Op-Ed, Chattanooga Times Free Press

Here’s a question for every Tennessean: Do you consider yourself extremely conservative?

Last year the Center for Legislative Accountability (CLA), a project of the Conservative Political Action Conference, ranked every state legislature from most to least conservative. Tennessee’s ranked number two—just behind Alabama’s.

Are you that conservative? Are you a “Mississippi has medical marijuana, Tennessee doesn’t, and that sounds about right” conservative?

The CLA rankings were based on state laws passed in 2021, and the Tennessee General Assembly has skewed more conservative since then.

As of 2021 in Tennessee, anyone aged 21 or older who legally owns a handgun can carry it—loaded or not, concealed or not—without a permit. Law enforcement organizations say permitless carry makes their jobs and our neighborhoods more dangerous. Still, this year the General Assembly was considering expanding permitless carry to include all firearms, such as assault rifles, and lowering the age to 18. Does that make sense to you?

As of 2022 in Tennessee, it’s a felony to sleep on the sidewalk—which typically happens when a person is suffering from some combination of extreme poverty, mental illness and/or substance abuse disorder, and lack of family support. In your opinion, is criminalization an appropriate, economical fix?

The legislature has spent much of the last few years focused on national culture wars, targeting drag shows and trans kids, for example. Would those be your legislative priorities?

Several of Tennessee’s recent laws have been so constitutionally questionable that they immediately drew legal challenges and were stayed or overturned. Republican Gov. Bill Lee has exponentially increased the budget to fight these cases in court. Do you think that’s the best use of our tax dollars?

Between those laws and Tennessee’s new abortion ban, the General Assembly yet may win CLA’s top ranking. When the ban went into effect last year, it outlawed all abortions from the moment of conception. After hundreds of Tennessee doctors protested, legislators carved out a narrow exception for some (but not most) life-threatening situations for which abortion has long been the standard of care. Does that seem reasonable to you?

The legislature refused to create an exception for minor children pregnant by rape or incest. Instead the state will force those children to carry to term, no matter what they want, what their doctors recommend, or what their parents think is best.

Although “parents’ rights” is a conservative rallying cry, the General Assembly has been stripping away Tennesseans’ freedom to decide what’s best for their own children—what their own children can read or learn or watch, what medical treatment their own children can receive. Are you comfortable with state legislators overruling parents?

Tennessee’s most extreme laws tend to impact certain categories of people. But its extremely conservative economic governance affects all Tennesseans. The state lures wealthy corporations here with big tax breaks and cheap labor. As a result, we have less corporate money than comparable states to invest in community infrastructure such as schools and hospitals. Our government is funded primarily by our high sales tax, which falls hardest on our lowest-paid workers. Does that economic model sound smart and fair to you?

In Tennessee, we don’t get much for our tax dollars. Today’s conservatives are philosophically opposed to robust investment in public services, and our General Assembly is the second-most conservative legislature in the country. So our public schools are in the bottom 10 in per-pupil funding, and we’ve had the second most rural hospital closures in the country. Our state government has rejected billions of federal dollars intended to give more Tennesseans access to affordable health care, and it’s sitting on millions of federal dollars intended to lift up Tennessee’s working poor.

Surveys show that most registered voters in Tennessee aren’t. Most of us fall between the extremes and share common goals. We might differ on the details, but most of us want homelessness addressed humanely; most of us want common-sense gun laws, reasonable abortion access and affordable health care; most of us want every kid to be well nourished and have a well-funded neighborhood school.

If you want those things too but you “vote for the letter,” please stop. Vote for the candidate who will represent you. If you don’t see that candidate, be that candidate. It costs nothing to get your name on the ballot.

And if you don’t vote in every election, please start. Between 2020 and 2022, Tennessee was among the worst states for voter turnout. Only 45% of Tennesseans who could have voted did. The 55% who sat home? They made Tennessee the second-most conservative state in the country.

Allison Gorman is a writer and editor based in Chattanooga.

Allison
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