Mike Carter, our five-year incumbent state House District 29 representative from Ooltewah, faces Democratic opposition from 13-year Cleveland city middle school teacher Tammy Magouirk, 53, also of Ooltewah.
This race was a tough call for us.
Magouirk, a Grundy County native, is president of the Cleveland Education Association and has served on state Board of Education. She says her passion and commitment to education have energized and inspired her to run for office.
Schools need more mental health support, and not just counselors, she says. Teachers are being asked to parent.
"It's time for legislators to take back control of education," she says.
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She also has a zeal for politics, and in 2013 became the first woman to lead the Bradley County Democratic Party.
Health care access and the opioid crisis are issues she says she is eager to tackle, along with what she terms our state's lack of planning for growth and development.
"How are we going to grow if we have gridlock?" she asks.
The trouble is that Magouirk acknowledges she really hasn't campaigned as she should have. On her campaign web page she says she has been a foster parent for several years and adopted a daughter. She also is a stepparent and grandmother to five children. Her husband, Jim Floyd, died a little over a year ago.
But if she lacks the energy to campaign, how can we expect her to have the commitment to represent us?
She also has what we see as two deal-breaker education stances. She is critical of the state board because some board members have never taught school. Really? We view parenting and employing as skills equally important for determining school policy. Magouirk also dislikes the state's academic gains testing program, known as TVAAS, which is intended to help evaluate teachers' abilities to guide students' academic progress from year to year. Magouirk asserts that teachers should not be held liable for how students perform when so many other factors are in play. We strongly disagree and believe that testing and evaluating instructors is reasonable and necessary to ensure our students have the best teachers.
Carter, 65, too often wears his conservative ideals like a too-comfortable ball cap, but he says he always follows his conscience over mixed loyalties - meaning that he sometimes doesn't know exactly where's he's going to end up on a bill until he's studied its issues.
He says he loves the work of being a state representative, and it shows. He did help pass an annexation bill that spares Tennessee residents from unwanted city and town annexation, and he sponsored a bill intended to streamline the adoption process in Tennessee. He's always on. He always shows up - even if we don't like all his votes.
"I have a need to change some things," he says. "I hope and honestly believe I speak for those who have no power and no resources with which to purchase power. Doing the right thing is not always the politically correct thing."
We appreciate that. Still we fail to see how it has led the affable Carter to make some of the decisions he's made - like pushing the state toward ending emissions testing when we know it cleans the air and saves lives; and like supporting the legislature's backward refusal to expand Medicaid or at least find and support a GOP-acceptable alternative that he thinks won't "bankrupt the state."
It won't bankrupt the state, but to his credit, Carter calls the state's whole health care disconnect the "disappointment" of his life.
We're willing to give him one more chance. Make it right, Rep. Carter.