By Ashley Benkarski
For years, Senator Marsha Blackburn has been making decisions that affect Tennesseans at every level, but that may soon change.
Two other women, Representative Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville and Marquita Bradshaw, D-Memphis, are stepping up to the challenge of running against Blackburn in what many are calling a longshot campaign to flip a deeply red Senate seat blue.
But what Tennesseans must ask themselves is this: What has Marsha Blackburn done for you? Has she made the state safer? More affordable? Or has she played into party politics and listened to corporate lobbies?
Blackburn has played her middle-class, hard-working voters for fools, distracting them with culture war nonsense and Second Amendment talking points while supporting wealthy lobbying interests that have funneled opioids into our homes and guns into the hands of dangerous people.
Per Politifact, “The major drug distribution companies lobbied for bills Blackburn supported. Between 2014 and 2016, two distribution companies and the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, a trade group, spent just shy of $1.3 million on lobbyists to work specifically on getting Blackburn’s ideas into law.” The site explains that Blackburn’s campaign donations from the drug distribution industry have increased since 2012.
“The record shows that Blackburn was critical of the DEA and was an early leader in reining in DEA powers. It is also a matter of record that the industry spent nearly $1.3 million lobbying for those changes and increased its donations to Blackburn as the legislative process played out.”
And WBIR reported that Blackburn ranked is the 12th-most NRA-supported legislator in the country, netting a 2018 endorsement and nearly $1.3 million from the group during her career. “Overall, she raised around $11 million for her campaign, which means NRA funds make up around 12% of the total money she raised,” the report notes. “She voted against the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in June 2022, which expanded mental services and increased background check requirements for people under 21 years old to buy or sell guns. The bill was later signed into law.”
Johnson, on the other hand, joined the people in their calls for gun safety in the halls of the Capitol along with Rep. Justin Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson —together, dubbed the “Tennessee Three.”
That act of dissent and the resulting expulsion of Reps. Jones and Pearson, both Black, propelled the three lawmakers into national discourse, with media appearances and celebrity support. And while Johnson escaped expulsion by one vote (which she said was due to her white skin), that attention could very well gain Johnson the momentum she needs to take Blackburn on.
If Blackburn’s hilarious “Radical Gloria” website decrying the Democrat as a “Woke Socialist” and “a direct threat” to Tennesseans’ way of life is any indication, it appears Blackburn considers Johnson a formidable challenger.
Of course, gun control is on Johnson’s list of priorities, along with abortion rights. But it doesn’t mean she’ll outright ban guns, and it doesn’t mean she supports late-term abortions (which are extremely rare, and mostly due to a severe medical condition). Those claims are, plain and simple, fearmongering.
And Johnson isn’t alone in her views, despite Blackburn’s claim that she doesn’t share the values of Tennesseans. In fact, polls conducted by Vanderbilt University and Embold Research within the last year found that most Tennesseans want stricter gun laws. The Vanderbilt poll, conducted before the tragic Covenant School shooting with over 1,000 registered voters, found that 82 percent of respondents favored strengthened background checks for gun purchases, 72 percent favored red flag laws, and 64 percent supported legislation requiring the safe storage of ammunition and firearms. The Embold Research poll, conducted from April 10-12, had similar findings: Out of 877 registered Tennessee voters, 88 percent supported background checks for all gun sales, 82 percent supported requiring safe storage in cars and boats, and 70 percent supported red flag policies that allow guns to be taken from those deemed dangerous to themselves and others.
Like our counterparts across the nation, Tennesseans were blindsided by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Though there are disagreements about when during a pregnancy an abortion can be performed, most of us agree that women have the right to bodily autonomy. Blackburn enthusiastically supported the Supreme Court’s Roe reversal.
Johnson has voted against the bigoted efforts of a power-drunk Republican supermajority focused on doing anything but taking action on gun control. Bad-faith, disingenuous legislation such as codifying narrower definitions of sex into state law, authorizing marriage clerks to refuse performing marriage ceremonies “against their beliefs,” and prohibiting the teaching of Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools all got deserved “no” votes from Johnson.
What she did do was co-sponsor HB0355, a bipartisan effort introduced by Republican Rep. Barbara Alexander for an expansion of Medicaid services to include mammograms. She also passed the Community Schools Act and has voted on legislation requiring state candidates to report campaign expenditures in greater detail and increased penalties for killing police dogs, among others.
Rural, working-class Tennesseans are hurting, and it’s Blackburn who doesn’t represent us. We would be wise to remember that come November 5, 2024.
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