State Sen. Todd Gardenhire describes himself as a fixer with an independent streak

State Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, is running for reelection in the Tennessee Senate representing District 10.

“I enjoy what I’m doing,” Gardenhire said in an interview with the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “I’m not a policy person, I’m a fixer. Give me a problem, I want to fix it.”

Gardenhire will face Democrat Missy Crutchfield at the polls as voters cast ballots in the general election Nov. 5. Early voting in Tennessee begins Oct. 16. For more information, visit elect.hamiltontn.gov.

Gardenhire, 76, is an eighth-generation Chattanoogan, born and raised in the city limits, he said. He graduated from Chattanooga High School in 1967 and received a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a minor in accounting and business management at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Gardenhire worked in the financial service industry beginning in 1972 and retired as a senior vice president at Morgan Stanley. He was elected to the state senate in 2012 and has most recently served as the chair of the judiciary committee and the vice chair of the fiscal review committee. Gardenhire and his wife, Sylvia, have four children and five grandchildren.

(READ MORE: Read about more local candidates on the Nov. 5 ballot at timesfreepress.com/vote-2024)

“They’re all here in Chattanooga, and that makes it extremely fulfilling to see them and participate in their school activities and just have them around,” Gardenhire said.

Chattanooga lawyer Russell King has known Gardenhire since high school.

“I can testify just to what a terrific person he is, super hard-working and dedicated to that job in the senate,” King said in a phone interview. “I just know how committed he is to make state government work, and I really admire him for that, that he understands the challenges of state government.”

Highlights

Gardenhire said he is perceived as somewhat of an independent in Nashville, not in terms of political party, but in his beliefs.

“I have a very philosophically conservative voting record,” Gardenhire said, referencing former President Ronald Reagan, former Housing Secretary and U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp and author and political commentator William F. Buckley Jr. as those who frame his view of conservatism. “If Gov. (Bill) Lee has a program that I don’t agree with, I’m known for saying I do not agree with it and not voting for it.”

Gardenhire said he is most proud of the bill he carried to make changes to the certificate of need process for health care facilities and services, the work he did to reform the 911 system and the bill he sponsored to grant in-state tuition rates to U.S.-born children of people who did not have legal authorization to reside in the country.

If reelected, Gardenhire said he has been tasked by the speaker of the senate to lead a study committee on judicial reform, looking into judges, magistrates and the bail bond industry. Gardenhire cited a July incident involving a man who was released on bond and left Davidson County when he was not permitted to leave. The man was then arrested in connection with the death of his ex-girlfriend.

“There were all sorts of conflicts of interest and all sorts of things that should not have happened on everybody’s part,” Gardenhire said.

He said there are more than a dozen similar cases he and the committee will look into.

Policy

Gardenhire said he polled his district, and the main issues that came up were the border and education.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press asked all candidates for their stances on abortion, guns and education legislation.

Gardenhire declined to discuss abortion with a reporter because he said it was not top of mind for his district.

In 2023, he voted in support of a bill sponsored by state Rep. Esther Helton-Haynes, R-East Ridge, to amend the Human Life Protection Act. The amendment provided protection for physicians from being criminally charged for performing an abortion to save the mother’s life or terminating an ectopic or molar pregnancy.

In a separate interview with the Times Free Press editorial board, Gardenhire said the current law does not place legal consequences on women who receives abortions in Tennessee, but on the physicians. He said he does not think Tennessee’s abortion laws should be tweaked, including adding exceptions for rape or incest.

“In my opinion, the mood of the legislature is, we just won’t grant any. We like what we’ve got. It does give an exception, it gives the woman a free pass so she’s not afraid to come in and ask for it if she really needs the abortion,” Gardenhire said. “The legislature, in my opinion, looks out after the unborn child just as seriously as they do about the mother.”

If the legislature grants exceptions, Gardenhire said, more exceptions will continue to come along.

‘It’s just scare tactics’

Lee’s school voucher plan, which did not pass in the most recent legislative session, entailed universal statewide access to taxpayer-funded education accounts for parents to use on private schooling. The state currently makes vouchers of more than $8,000 available for families below a certain income cap in Nashville, Memphis and Hamilton County and deposits them into education savings accounts. Lee’s bill pushed to expand the program statewide and removed the income limitations after the second year of expansion.

“Gov. Lee, in my opinion, should have pulled it out early, got it out of the way,” Gardenhire said. “It bogged down his whole agenda and caused a lot of things to not pass that should’ve passed in other areas.”

Gardenhire said the first bill in the legislature regarding education spending accounts, separate from Lee’s statewide voucher plan, wouldn’t affect small counties. He said the small counties don’t have private schools and have good school systems, referencing Sequatchie County Schools and Bledsoe County Schools.

“There were some pretty stringent guidelines to the schools that accepted that, so that won’t affect these small counties, it only affects the larger counties,” Gardenhire said. “We can take it statewide — I mean, I say we can — but it won’t have the doomsday effect that everybody thinks it will.”

Gardenhire said scare tactics were being used in telling rural counties that education savings accounts would bankrupt their school systems.

“Let’s say you live in Marion County and you drive by a private school because you go to work in Hamilton County, and if you had to drive the other way, you’d double your trip. So, you drop your kid off at the private school and you use the savings account to pay for it,” Gardenhire said. “How’s that going to bankrupt a school district that’s got a budget of millions and millions of dollars and you’re going to take $6,800 and send it somewhere else? It’s just scare tactics.”

(READ MORE: Tennessee Senate approves Gardenhire bill making it easier for charter schools to recruit out-of-district students)

‘Define common sense’

Gardenhire said he demonstrated gun storage boxes for vehicles to the judiciary committee in a previous legislative session and said they were not workable.

He said someone could knock a person out and steal both the car and the person’s gun as the person is securing it in the trunk of the car. He also said that in the event of someone approaching the car with a gun, the driver can’t be protected if the gun is locked away with a combination.

“It sounds great, but it’s a way to keep American citizens where they can’t have the right to be armed,” Gardenhire said. “You’re not armed if it’s locked up.”

(READ MORE: Sen. Gardenhire: Keep emotions out of gun debate in Tennessee)

As far as enacting gun control legislation, sometimes referred to as “common sense gun laws,” Gardenhire said common sense is not a one-size-fits-all.

“Common sense in Dunlap, or Marion County or Polk County, or all these other rural counties, is a lot different than what’s common sense in Chattanooga,” Gardenhire said, “So define common sense. They throw that word around.”

Gardenhire said proposed gun legislation must follow the U.S. Constitution and the Second Amendment.

“If they don’t follow what’s in our U.S. Constitution, there is a method to change the Constitution, and they need to do that if they really want it,” Gardenhire said.

Contact Sarah Dolgin at sdolgin@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6556.