In the first 90 days of my administration, I would inspect, dissect and analyzed layers of abuse against the citizens and taxpayers of Tennessee. First priority, to implement a Tennessee Code Orange Accountability Task Force (TCOATF) which would be a third-party operational task force to perform an initial forensic investigation into political and judicial corruption, review term limits and qualified immunity as it relates to police officers, political and judicial actors, research all judicial complaints made by Tennesseans, investigate abusive tax incentives to large corporations, rescind discriminatory laws such as HB 1895, SB 2153, HB 0978, HB 2143, HB 2657, SB 2012, and SB 2683, rescind all laws regarding abusive and insidious attacks on women’s reproductive health care rights, restore social equity and justice in the LGBTQ community, perform an analysis of local, state and federal funds allocation across the 95 counties, violations of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), bias governmental contracts, misappropriation of PPP distributions, COVID distribution funding, abuse of Medicaid expenditures, analysis of federal funding and no-bid contracts, rural financial disparities, housing genocide of the poor, Tax restricting for large corporations, Medicaid mismanagement, misappropriation of  TANF (Tennessee Assistance for Needy Families), misuse of poor children’s security number and identification, Russian interference in Tennessee governmental policies and practices, and privatization of prison system.

Second priority, implementing a Medical Care for All Plan to assure that all Tennesseans receive an affordable quality healthcare regiment which should be a human right in the State of Tennessee. I would aggressively address the pharmaceutical abuse in the State of Tennessee which causes many citizens to choice between buying their medication and skipping a meal or two.

Third priority, rescind the Right to Work law and remove it from our Tennessee Constitution if altered. I would incorporate a State of Tennessee Livable Wage Plan to entail a $15.00 – $23.00 incremental minimal wage and incorporate a Teacher’s Loyalty Plan.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I would expedite a progressive call to action for a moral agenda which we must move beyond left and right, liberal and conservative and thrive to uphold a fairer and just higher ground regarding moral values! It is time to break the silence of modern-day atrocities regarding the injustice in the State of Tennessee.

When trillions of dollars are being given to the rich while the poor suffer on the streets of Tennessee living under bridges and cardboard boxes, eating out of trash cans, middle-class being forced out of their homes, Tennesseans dying in the streets due to a lack of shelter, crime, healthcare and nutrition, citizens working two or three jobs to make ends meet, rampant untreatable mental illness, and senseless killings on the streets of urban and rural communities. When you drive across the State of Tennessee and see the new development but look at the citizens on the streets with tattered clothes, holes in their shoes and matted hair, Tennessee’s budgets should be moral documents!

When you have a Governor and the legislature body pass a law to criminalize homeless individuals for sleeping on public space which can result to a felon or six years in jail, this is the epitome of inhumane and cruelty to mankind!

As your next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I will break the silence of neglect! I will address the poverty, inequality, systemic racism, discriminatory governmental policies, housing and health care disparities, criminal inequities, the genocide of women rights, voting rights atrocities and environmental injustice.

As citizens in the State of Tennessee, we are drowning in this corrupt, unethical, toxic and unequal democracy which has caused this divisive state of affairs in our beloved Volunteer State.

Our “budgets are moral documents” must move away from anti-poor people, anti-poverty, anti-health care, anti-racism, anti-LGBQT+, anti-affordable homes, anti-veteran benefits, anti-public schools, anti-unions and anti-climate control. Budgets are moral documents…

Budget are moral documents have a personal meaning to me. In 2018, as a crusader for the people regarding “budgets are moral documents”, I filed a $20 Billion Dollar lawsuit against the City of Memphis, Shelby County, the State of Tennessee and Governor Bill Lee for the disinvestments of black, brown and poor white underserved neighborhoods, abuse of tax incentives to rich developers while poor people homes were being sold through tax lien sales, inadequate budgets for affordable housing and health care, school disparities, discriminatory voter suppression and redistricting, environmental toxic exposure, social and economic disparities.

