The Volunteer Plan

If there is one thing Tennesseans should be able to agree on — left, right, and center — it’s that every child in this state deserves a fair shot. Not a perfect life. Not a handout. A fair shot. Right now, we’re not delivering on that, and we all know it.

Tennessee ranks 47th in the nation in per-pupil school funding (NEA Rankings & Estimates, 2025). Nearly 100,000 of our people fall into a healthcare coverage gap where they make too much for TennCare but too little for affordable insurance (CBPP). Our kids didn’t create these problems, and they sure as hell can’t fix them. That’s on us.

So we’re going to fix it.

The Tennessee Children’s Compact

We will make four commitments to every child in Tennessee, regardless of their parents’ income, zip code, or background — so long as their family has called Tennessee home for at least ten years:

1. Full healthcare coverage from birth to eighteen.

Tennessee already has CoverKids, which covers children up to 250% of the federal poverty level (TN CoverKids). We’re going to expand it. Every child in Tennessee gets full medical, dental, vision, and mental health coverage. No gaps. No donut holes. No family choosing between a doctor’s visit and rent.

The cost of children’s healthcare is a fraction of adult coverage — and for businesses currently covering dependents, this takes a real expense off their books. We know how to do this — we just haven’t chosen to. We’re choosing to now.

2. Full childcare support for working families.

New Mexico just became the first state to offer universal childcare (NBC News). We’re going to be the second. (More on how we pay for this in Part II.)

Every working family in Tennessee will have access to affordable, high-quality childcare. Parents choose the provider — center-based, home-based, faith-based, whatever works for their family. The state covers the gap between what families can afford and what quality care costs. And to make sure that gap doesn’t get gamed, we’ll set fair reimbursement rates tied to actual cost-of-care data — so providers are paid well and families aren’t gouged.

This isn’t just good for kids. It’s good for the economy. When parents can work without worrying about who’s watching their children, everyone benefits. Employers get more reliable workers — and the ones currently covering dependent care costs see real savings. Communities get more stable families. Kids get better outcomes.

3. World-class funding for every public school.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth about the school voucher debate: the real problem isn’t that some kids get to go to private school. The real problem is that we’ve accepted a public school system that we wouldn’t send our own kids to if we had a choice.

So instead of arguing about vouchers, let’s fix the actual problem. Let’s fund every public school in Tennessee the way we’d want our own kids’ schools funded.

That means closing the gap between Tennessee’s per-pupil spending and the national average. It means paying teachers what they’re worth — no teacher in Tennessee should earn less than $50,000 a year. It means making sure a kid in Hancock County gets the same quality education as a kid in Williamson County. And it means being honest that some communities have been deliberately underinvested in for generations — and that funding equity requires investing most where disinvestment has been greatest.

We’re not going to do this by taking money from private schools or by eliminating anyone’s choices. We’re going to do this by investing real money in every public school, so that every school becomes a school parents are proud to send their kids to.

And while we’re at it, let’s teach kids what they actually need to know. Right now, most Tennessee students graduate without ever learning how to manage a budget, cook a healthy meal, navigate a conflict without violence, or recognize the signs of a mental health crisis — in themselves or a friend. We’ll fund wellness education in every public school: financial literacy, nutrition, mental and emotional health, and conflict resolution. These aren’t electives. These are survival skills. A kid who knows how to handle stress, feed themselves well, and manage money is a kid who’s ready for life — not just ready for a test.

4. The Volunteer Scholars Program.

Tennessee already leads the nation in educational access. TN Promise gives every high school graduate two free years of community or technical college. TN Reconnect extends that to adults (TN Promise; TN Reconnect). These are programs that other states are copying from us (Hechinger Report).

We’re going to extend that ladder all the way up. The Volunteer Scholars Program will be available in cities across the state — Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and beyond. Complete a master’s or doctoral degree at a Tennessee university and commit to living and working in Tennessee for five years, and we’ll pay off your student debt. Every scholar who stays is a potential startup founder, researcher, or teacher who builds their career here instead of leaving for the coasts.

We’ll focus on fields where Tennessee has strategic advantages: healthcare, agricultural science, advanced manufacturing, transportation and mobility, and AI. We’re investing in our own people and asking them to invest back in us.

Most politicians paint a pretty picture and then either don’t tell you how they’ll pay for it, or they mumble something about “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Here’s the truth.

Everything in this plan costs money. Real money. And Tennessee has no state income tax — nor should it get one. Our low-tax identity is part of what makes Tennessee attractive to families and businesses, and we’re not blowing that up.

But we can build something smarter.

The Tennessee Volunteer Fund

We will create a sovereign wealth fund — the Tennessee Volunteer Fund — modeled on Alaska’s Permanent Fund, which has grown to over $85 billion (APFC) and generates returns that fund public services permanently.

The Volunteer Fund will be an independently managed investment fund, protected by a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds supermajority to modify or redirect its funds. Once capitalized, its returns fund the Children’s Compact and the Healthcare Trust in perpetuity. The estate tax that feeds it is ongoing — every large estate that transfers contributes — but the fund it builds is permanent. The returns compound. The programs get more secure every year, not less. This isn’t a budget line that gets cut when the political winds shift. It’s an endowment that grows.

And when the market drops — because it will — the fund’s constitutional protections mean no politician can raid it for short-term budget fixes. This fund outlasts any governor, any legislature, any political cycle.

How we capitalize it:

1. Reinstate the Tennessee estate tax on estates over $10 million.

Tennessee had an estate tax until 2016 (TN Dept. of Revenue). There is no constitutional prohibition on bringing it back. And we’re not talking about taxing family farms or small businesses — we’re talking about the portion of estates that exceeds ten million dollars.

