Statehouse One-Acts: What’s It Like To Voluntarily Suck So Bad?

something something something Rocky Top

If you’re up on your state nicknames (or read the subhed, I guess), you might have guessed that this week’s brief is all about Tennessee.

As an erudite consumer of this missive, you may recall that Tennessee’s GOP-controlled legislature tipped from “banal Republican-ness” to “silencing and expelling two Black lawmakers because they didn’t sit down and shut up when they were told to” back last spring (although the Tennessee legislature has been no stranger to scandal in years prior).

Which is when my interest in the place upgraded from “meh electorally uninteresting” to “just so evil I can’t ignore them” for the first time in almost five years.

Here’s a quick version of what went down last spring/summer, because that was a long time ago and maybe you don’t live there/skipped the newsletter those weeks/christ on a bus there’s so much happening how can I be expected to remember anything from more than a week ago???

• Even folks who aren’t erudite readers of this missive might recall the “Tenne…