My political people’s platform is based on equity and participatory democracy which can give people who have been systematically excluded from political processes including people from black, brown and poor white communities, immigrants and formerly and currently incarcerated people the power to decide how to solve the issues they are impacted by. This makes decisions more equitable and effective because they are tailored to real community needs. If these individuals are not at the table, then the budget is not about them. Budget are moral documents…

As politicians that supposed to serve the people, we can no longer sit on the sidelines with the lack of morality that have been governing our budgets that have caused harm to the citizens in this State. As a next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I would focus on budgets that address the needs of all Tennesseans urban and rural. Budgets are moral documents…

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, accountability would start with me by working toward implementing “A TENN-FAIR Budget for all Tennesseans.” In the State of Tennessee, with trillions of dollars going to rich developers, there should be no economic or technical excuse for “budgets are morals documents”. Poverty is not only a private tragedy but, in a sense, a public crime.

People’s lives are being violated especially their constitutional rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

When copious new developments are being built across the State of Tennessee, others are living in dilapidated homes with lead and rodents, senior citizens going without medication to maintain basic survival and eating cat food, children dying from gunshots in poverty-stricken areas, inadequate public transportation and school disparities due to living in certain zip codes. It is above all a challenge to our morality. Therefore, “budgets are morals documents” to me on many fronts which is one of the reasons I am running for the Governor of the State of Tennessee.

As the next Governor, I would address “budgets are morals documents” which would give every Tennesseans a seat at the table of economic prosperity. I have been a boots-on-the-ground community leader and an advocate of the people of the State of Tennessee for over 25 years. Therefore, I would take that spirit of humanitarian and humility to this official seat of Governor that should be serving the people.

As an active moral participant in these social, cultural and economic devastations, I have did my part by feeding 10,000 citizens each year, taking care of the underserved children and clothing the homeless. This is the attribute of a participatory Governor where people are the priority and not economic development and money. Budgets are moral documents. As the next Governor, I am ready to take that task on for the betterment of all Tennesseans and not just the rich and privilege. The underserved, marginalized, homeless, mentally ill, uninsured, drug addicted individuals and displaced veterans must be factored into “Budgets are moral documents”.

Taxation without representation describes a populace that is required to pay taxes to a government authority without having any say in that government’s policies.

More than 60% of corporations in Tennessee pay zero corporate income taxes and 27% of those corporations have a taxable income of more than $1 billion.

It is not uncommon for large U.S. corporations to pay no U.S. income taxes despite making billions of dollars in profits. In fact, 55 of America’s largest companies paid no income taxes over the three-year period from 2018-2020, all while generating hefty profits. Many even received tax rebates adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars. How do profitable corporations get away with paying no taxes? The most common ways are accelerated depreciation, offshoring of profits, stock options, and tax credits.

The study by the Government Accountability Office said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.

On the other hand, citizens living in poverty-stricken communities across the State of Tennessee are struggling to keep a shelter over their heads, feed their families, ascertaining quality health care, and losing their property through tax lien sales.

As the next Governor that would represent all Tennesseans, I would be the great equalizer for justice and equity for all. With inclusionary tactics, Tennessee could be the “Equity State of Justice.” It is time for all Tennesseans to get the constitutional “pay day” that all citizens should be afforded as taxpayers. Taxation without representation will no longer be an option on my watch as the next Governor of the State of Tennessee.

As a newly elected Governor, it is my belief that as the next progressive forward-thinking leader, we must take intentional steps to assure equitable representation and integrated inclusion in our democracy. In the 21^st century in the State of Tennessee, a person can work long hours cleaning up warehouses, banks, hotels, pay day loan services, grocery stores, manufacturing companies, and governmental buildings but cannot access loans to purchase their first home, access good quality healthcare, access quality nutritional meals for their families and be evicted out of their homes during a pandemic. This is a sad state of affairs in the State of Tennessee. As political leaders, we must bring common sense back to the table of social and economic prosperity for all beloved Tennesseans.

On my radar, Tennesseans struggling to survive will be my greatest priority from day one of my administration and the greatest task that I will try to combat will be to give every citizen an equal footing to an equitable and healthy life free from unnecessary stress.

Tennesseans lurking in the wind trying not to get their cars repossessed, forced to file medical bankruptcy, going to pawn shops selling items out of their homes to survive one more day are traumatic actions of everyday people in the State of Tennessee. Taking their child’s computer to the pawnshop to purchase food to eat. As a gubernatorial candidate living in poverty at an early point in my life, I also have experienced this traumatic survival of the shadows of economic disparity.

