Image Credit: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout
***Note from The Tennessee Conservative – this article posted here for informational purposes only.
By Sam Stockard [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
Despite a hefty penalty for setting up a bogus political action committee, embattled ex-House staffer Cade Cothren qualified to run for a House seat.
Tennessee’s Registry of Election Finance notified Cothren in late February that it levied an $80,000 civil penalty against him for eight violations. Yet the Secretary of State certified his election petition, enabling him to run in the August primary.
This is where it gets murky.
The filing deadline to run for office was Tuesday, and failure to pay the penalty could have put a dent in Cothren’s plans to run for the House District 71 seat held by Republican Rep. Kip Capley.
Registry members say Bill Young, executive director of the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, didn’t send the order to the Secretary of State.
“He has not sent the letter yet. … We have a meeting later this month, and we will be taking that up, I’m sure,” said Registry member Paige Burcham Dennis.
But Young told the Lookout Thursday that he sent the order to the Secretary of State and Tennessee Elections Coordinator Mark Goins in early March.
“Until the order becomes final, there’s not a lot we can do. And it’s not final yet,” Young said.
Secretary of State spokesperson Ben Hill referred questions back to Young and said he would notify the office about whether Cothren is unable to qualify because of the penalty.
The Secretary of State’s Office issued a statement Thursday saying, “The Registry has jurisdiction and enforcement authority over orders they issue. We have requested clarification from Bill Young regarding whether action taken by the Registry has disqualified Mr. Cothren from running for office.”
That didn’t exactly answer the question about whether it received the order.
The Registry board penalized Cothren in January for misleading the state about the secret formation of a 2019 political action committee called the Faith Family Freedom Fund that helped Rep. Todd Warner beat Rep. Rick Tillis. An ex-girlfriend of Cothren told the Registry she formed the PAC at his direction and put her name down as treasurer even though he ran it. Cothren has refused to testify, invoking Fifth Amendment rights against incriminating himself.
A Registry letter sent Feb. 26 to Cothren and his attorneys, Rob Peal and Erik Lybeck of Sims Funk in Nashville lets them know he has the right to request reconsideration within 14 days and/or a contested case hearing within 30 days. Without a timely request, the order becomes final.
“Please be advised that an order that becomes final with the civil penalty unpaid will be forwarded to the State Attorney General for collection,” the letter says. It notes that campaign funds cannot be used to pay civil penalties.
State law says if a civil penalty against a political campaign committee isn’t paid within 30 days after becoming final, the PAC’s treasurer and officers are ineligible to qualify for election to a state or local public office until the penalty is paid.
Cothren became a pariah in 2019 amid a racist and sexist texting scandal that led to his resignation and, ultimately, removal of his boss, Franklin Rep. Glen Casada, as House speaker. The pair was convicted in 2025 of running a fraudulent campaign consulting vendor and were set to report to prison before the president rescued them with a full pardon.
But once again, this case is in limbo. It remains to be seen whether Cothren could win the primary and make the November general ballot if he doesn’t pay the penalty.
The Registry is likely to take up the matter in executive session at its late March meeting. Typically, discussion out of the public eye centers only on litigation and personnel matters. In this matter, it could focus on both.
