A Signal Mountain woman is challenging former Sheriff Jim Hammond in his campaign to chair the Hamilton County Republican Party, and she is running with a slate of candidates for other offices.
Gail Greene, 44, is a mother of six. She was the volunteer coordinator for state Rep. Michele Reneau‘s recent campaign and also spends time homeschooling her children.
(READ MORE: Grassroots support won Michele Reneau the District 27 primary, supporters say)
Greene is originally from Fort Worth, Texas, and lived in Nashville for more than a decade. Greene and her family moved to Hamilton County in 2020.
Instead of running solo, Greene put together a slate called Activate Hamilton to run alongside her for the additional county party leadership positions. The slate self-identifies as a group of conservative grassroots leaders, according to a news release.
The team includes Dan Meehan, a retired national security professional, for vice chair; Anne Lowery, the director of development for the Civics and Culture ministry at Chattanooga’s Calvary Chapel, for secretary; Kimberly Fiorello, a former state lawmaker in the Connecticut House of Representatives, for treasurer; and Tonya Miller, a property manager, for vice treasurer, the release said.
The incumbent party chair, Mark Harrison, plans to step down after his term due to a promotion at his civil engineering firm. He issued a note of caution about the slate.
“My goal of establishing a culture within the HCGOP that allowed everyone to have a voice was made difficult by those who weaponize the ‘us versus them’ sense of jealousy,” Harrison said by text. “Hamilton County Republicans have seen this professionalized in the past few years.
“Republicans have a responsibility to stand against this if we are going to hold on to what is already a sound grassroots base,” he added.
SLATE VS. SLATE
Hammond, 80, announced his run at a recent meeting of the Hamilton County Pachyderm Club. The former sheriff told a reporter he also plans to run with a leadership slate but was out of town and did not want to announce the lineup until he returned.
“It’s always good for democracy when you have a number of people who are interested in serving,” Hammond said of Greene’s campaign by phone. “We’ll just have to see who’s got the team that the voters want.”
Originally, Greene said she planned to run for vice chair. As she contemplated entering the race, she said she realized that the party wasn’t getting people involved in the way that she felt it should. Then, the word “activate” kept popping into her mind.
“We need to activate people,” Greene said by phone. “We need to get people active.”
So, Greene said she started praying about running as chair. She said she had the thought to ask people with experience and passion for getting grassroots people involved in local politics to join her and run collectively.
“When I asked the people that I wanted on my team if they were willing to do it, they all said yes, and I knew that was kind of my go-sign from God,” Green said.
Greene said her husband, Derek, has some flexibility in his job and encouraged her to run.
“Even though I am a mother of six and I do have a 6-month-old baby,” Greene said, “I feel like I can really take our local party to the next level when it comes to action.”
When Greene was living in Nashville, she said would frequent the state capitol to speak with lawmakers over concerns regarding the pandemic. She said she realized local legislators have a lot of power and that their decisions directly impact the freedoms of her family.
Although she lives in Hamilton County, she said she typically drives to Nashville once a week while the lawmakers are in session.
Greene said she is more than just one thing. She said she’s more than a Chattanooga Republican woman, a medical freedom fighter or supporter of Reneau, who lives in Hixson.
She said she wants people to know that she’s going to respect and understand the different issues people care about.
‘PARTY OF FAITH’
The slate’s three goals are to empower grassroots leadership and amplify the people’s voice; become a bold, active and accessible party; and foster a family-friendly, values-driven culture, Greene said. She also said the county GOP needs to get young people involved.
People have momentum and are excited to be involved in local politics following Reneau’s campaign, Greene said.
Greene said she sees everything through the lens of her faith and hopes others get that vibe from her. Hammond has also said his conservatism is based on his faith and that his leadership principles are biblically based.
“I’m a child of God, and I want to treat other people the same way, so that’s super important to us,” Greene said. “The Republican Party is a party of faith and family values, so we should be reflecting that in all that we do.”
Greene and Anne Lowery, her pick for secretary, attend church at Calvary Chapel. Greene attends the church’s political and cultural discussions facilitated by Lowery through the church’s Civics and Culture program.
Greene said she and Lowery are friends and that she had asked Lowery to pray for her as she decided whether to run for vice chair or chair. When Greene told Lowery that she was looking for a team, she said Lowery volunteered to join.
“She was actually the first person to jump on board as a friend,” Greene said. “I don’t think this was a church angle to get our church more involved, I think it was a personal angle for Anne because she cares about our local politics.”
In September, four legal experts told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that Calvary Chapel Chattanooga apparently violated federal tax law with its overt support of Reneau and another member, Ben Daugherty, who was running for the Hamilton County school board. The experts said the requirements for nonprofits to remain apolitical are rarely enforced.
LAWMAKER ON BOARD
Kimberly Fiorello, a former Connecticut lawmaker, is running for treasurer on Greene’s team.
Fiorello and her family moved to Hamilton County a year ago to live closer to her son, who is enrolled at McCallie School.
She said she met Greene when she became involved with local Republican women and volunteered at a Trump store in town.
Fiorello also said she became the No. 1 caller in Tennessee for Trump Force 47, a network of neighborhood organizers for the president’s campaign, during the election season.
“The idea of being a Republican Party that is muscular and is really responsive to the people is totally in line with what I’ve been doing for a long time,” Fiorello said by phone, “so I was delighted to be part of it to help.”
If elected as treasurer, Fiorello said she would keep the books well and help with fundraising efforts. Fundraising is about having people buy in, she said, and people will donate if they feel like the organization is honest, has integrity and is fighting for a cause that they care about.
“Though I haven’t lived here long, the mission of Activate Hamilton is about having a strong, conservative, vigorous party, and I have a lot of experience with that,” she said.
CONVENTION
The Hamilton County GOP will hold its convention March 1.
Each voting precinct in Hamilton County will choose delegates to vote at the convention. Delegates have to be bona fide Republicans, meaning people who have voted in at least three of the previous four statewide GOP primaries. A precinct is given one delegate for every 200 votes at its location that went to President Donald Trump in the November election.
Attendees who recently moved from out of state but want to participate must be able to bring their party registration or voting history to the county party’s credentials committee to determine if they qualify to be a delegate. People interested in participating can also pre-register for the convention.
On the morning of the convention, bona fide Republicans from each precinct will meet and elect their delegates, and then later that day the chosen delegates will be able to vote for the next leaders of the county party, said Ken Meyer, a member of the county party’s executive committee. People who are not chosen as delegates can still attend the convention and watch.
Candidates for the chair position have until seven days before the convention to enter the race. For any other open positions, candidates do not have to give notice and can be nominated from the convention floor.
“We’ve got a huge organization relative to a few years ago and got a lot of people that are interested with a lot of different interests themselves,” Meyer said, “so it’s kind of an exciting time.”
Contact Sarah Dolgin at sdolgin@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6556 .