No Tennessean should be living in this mode of stress and survival in a State that is financially rich with a robust rainy day fund and the streets are paved in gold for rich developers and out-of-town investors buying up properties across the State of Tennessee while poor people are being evicted out of their apartments and homes. For these shadows of economic lockouts, home-ownership is no longer ascertainable, but being a renter is the sharecropper trend which will never be the pathway to generational wealth for the poor.

As the next boots-on-the-ground Governor, I would bring a fair and informed perspective to tour Volunteer State. The many institutions that comprise our federal system – from the legislature to banking and the judiciary – have historically not reflected the diverse tapestry of this state or country. Far too long, black, brown and poor white people, whose brutally forced labor turned our state and country into a global superpower, have been overlooked or underrepresented by the symbols representing our democracy. We must and can do better in the State of Tennessee.

With my new governorship, the tapestry will look and reflect all Tennesseans, poor, middleclass, rich, homeless, disabled, displaced veterans, women, LGBQT community, rural residents and any other fiber of equality that must be at the table of justice for every citizens across the State of Tennessee.

I will be in the business of getting the State of Tennessee back to its original form…FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE!

In the State of Tennessee, if we are truly going to live out the justice and equality of our Tennessee Constitution and U. S. Constitution, we must be about the business of true diversity and inclusion for all Tennesseans. We can no longer cherry pick who we will invest in, who we will force out of their communities, who we will continue to further push down in poverty and financial devastations, who we will violate to uplift rich developers and business owners, and who will consider as a privilege Tennessean. We are all privilege and worthy of being the Tennessean that all of us can be proud of as beloved citizens that deserve safe communities, decent affordable housing, decent livable wages, free from environmental exposure, and free from governmental abuse and oversight. It is time for all citizens to get the blank check of justice in the State of Tennessee that will give all Tennesseans a seat at the table of economic prosperity for generations to come. As the next incoming Governor, I will return the original state of “WE THE PEOPLE”, not “WE THE POLITICIAN”.

Tennesseans should not have to live from pay check to pay check! Live stress-fully running to pay day loans to feed their families. When one Tennessean suffer, we all should be concern enough to stand up for what is right and be our brothers and sisters keeper.

No human should be eating out of a trash can, sleeping in the streets of hard-knock surviving brutal beatings, families sleeping in cars due to the loss of a home or small business owners living on the edge of bankruptcy due to unfair governmental funding or lack of accessibility to bank funding.

Injustice is being carry out across the State of Tennessee under the “color of law”. Under my administration as the next Governor, the silence would be broken and political and judicial abuse would be investigated through a mutual agency brought into the State of Tennessee.

In the first 90 days of my administration, I would perform a forensic investigation of all governmental financial dealings across the State of Tennessee, governmental contracts, tax incentives accountability, PPP distributions, state and federal funds, rural financial disparities, Medicaid mismanagement, lack of TANF (Tennessee Assistance for Needy Families), etc.

There will never be economic equity and justice to all Tennesseans until this microscopic investigation is performed to disclose all alleged economic abuse and inequities that promote system racism, implicit bias and economic disparities in black, brown and poor white communities.

Gentrification and displacement is the systemic result of this insidious economic manifestations to intentionally push underserved and marginalized Tennesseans further into economic despair. The Right to Work must be abolished and as the next Governor I will take this legislative law to task. Certainly, it should never be permanently written into our Tennessee Constitution.

With spotlight on police brutality and judicial misconduct in the State of Tennessee, I diligently believe that we need to revisit term limits, absolute and qualified immunity as it relates to police officers, politicians and judges.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I believe that if we as Tennesseans work to ensure that we follow the law, then politicians, governmental workers, judicial actors and police officers must follow the law and Constitution also.

As a forward-thinking Governor, I would entertain the notion of the “citizen-legislator” with Millennials, Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, Generation Alpha and any other group that would like to see the State of Tennessee move in a more equitable trend.

