State Representative Jason Zachary sent an email to his list promoting a family member for a local school board position that will be on the March 1, 2016 ballot. What is wrong with Zachary sending an email? Nothing! What is a problem is when it is a political solicitation where he uses his state office phone number and his state email address. It is possible that he used the state’s laptop to compose and send the email from the state’s server. We do know that all responses are being directed to his Administrative Assistant in Nashville through phone and emails. We blogged about his email here.
What is the precedent for this? Well, State Senator Stacey Campfield was portrayed as guilty and received lots of negative attention for sending an email and immediately recalling the email. Read one of the Campfield stories here. Zachary sent the email and hasn’t received the same negative attention, because the media does not view him as a threat. However, the argument is that someone running a relative before sitting his first day in legislature as part of a local biased agenda is simply creating his instant permanent political class family. Did she serve “as the person who coordinated and organized the Zachary campaigns for public office over the last three years” as a quid pro quo for a position with a paycheck?
Maybe on January 12, 2016 when the TN Republican Caucus meets to deal with Rep. Jeremy Durham, (as reported here) they can ask Zachary about his political maneuvers and subjecting his Administrative Assistant to his political solicitations responses.
You would have thought that after State Senator Richard Briggs endorsed Zachary’s opponent that Zachary would not intervene in the very next political contest. But maybe he wants to be the next Briggs or he really believes he is the emperor of District 14 and can anoint whomever he names it and claims it for, not sure the answer to all these questions. But hopefully the Knox County Legislative Chair along with TN Republican House leadership can find out the answers.
Here is the first blog post revealing the family connection to Zachary here. A response to the Treasurer of Zachary’s family member that attempted to “take to task” this blog here. The Zachary family member is not educated of what is in the geographic boundary of the school board district, she hopes to represent here.
