Tennessee Lawmakers Pass Resolution Congratulating Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro For Moving His Company To The State

 

Lawmakers in Tennessee know a good thing when they see it.

On Thursday, they passed a resolution lauding the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro for moving his news and commentary operation to Nashville.“Today in the Tennessee House, legislators just passed a resolution congratulating @BenShapiro and @realDailyWire for relocating here from California,” Natalie Allison wrote on Twitter. He bio on the social media site says Allison reports on state politics for The Tennessean.

State Rep. Jeremy Faison (R), filed “House Joint Resolution 187” on March 3. The resolution says, “we are pleased to welcome to Tennessee The Daily Wire, a media company, and its co-founder and editor Ben Shapiro, who has truthfully said, ‘Facts don’t care about your feelings.’”

The resolution also says Tennessee “welcomes all truth seekers and puts a premium on the truth and fact” and includes a take on Shapiro’s famous motto — “facts don’t care about your feelings” — by saying the state  “recognizes that truth matters more than emotion.”

“Mr. Shapiro is leaving Los Angeles due to high housing costs, rampant homelessness, the extraordinary state and local tax burden, the city’s refusal to maintain law and order, and the deliberate degradation of the quality of life for citizens,” said the resolution.

In September 2020, Shapiro took to Twitter to announce that his company, with 75-person staff, would be moving from Los Angeles.

“We’ve been asked over and over and over again when we would leave California. The answer: now. See you in Nashville, gang!” he wrote.

“Terrible governance has consequences,” Shapiro said of California’s leadership.

Indeed it does. So let’s take a look at two cities: Los Angeles, The Daily Wire’s former home, and Nashville, its new home.

Nashville-Davidson is 41.5% less expensive than Los Angeles, according to BestPlaces.net (although Salary.com says L.A. is 48.2% more expensive than Nashville). The median cost for a home in L.A. is $689,000, while in Nashville it’s $262,000. In L.A. there are 3,198 people per square kilometer, while in Nashville it’s 460 people. Meanwhile, homelessness has gone wild in Los Angeles, with addicts shooting drugs on public streets. And the taxes in California — oh, the taxes!

“California’s loss is most certainly Tennessee’s gain as Mr. Shapiro and The Daily Wire’s employees will contribute significantly to our economy and add to our already burgeoning pool of creative talent,” said the resolution.  “We are proud to see Mr. Shapiro transfer his allegiance to the Volunteer State and become a Tennessean, because as a truth seeker and a truth speaker he is an eloquent defender of the First Amendment rights that all Tennesseans treasure.”

The resolution stated, “through his outstanding work in media, Mr. Shapiro has distinguished himself as a fierce defender of the truth and the constitutional right of all Americans to express their beliefs, saying ‘Freedom of speech and thought matters, especially when it is speech and thought with which we disagree. The moment the majority decides to destroy people for engaging in thought it dislikes thought crime becomes a reality.'”