The public is justifiably cynical about the hollow promises of so many lifelong professional politicians who are often purchased with special-interest money. From the responses on my ATWATER FOR GOVERNOR’S questionnaires, a large numbers of Tennesseans feel that a political system without limits is a stacked deck. Any system that allows incumbents to amass so much power and attention in office that challengers can rarely win is surely in need of a corrective. Therefore, as the next Governor, I would entertain term limits.

With the fervent miscarriage of justice I received in the Tennessee Judicial System, it lead me to run for the Governor of the State of Tennessee. If I can be violated in a judicial system that supposed to be fair, impartial and render due process, anyone in this State of Tennessee can be violated.

Based on the community questionnaires that was compiled during my campaign engagements, Tennesseans across the State of Tennessee listed their concerns of political and judicial corruption. Political corruption is a difficult concept to define, therefore I would solicited an array of experts to address this task. A proper definition of corruption requires a multi-dimensional approach.

From my life experience and the feedback of copious Tennesseans, there is a closed-net fraternal of judicial order that exist in the State Tennessee that gives way to extrusive abuse of power and overreach of the law which often goes unpunished due to qualified immunity and no term limits.

As the next Governor, I would address qualified immunity and term limits expeditiously. Systemic racism, implicit and cultural biases can lead a judicial actors to commit insidious crimes against citizens that sometimes do not have proper legal representation.

Political corruption undermines democracy and good governance by flouting or even subverting formal processes. Corruption in elections and in the legislature reduces accountability and distorts representation in policymaking; corruption in the judiciary compromises the rule of law; and corruption in public administration results in the inefficient provision of services. For Tennesseans, it violates a basic principle of democracy regarding the centrality of civic virtue. More generally, corruption erodes the institutional capacity of government if procedures are disregarded, resources are siphoned off, and public offices are bought and sold. Corruption undermines the legitimacy of government and such democratic values as trust and tolerance.

Recent evidence suggests that variation in the levels of corruption amongst high-income democracies can vary significantly depending on the level of accountability of decision-makers. Evidence of recent incidents in the State of Tennessee also show that corruption and bribery can adversely impact trust in institutions. Corruption can also impact government’s provision of goods and services. It increases the costs of goods and services which arise from efficiency loss. In the absence of corruption, governmental projects might be cost-effective at their true costs, however, once corruption costs are included projects may not be cost-effective so they are not executed distorting the provision of goods and services.

“Corruption has a direct impact on the validity of human rights, largely because of two reasons. On one side, corruption deprives societies of important resources that could be used for basic needs, such as public health, education, infrastructure, or security.

On another side, corruption has direct damaging consequences in general on the functioning of state institutions, and in particular on the administration of justice. Corruption decreases public trust in justice and weakens the capacity of judicial systems to guarantee the protection of human rights, and it affects the tasks and duties of the judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and other legal professionals.

By seeking impunity, corruption has a devastating effect on the judicial system as a whole. One of the goals of human rights is to fight corruption and its implications on the administration of justice, as is to act against corruption through an independent and strong administration of justice. For this, the United Nations Convention against Corruption is a fundamental instrument for the protection of human rights for Tennesseans. As the next potential Governor, I would actively solicited guidance from the United Nations.

There will be no change in the State of Tennessee until global and outside eyes have shined the light on legal atrocities going on in the political and judicial system that have caused great harm to the citizens in the State of Tennessee. When you allow a judge to arrest seven-year-old children, it is time for radical changes in our judicial system that supposed to protest the welfare of the people.

Corruption in the Tennessee Judicial System undermines the core of the administration of justice, generating a substantial obstacle to the right to an impartial trial, and severely undermining the population’s trust in the judiciary.

Corruption has a variety of faces, bribery being only one of them, another being political corruption, much more unattainable and imprecise. Its broad range of action enables it not only to influence the judicial system, but all the sectors of state administration as well.

I believe also that it is imperative that more women should be equally integrated into the judiciary to integrate the gender perspective and bring equal visibility and representation. I also believe in an Intergenerational approach to the judicial stage to bring a healthy balance to the scale of justice, therefore, I am in support of term limits.

