William Lamberth

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][4] He attended high school in Portland, Tennessee.[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]

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] He is also Chairman of the Portland Community Education Foundation, table host and donor to the Cumberland Crisis Pregnancy Center in Gallatin.[1][2] 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]

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,[5] Lamberth embarked on a personal crusade [6] to ban all forms of cannabis in Tennessee containing greater than .3% THC.[7] This effort to ban came in spite of overwhelming public support of cannabis legalization,[8] federal legality of non-delta 9 THC [9] and a clear position from the FDA and USDA [9] that delta 8 THC is not a controlled substance.[10]

On February 14, 2023, in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee where he serves as a member, Lamberth was questioning witness Abby Rubenfeld[11] on a bill that would criminalize drag queens for performing in front of children.[12] Rubenfeld was explaining that any obscene performances were already illegal according to Tennessee law that already exists and that this legislation serves as nothing but prejudicial to the LGBTQ+ community.

Lamberth is well known for his criticisms towards the LGBTQ+ community, supporting bills to criminalize doctors providing transgender-affirming treatment to youth,[13] requiring transgender people to use public restrooms associated with the gender they do not identify as,[14] and requiring trangender athletes in high school to compete in collegiate sports associated with the gender they do not identify as.[15]

On April 3, 2023, Lamberth, a proponent of red flag laws, asked students who gathered at the state capitol what guns they would like to be shot with, in response to their protests[16]. "If there is a firearm out there that you’re comfortable being shot with, please show me which one it is."[17]

He is married to Lauren Schmidt Lamberth, and has two children.[4] He is a Baptist.[1][2] He lives in Cottontown, Tennessee with his family.[1][3]