Please join Representative Stratton Bone and Governor Phil Bredesen for a Meet and Greet. Tuesday September 7th at the James E. Ward Center in Lebanon. 6:30-8:30 pm. No Ticket Required.

The August meeting of the  Wilson County Democratic Party will be held on Monday, August 9^th at 6:30 pm.  The meeting will be at the headquarters located at 228 West Main St., Suite D.  This is in the strip mall behind Cox’s Jewelers.  Discussion will include the primary results and the booth at the upcoming Fair.  All Democrats are encouraged to attend and get involved!

Early voting for the August 5th primary has begun in Wilson County!  All registered voters in Wilson County may vote early during the period beginning Friday, July 16th, and ending Saturday, July  31st at any of the three locations listed below.

Hours for ALL locations:    8:00 a.m.  -  6:00 p.m.  Monday – Friday        8:00 a.m.  -  1:00p.m.  Saturday

Wilson County Election Commission
203 East Main St.
Lebanon
- click for map/directions -

Mt. Juliet Community Center
1075 Charlie Daniels Pkwy.
Mt. Juliet
- click for map/directions -

Watertown Community Center
8630 Sparta Pike
Watertown
- click for map/directions -

Call the Wilson County Democratic Party with any questions at 615-444-3838

The Wilson County Democratic Party Headquarters , located at 228 West Main Street Suite D in Lebanon, is open:

Tuesday 4pm-8pm

Thursday 2pm-6pm

Saturday 9am-1pm

Also, the Headquarters will be open all day on August 5th for the County General / State Primary elections.

Call with any questions at 615-444-3838.

The Wilson County Democratic Party will hold a Win 2010 Family Fun Day on Saturday July 24 at 2:00 pm at the WCDP Headquarters located at 228 West Main St. in Lebanon. This will be a day full of family fun! There will be food and games, so bring the family out! Tickets are $5.00, which can be bought at the door or in advance at the Headquarters. Hope to see you there!

Tennessee Democrats can hear Vice President Joe Biden give the keynote speech at this year’s Jackson Day Celebration at Belmont University’s Curb Event Center on Friday, July 16.

Doors for Jackson Day will open at 4:30 p.m. and the program will begin at 5:30 p.m. CDT. For attendance information, go to the Tennessee Democratic Party’s website at www.tndp.org or call 615-327-9779.

“Tennessee Democrats are excited Vice President Biden will help us kick off this year’s critical mid-term elections with his appearance at Jackson Day,” Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester said.

“Our economy is bouncing back from one of the worst recessions this country has seen since the Great Depression, and the policies put in place by this Administration and Congress are helping put Tennesseans back to work.”

Biden served in the U.S. Senate for 36 years before becoming the nation’s 47th Vice President. As the chairman or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations and the Judiciary committees during much of his tenure, the Vice President has helped shape this nation’s foreign policy and its criminal justice system.

“We have plenty more work to do, and that’s why it is vitally important we motivate Tennessee voters to go to the polls this November and elect more Democrats to Congress and the state Legislature,” Forrester added. “Jackson Day will help us build momentum for this fall’s elections.”

Jackson Day is an annual event held by the Tennessee Democratic Party honoring President Andrew Jackson, the founder of the modern Democratic Party.

State Sen. Ron Ramsey has once again shown his indifference to the needs of ordinary Tennesseans by backing a Republican budget that would eliminate funding for an agency meant to save the lives of babies.

Tennessee’s infant death rate is the 47th worst in the country. The Governor’s Office of Child Care Coordination was established in 2004 by Gov. Phil Bredesen to coordinate a wide range of services to children, including programs to reduce infant mortality rates across the state.

“It’s ironic a gubernatorial candidate who claims to be pro life would callously slash programs meant to save the lives of our babies,” Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester said. “Mr. Ramsey’s boot evidently knows no boundaries.”

According to news reports, the Office of Child Care Coordination spends about $5 million annually, of which a little more than $2 million is state money.

Ramsey and other Republican candidates across the state have been railing against federal assistance. And Ramsey’s campaign has been airing television advertisements promising to give Washington “the boot.”

“It would make better sense to me if Tennessee voters would give Ramsey the boot,” Forrester said

Health experts attribute increased infant mortality rates to lack of prenatal care, premature births, low birth weights, tobacco use among pregnant woman and Sudden Infant Death syndrome.

“We have made progress reducing the infant mortality rate here in Tennessee since Gov. Bredesen started the Office of Child Care Coordination,” Forrester said. “Why in the world would you want to eliminate programs meant to save a baby’s life?

“Senate Republicans and Mr. Ramsey are misplacing their priorities here. They need to quit playing these silly political games and focus on ways to improve the lives of Tennesseans,” he added.

