Cameron Sexton

Sexton has served as a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives since 2010.[4] Sexton was elected as House Majority Whip for the 108th General Assembly,[5] served as the Majority Caucus Chairman for the 111th General Assembly[6] and became Speaker of the House in 2019.[7]

In 2013, he sponsored legislation allowing businesses to file forms electronically instead of through the mail for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit.[8]

Memphis City Directory entry for the slave-trading business of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan

In June 2020, after Black members of the House unsuccessfully asked it to eliminate a state celebration of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general, slave trader, and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Sexton opined: "I don’t think anybody here is truly racist. I think people may make insensitive comments."[9] In 2021 he voted against the removal of the Ku Klux Klan leader's bust from the Tennessee State Capitol to the Tennessee State Museum, along with Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally; however, the bust was removed.[10] Sexton said that he believed the removal of the Grand Wizard's bust "aligns .. with the teaching of communism."[10]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Tennessee, Sexton supported the prohibition of face mask and COVID-19 vaccine requirements within the state, and argued that cities in Tennessee did not have the right to decide for themselves on the issue.[11][12] In December 2021, Sexton said Tennessee had had about 14,000 confirmed deaths from COVID (out of 1.3 million cases of COVID), and said: "That’s barely 1%."[13] As of January 30, 2022, Tennessee, with 1.8 million cases, ranked 5th in number of confirmed COVID cases per capita (264 per 1,000; highest of any state in the south), and 7th by number of deaths per capita (326 per 100,000; 22,000 deaths total) in the United States, as its 54% full vaccination rate lagged behind the US average of 64%.[14]

During a special session of the legislature in October 2021, Sexton introduced controversial legislation allowing partisan school board elections statewide.[15] The initial legislation would have required all school board elections statewide to be partisan, but was trimmed to allow local parties to call for partisan school board elections after some GOP opposition.[16] The legislation still had the result of making most school board elections statewide partisan, however. This act was strongly believed to be an attempt to reduce the ability of Democrats and people with Democrat-leaning views to win election to school boards throughout the state, and to have been motivated by GOP opposition to critical race theory, mask mandates, and a perception of increasing liberalization of education throughout the country.[17] The legislation was opposed by the Tennessee School Board Association and many school districts throughout the state.[18]

On January 27, 2022, Sexton admonished Representative John Ray Clemmons, as Clemmons tried to honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the House.[19] Clemmons began his honoring of the day by referring to the Auschwitz concentration camp, which the US Army liberated from the Nazis, to the recent banning by a Tennessee county education board of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Holocaust graphic novel Maus.[19][20] A few minutes into Clemmons speech, while he was denouncing anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism, Sexton abruptly interrupted him mid-sentence and complained his honoring of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.[20][21][22] Sexton said his objection was that Clemons' honoring was being made during the "welcoming and honoring" portion of the calendar.[20][19][23][24]

In January 2022, asked in an interview whether he thinks any of the legislation he has supported on COVID and the banning of abortions and critical race theory education makes it easier or harder to attract businesses and people to the state, Sexton responded "... we haven’t seen really much of a decrease in that. As far as people moving here — I don’t know. I mean, maybe if you’re a more progressive, you might not want to come to Tennessee...."[25]