Do we like them?Do we like Bill Lee?
Our score: 3 out of 10. He signed laws restricting drag shows and gender-affirming care for minors, and the good on his record is thin and mixed with some real stains.
Bill Lee is a businessman who walked into politics as a newcomer and won the Tennessee governor's race in 2018 as a Republican. He was sworn in for a second term in January 2023 and is now in his last year, because he is term-limited and leaves in early 2027. He has run a low-key, popular-with-his-own-side sort of government.
The moment that put him on the national radar for this page came in March 2023, when he signed a law restricting drag shows. It bans what it calls adult cabaret entertainment on public property or anywhere minors can see it, and the list includes male or female impersonators. Asked about a photo that appeared to show him in a dress at school, he neither confirmed nor denied it and said it was a different matter from “sexualized entertainment in front of children, which is a very serious subject.”
The harm check is not close. On the same day he signed the drag law he also signed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, which the US Supreme Court upheld in 2025. Drag performers and LGBTQ+ advocates told reporters the drag law is vague and could be used against trans people in public, and that is the reaction that matters for our reader. Defenders, including the bill's sponsors, say it protects kids.
In 2025 he went from saying he had no plans to send the National Guard into Tennessee cities to working out the details with Trump for a deployment to Memphis. Memphis and state Democrats objected, a judge temporarily blocked troops from operating in the city, and the state appealed. Where you land depends on whether you see it as a crime crackdown or a political stunt, but it is a call he made himself.
The latest mess is the Christa Pike execution on 30 September 2026. Lee had refused clemency, and the state's attempt failed after two doses of pentobarbital, with her lawyers calling it torture and saying she should have her sentence commuted. Lee said the procedure was deeply disturbing, ordered a third-party review and paused the remaining execution scheduled this year. The corrections department says it followed its protocol every step of the way.
On the good stuff, the honest answer is that it is thin in what we could verify. Ordering a review after a failed execution is a point in his favour, but it came after he turned down clemency and after an earlier failed attempt in May. We found nothing about his own kindness, charity or standing up for others at a cost to himself that we could confirm, and nothing on climate or immigration either.