Readers may remember a time when hot chicken, sex, and cocaine played a role in securing the passage of voucher legislation in the state.
That was three years ago. So, what happened? Well, as it turns out, the former Speaker of the House (Glen Casada) and his former Chief of Staff (Cade Cothren) have been indicted in a bribery and kickback scandal related to the voucher vote.
NewsChannel5 reports:
According to the indictment, beginning in October 2019, Casada, Cothren, as well as another conspirator engaged in a fraudulent scheme to enrich themselves “by exploiting Casada and the other conspirator’s official positions as legislators to obtain State approval of Phoenix Solutions as a Mailer Program vendor to provide constituent mail services to members of the Tennessee General Assembly.”
This reportedly began after Cothren’s resignation and after Casada stepped down as the Tennessee Speaker of the House.
While the indictment is not specifically around the voucher vote, the conspirators were directly involved in that event as well.
More to come as this process continues.
For more on education politics and policy, follow @TNEdReport
Your support-$5 or more-makes publishing education news possible.