For working farms and family-owned businesses whose wealth is in land and assets rather than cash, we’ll include valuation deferrals and installment payment options so that no family is forced to sell the farm to pay a tax bill. This is about concentrated financial wealth, not about punishing people who built something with their hands.

A 10-16% rate on estate value above $10 million, directed entirely into the Volunteer Fund, builds a permanent endowment for Tennessee’s children.

2. A capital gains excise tax on investment profits over $250,000.

Washington State enacted a capital gains tax on profits above $250,000 and structured it as an excise tax on the transaction — not a tax on income. Their state Supreme Court upheld it (WA Dept. of Revenue).

We’ll be straight with you: Tennessee’s Amendment 3 makes this harder than it was in Washington. Our constitution is more restrictive on taxing investment gains. Passing this may require a constitutional amendment, and that means convincing Tennessee voters directly. We believe we can make that case. A tax on large investment profits — the kind earned by people who are already doing very well — is not a tax on wages, small businesses, or working families. It’s asking people who’ve benefited enormously from Tennessee’s economy to invest in its future.

If voters approve a constitutional amendment, a 5-7% excise on capital gains above $250,000 would generate substantial revenue while affecting only a tiny fraction of taxpayers.

And if we can’t get the amendment? The estate tax alone still capitalizes the Volunteer Fund. We’re building this plan to work either way — but we’re going to fight for both.

The obvious pushback:

“Won’t the wealthy just leave?”

Some might. But states that have enacted estate taxes haven’t seen mass exodus. People don’t move their families, their businesses, and their lives because of a tax they’ll only pay once — after they’re gone. Tennessee’s quality of life, no income tax on wages, and booming economy are far stronger magnets than any estate tax is a repellant. Nobody’s going broke paying 12% on the amount above ten million dollars.

And the ones who threaten to leave over this? Ask yourself whether someone who won’t invest a dime in Tennessee’s kids on their way out the door was ever really a Tennessean at heart.

“Why not just use federal money?”

We should — and we will. Medicaid expansion alone would bring billions in federal matching funds back to Tennessee, money that’s currently going to other states. The Volunteer Fund is designed to work alongside federal funds, not instead of them. Step one is claiming every federal dollar we’re entitled to. Step two is building something that doesn’t depend on Washington to keep working.

What the math looks like:

The estate tax alone will generate between $150 million and $400 million per year, depending on estate planning behavior and economic conditions. That’s a wide range, and we’re being honest about it — the lower end accounts for the reality that wealthy people hire good lawyers.

If we also pass the capital gains excise, that range goes up substantially.

At the lower end, the Volunteer Fund reaches $1 billion in five years. At the higher end, it could exceed $2.5 billion. Once invested, the fund generates 5-8% annual returns — $50 to $200 million per year in perpetual funding for Tennessee’s children and communities.

That’s real money. Not enough to do everything overnight. But combined with federal matching funds, reallocated existing spending, and the economic returns of a healthier, better-educated population, it’s a foundation you can build on for generations.

Phased implementation:

Year 1: Estate tax reinstated. Volunteer Fund established with constitutional protections. Children’s healthcare expansion begins using existing federal matching funds — this costs the state relatively little because Washington picks up the lion’s share. Capital gains constitutional amendment campaign begins.

Year 2: School funding increases begin. Childcare expansion pilots launch in highest-need counties. Volunteer Fund begins generating investment returns.

Year 3: Full Children’s Compact rollout. Healthcare Trust funded. ConnecTN Phase 1 construction underway.

Year 4 and beyond: Volunteer Fund grows toward self-sustaining levels. Programs funded by a mix of fund returns, federal matching, and estate tax revenue.

Tennessee’s economy is booming — for some people. Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville are growing fast, attracting new businesses, and creating jobs. But too many of those jobs don’t pay enough to live on. And in too many communities, the boom feels like something happening to someone else.

A Living Wage for Tennessee Families

Tennessee has no state minimum wage. We default to the federal floor of $7.25 an hour — a number that hasn’t changed since 2009 (U.S. DOL). The MIT Living Wage Calculator says a family of four in Tennessee needs each parent earning roughly $19 an hour (MIT Living Wage) just to cover basic expenses. That’s a gap of nearly $12 an hour between what we pay and what it costs to live.

If you work full-time in Tennessee, you should be able to raise a family in Tennessee. That’s the basic promise that hard work leads to a decent life.

We will raise Tennessee’s minimum wage to a living wage, phased in over four years so businesses can adjust:

Year 1: $12 per hour. Year 2: $15 per hour. Year 3: $17 per hour. Year 4: $19 per hour — pegged to the MIT Living Wage Calculator for a family of four, adjusted annually.

The research is clear on this. Twenty-one states raised their minimum wages on January 1, 2025, and 9.2 million workers got raises (EPI). California raised fast-food wages to $20 an hour and saw no reduction in employment (Harvard Shift Project). Study after study shows that moderate, phased wage increases lift workers without killing jobs.

We’ll pair this with support for small businesses during the transition — tax credits, technical assistance, and streamlined regulations to offset increased labor costs. The goal is a wage floor that lets families live, not a policy that puts small businesses under.

Jobs From Our Own Investments

Every dollar we invest in ConnecTN, broadband expansion, school construction, and infrastructure creates jobs. We’re going to make sure those jobs go to Tennesseans first. State-funded construction and infrastructure projects will prioritize Tennessee workers and Tennessee contractors. When we build our state, we build it with our own hands.