Across the State of Tennessee, many politicians are trying to extend their term limits. The State of Tennessee has been stagnated with ineffective politicians and it is time for those individuals to part from the political scene of not representing the citizens. Terms limits stop the WE THE POLITICIAN syndrome of self-serving.

As the next potential Governor of the State of Tennessee, I would definitely entertain the indication of term limits which is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms an officeholder may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potential for monopoly, where a leader effectively becomes “president for life“. This is intended to protect a republic from becoming a de facto dictatorship. Sometimes, there is an absolute or lifetime limit on the number of terms an officeholder may serve; sometimes, the restrictions are merely on the number of consecutive terms they may serve.

I am an advocate for term limits for the following reasons:

• Term limits weed out “career politicians” who are most concerned with pandering to donors, enriching their businesses, and staying in office for the personal benefits.
• A legislator who spends a long time in office is more likely to make policy decisions based on outdated data and knowledge.  Term limits increase the likelihood that new legislators will arrive with updated perspectives.
• While low pay and high turnover might be reason to forego term limits in the Legislature, the governor is paid over $190,000 and there is no shortage of candidates for the job.  Term limits are therefore especially needed for Tennessee’s highest state office.
• Some studies have shown that term limits increase voter turnout.  This is likely because term limits increase the number of competitive elections, giving voters more newcomers to consider.

• These short terms give voters ample opportunity to review each elected official’s performance and remove him or her from office if they so choose.
• Legislators who are not term limited are more likely to build cooperative relationships with fellow legislators from other parties, increasing bipartisan legislation and rubbing elbows with their peers which do not serve the constituents when backdoor deals are achieved without the input of the community they serve.

I am an advocate of the citizen-legislator! It was Benjamin Franklin who summed up the best case for term limits more than two centuries ago: “In free governments, the rulers are the servants, and the people their superiors . . . For the former to return among the latter does not degrade, but promote them.”

Nationally, the notion of the “citizen-legislator” remains a popular vision. The public is justifiably cynical about the hollow promises of so many lifelong professional politicians who are often purchased with special-interest money. Large numbers of citizens feel that a political system without limits is a stacked deck. Any system that allows incumbents to amass so much power and attention in office that challengers can rarely win is surely in need of a corrective.

As the next Governor, I am standing fervently against the November ballot amendment to codify so-called “Right to Work.”

“Right to Work” is inhumane for the working poor and detrimental to the well-being of Tennesseans. In my opinion, our Tennessee Constitution should not be altered to further benefit the economic scheme of oppressive employment to perpetrate future poverty. The State of Tennessee was not founded on the abuse of people.

According to the State of Tennessee Constitution: ARTICLE I. Declaration of Rights. Section 1. That all power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their peace, safety, and happiness; for the advancement of those ends they have at all times, an unalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish the government in such manner as they may think proper.

The power is inherent in the people, therefore the government should never alter the Tennessee Constitution to benefit the rich and further keep people in poverty. As the next Governor, I would lift from the bottom up to bring about economic fairness and create an equitable tax system in the State of Tennessee.  

Every Tennesseans need a salary that affords them the opportunity to have a good quality of life that does not entail being the working poor. Employment in the State of Tennessee should not be a modern-day share cropper system.

To promote true systemic organic change in the public school system, I would encourage and engage a collaboration between parents, teachers, principals, Tennessee Education Association, Department of Human Services, community leaders, stakeholders to have a seat at the table for equitable growth and a pathway to teacher control of their classroom again.

All children living in the United States have the right to a free public education and the United States Constitution requires that all children be given equal educational opportunity no matter what their race, ethnic background, religion, gender identity, zip code, or whether they are rich or poor, citizen or non-citizen. Public education is a human right!

As the next Governor, I stand 100% for public schools and I am of the belief that vouchers for private charter schools would take funds from public schools and further bring harm to students across the State of Tennessee. Under my leadership, more funding would be allocated to school revitalization in urban and rural communities, classroom supplies, food programs for home outreach, housing assistance for homeless families, and Teacher’s incentive program.

We must take progressive action to restore the foundation of our public schools. The education of children must become a top priority of our Tennessee’s policymakers. In an era of shrinking budgets and increasing mandates, my unique leadership, parent’s voice and teacher’s advocacy are needed to help make a significant difference in preserving our public schools. If political leaders can allocated trillions of dollars to new infrastructure such as hotels and luxury apartments, certainly funds can be used to develop schools for the education of our children who is our most precious resource.

