Evans on the weekend to do my planning. I just take all my stuff up there, find a spot, and just do my school planning for the week. Up at Mount Evans.

So No.

No. This is great. The cheat answer would have been Jared Polis is the is the is the one thing that’s better about Colorado. Let’s see. You’d be doing you’d be better off with Jared Polis.

I really like the Mike, the Headless Chicken, Doria.

Yeah. Fruta. Yeah.

Fruta, that’s the name of the town. I don’t

know, like, the headless chicken, though. I’ve been to Fruta, but I don’t know.

Can you check it out? It’s it’s iconic. It’s fabulous. A chicken that they cut the head off and he didn’t die, and they took them around on tour without his head. Across the country.

And there’s and there’s a statue from, like, the headless chicken in the in the town.

Okay. I’m googling madly right Well, to do this afterwards, to learn how that goes to have the chicken. Thank you so much as they as the Rocky Top lyric goes. Wild is a mix but sweet is soda pop. You feel like that’s gonna be representative Gloria Johnson going forward.

Thank you so much for doing this. I’m so grateful for spending all this time. We we really admire you. I know that our listeners will be very happy to get

it. Okay. Hopefully,

we can please stay in touch. We’re always open here at the Bulwark. I’m with you unless you’re planning on telling us you. Alright? We’ll talk to you all later.

Alright. Thanks so much for having me.

Thank you, Gloria. And we’ll see you next time. We’ll see you back on Wednesday at the next level.