Teachers Earn a Living

No teacher in Tennessee should earn less than $50,000 a year. Period. Teaching is one of the hardest and most important jobs in the state, and we’ve been underpaying the people we trust with our children. The $50,000 floor is a starting point, not a ceiling — and it applies statewide, from Nashville to the smallest rural districts.

Housing That Works

Tennessee’s cities are growing, and housing costs are growing faster. In Nashville, home prices have roughly doubled in the past decade (Fox 17 Nashville). Chattanooga and Knoxville are on the same trajectory. Young families are being priced out of the communities they grew up in.

We’re going to make it easier to build the kind of housing people actually need. Right now, in most Tennessee cities, it’s illegal to build a duplex or a small apartment building on a residential lot — even when the neighborhood wants it. We’ll change that. Allowing duplexes, triplexes, and small apartment buildings by right gives property owners more options, increases housing supply, and brings down costs without anyone having to build a single skyscraper.

We’ll also create a Tennessee Housing Trust funded by a portion of Volunteer Fund returns, providing down payment assistance and affordable housing incentives in high-cost areas. The Trust will prioritize neighborhoods that were historically redlined or disrupted by government policy — places like Nashville’s Jefferson Street corridor, which was a thriving Black business district before I-40 was deliberately routed through its heart. That community never fully recovered. The Housing Trust is how we start to make it right — not with words, but with investment.

The goal isn’t government housing. It’s removing the barriers that keep the market from building what people need, and investing most heavily where disinvestment has been greatest.

Tennessee is home to some of the finest healthcare institutions in the world. Vanderbilt, St. Jude, the entire Nashville healthcare corridor — this is a massive industry that employs hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans. We export world-class medicine to the entire planet.

And yet, right here at home, too many of our own people can’t afford to see a doctor.

Close the Coverage Gap

Tennessee is one of ten states that still hasn’t expanded Medicaid (KFF). Every year we don’t act, federal dollars that Tennessee taxpayers already paid into the system go to other states instead. That’s not fiscal conservatism. It’s leaving our own money on the table.

We will close the coverage gap for the roughly 95,000 Tennesseans who fall between TennCare eligibility and affordable insurance. The federal government covers 90% of the cost (CBPP). This is the single easiest, highest-return policy in this entire platform. We’d be foolish not to take it.

And we need to be honest about who falls into that gap. Health disparities in Tennessee track directly along lines of race and geography — the same communities that were denied resources for generations are the ones with the worst health outcomes today. Closing the coverage gap isn’t just good policy. It’s a down payment on a debt we’ve owed for a long time.

Mental Health as Infrastructure

Tennessee’s mental health crisis shows up as addiction, homelessness, crime, and lost productivity that drags on every community. It’s a public safety issue, an economic issue, and a basic dignity issue.

We will dramatically increase grants for mental health treatment and expand access to counseling and psychiatric services across the state, with a focus on rural counties where providers are scarce. When we talk about infrastructure, we usually mean roads and bridges. Mental health care is infrastructure too — it’s the foundation that lets people work, raise families, and contribute to their communities.

Reproductive Health and Medical Freedom

This is a hard conversation. Let’s have it.

We believe every Tennessean has the right to make their own medical decisions — including decisions about reproductive health — without the government standing in the exam room. That’s not a liberal position. That’s a medical freedom position. It’s the same principle that says the government shouldn’t tell you what vaccines to get or what treatments to refuse.

But let’s talk about what actually reduces abortions, because that’s something almost everyone — regardless of politics or faith — says they want.

And let’s be honest about who we’re talking about. According to the CDC, roughly six in ten women who seek an abortion are already mothers (Guttmacher Institute). They’re not the caricature that gets painted in political debates. They’re women who are raising children, navigating complicated pregnancies, and making some of the hardest medical decisions of their lives — often with their doctor telling them one thing and their state legislature telling them another. When we talk about reproductive freedom, we’re talking about mothers making medical decisions about their own health and safety. That ought to change how we have this conversation.

Making abortions illegal doesn’t stop them. It makes them more dangerous and more expensive. The states with the lowest abortion rates aren’t the ones with the strictest bans — they’re the ones with the best sex education, the most accessible birth control, and the strongest support for mothers and young families.

If we’re serious about protecting life, we should be serious about what works: comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education in schools. Affordable access to contraception. Real support for pregnant women and families — healthcare, childcare, housing, wages — so that no one feels like abortion is their only option because they can’t afford another child.

This is the pro-life case for prevention. If your values tell you that every life matters, then invest in the things that actually reduce abortions instead of the things that just push them underground. We can disagree about the law and still agree on the goal: fewer abortions, healthier families, and a state where every child is wanted and supported.

Fighting the Opioid Crisis

Tennessee lost over 3,800 people to drug overdoses last year (TN DOH). That’s ten Tennesseans every single day — more than car accidents, more than gun violence. Rural communities have been hit hardest. Families torn apart. Towns hollowed out. And the response so far has been woefully inadequate.

We can’t arrest our way out of this. Addiction is a disease, and we need to treat it like one.

We will massively expand access to medication-assisted treatment — the gold standard for opioid recovery — in every county. We’ll fund recovery centers and sober living facilities, especially in rural areas where they barely exist. We’ll make naloxone — the overdose reversal drug — freely available at every pharmacy, fire station, and school in the state.

We’ll crack down on pill mills and hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for the crisis they created. And we’ll invest in recovery-to-work programs that give people a real path back to productive life, because recovery without opportunity isn’t recovery at all.

