Over $1.2 million from political action committees could shape the results of the Thursday, Aug. 1, Tennessee primary elections, state law and Blount County politics for years to come.
A little more than three months separate county residents from Nov. 5, when voters will select the next president of the United States. And all three of the county’s own seats in the Tennessee General Assembly are up for grabs in November. Democratic and Republican candidates will compete against one another in the Nov. 5 general election for those three spots.
But before the general election comes the primary. The Republican primary races for Blount’s seats in the state legislature have drawn attention and more than a million dollars from out-of-state political groups promoting school choice vouchers.
Voters will decide which state candidates from each party advance from the primary to the general election at the polls Thursday. There are two contested GOP primaries for state legislature in Blount, both featuring three-way races: one for Tennessee House District 20 and another for Senate District 2.
Those candidates have raised and spent money of their own, but their individual hauls are all dwarfed by PAC spending.
Most of that spending this cycle has come from a single group that supports school choice vouchers, a third rail of a topic in state and local politics. School Freedom Fund, headquartered in Washington, D.C. and linked to the conservative Club for Growth nonprofit, has thrown over $1 million into the House District 20 and Senate District 2 primary races. Several other PACs promoting school choice have also spent money promoting vouchers and other issues locally.
The Daily Times reached out to the treasurer listed for the PAC, Adam Rozansky, Tuesday afternoon, July 30, but did not get a response by press time.
Tennessee Senate
Vouchers have proved a tough sell in Blount County. It’s an area that encompasses three separate public school districts: Alcoa and Maryville City Schools and Blount County Schools. Over 3,000 people work at the schools, which 18,000 students attended as of the last academic year, according to an April report in The Daily Times.
Two of Blount’s three seats in the General Assembly seats are open, and whatever candidate fills them will likely be faced with a decision concerning school choice. A proposal from Gov. Bill Lee’s office that would have extended statewide funding to families for school choice vouchers died in the most recent legislative session for lack of support, but the governor remains a staunch supporter of both school choice vouchers and state candidates who favor expanding vouchers.
Current state Sen. Art Swann, R-Maryville, is retiring. State Rep. Bryan Richey, R-Maryville, represents House District 20 now, but filed to run for Swann’s seat. Richey faces Tom Hatcher, Blount County Circuit Court Clerk since the 1990s, Thursday, along with John Pullias of Monroe County, in a contest to represent Blount Countians, along with the residents of Monroe, Polk and part of Bradley counties in the Senate.
The primary race for Senate District 2 is contested by three candidates only on paper, however. According to a July 25 report from the Tennessee Lookout’s Adam Friedman and Sam Stockard, though his name will appear on the ballot, Richey said that he is not campaigning for the office and that the voucher lobby “needed somebody’s head on a platter.”
Over $500,000 spent
In some ways, the race for Senate District 2 parallels a contest from 2022. That year Richey unseated incumbent Republican Bob Ramsey, of Maryville, in the GOP race for the District 20 seat. The primary was characterized by about $140,000 in independent expenditures against Ramsey, specifically. Most of those dollars were supplied by pro-voucher PACs.
Times have changed. Some of the players haven’t.
In the last legislative session Richey declined to support Lee’s proposal on vouchers. He’s since been a target for numerous PACs favoring school choice. And where PAC spending in 2022 opposing Ramsey totaled around $140,000, PAC money spent opposing Richey in this year amounts to more than $295,000, according to records from the state’s registry of election finance.
School Freedom Fund’s money accounts for $276,269.32 of that total.
The Daily Times contacted Richey Tuesday, but could not reach him by press time. The newspaper also reached out to one of his opponents, Tom Hatcher. State records show that the School Freedom Fund spent nearly $220,000 specifically supporting Hatcher.
The money isn’t going to move him, Hatcher told the newspaper. He said that he had not been in contact with School Freedom Fund, per laws prohibiting coordination between PACs and candidates, but that he had wanted the advertising attacking Richey withdrawn.
“We tried to get them not to do anything like that against Richey,” he said in a phone call Tuesday. He said that he’d spoken with the governor regarding vouchers, but that he was unsatisfied with that conversation. “I’m open-minded about school choice,” he said. At the same time, he commented, “I was trained to gather the facts,” while working in law enforcement earlier in his career.
He said that he wanted to stress: “I will protect my public school districts in District 2.”
Seven-figure spending, five-figure pay
Negative ads and masses of PAC money have likewise marked the campaign for House District 20.
Voters throughout the county have opened their mailboxes to find campaign materials depicting county commissioners Nick Bright and Tom Stinnett, both Republicans contesting the House seat, in a variety of unflattering lights. In one mailer, paid for by the Tennessee Federation for Children, the two men are dressed as clowns.
In another, paid for by the same PAC, they appear as donkeys. A running theme of the mailers is that Bright and Stinnett, who both told the newspaper they consider themselves conservative Republicans, are “liberals.”
Ads have landed on doorsteps, run on television and gone through mail to deliver messages such as: “(Bright and Stinnett) voted for more government spending!”
Like with the Senate race, school choice is a major thread of the ads opposing Bright and Stinnett. It’s a topic that divides Bright and Stinnett from Maryville attorney Jason Emert. Emert, who was endorsed by Lee, is competing with both men for the GOP nomination and has said publicly that he supports school choice. PACS that likewise favor expanding school choice vouchers have more than $352,000 supporting him. They paid over $255,000 opposing Stinnett alone, and spent a further $20,000 opposing Bright. Statewide, the numbers climb higher.
The winners of these races will draw a base salary of under $30,000. They also receive per diem rates based on their home district, a stipend for an in-district office and mileage, but compensation remains, mostly, well under $100,000.
Records
Both Bright and Stinnett earlier this year voted to oppose any proposal moving money from public schools to support school choice expansion. The two recently told the newspaper that they would need to look at the specifics of a proposal before they committed to supporting or opposing it. Both candidates have significant differences — they’ve adopted some opposing stances on questions concerning Blount Memorial Hospital’s future, development throughout the county and guns — but often appear in PAC ads opposing both of them.
Stinnett, a retired teacher, said of voucher expansion, “I’m not going to let public education get punished.”
“We educate every child — the smartest student, the best athlete, the most handicapped child,” he continued. He reiterated his objection to pulling money from public schools to pay for vouchers and said of Emert, “I think it’s asinine for him to say he’s gonna vote for vouchers when he doesn’t know what the bill’s gonna say.” He said that he’d knocked on about 4,000 doors over the course of the campaign and state records show his candidacy drew about $21,000 from PACs including Best of Tennessee Action Fund and Tennessee Education Association Fund for Children and Public Education.
Bright did not receive PAC support, according to state records as of late July. He said in an interview of both his and Stinnett’s campaigns: “We’ve both worked hard. I can’t take that away from (Stinnett).” He noted, “I’ve got a lot of passionate supporters.” His campaign has made a lot of use out of social media, he said.
“I’ve definitely run my campaign differently from the other two,” he said. “I don’t guess there was PAC money left.”
And of his own vote on the vouchers, he added: “That’s the thing they’re beating us up with, and we worded it to exactly what the governor was saying at the time. ‘We can fund school choice and still fully fund public education.’ He said it doesn’t have to be a choice, and we amended that resolution to say that, and then got attacked for it.”
“Anybody can like the title of something. School choice? Heck, even I like the title of it. Everybody wants a choice. But the devil’s in the details. Paper will lay down, let you write anything you want to on it. It matters what it says, what’s actually in the bill,” he said.
The newspaper contacted Emert to speak with him regarding the campaign and its financing, and received a text message from him stating that he was currently on military orders.
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