Tenn. Republican sexually harassed interns before voting to expel ‘Tennessee Three’: investigation

A Tennessee Republican sexually harassed two interns in the months before voting to expel three Democrats from the state House, according to a bipartisan ethics investigation.

Scotty Campbell, 39, was one of dozens of Republican lawmakers in the Tennessee House who voted to expel Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson — known as the “Tennessee Three” — after they joined a gun control protest. Jones and Pearson were briefly removed and then reappointed; Johnson was not voted out.

But days before the April 6 expulsion vote, Tennessee’s House Ethics Committee found Campbell had sexually harassed two statehouse interns.

One intern filed a complaint after she said Campbell made inappropriate comments and unwanted advances toward her, local CBS affiliate WTVF reported.

The young woman said Campbell approached her and a 19-year-old fellow intern and described how “he was in his apartment imagining that we were performing sexual acts on one another and how it drove him crazy knowing that was happening so close to him,” according to WTVF.

During another interaction with Campbell, the woman alleges he asked her how many men she had slept with and offered to give her weed gummies in exchange for a look at her tattoos.

“He then reached out his hand towards me and grabbed me around my neck,” the woman wrote. “I recoiled and said I felt sick and immediately left. That was the last night I ever spoke with or saw him.”

[ VP Kamala Harris meets with expelled Black lawmakers as backlash to Tennessee Three episode grows ]

Campbell has denied the allegations. However, the ethics committee — made up of two Democrats and two Republicans — determined on March 29 that he violated the policy on harassment and misconduct.

Campbell told reporters Thursday that he has no plans to step down. Tennessee’s House rules don’t require lawmakers to take action against Campbell despite the ethics investigation.

Tennessee Republicans were accused of hypocrisy after expelling Jones and Pearson, as statehouse observers pointed out that former Rep. David Byrd never faced an expulsion vote despite allegations that he’d sexually abused children while working as a high school basketball coach.