Call it what it is: smart on survival. Every person we pull back from addiction is a parent who comes home, a worker who shows up, a neighbor who contributes. The alternative — letting people die or cycling them through for-profit prisons that have zero incentive to rehabilitate them — costs more, saves no one, and solves nothing.

Tennessee-Made Medicine

California recently partnered with Civica Rx, a nonprofit manufacturer, to produce insulin at $55 retail (CalRx) — a fraction of what pharmacies charge. Nashville is the healthcare capital of America. Between our existing pharmaceutical infrastructure and Vanderbilt’s research capabilities, we’re better positioned than almost any state to do the same thing.

Starting with insulin and naloxone, we’ll build a partnership that ensures Tennesseans can access essential medicines at fair prices. The government isn’t running drug companies. We’re making sure Tennesseans aren’t gouged on medicines they need to survive.

The Tennessee Healthcare Trust

We’ll create a dedicated healthcare fund within the Volunteer Fund, managed independently, that generates returns to pay for healthcare access indefinitely. Not a budget line item that gets cut. A permanent investment in the health of our people.

Public safety isn’t just about policing. It’s about building communities where people feel secure — where kids can play outside, where families aren’t afraid, and where the systems we trust to protect us actually work.

Responsible Gun Ownership

Tennessee has a proud tradition of gun ownership, and nothing in this plan changes that. What we’re proposing isn’t about taking anyone’s guns. It’s about making sure dangerous people can’t get them.

Universal background checks on all firearm sales, including private sales. Right now, you can buy a gun from a private seller with no background check at all. That’s not freedom — that’s a loophole that puts families at risk.

A permit-to-purchase system. Before you buy a firearm, you demonstrate that you can handle it safely. We require a license to drive a car. Requiring a permit to buy a gun isn’t radical — it’s responsible.

Red flag laws that allow family members or law enforcement to petition a court to temporarily remove firearms from someone in crisis. These laws have been shown to reduce suicides — which account for the majority of gun deaths in Tennessee (Sycamore Institute) — without permanently taking anyone’s rights.

And mandatory safe storage requirements, because too many children are hurt or killed by unsecured firearms in the home. If you own a gun, you’re responsible for making sure a child can’t access it.

This isn’t anti-gun. This is pro-safety. Responsible gun owners should welcome measures that keep weapons out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. The NRA may not like it, but Tennessee families deserve better than thoughts and prayers.

Preventative Public Safety

We talked about mental health as infrastructure in Part IV. Here’s where that hits the street: when someone is having a mental health crisis right now, we send an armed police officer. Not because the officer is trained for it — most aren’t — but because we haven’t built anything better.

Cities like Eugene, Oregon and Denver, Colorado have. Eugene’s CAHOOTS program sends mental health professionals to non-violent crisis calls. They handle about 20% of all 911 calls (White Bird Clinic), and they do it without weapons, without arrests, and without needing police backup. Denver’s STAR program has similar results (Denver STAR Evaluation).

We’re going to bring this to Tennessee. Social first responders — trained mental health professionals and crisis counselors — deployed alongside law enforcement to handle the calls that need a counselor, not a badge. Far from defunding the police, it frees officers to focus on real crime instead of spending half their shift on calls they’re not equipped for.

Let cops be cops. And let’s give them the backup they actually need.

Local Police Serve Local Communities

Our police departments answer to Tennessee communities — not to federal agencies. When any resident is afraid to call 911, every resident is less safe. Domestic violence goes unreported. Witnesses to crimes stay silent. Neighborhoods become more dangerous for everyone.

We will ensure that Tennessee law enforcement focuses on Tennessee crime. Our sheriffs answer to Tennessee voters, not to Washington bureaucrats. No resident of this state — regardless of their background — should fear that calling for help will tear their family apart. That’s not how we protect communities. That’s how we destroy them.

End the Private Prison Industry in Tennessee

Tennessee is home to CoreCivic’s headquarters (CoreCivic) — one of the largest private prison companies in the world. And we all know what that industry is: a business model that profits from locking people up.

When a corporation’s revenue depends on keeping beds full, that corporation has a financial incentive to keep people incarcerated. That is fundamentally incompatible with justice. It’s incompatible with rehabilitation. And it’s incompatible with the values of a state that calls itself the Volunteer State.

We will phase out all state contracts with private prison operators over five years. We will pursue a constitutional amendment banning private, for-profit incarceration in Tennessee. And we will reinvest the savings into rehabilitation, job training, and reentry programs that actually reduce recidivism — because helping people rebuild their lives costs less than locking them up forever, and it actually works.

No one should profit from another person’s incarceration. Not in Tennessee. Not anywhere.

Accountability is a theme that runs through every page of this plan. We’re asking politicians to be accountable on taxes, on schools, on healthcare, on prisons. But none of that accountability works if the people doing the voting don’t get a fair say in who represents them.

Right now, they don’t.

Fair Districts, Fair Representation

Tennessee’s legislative districts are drawn by the politicians who benefit from them. That’s not democracy. It’s a conflict of interest so obvious that we wouldn’t tolerate it in any other area of public life. If a judge ruled on their own case, we’d call it corruption. When legislators draw their own districts, we call it “redistricting.”

We will establish an independent redistricting commission — citizens, not politicians — to draw Tennessee’s legislative maps using mathematically verifiable criteria: equal population, geographic compactness, and respect for existing community boundaries. No partisan data. No incumbent protection. Just fair maps that let voters choose their representatives instead of representatives choosing their voters.

