Issues

• Healthcare: Tennessee has sent more than $4 billion to other states to provide affordable healthcare for their residents. Instead, that money could have helped more than 330,000 working Tennesseans, including tens of thousands of veterans, and ensure affordable healthcare for our residents.
• Schools: Tennessee has experimented on our children and teachers in harmful ways, leaving us with excessive testing at the expense of instructional time; turmoil from on-again, off-again state mandates; and schools badly in need of adequate funding. We must listen to our teachers, enhance local control, and adequately fund our schools.
• Roads and Infrastructure: Tennessee has hundreds of millions of dollars in backlogged projects on our roads and bridges. With the passage of the IMPROVE Act, we are beginning to eat at that backlog, including important road projects forthcoming inside District 50 and outside of it, among them an overhaul of I-440.
• Seniors: Extremists in the legislature have voted in favor of eliminating Medicare, cutting in-home care, and raising property taxes on seniors. Our older residents have been there for us, and we need to be there for them.

Accomplishments as a State Representative (Highlights)

• Passage of increased penalties for domestic violence and child neglect
• Protection of victims of workplace sexual harassment
• Passage of legislation eliminating statute of limitations for rape
• Creation of nation’s first statewide animal abuse registry
• Blocked efforts to cut hundreds of millions of dollars of funding from public schools
• Passage of increased physical education, greater testing transparency, relevant teacher evaluations
• Passage of Tennessee Promise college scholarship program
• Passage of tuition assistance for military children
• Passage of legislation allowing Goodlettsville to increase tourism through tax incentives
• Increase tax exemptions for senior citizens
• Reduced sales tax on food
• 6,200 new jobs and $290 million in investment in Davidson County in two years
• Lowest per-person debt in the country
• Passage of behind-the-counter birth control sales without a prescription
• Passage of bill allowing Nashville to make Ascend Amphitheatre smoke-free
• Passage of legislation creating online voter registration
• Passage of wine in grocery stores

Accomplishments as a Metro Councilman (Highlights)

• Brought a new state-of-the-art library to Bellevue
• Developed a financing plan that would allow redevelopment of the old Bellevue Mall property
• Expanded green space, parks, and greenways in our community
• Assisted neighbors devastated by the 2010 flood and obtained additional assistance for those still in need
• Successfully fought efforts to place landfills within our communities
• Worked to protect our neighborhoods and our community’s character