DATELINE WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TN — RULES, RANTS & RECKLESS LETTERHEADS
Originally posted May 14, 2025
Welcome back to Williamson Wrong’s Dummy of the Week, where we shine a very public light on some not-so-public nonsense. Each week — or when we feel like it — we dishonor the civic-minded men and women whose obsession with drama over duty makes local government measurably dumber. If your inbox is full of resolutions no one reads, or your reply-all finger has lawyered up, you just might be next.
This week’s honor goes to Williamson County Commissioner Christopher Richards — District 7 seat warmer, part-time parliamentarian, and full-time procedural disaster.
So what’s Richards done to earn the crown?
Let’s start with what he hasn’t done: pass a single significant resolution.
Not one.
Not his Adequate Facilities Tax study (torpedoed 22–1).
Not his constitutional process rewrite (flushed in committee).
Not even a small win on contract oversight. Just a lot of noise, paperwork, and point-of-order tantrums.
And when Richards doesn’t get his way?
He lawyermails you.
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Most recently, Richards sponsored yet another doomed resolution — this one requiring all commission committee agendas to be published at least 48 hours in advance. The Rules Committee refused to even second it in March. So Richards brought it to the full commission anyway, rewrote it mid-meeting to delete the committee reference, and got the amendment passed.
And then? The full resolution was promptly yeeted to June.
It was peak Richards:
Write a rule. Lose the room. Blame the process.
And still leave without a win.
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Then there’s his war with County Attorney Jeff Moseley — another chapter in Richards’ long campaign to turn every procedural pebble into a constitutional crisis.
After the Commission voted 22 to 1 to punt his AFT resolution, a Budget Committee had the nerve to discuss it again.
No vote. No action. Just a little dialogue.
Richards, naturally, reacted like he’d just witnessed a coup. He filed a procedural screed — 1,200 words deep — demanding that no one so much as make eye contact with his resolution without pomp and circumstance.
Moseley replied: “I’m not going to relitigate this with you.”
Translation: No one cares, Chris.
After filing that screed locally, Richards went statewide — submitting a four-page complaint to the Tennessee Comptroller accusing the Mayor’s Office, the county attorney, and half the legislative process of procedural sabotage.
He name-dropped expired contracts, claimed misuse of funds, and demanded investigations for a resolution that never even got a vote, other than his own.
Because in the world of Christopher Richards, no setback is too minor to turn into a full-blown meltdown — with himself as the plaintiff, the victim, and the star of a one-man courtroom drama.
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In March, several local conservatives said Chris Richards looked out of place and shady AF lurking around the ballot tables at the Williamson County GOP Convention — handing out slates, whispering names, working the room like a guy with more ambition than votes.
Did Richards respond with, “Hey, I’m a politician — criticism comes with the job?"
Nope.
He sent a cease-and-desist letter.
One insider said the real crime wasn’t election interference — it was attempted murder — because after reading the stern "Hey, cut it out, guys!" demand letter, they all nearly died laughing.
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But this brand of bluster goes back further.
In 2024, Richards turned what should’ve been a routine reappointment to the hospital board into a full-blown circus because he didn’t want David Landrum — a widely respected figure in Williamson County — to return to the seat.
Instead of moving on with the vote, Richards buried everyone in accusations, procedural stalling, and dramatic flailing that wasted weeks of everyone’s time.
One man’s reappointment became another man’s delusion of political importance.
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And let’s not forget how Richards got here in the first place.
He’s a perennial loser at the polls — a man who finished dead last in a 2016 school board race with just 9.6% of the vote. In 2022, he ran for County Commission again and lost the Republican primary to Bert Chalfant by just under a dozen votes. (Chalfant spent hardly no campaign funds).
But when Chalfant tragically passed away, the Williamson County GOP didn’t call a special election.
They held a closed-door caucus instead — and that’s where Richards finally found a win.
And he didn’t just show up — he brought his lawyer.
He literally copied attorney Austin McMullen on emails to party leaders about caucus procedure, laying the groundwork in case he didn’t get his way. Then, for good measure, his campaign manager followed up to complain that the party newsletter hadn’t properly updated his bio — because apparently “stay-at-home dad” was too damaging for his delicate brand.
So that’s how Richards got in, not with votes, but installed — courtesy of a handful of anti-voter insiders (cough... WCRP and Tennessee Stands... cough) who just got busted trying to rig the rules.
When losing feels unfair, they’d rather break the game than play it.
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Richards doesn’t solve problems.
He doesn’t build consensus.
He hijacks meetings, flings paperwork, and wields policy like a weapon — not to serve the public, but to settle scores.
He’s a rubber-stamp vote in the conservative bloc, doing exactly what everyone else does — and then acts like a martyr when he doesn’t get his way on one issue nobody cares about.
You’re not outnumbered, Chris.
You’re just annoying — and no, drawing out meetings with ego-driven nonsense isn’t leadership.
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So congratulations, Commissioner Chris Richards.
You’re a Dummy.
A glorified complaint desk in a Bahama shirt and wrinkled slacks.
A waste of time, motion, and county toner.
And the only thing you’ve ever successfully governed is the black hole of your own self-importance — pulling time, energy, and patience into your orbit until all that’s left is eye-rolls and motions to adjourn.