Other states have done this. California, Michigan, Arizona, and Colorado all use independent commissions (Campaign Legal Center), and their elections are more competitive, their representatives more responsive, and their voters more engaged. Tennessee deserves the same.

Protecting the Right to Vote

Voting shouldn’t be hard. It shouldn’t require taking an unpaid day off work, standing in line for hours, or worrying about whether your registration is still active. And it sure as hell shouldn’t require worrying about federal agents showing up at your polling place.

We will expand early voting access across the state and make it easier for every Tennessean to cast a ballot. We’ll protect and strengthen mail-in voting for those who need it — seniors, people with disabilities, rural voters who live miles from a polling place. And we’ll implement automatic voter registration at DMV offices, so that every eligible Tennessean is registered unless they choose not to be.

Here’s an idea that respects both workers and employers: a flexible voting holiday during the early voting period. Every employer gives their workers one paid day off to vote — but the employer chooses which day during the early voting window. This way, businesses aren’t all shut down on the same day, and employees don’t have to tell their boss which day they voted or who they voted for. Privacy preserved, access guaranteed, and no one has to choose between their paycheck and their ballot.

And we will make clear that Tennessee elections are run by Tennesseans. Our poll workers, our election officials, our rules. No federal intimidation at polling places. No outside agitators trying to suppress turnout. The right to vote is sacred, and we will defend it — for every Tennessean, in every county, in every election.

Tennessee is long. Drive from Memphis to Mountain City and you’ll cover over 500 miles and cross three grand divisions that sometimes feel like three different states. Our cities are booming, but drive thirty minutes outside any of them and you’ll find communities that feel like the boom passed them by.

ConnecTN is about knitting this state back together.

Green Corridors

Cities across the South have proven that making downtowns more walkable isn’t just nicer — it’s more profitable. Greenville, South Carolina turned a dying downtown into a national model by prioritizing pedestrians and local businesses. We can do the same in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and our smaller cities too.

Green Corridors are pedestrian-priority zones where buses run more frequently, foot traffic drives business, and downtowns become places people actually want to spend time and money. Not by banning cars — by giving people better options. And when we choose where to invest first, we start with the neighborhoods that state and federal policy hollowed out — the corridors where highways were built through thriving communities instead of around them.

Regional Transit

Tennessee’s cities are growing fast, but our transportation infrastructure is stuck in the last century.

First, we fix the buses. Dedicated-lane Bus Rapid Transit on the busiest corridors in our cities — already planned in Nashville, ready for real funding and real political will.

Then we expand the train. Commuter rail connecting Nashville to Clarksville, Murfreesboro, and Gallatin. Exploring connections between Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Memphis. Making it possible to live in one Tennessee city and work in another without sitting in traffic for two hours.

And we start laying the groundwork for the big vision: connecting Tennessee to the Southeast. The federal government is investing billions in an electrified rail corridor linking Atlanta, Charlotte, and beyond. Amtrak’s new electric locomotives arrive in 2026. This is a generational opportunity, and Tennessee should be leading the charge to bring it through our state — connecting us not just to each other but to the broader Southern economy.

That’s a ten-to-fifteen-year project. We’re not pretending it happens overnight. But the decisions we make now determine whether Tennessee is a hub or a dead end.

Tennessee Connected — Broadband for Every Community

Most people don’t know this, but Tennessee already has one of the best broadband stories in America. Chattanooga’s EPB — a municipally owned utility — built a fiber network that became the first gigabit service in the country (EPB). The results speak for themselves: a $280 million investment returned $2.69 billion in economic benefits, created or retained over 9,500 jobs (UTC Study via Chattanooga Times Free Press), and gave Chattanooga broadband that’s faster and cheaper than what private companies offer in Nashville.

Here’s something else most people don’t know: Tennessee is sitting on $813 million in federal BEAD program funds earmarked for broadband expansion across the state (NTIA).

We’re going to use every dollar of that federal money and pair it with the Chattanooga model. Expand municipal and cooperative broadband networks across Tennessee — not free, but faster, more reliable, and more affordable than what the big telecoms are offering. When a publicly owned utility can deliver better internet at lower cost than a Fortune 500 company, that tells you the market isn’t working. Let’s fix it.

Our goal: reliable, affordable high-speed internet in every county in Tennessee within five years. We start deployment in the communities that have been left behind the longest — rural Appalachia and historically underserved urban neighborhoods alike.

Energy for Every County

Tennessee sits at the crossroads of America’s energy future. TVA already provides some of the most affordable electricity in the nation (TVA). We’ll build on that.

Community solar — already operating in more than 20 states but not Tennessee (NREL) — lets renters and rural homeowners benefit from solar without putting panels on their roof. A shared array in your county generates electricity; you get credits on your bill. We’ll launch this statewide using available federal funding.

And as AI and data demands grow, we’ll attract data center investment on our terms — requiring that facilities strengthen rural broadband and local energy grids as a condition of operating here, so the benefits reach communities across the state instead of concentrating in one place.

The TN ARC Fund — Accelerated Research and Commercialization

Tennessee is home to Vanderbilt, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee, and one of the densest healthcare corridors in the world. We have the raw ingredients for a research and innovation economy. What we don’t have is the connective tissue — the infrastructure that takes a breakthrough in a university lab and turns it into a Tennessee company that hires Tennessee workers.

