Updated at 4 p.m. to correct spelling
Gov. Bill Haslam spoke Tuesday to what used to be rock-ribbed Republicans, answering questions about Shariah law, health care reform and judicial selection in a lunchtime appearance before Davidson County Republicans.
Answering a question from the crowd, Haslam defended his decision to hire and stand by Samar Ali, a Muslim woman working in the Department of Economic and Community Development, as reflecting his fundamental moral values, despite continued claims by some Republicans that she is secretly part of a plot to impose Shariah law on the state of Tennessee.
Haslam said that Ali, a native of Waverly, Tenn., serves as a trade representative for Tennessee and has no involvement with Islamic law beyond once having advised Middle Eastern clients on how to structure financial transactions.
“Samar is somebody who quite frankly I think — and I know there are some people in this room who disagree with me — that I think has been incredibly unfairly maligned,” Haslam said. “We believe in people having the freedom in our country to exercise their religion as long as it doesn’t violate the Constitution, and that’s a big ‘as long as’.
“If I thought there was some way that I thought Samar being here was in some way a threat to the constitution of the U.S. or to the state, I would’ve done something different. But I don’t think that.”
Haslam spoke at length about the Affordable Care Act. Haslam said he still has not made up his mind about a state-operated health insurance exchange, blaming the federal government for leaving many questions about how the exchanges would operate unanswered.
But Haslam did he did dismiss one suggestion. One audience member suggested last summer’s Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act opened a constitutional issue about the law because justices determined it was a tax. Under the Constitution, taxes are supposed to originate in the House of Representatives, but the audience member said the Affordable Care Act originated in the Senate and he said Tennessee could contest that fact before the Supreme Court.
Haslam, however, said it’s fairly late in the game to lodge another court challenge.
“I’m not a constitutional lawyer. I’m not even a lawyer,” Haslam said. “There’s a whole lot of different challenges going on right now, and my situation is this: In the meantime, we have to govern Tennessee.”
Haslam similarly threw cold water on a suggestion that appeals court judges could be elected by popular vote in the summer of 2014, ahead of a potential vote later that year on a constitutional amendment that would let the governor appoint judges. Appeals court judges are currently selected through a nominating commission, but that process is laid out in state law, not the state constitution.
“The issue that we’re dealing with is twice … the Tennessee Supreme Court has said that is a constitutional way to do it,” he said. “I don’t know that we’re going to come up with a different process in the meantime.”
