Brian Kelsey

Brian Kelsey (born December 22, 1977) is an American politician and a member of the Tennessee State Senate. Kelsey is the only legislator in Tennessee history to sponsor two successful amendments to the state constitution: one forever prohibited a state income tax, and the other followed a Founding Fathers model for selecting appellate judges. He was elected to represent District 31, which encompasses the following parts of Shelby County: Cordova, East Memphis, and Germantown.

Brian Kelsey
Member of the Tennessee Senate
from the 31st district
Assumed office
December 1, 2009
Preceded byPaul Stanley
Member of the Tennessee House of Representatives
from the 83rd district
In office
January 2004 – December 1, 2009
Preceded byJoe Kent
Succeeded byMark White
Personal details
Born (1977-12-22) December 22, 1977
Memphis, Tennessee
Political partyRepublican
ResidenceMemphis, Tennessee
Alma materUniversity of North Carolina
Georgetown University

Education

Kelsey graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned his J.D. from Georgetown University. He attended prekindergarten - high school on scholarship at private schools.

Career

Political experience and law practice

Kelsey works as a constitutional lawyer for the Liberty Justice Center, representing clients throughout the country for free whose constitutional rights have been violated.

Liberty Justice Center[1], Oct. 2018–present

The Kelsey Firm, PLLC,[2] Aug. 2009 - Oct. 2018

Federalist Society, Memphis Lawyers Chapter Board Member and former Law School Chapter President

University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, Fall 2017 Adjunct Law Professor on Lobbying

University of Memphis, Fall 2010 & Fall 2011 as an Undergraduate Adjunct Professor of Constitutional Law

Eighty-Third House District

Brian Kelsey was first elected as a state representative to the 104th Tennessee General Assembly (2004–2006). He served on the House Children and Family Affairs Committee; the House Commerce Committee; the House Domestic Relations Subcommittee; and the House Utilities, Banking and Small Business Subcommittee.[3] Kelsey was the former chairman of the House Civil Practice Subcommittee.

Thirty-First Senate District

Kelsey ran for the District 31 seat vacated after the resignation of former Senator Paul Stanley. In 2010, Kelsey won re-election for a full term as the Senator from the Thirty-First District.

In the 106th General Assembly, Kelsey served on the Senate Government Operations Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In the 107th General Assembly, Kelsey was assigned to the Senate Finance, Ways, and Means Committee; the Senate Judiciary Committee; and he was named Secretary of the Senate Education Committee. Kelsey was also admitted to the Joint Committee on Fiscal Review, which consists of members from both chambers who oversee the Fiscal Review Office.

During the 110th General Assembly, Kelsey serves as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.[4]

He supported Rick Perry for Republican primary of the presidential election of 2012.[5]

Kelsey is a member in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), having attended meetings of the organization.[6]

Kelsey ran unopposed in 2014 for the District 31 seat.

Political positions

Kelsey is the only legislator in Tennessee history to sponsor two successful amendments to the state constitution: forever prohibited a state income tax,[7] and the other followed a Founding Fathers model for selecting appellate judges.[8] He also sponsored the governor's comprehensive tort reform act in 2011,[9] and passed a law to prohibit ObamaCare Medicaid expansion[10] in Tennessee in 2014. In 2019, his conference committee report instituting an Education Savings Account program was signed into law[11] by Governor Bill Lee.

gollark: (okay, this is not strictly possible because real EFI implementations don't like it even if QEMU does, but it will be!)
gollark: Imagine not running an emulator for a Minecraft computer mod directly on your computer's boot thingy.
gollark: None of that "operating system" getting in the way.
gollark: This is why on performance-sensitive computers, I run PotatOS on CraftOS-EFI for maximum performance.
gollark: I think the reason my music listening is using so much CPU, for instance, is that I'm using YouTube for it, which provides videos, which Firefox is decoding even if the actual video content isn't seen. The actual audio content I care about could probably be decoded on a cheap ARM microcontroller or something if there wasn't so much random stuff in the way.

References
  1. "Brian Kelsey". Liberty Justice Center. Retrieved 2020-02-28.
  2. "Sen. Brian Kelsey". www.alec.org. Retrieved 2020-02-28.
  3. "Tennessee House Member". Archived from the original on April 27, 2007. Retrieved September 14, 2007.
  4. "Senators - TN General Assembly". www.capitol.tn.gov. Retrieved 2017-04-24.
  5. J.R. Lind, 'More Volunteers for Perry', on NashvillePost.com, November 7, 2011
  6. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-07-04. Retrieved 2012-06-16.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. "Senator files amendment to ban TN income tax permanently". www.wmcactionnews5.com. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
  8. "Tennessee Judicial Selection, Amendment 2 (2014)". Ballotpedia. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
  9. "Haslam Signs Tennessee Civil Justice Act to Improve Business Climate". www.tn.gov. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
  10. "Sen. Brian Kelsey". www.alec.org. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
  11. "STATEMENT FROM SENATOR BRIAN KELSEY REGARDING THE PASSAGE OF THE TENNESSEE EDUCATION SAVINGS ACCOUNT PILOT PROGRAM ACT". Tennessee Senate Republican Caucus. 2019-05-01. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
Tennessee House of Representatives
Preceded by
Joe Kent		 Tennessee Representative
83rd District
2004–2009		 Succeeded by
Mark White
Tennessee Senate
Preceded by
Paul Stanley		 Tennessee Senator
31st District
2009-Present		 Succeeded by
Incumbent
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.