Other states figured this out decades ago. Georgia’s Research Alliance has generated over $16 billion in economic impact on a cumulative state investment that now averages about $12 million a year (GRA). North Carolina’s Biotech Center found that every dollar it loaned to startups attracted over $100 in follow-on investment from the private sector (NC Biotech). The lesson is consistent: modest, smart public investment in research infrastructure pays for itself many times over.

We’re going to build that connective tissue in Tennessee. The Tennessee Accelerated Research and Commercialization Fund — the TN ARC Fund — starts with $7 million a year in dedicated state funding, separate from the Volunteer Fund, and focuses exclusively on deeptech: the hard sciences that create real things. Medicine. Advanced manufacturing. Agriculture. Transportation and mobility. These aren’t speculative bets on the next app. These are fields where Tennessee already has research strength, industry presence, and workforce — and where breakthroughs translate directly into factories, farms, and clinics.

The initiative has two jobs.

First, recruit world-class researchers. What brings a top scientist to a university? Lab space, equipment, and resources. We’ll co-fund shared research facilities at Tennessee’s research universities — equipment that’s too expensive for any single department but transformative when shared across researchers. When Vanderbilt, UT, or Oak Ridge recruits a leading researcher in one of our priority fields, the state matches the university’s investment in lab infrastructure dollar-for-dollar. The state owns the equipment. If the researcher leaves, the lab stays in Tennessee.

Second, help them build companies. A breakthrough in the lab means nothing if it stays there. When a Tennessee researcher is ready to commercialize — to start a company or license a discovery — we provide matching dollars for proof-of-concept work and connect them with business mentoring, legal support, and early-stage partners. The key word is matching: the state’s money only flows when private or institutional dollars come in alongside it. And when a company that received state support succeeds, it pays a modest royalty back into the ARC Fund — a proven model that ensures taxpayer money is replenished without the state ever taking ownership of a company.

Here’s why this works at $7 million a year: every dollar we invest is designed to attract many more. Federal research grants, university commitments, and private investment multiply the state’s contribution. Georgia proved that even $12 million a year can generate billions in impact when it’s deployed as a lever rather than a handout. The state never bets big alone. It bets small, bets first, and others follow.

The ARC Fund doesn’t pick winners. It builds the infrastructure — labs, equipment, mentorship, matching capital — that lets Tennessee’s own researchers and entrepreneurs find the wins themselves. The state stays low on the risk totem pole: it invests in physical assets it owns, requires matching commitments before writing checks, and gets repaid when companies succeed.

Start small. Prove it works. Scale what earns it.

Open Door Tennessee — A Cultural Residency Program

There’s a phrase people use about the South that’s older than any policy in this plan: southern hospitality. It means something. It means you welcome people into your home, you share what you have, and you’re richer for it. Tennessee has always been a place where culture walks through the front door — where blues came up from the Delta, where bluegrass came down from the mountains, where country, soul, gospel, and rock and roll all found a home because we let people in and let them create.

That tradition is worth protecting — and investing in.

Open Door Tennessee creates artist residencies in cities across the state, funded through a state-city matching model. The state matches what each city raises, and cities run the programs locally — because Nashville’s arts scene isn’t Memphis’s, and Chattanooga’s isn’t Knoxville’s. Each community shapes its own.

Residencies provide housing and studio space. Artists earn income by teaching, performing, exhibiting, and organizing within their host communities. Three out of every four residencies go to Tennessee-based artists — musicians, painters, dancers, sculptors, filmmakers, writers — giving our own people the time and space to develop their craft without leaving the state. One in four goes to a non-resident: an artist from another state or another country who brings something we haven’t seen before and leaves something behind that makes us better.

This is cultural infrastructure. A kid in Cookeville who takes a workshop from a ceramicist from Oaxaca, or a dancer from Salvador da Bahia, or a printmaker from Kyoto — that kid’s world gets bigger without ever leaving Tennessee. And a Tennessee songwriter who gets six months of housing and studio space to finish an album instead of working three side jobs to pay rent — that’s an investment in the creative economy that built Nashville’s global brand.

We’re going to be intentional about this: Tennessee is a place where artists from anywhere in the world are welcome to practice their craft, share it with our communities, and be treated with the dignity and safety that southern hospitality demands. A state that closes its doors to the world’s artists is a state that gets smaller. Tennessee has never been small, and we’re not starting now.

Tennessee doesn’t wait for permission to help its neighbors. But we’re not as prepared as we should be.

When tornadoes tear through Middle Tennessee or flooding hits the eastern part of the state, we’ve seen what happens when federal response is slow. In recent years, FEMA has lost nearly 10% of its workforce (Government Executive), and communities have waited weeks for aid approval. We can’t control what Washington does. We can control what Tennessee does.

Underground Power and the Tennessee Tunnel System

Tennesseans have recently seen record numbers of power outages from downed tree lines. Every major storm knocks out electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes, and every time we rebuild the same vulnerable overhead lines and wait for the next storm to knock them down again. That’s not resilience. It’s the same thing we do every time, and we keep expecting different results.

We will begin burying power lines in the most vulnerable corridors across the state. Yes, it costs more upfront than stringing wire on poles. But when you factor in the cost of repeated storm damage, lost productivity, spoiled food, and the human toll of families going days without heat or air conditioning — underground lines pay for themselves.

The bigger vision is a public tunnel system for Tennessee. Utility tunnels that carry power, water, broadband, and gas underground — protected from storms, floods, and falling trees. This is how modern cities around the world manage their infrastructure. It’s also one hell of an economic opportunity. Tennessee sits on limestone and bedrock that makes tunneling a real engineering challenge — and challenges create industries. The expertise we build boring through Tennessee rock becomes an export. The jobs we create are skilled, well-paying, and permanent. It’s disaster preparedness and economic development rolled into one.