As you have seen over the last several days, our fellow Tennesseans have been ravaged by historic flooding in Middle and West Tennessee. As the water slowly recedes, I want to take a moment to thank all the heroes across the state who risked their lives to save others. Men like Tennessee House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Turner, a firefighter in Nashville who waded in water up to his chin to save dozens of people trapped this week.

Heroic stories like the one above took place from Memphis to Spring Hill and should inspire and remind each of us that the time to live up to our “Volunteer” name is now. I hope each of you will continue to reach out to help friends, neighbors, loved ones, and fellow Tennesseans who face massive challenges as they recover from the damage and suffering the water left behind.

I am asking our staff at the Tennessee Democratic Party to take Friday off to volunteer with organizations assisting with recovery, clean up, and aid to those who need our help. I hope each of you will also reach out in any way you can.

Here are a few ways you can help.

Give Money:

Tennessee Red Cross
Donations are accepted online or by texting REDCROSS to 90999

Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle TN

MidSouth Food Bank

Volunteer:

Tennessee Red Cross

Hands On Nashville

For questions about water advisories, returning home after a flood event, or government status reports you can view that information here:

Tennessee Government Flood Guidance

Sincerely,

Chairman Chip Forrester

You may have heard in recent days that a Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada, Sue Lowden, proposed bartering chickens for health care. Not to be outdone, Rep. Mike Bell (R – Riceville), who voted this session to nullify national health care reform with the “Health Freedom Act,” suggested uninsured Tennesseans pay doctors not with poultry, but with vegetables.

His idea was so a-maizing that the Rachel Maddow Show picked up on it and featured Lowden and Bell’s ideas on the April 22 show. Click here to view the priceless clip.

You also can read a brief transcript below of the exchange between Rep. Bell and Rep. Joe Towns (D – Memphis) as Bell explains his proposal:

Bell: They’re [the Mennonites] some of the healthiest people you have ever seen. They pay cash when they go to the doctor. They work out arrangements with the hospitals if their children have to be hospitalized. This is an individual choice that we’re talking about.

Towns: You’re saying they pay cash? For organ transplants and cancer and heart cases, they pay cash?

Bell: I said they pay cash or work out other arrangements. I know for a fact. I know someone in the medical field who has been paid with vegetables from the Mennonite community.

Towns: That’s an anomaly. That’s not how the system works. I can’t take a sack of vegetables down to the utility company and pay my utility bill on my house. Nobody’s going to take vegetables for payment. We can’t run the country on vegetables and horse trading.

We think Tennesseans should take Rep. Bell up on his idea. If he knows of doctors who are willing to trade health care for vegetables, he should let us know! Click here to send him an email, describe your ailments, let him know what you can afford to pay in vegetables, and ask him to find you a doctor willing to accept the arrangement. If he gets back to you, please share his response with us! And if he doesn’t…well, maybe he’s just “full of beans.”

Once you’re done, post this on Facebook, tweet about it, and forward this message to your friends so Rep. Bell can see just how many people would like to take him up on his “solution” for an affordable health care in Tennessee.

Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester is requesting state Election Coordinator Mark Goins to provide a statewide list of purged voters immediately so efforts can be made to ensure legitimate voters have not been disenfranchised like those potentially in Benton County.

Forrester pointed to a recent WSMV-TV Channel 4 investigative story detailing the actions of the Benton County Election Commission, which invalidated 2,100 voter registrations for various reasons, including a simple failure to check a box.

“Many of those people have been voting for decades in Benton County,” Forrester said. “To all of a sudden claim their registrations are invalid because they failed to check a box is ridiculous. How many more law-abiding, registered voters across Tennessee will be denied the right to vote on Election Day?

“This just further demonstrates the mess created when Republicans fired a bunch of competent, longtime county election administrators after the 2008 elections. Some of those newly hired administrators evidently are either using poor judgment or playing partisan games. Neither one is acceptable.”

If affected voters do not correct their registrations by July 31, they will be ineligible to vote in the August 5 primary, local officials have said.

Republicans took control of local election commissions in all 95 counties after the November 2008 elections, firing many county election administrators soon thereafter. That prompted a federal lawsuit to be filed on behalf of several former county election administrators contending Republicans violated their constitutional rights by conspiring to treat their jobs as political patronage.

“We see now what can happen when political patronage is used to hire election administrators,” Forrester said. “They let Republican Rep. Matthew Hill get away with not properly filling out his nominating petition in Washington County, but they want to purge Benton County residents who have been voting for decades because they didn’t check a box. This kind of behavior is damaging our political process.

“I’m asking Mr. Goins, Secretary of State Tre Hargett and Tennessee Republican Chairman Chris Devaney to put aside partisan politics and work with me and other Democrats and Republicans across the state to fix this problem right away,” he added.