Some of Blount County’s Republican candidates for Tennessee state House split on school vouchers, vaccine mandates and healthcare provision during a recent candidate forum.
GOP candidates for state House District 20 — one of two House districts that cover Blount County — Nick Bright, Tom Stinnett and Jason Emert spoke at a Blount Partnership forum held Wednesday, May 29, ahead of the Aug. 1 primary election. Karen Gertz, the Democratic candidate for state House 20, is unopposed at the primary level.
Audience members came from the Blount business community.
After a period of questions from a forum moderator regarding candidates’ biographies, positions and priorities, the audience asked the candidates: How do you feel about a proposal to cap property taxes? What would your first priorities be, if you’re elected? What should be the progress on the Pellissippi Parkway extension?
Answers included: (from Emert) support for a property tax cap and (from Bright and Stinnett, both current Blount County commissioners) opposition to a cap; (from all candidates) building relationships and finding a good footing in Nashville; and unanimous support for moving forward with the Pellissippi Parkway.
Unanimity wasn’t a rule Wednesday. Though the candidates share a party and several ideas, distinctions emerged throughout the discussion.
Vouchers
The idea of expanding school choice has sparked discussion in Blount County and across Tennessee. A recent proposal from Gov. Bill Lee would have permitted publicly funded school vouchers statewide, but drew insufficient support from the state legislature.
In Blount County, the three local boards of education — from Blount County, Alcoa and Maryville — each voted to oppose such measures. Maryville and Alcoa referenced the Lee proposal explicitly; Blount County’s school board voted for a joint resolution with the county board of commissioners opposing any voucher program that would draw funds from public to private schools.
Both Bright and Stinnett voted in favor of the commission resolution.
Stinnett, a retired MCS teacher, said he’d need a more specific proposal to fully answer a question on support for a voucher system. “There’s not anything on paper there,” he said. “I was a public school teacher for 37 years. You’re gonna have to get something on paper, and me look and see what they want to present for us to vote on it.”
Bright said that, like Stinnett, he’d need more specifics: “I would not support vouchers unless it was a level playing field between voucher-recipient education and public education.”
“On a level playing field, our public schools can compete with anybody,” he said.
Emert, an attorney and military reservist, is a proponent of school choice. He was bullied while a student at Maryville City Schools, he said, and the ability to change schools was the difference between life and death for him.
“School choice is because of bullying,” he said. “School choice saved my life.”
“It wasn’t because anybody in the state gave vouchers, (it’s) because I had a family that was willing to move into a different school district. School choice exists; it exists for wealthy people, it always has,” he continued, pressing for voucher expansion into middle- and lower-income areas. “Yeah, we have good schools here. We do. But they’re not great for everybody.”
Vaccines
Like vouchers, vaccination mandates against diseases like COVID-19 have also proved controversial locally.
County Commissioner Misty Davis, who serves as Bright’s campaign manager, asked the candidates where they stand on such mandates, and, if they’re in government, what’s been their voting record. Davis’ question was an apparent reference to a vote on an April 2021 county commission resolution — sponsored by Bright — urging against mandating the COVID vaccine.
Bright’s answer came quickly: “Medical freedom is important.”
Emert replied that he opposed vaccine mandates, though he’d been required to take the COVID vaccine as a reservist: “Any federal mandate is onerous and overburdensome.”
Stinnett voted against the April 2021 resolution, though eight months later he voted in support of a resolution urging the state to join a fight against COVID vaccine mandates for some healthcare providers.
His response touched on past outbreaks and current events: “I think we’re going down a path that’s very dangerous for us right now. I know that some states are doing away with vaccinations, and I know there’s measles outbreaks and others in states.”
“I’ve got a little spot here on the side of my arm, where I had a shot that was mandated before you went to school,” he continued. “And you know, I’m not a — I don’t think government’s against us. Do I think government makes mistakes from time to time? Of course they do.”
“But sometimes, we have to do what’s best for the state, Blount County, country, and sometimes it doesn’t work out,” he said. “When I vote, I’m gonna go home and lay my head down and go to bed, and I’m gonna think I made the right decision.”
Healthcare
County Commissioner Mike Akard asked the candidates about their stance on abolishing the certificates of need process — a step would-be healthcare providers must take to establish facilities such as hospitals, among its other effects. Akard noted that eliminating that process is a goal of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group that has endorsed Emert.
“I’m proud of that endorsement,” Emert responded. “I think it shows the strength of our campaign and the message that we have across the state and that I’m taking this seriously.”
“Being in support of certificate of need is just telling me you don’t want to care for people in rural communities,” he said. “Competition makes things better.”
“Would you not want to have a children’s hospital here?” he asked.
“Certificate of need would allow Blount Memorial (Hospital) to deny a children’s hospital from existing here, a full-fledged support center for our children,” he said. “If Blount Memorial fails, because it cannot provide the quality of care, because competition is making it irrelevant, then that’s on Blount Memorial Hospital, and I hate it.” He said that he was born at the hospital and his family had worked there.
Bright and Stinnett both said they did not support ending the certificate of need process.
Stinnett commented, “The reason we have to have (the certificate of need process) is because we chose to do Tenncare versus Obamacare back in the day. Tenncare pays 15 cents on the dollar. So, when another hospital comes in and doesn’t take indigent care, then all those folks who don’t have insurance will end up going to Blount Memorial Hospital.”
Other hospital failures, he said, can be attributed to major costs from indigent care. Blount Memorial has provided tens of millions of dollars in such care in recent years.
Bright agreed, saying, “In theory it might not be a Republican issue to support something like that, but I’m not worried about the rest of the state of Tennessee: I’m worried about right here in Blount County.”
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