Tennessee Jobs Now, a SuperPAC that supports Randy Boyd in the Tennessee Governor’s race, began airing a television commercial two weeks ago that continues on the theme of their recent statewide radio buy. The television ad hits Black for a 2001 vote during her time in the State Legislature that provided driver’s licenses to illegal aliens and also hits Black for her March 22, 2018 vote against the Omnibus Spending Bill (HR 1625) that funded a small portion of the border wall embraced by President Donald Trump.
The television ad features pictures of a tattooed MS-13 gang member, a “Muslim terrorist” wearing a keffiyah, and a black clad man with a stocking cap identified as a “sex trafficker” on Tennessee driver’s licenses while the announcer says:
“MS-13 gang member? Driver’s license. Terrorist? Driver’s license. Human trafficker? Driver’s license. In the legislature, Diane Black voted to give Tennessee driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Then in Washington, Black voted against funding president Trump’s border wall. Diane Black is making it easier for criminals, even terrorists, to come here illegally and stay. Dishonest Diane Black. Good for illegal immigrants, bad for Tennessee.”
The Diane Black campaign responded to the ads by demanding that television stations block them from airing, claiming the ads are inaccurate.
Rocklan W. King III, an attorney with Adams and Reese LLP who represents the Black campaign, argued that the driver’s license legislation Black voted for did not actually allow illegal immigrants to obtain them. “This bill permitted a person without a social security number to receive a driver’s license if the person submitted an affidavit affirming that such person has never been issued a social security number,” King wrote in his letter demanding the stations pull the ads. Nevertheless, driver’s licenses were issued to illegal aliens which, as King acknowledges in his letter, led to Black and other legislators later seeking to repeal the legislation.
Similar legislation in other states, including New Jersey, Florida, and Virginia, helped enable the 9-11 terrorists to obtain driver’s licenses that they used to board planes that were used to kill three thousand people on 9-11.
Despite the Black campaign’s repeated attempts to intimidate stations into removing the advertisements, no station has pulled the ad and they have continued to run.
According to Tennessee Jobs Now Attorney, Gardner Pate, “While Congresswoman Black may not be proud of her voting record, it is her record. Despite her efforts to get the advertisement pulled, she can’t run from the truth. The fact remains that she voted for a bill in the Tennessee legislature that allowed illegal immigrants to obtain a Tennessee driver’s license and she voted against a bill that provided funding for President Trump’s border wall.”
Pate points out that Black’s use of intimidation tactics to try and silence the opposition is nothing new. In 2010, when her opponent aired an advertisement critical of Black’s record in the Tennessee legislature, the company Black’s husband David Black owned sued to try and stop the advertisement from running. In deciding against the company and in favor of Black’s opponent’s campaign, the judge held the ad in question was “not factually false, or was at least substantially true.”
“Clearly, Diane Black doesn’t want the voters of Tennessee to know what she is up to in the swamp. She talks a good game back home; but, like most career politicians, the rhetoric doesn’t match up with her voting record,” added Dave Carney, General Consultant to Tennessee Jobs Now. “With her history of frivolous lawsuit and legal maneuvering, I expect her to keep fighting to hide her real record from the voters of Tennessee.”
The Tennessee Jobs Now television ad is somewhat reminiscent of an ad that then State Senator Jim Tracy ran during his 2010 campaign against Black. That ad, and radio and mail pieces in subsequent campaigns, have raised the same issue regarding Diane Black’s 2001 vote.
Embedded below is the rebuttal letter sent by Tennessee Jobs Now to stations in response to the Black campaign efforts to force television stations to pull the commercials.
[pdf-embedder url=”http://tennesseestar.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TN-Jobs-Now_TV-Ad-Response-May-29.pdf”]
So let me guess – the editor of this page is voting fir someone else? They may not have pulled the ad- but asking it to be pulled since it IS misleading – is hardly intimidation.
La Raza Randy is running scared. He does not deserve to be a governor of the great state of Tennessee.
Randy Boyd’s campaign —–
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
His ad money is wasted. Conservatives know Boyd is a big business Democrat running as a Haslam Republican. Black gets more favorable exposure by challenging Boyd in the news than she would going to court. A lesson from the current POTUS. LaRaza Randy is clearly a liar. And she will make him pay for it in the court of public opinion.
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Ads saying Black is soft on immigration run by the PAC supporting the Amnesty candidate.
Boyd isn’t covering himself in glory with these cheap shots.
I’m on the fence for Black or Lee but this non-stop, heavily advertised attack campaign by Boyd is a huge turnoff.
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I am voting for Diane mainly because of her illegals stance. 2001 was a long, naive time ago and I remember clearly this debate nationwide. It made sense at the time to get them legally able to drive and require them to show proof of insurance. Also,we would have a record of them with fingerprints, etc. That could have been useful. Then 9-11 happened and everybody changed their minds on this when the highjackers were shown to have gotten DL in Fla so they could travel more easily.
The letter to pull the ads was a mistake. She needs to hit back HARD esp on La Raza Randy and make him answer for his $250K to that illegal aiditing and abetting group headed by the LR head herself here locally–
Either Congresswoman Black has lost a bit of the old swagger, or, you can teach an old dog new tricks! The fact that she is “demanding that television stations block them from airing” and not immediately suing, is a departure from past tactics. Or maybe she just knows that she’s up against a bigger badder bully in the Haslam/Boyd alliance.
Will her next move be to pull the victim card? Or will it be to call in some of her DC allies and attack? But didn’t her DC buddies abandon her when they had the Haslam family on the ropes with that Rebate Scam? It’s kind of like watching a chess match. The sad part is that while these “kings” and “queens” jockey for position, we “pawns” end up losing in the end!
Boyd and Black both amount to more of the same Haslam legacy, bigger government, more taxing, and less freedoms.
The hardliners on immigration enforcement and control, such as me, will be voting for Diane Black, not Randy Boyd or anyone else. Just as we knew enough not to vote for Bill Haslam.