We’ll start with the highest-vulnerability corridors and build outward, creating a backbone of underground infrastructure that makes Tennessee’s power grid, water systems, and communications networks genuinely storm-proof.

Harden Our Water Systems

Tennessee’s water infrastructure is aging, and in many communities it’s vulnerable to exactly the kind of extreme weather we’re seeing more of. We will invest in hardening critical water treatment and distribution systems and building redundancy so that when one system goes down, others pick up the load.

This isn’t glamorous work, and no politician gets a ribbon-cutting ceremony for replacing a water main. But it’s the work that keeps the water running when everything else goes wrong.

Statewide Emergency Readiness

We’ll strengthen emergency management coordination across all 95 counties, stockpile essential medicines and supplies at regional hubs, and invest in the kind of rapid-response capability that lets Tennessee take care of its own without waiting for Washington to pick up the phone.

Every county will have an updated, tested disaster response plan. Every region will have pre-positioned supplies. And we’ll build a state-level medical reserve that includes essential drugs — produced through our Tennessee-Made Medicine partnerships — so that when the next crisis hits, we’re not dependent on supply chains that stretch halfway around the world.

Feed Tennessee First

Tennessee has rich agricultural land and a proud farming tradition. But we’ve become too dependent on supply chains that stretch thousands of miles. When those chains break — and they will — our communities suffer.

We will invest in local food infrastructure: community farms, regional food hubs, cold storage and distribution that keep Tennessee-grown food in Tennessee. State institutions — schools, hospitals, state facilities — will buy Tennessee-grown food first. And we’ll protect our farmland from development through conservation easements that keep working farms working.

A state that can feed itself is a state that can survive anything.

Tennessee was built by many hands. Some wore uniforms. Some spent a lifetime raising families and holding communities together. Some built this state’s early wealth under conditions they didn’t choose and were never compensated for. And some were here long before any of us — and were driven out so that Tennessee could exist at all. If we mean the title of this section, we have to mean all of it.

Veterans

Tennessee has one of the largest veteran populations in the South (VA State Summary). These men and women put their lives on the line for this country, and when they come home, they deserve more than a flag on their porch and a thank-you-for-your-service.

We will fully fund veterans’ services in Tennessee — mental health care, job placement, housing assistance, and benefits navigation. No veteran in this state should have to fight a bureaucracy to get the care they earned. We’ll streamline access, expand rural outreach, and make sure that every veteran in Tennessee knows exactly where to go and who to call.

They showed up for us. We show up for them. That’s non-negotiable.

Senior Care

Tennessee’s population is aging, especially in rural counties where younger people have moved away and older residents are left with fewer resources and fewer options.

We will expand home health services and rural senior care so that elderly Tennesseans can age with dignity in their own communities instead of being warehoused in facilities hours from their families. We’ll increase funding for Meals on Wheels, senior transportation, and elder abuse prevention — because taking care of the people who built this state isn’t charity. It’s duty.

Restoring What Was Taken

Tennessee has been on both sides of American history. The Ku Klux Klan was founded in Pulaski in 1865 (Tennessee Encyclopedia). And the lunch counter sit-ins that helped end segregation started right here in Nashville. The question has never been which Tennessee exists — both do. The question is which one we choose to build on.

We’re choosing to build on the one that sits down at the counter.

Here’s what we know, and what’s documented: federal redlining maps from the 1930s graded Black neighborhoods across Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, and Knoxville as “hazardous” — not because of the condition of the homes, but because of the color of the people living in them (Mapping Inequality). Those maps determined who got loans and who didn’t for decades. When Interstate 40 needed a route through Nashville, the original plan ran near Vanderbilt and Belle Meade — but that was too close to wealthy white neighborhoods, so the state moved it north through Jefferson Street, demolishing 626 homes and 128 Black-owned businesses and destroying 80% of Black commerce in the city (Jefferson Street History). Similar stories played out in South Memphis, East Knoxville, and Chattanooga’s Ninth Street corridor.

These aren’t ancient grievances. The Federal Reserve has documented that the effects of redlining — lower homeownership, lower property values, lower credit scores — persist today, in the same neighborhoods, on the same blocks. The debt compounds.

We will create a Community Restoration Fund targeting communities with documented histories of government-caused disinvestment. The criteria are specific and provable: neighborhoods that appear on federal redlining maps, communities displaced by government highway routing, areas disrupted by urban renewal programs. The records exist. The maps are public. The damage is measurable.

The fund has three priorities.

Homeownership. Down payment assistance and community land trusts in historically disinvested neighborhoods, so that the families who stayed through decades of neglect can finally build equity — and so that when state investment raises property values, long-term residents benefit from the recovery instead of being priced out by it.

Small business development. Startup grants, technical assistance, and mentorship for entrepreneurs in these same communities. The businesses that were bulldozed on Jefferson Street weren’t replaced. We’re not going to rebuild 1960, but we can build the conditions for a new generation of Black-owned businesses to take root where the old ones were torn out.

Anti-displacement protections. The bitter irony of community investment: when you improve a neighborhood, property values rise, and the people who endured the worst of the disinvestment get pushed out by the recovery. Community land trusts, right of first refusal for long-term residents, and affordable housing set-asides ensure that restoration benefits the people it’s meant for — not speculators who show up after the work is done.

This isn’t charity. It’s a debt. And the receipts are in the public record.

