Candidate Alert: Progressive Primary Winner Heidi Campbell In Tennessee

Blue America endorsed one candidate last week in the primaries for the Tennessee state Senate, Heidi Campbell... and she won. Now she's gearing up to face Republican incumbent Steve Dickerson, the last Republican still representing a Nashville district in the state legislature. The largely suburban district wraps around Nashville like a donut with a small bite taken out of it in the southeast and includes small towns like Berry Hill, Forest Hills, Belle Meade, Goodlettsville, Ridgetop, Lakewood and Oak Hill, Campbell having been mayor of for the last 6 years. Before being elected mayor she was in the music business-- and in a band before that. The issues that have motivated her campaign include education, Medicaid expansion, criminal justice reform, LGBTQ, and immigrant rights, Black Lives Matter, Women's rights, animal rights, environmental issues, medical marijuana and legalization, getting money out of politics, and electoral reform.

This seat, SD-20, may be held by a Republican but it backed Hillary against Trump in 2016 and Bredesen against Blackburn in 2018. Because of her success as a mayor in one of the more conservative parts of the district, Campbell commands some purple support. She has already been fighting against scary legislation like the fetal heartbeat bill which illegalized abortion, and instigated a protracted legal battle. Republicans are banking on one of these bills eventually wending its way up to SCOTUS, and we need to fight hard to get Democrats like her elected to run interference. She has also told me that she intends to work hard to flip other seats once she’s elected. This is a census years and redistricting cycle. No one thinks the Tennessee Senate is going to flip from red to blue in November but replacing Dickerson with Heidi Campbell is a step in the right direction-- and will be another strong voice against GOP gerrymandering. Please read her guest post below and consider contributing to her election by clicking on the Blue America 2020 star legislative thermometer on the right and giving what you can.

Precedented Times
-by Heidi Campbell

A friend posted a meme yesterday that said “I miss precedented times”-  and at first I laughed and started to veer into the nostalgia of the Obama days, when life felt more like it was written by Aaron Sorkin than by an illiterate 13-year-old bully, but then I really started to think about what we’ve been through this past few years; the dismantling of our institutions, the bizarro alternative universe of FOX and Breitbart, and the slate-of-hate that somehow doesn’t bother at least a third of our country. I started to think about the “me too” movement, the unforgivable incarceration of immigrant families, and the criminal negligence of the government Covid response, and I realized that we must embrace this unprecedented time for the opportunity it presents.

In precedented times, we were not addressing many of the problems that have pervaded our society since our country was founded. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the systemic racism that plagues every facet of our lives. Education, affordable housing, healthcare, criminal justice, and so many other issues are so much more challenging for our African American community, and we need to say it and own it; Black Lives Matter!

I truly hope that we are in the early stages of a revolution that will bring meaningful change, and that we will elevate the voices of black leaders on this issue, and that we will learn from them about how we can work to become an anti-racist society going forward.

As a Mayor of a quasi-conservative city in a larger progressive city, I interact with people on a regular basis who believe that the statues of confederate generals in our cities are important historical monuments that should be protected. I live in a city that has streets named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, and Robert. E. Lee. I worked for three years on a multi-modal path down a major artery in my city, and was confronted by a group of angry neighbors who told me that it would bring “the wrong sorts of people” into our city.

As a state senator, I will proudly and full-throatedly add my voice to the rising chorus of people across our nation who are saying that this is not acceptable anymore. We must do all that we can to make sure that this is not a precedented time, and we must fight to get others elected who will do the same.