William Lamberth | |
|---|---|
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| Majority Leader of the Tennessee House of Representatives | |
| Assumed office January 8, 2019 | |
| Preceded by | Glen Casada |
| Member of the Tennessee House of Representatives from the 44th district | |
| Assumed office January 8, 2013 | |
| Preceded by | Mike McDonald |
| Personal details | |
| Born | William Gary Lamberth December 5, 1977 Bowling Green, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Lauren Lamberth |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | University of Tennessee (BA) College of William and Mary (JD) |
William Gary Lamberth (born December 5, 1977) is an American politician.[1][2][3][4] He serves as a Republican member of the Tennessee House of Representatives for the forty-fourth district, encompassing parts of Sumner County, Tennessee.[1][2][4]
He was born on December 5, 1977, in Bowling Green, Kentucky.[1] He is a fifth generation resident of Sumner County, Tennessee, and grew up on a farm in Tennessee.[2][self-published source][4] He attended Portland High School.[1][2] He graduated from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2001 and received a J.D. from the William & Mary School of Law in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 2004, where he was elected President of the Student Bar Association.[1][2][self-published source]
He was an Assistant District Attorney for Sumner County.[3][4] He now practices law as a private attorney in Gallatin, Tennessee.[1][3]
He was elected as state representative for the forty-fourth district Tennessee in 2012, replacing Democratic representative Mike McDonald.[1][2][3]
He is former president of the Rotary Club of Gallatin, Tennessee, and the Sumner County Bar Association, and former treasurer of the Republican Party of Sumner County.[1][2][self-published source] He is also Chairman of the Portland Community Education Foundation, table host and donor to the Cumberland Crisis Pregnancy Center in Gallatin.[1][2][self-published source] He also donates to the Middle Tennessee Mission Outreach and regularly goes on Christian missions to Honduras and other regions of the world that are in need of humanitarian relief efforts.[1][2][self-published source]
In 2023, Lamberth supported a resolution to expel three Democratic lawmakers from the legislature for violating decorum rules. The expulsion was widely characterized as unprecedented.[5]
In 2022, after accepting over $50,000 in campaign donations from Jack Daniel's and other alcohol suppliers, multiple detention facility operators and various pharmaceutical companies,[6] Lamberth embarked on a personal crusade [7] to ban all forms of cannabis in Tennessee containing greater than .3% THC.[8] This effort to ban came in spite of overwhelming public support of cannabis legalization,[9] federal legality of non-delta 9 THC[10] and a clear position from the FDA and USDA [10] that delta 8 THC is not a controlled substance.[11]
Lamberth has been criticized by the LGBT community for supporting bills to criminalize doctors performing gender reassignment surgery on minors,[12] requiring transgender people to use public restrooms corresponding to their biological sex,[13] and requiring transgender athletes in high school to compete in collegiate sports that correspond to their biological sex.[14]
He is married to Lauren Schmidt Lamberth, and has two children.[self-published source][4] He is a Baptist.[1][2][self-published source] He lives in Cottontown, Tennessee, with his family.[1][3]
