NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – The top story this year in Tennessee was the dramatic fall from power of state Rep. Glen Casada, the former House speaker whose sexually explicit text message exchanges about women and other scandals drove him to resign after only a few months on the job, according to an annual Associated Press survey of reporters, editors and broadcasters.
Casada carved a path to the speakership during a November 2018 vote of House Republicans, a job that eluded him when he ran for it eight years earlier. Casada was installed by the GOP-supermajority Legislature in January. Within five months, the controversy-riddled leader lost his support base and his caucus cast a vote of no confidence in him in May.
Casada resigned as speaker in August over the revelations that he exchanged sexually explicit text messages about women with his former chief of staff, Cade Cothren, years ago. Other controversies kept piling on; among them: Cothren admitted cocaine use at a legislative office years ago; Casada was included in a group text with a racist message from Cothren, but Casada said he never saw it; and claims of vote-buying attempts on a key education voucher bill arose, which he has firmly denied.
In July, Republicans cast their vote to replace Casada with Rep. Cameron Sexton, who ran on “getting back to the basics.” The House formally put him in power during an August special session.
Replacing a speaker in the middle of a term is extremely rare in Tennessee. The last premature speaker resignation came in 1931 in the Senate.