Rutherford Republican House Candidate Cannot Escape Past Shenanigans

Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester said state House candidate Rick Womick has proven that he tried to defraud Rutherford County voters in 2008 by filing paperwork to run for the seat Rep. Donna Rowland has decided to give up.

Rowland announced her last-minute decision not to seek re-election this morning only hours before the candidate filing deadline passed at noon today. Former City Councilman Bill Shacklett and Mike Williams are seeking the Democratic nomination for Rowland’s seat.

“If I were a Republican voter over there, I would be disappointed and a little leery of a candidate who tried to pull a fast one during the 2008 elections,” Forrester said of Womick, who also serves as the Rutherford County GOP chairman. “Mr. Womick claimed he lived in Rep. Kent Coleman’s district and challenged Coleman for his legislative seat in the 2008 election.

“It was the Tennessee Democratic Party’s contention then, and still is now, that Mr. Womick committed voter fraud and perjury for what he did. The party even sent District Attorney General Bill Whitesell a letter requesting his office to investigate Mr. Womick’s actions.”

Womick claimed he lived at a Sulphur Springs Road home in Murfreesboro while seeking the seat of Rep. Coleman. Womick and his family, however, live on Highway 99 in Rockvale, which is located in House District 34.

In 2008 he also listed the Sulphur Springs Road address on his driver’s license and his handgun carry permit, which, according to the Tennessee Department of Safety, is a violation of Tennessee law if the location is not his actual residence.

The evidence sent to the District Attorney’s office in October 2008 included the following:
• Since Mr. Womick established service on August 1, 2008, at the Sulphur Springs Road location, he has used zero gallons of water compared to more than 10,000 gallons a month at the Rockvale home where he is supposedly not living.
• Since Mr. Womick established electricity, he has been billed $22.75 for the month of August in the house he is supposedly living in compared to $377 in the house he is not living in, and for the month of September, he was billed $16.89 for the house he is supposedly living in compared to $311 in the house he is not supposedly living in.
• When the house at 903 Sulphur Springs was occupied in 2007, the August electric bill was $82.38 and the September bill was $100.26.
• When he qualified to run for the 49th State House District in April, he listed his residence as 2315 North Tennessee Boulevard, Apartment # 11, in Murfreesboro.

“I am amazed Mr. Womick would even contemplate running for elected office after the shenanigans he and the Republicans over there tried to pull a couple years ago,” Forrester added.