Content warning: depiction of sexual assault
There’s a rank odor surrounding the Tennessee General Assembly. That was more than amply established when the speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, Cameron Sexton, faced a welter of evidence that he didn’t really live in the district he represents. Mere weeks after Sexton led the charge to expel Democratic lawmakers for joining a gun control protest, Judd Legum of Popular Information uncovered evidence that strongly indicates he lives year-round in Nashville. His son is enrolled in a private school just outside the capital. Official records indicate Sexton only spent 42 days in Nashville on official business apart from the normal legislative session—though at least one resident of the neighborhood where he claims his official residence recalls he only shows up there on weekends and the occasional summer weekday. But most damning of all, two years ago he used a trust to conceal his purchase of a nearly $600,000 house in Nashville—hardly consistent with a temporary move demanded by his status as speaker.
Well, it turns out this situation is minor league compared to what Nashville CBS affiliate WTVF recently unearthed about another Republican lawmaker. The fifth-ranking Republican in the state house, Scotty Campbell, somehow got the idea he could stay in office even though a bipartisan panel had sanctioned Campbell for sexually harassing two legislative interns—and even though, according to one of those interns, Campbell’s behavior crossed the line into sexual assault. He only resigned when WTVF confronted him. Lawmakers say that they weren’t even aware of what happened until WTVF broke the story—but something about the process by which these matters are handled doesn’t add up.
Campbell represented a portion of the Tri-Cities in Tennessee’s northeastern corner, centered around Mountain City. He was the vice-chairman of the state house’s GOP caucus, making him the fifth-highest ranking Republican in the chamber behind Sexton. According to WTVF, in late March, a four-member subcommittee of the state house ethics committee found that Campbell had violated state house policy against workplace discrimination and harassment following an investigation by ethics committee staff.
Incredibly, all the committee, comprising two Republicans and two Democrats, was allowed to do was place a reprimand in Campbell’s personnel file and send the reprimand to Sexton. Campbell was also allowed to keep both his leadership post and his committee assignments. However, a relative of one of Campbell’s interns reached out to WTVF’s crack investigative reporter, Phil Williams, with more details.
The intern sent an email to officials at the university she attends saying that Campbell saw her and another intern walking out of an apartment complex where interns stay while working in Nashville. She said that Campbell told her that he’d spent a lot of time imagining the two interns having sex. When the intern denied it and said the other intern was her friend, Campbell then went on and on about how attractive he found the other intern.
On March 15, the intern went to Campbell’s apartment to return a wrench that she’d borrowed from him. Campbell tried to get her to admit she’d slept with both men and women, and offered her cannabis gummies in return for letting him see her tattoos and piercings. She angrily rebuffed him, and he responded by trying to get her to hug him several times. When she wouldn’t back down, she claimed Campbell reached out and grabbed her by the neck. She couldn’t get out of the apartment soon enough, and she filed a formal complaint soon afterward. According to the intern, Campbell had “fully admitted” what he had done.
By this time, legislative officials had put up the intern in a downtown Nashville hotel for the rest of her internship, and moved her furniture back to her hometown—all at taxpayer expense. The exact amount isn’t known, though Williams reports it amounts to “potentially thousands of dollars.”
When Williams digested this information, he confronted Campbell on Thursday morning. Watch here (sorry, WTVF won’t allow this video to embed). Campbell acted surprised, even though, according to Williams, he’d been well aware that WTVF was investigating him. claimed that he had “consensual, adult conversations” with two adults—a marked contrast to his earlier admission of guilt. This surprised Williams; he’d only known about one intern filing a complaint against Campbell. He also denied that the conversations turned lewd and vulgar, only saying that “private conversations are supposed to be private.” He claimed that the intern was making up her claims. And yet, within about hours of that interview, Campbell issued a one-sentence resignation note.
In what world does it take a reporter’s stern questioning to get Campbell to resign? That question became even louder when Legum read Williams’ report and noted that what the intern detailed wasn’t just sexual harassment. It was sexual assault.
It initially appeared that we had the makings of a textbook cover-up. After all, most of us know that regardless of political persuasion, there is only one acceptable way to deal with a lawmaker who behaves in this manner—get them the hell out, and get them the hell out now. So how in the world did Sexton and his colleagues not do so?
Believe it or not, it got worse when Williams sought to answer that question. Apparently no one in the state house even knew the details of Campbell’s debauchery until his abrupt resignation. Watch here.
Williams spoke with both Sexton and Republican caucus chairman Jeremy Faison, both of whom said they only found out about Campbell’s behavior when Williams broke the story. Sexton said that the ethics process didn’t provide any details to him, and he couldn’t even ask for them because it was “protected information.” Apparently that “protected information” included how the intern was relocated at taxpayer expense. Sexton claims the only notice he got was that terse memo of reprimand that was placed in Campbell’s file.
Sexton claimed that this process was put in place after former Republican state house majority whip Jeremy Durham was expelled in 2016 for sexually harassing at least 22 women. He conceded that this was definitely “something we need to take a look at”—but isn’t sure when.
Faison was of the same mind. He said that no one in his caucus knew about the investigation prior to Williams’ report, and agreed that the process needed to be fixed so they can act “if there’s somebody behaving in such a way that’s put somebody else in harm or fear.”
Indeed, this situation looks even worse considering that the investigation took place more than a week before Democratic state representatives Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson were threatened with expulsion for taking part in the protest. Jones and Pearson were expelled, only to be swiftly reappointed by local officials in Nashville and Memphis, respectively. Johnson, the only white lawmaker targeted, survived by only one vote.
Jones told Williams that Campbell had every intention of sticking it out, only to resign during lunch break. “We were just supposed to act like everything was normal,” Jones said—an example of what he described as “a toxic culture” in the Capitol. Pearson called for a full internal investigation into the use of taxpayer money in this situation.
That isn’t all that needs to be investigated. To put it mildly, something isn’t adding up. If the ethics process really does keep lawmakers in the dark about matters like this, it needs to be overhauled and overhauled yesterday. It does the very opposite of what it is supposed to do—ensure a safe environment in the people’s house. And if—God forbid—someone really did know about Campbell’s behavior and covered it up, heads must roll. Regardless, we need to get to the truth, and we need to get to the truth now.