The First Tennesseans

The word “Tennessee” comes from Tanasi — a Cherokee town on the Little Tennessee River. We named our state after the people we removed from it. That fact alone should tell us something about the debt we carry.

Before this was Tennessee, it was home. The Cherokee lived in the mountains and valleys of East Tennessee for centuries. The Chickasaw governed the western part of the state. The Muscogee, Shawnee, Yuchi, and others built communities across the land now covered by our cities and farms. At Red Clay, just south of Cleveland, the Cherokee Nation held its last councils before removal — up to 5,000 people gathering to plead with the U.S. government to let them stay on their own land (Red Clay State Historic Park).

The government’s answer was Fort Cass. In the summer of 1838, U.S. soldiers rounded up Cherokee families from their homes across the region and marched them to an internment complex spanning more than 10,000 acres around present-day Charleston, Tennessee (Fort Cass). More than 8,000 Cherokee were held there before being forced west on what became the Trail of Tears. Roughly 4,000 people — one in four — died on the journey (NPS Trail of Tears).

This isn’t ancient history we can’t do anything about. There are concrete steps Tennessee can take.

Sacred site protection. Tennessee has Indigenous archaeological and sacred sites — mounds, council grounds, burial sites — that have inadequate legal protection from development. We will strengthen state law to give these sites meaningful protection, not just the paper kind that courts have ruled has no teeth.

Education. Every Tennessee student should know that Red Clay was the Cherokee Nation’s last capital, that Fort Cass was an internment camp in Charleston, and that the Trail of Tears started in their state — not just passed through it. This is Tennessee history. We’ll make sure it’s taught as such.

Government-to-government partnerships. More than twenty federally recognized tribes have cultural and historical ties to Tennessee. We will build formal relationships with tribal nations — starting with the Cherokee Nation and Chickasaw Nation — for cultural exchange, educational collaboration, and shared stewardship of historically significant lands. This isn’t a symbolic gesture. It’s a recognition that these nations have legitimate, ongoing interests in the land that was taken from them, and that Tennessee is a better state when we honor that relationship instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.

Repatriation and co-stewardship. Tennessee’s museums and universities hold Indigenous remains and sacred objects. We will accelerate the return of these items to their rightful communities and work with tribal nations on co-management of state lands with Indigenous significance — places like Red Clay, Mound Bottom, and the Trail of Tears corridor.

We can’t undo the Trail of Tears. But we can stop pretending Tennessee started in 1796.

This isn’t a wish list. It’s a plan built on what’s actually working in other places, adapted for who we are.

The Children’s Compact gives every kid in Tennessee healthcare, childcare, a great school, and a path all the way through a graduate degree. The Volunteer Fund pays for it with a reinstated estate tax on the wealthiest estates and a capital gains excise tax, structured to last forever. A living wage means that working families can actually live on what they earn. The Healthiest State initiative closes the coverage gap, confronts the opioid crisis, protects medical freedom, and builds a medicine supply chain right here in Tennessee.

Keeping Tennessee Safe means responsible gun laws, social first responders who let cops be cops, local police who serve local communities, and an end to the obscenity of for-profit prisons. Your Voice, Your Vote means fair districts drawn by citizens instead of politicians, protected voting access for every Tennessean, and elections that belong to us — not to Washington. ConnecTN links our cities and counties with modern transit, affordable broadband built on the Chattanooga model, clean energy in every county, the TN ARC Fund that turns Tennessee’s universities into engines of homegrown companies, and Open Door Tennessee residencies that invest in our own artists while welcoming the world’s. Disaster Ready Tennessee puts our power lines underground where storms can’t reach them, hardens our water systems, feeds ourselves with Tennessee-grown food, and builds a tunnel infrastructure that turns an engineering challenge into an economic engine.

And we honor everyone who built this state — including those whose labor was stolen, those whose communities were destroyed, and those who were here before the state existed at all. The Community Restoration Fund invests directly in the neighborhoods that government policy damaged, we protect and honor Indigenous sacred sites, and we build real partnerships with the tribal nations whose homeland this was. We invest most where disinvestment has been greatest.

Will it be easy? No. Some of these ideas will make powerful people uncomfortable. Some will require convincing a legislature that’s allergic to new spending. Some will take years. Some will require convincing voters to amend the constitution.

But here’s what I know about Tennesseans: we don’t back down from hard things. We never have. From the volunteers who fought at King’s Mountain to the students who sat down at Nashville lunch counters to the communities that rebuild every time a storm tears through — this state is built on the stubborn belief that ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they decide to show up.

This is a plan for people who are ready to show up. But a plan on paper doesn’t change anything — people do.

If you’re a teacher who’s tired of being told you’re appreciated while your paycheck says otherwise — this is for you. If you’re a parent who drives forty minutes each way to the only childcare you can afford — this is for you. If you’re a veteran navigating a bureaucracy that was supposed to have your back — this is for you. If you’re a farmer watching your neighbors sell their land because the math stopped working — this is for you. If you’re a young person wondering whether Tennessee is a place worth staying — this is for you.

We’re not asking you to agree with every word. We’re asking you to believe that Tennessee can be better than this — and to be willing to fight for it.

Read it. Argue with it. Share it with someone who disagrees with you. Show up to a town hall. Run for school board. Knock on a door. Have the hard conversation at the dinner table. That’s how this works. Not from the top down. From the kitchen table out.

This platform is a living document. These ideas are meant to start conversations, not end them. If you see something missing, say so. If you see something wrong, push back. If you see something worth fighting for, fight for it. That’s how Tennessee has always worked.

The Volunteer State earned its name. Let’s earn it again.