Randy McNally

Crenshaw dismissed the four state officials from the suit in a bench ruling on Friday.

Those officials are Governor Bill Lee, Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally, Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton, and a few others.

This decision to dismiss the suit entirely is pending and reliant upon new filings expected later this month.

So, essentially, this judge is saying, yeah, I paused the takeover.

A state senator from Nashville is suing the Senate speaker who punished her for protesting.

During the special session to redraw Tennessee's congressional maps, Democrat Charlene Oliver stood on her desk and held a banner that read, No Jim Crow 2.0. Speaker and Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally responded by suspending Oliver from a powerful committee and barring her from collecting a per diem for legislative work for the remainder of the year.

She was also banned from using state money to attend legislative conferences this summer.

Now Oliver is suing McNally, the Senate clerk, and the General Assembly's legislative director, accusing them of violating her First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of association and her constituents' right to representation.

Boy, these people were serious about this.

So a Tennessee legislator, Randy McNally, does that make you think of the maps and stuff, became a corroborating witness and wore a wire during the investigations.

The FBI says that the broader investigation produced numerous convictions and guilty pleas involving Tennessee public officials.

Contemporary reporting gives you a sense of how widespread the problem had become.