As you drive across the State of Tennessee, you will encounter public schools that have unsafe playgrounds, mold in schools located in underserved communities, lead in water, outdated classroom technology, lack of security in schools due to limited SRO and inadequate extra curriculum programs for marginalized students especially homeless students. In my new administration, I would address the WHOLE CHILD.

Just the mere fact that this present Governor and legislative body have entertained implementing laypersons in teacher’s positions for the next three years is absurd. This is an insult to the professionals that have acquire academic training, professional development and continue education. These individuals would never possess, the skill sets, classroom management, child development skills, proper disciplinary methods, child assessment protocols, etc.

Although this present administration is aggressively pushing vouchers implemented in Tennessee, national studies have proven vouchers to be ineffective at improving academic outcomes. Studies show that students who participate in private school voucher programs actually fare worse academically than students educated in public schools.

This present Governor proposed a partnership with Michigan-based Hillsdale College to open 100 new charter schools across Tennessee. Hillsdale has had some disturbing problems of its own.

In March 2022, the Tennessean reported, “To make matters worse, voucher programs and charter schools lack adequate oversight and transparency, but divert millions of public tax dollars to unaccountable private operators. Charter schools in Tennessee have opened the door to fraud and corruption. Here are just a few of many charter school horror stories in our state:

• Memphis Academy of Health Sciences closed, displacing 750 students, after three leaders were indicted for stealing $400,000 for personal use – for trips to Las Vegas, a hot tub, NBA tickets, and auto repair.
• New Vision Academy in Nashville shut down after state and federal investigation into financial irregularities, failure to comply with federal laws concerning special needs students and English language learners, and cramming too many children into classrooms in violation of the fire code. The husband/wife team leading the school of 150 students earned $563,000 per year.
• Gateway University Charter School in Memphis shut down after it was accused of falsifying grades, using uncertified teachers, giving credits for a geometry class that didn’t exist, and pulling children out of classes to clean the school’s bathrooms and other areas.
• Knowledge Academies in Nashville lost hundreds of thousands of tax dollars in an online phishing scheme (after which its founder and CEO suddenly disappeared); used uncertified teachers; understaffed the school and stopped paying teachers; operated with a deficit of $835,878, despite an annual revenue of $7.1 million; failed to meet federal requirements for English language learners and special needs students; and ran side businesses out of the school building. Nashville shut the school down, but the state forced it back open. It’s now operating with a $7.9 million deficit.
• Nashville Global Academy forgot a child on a bus parked offsite all day, misappropriated funds to the tune of $149,000, and collapsed over $400,000 in debt with unpaid bills worth hundreds of thousands of dollars”.

We must stop the political corruption in Tennessee regarding our public schools and I am prepared as the next incoming Governor to do just that. I am committed to redirecting adequate funds to our public schools, pay our teachers a fair wage, and support our neighborhood schools compared to allocating taxpayers hard earn money to fly-by-night charter schools that have committed atrocities on our students and public schools.

Continuing to privatize Tennessee’s schools through so-called “school choice” initiatives will only increase the chances that our taxes will be misused and wasted through abusive tactics to dismantle our public schools for money.

History has shown that unregulated school privatization will provide our underserved and marginalized students with a substandard education while enriching profit-making entities with no vested interest in Tennessee students. Students in the public schools are our most precious asset and as the next incoming Governor I am prepared to bring equity and fairness to all students. Rural school must be afforded up-to-date technology in classrooms and broadband home services.

We must thrive for a more equitable and inclusive environment in our public school system. Educational equity is about confronting and overcoming the barriers that deprive students of equitable educational opportunities because of their disability, ethnicity or socioeconomic status. As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I am committed to bringing about equity that recognizes children have unique needs and that obstacles to learning must be identified and eliminated. No child should attempt to learn on an empty stomach due to food deserts, lack of sleep because of living in a crime riddled neighborhood or surviving in an environment of homelessness.

In order to get to our ultimate goal, we must address the human rights of our educational system which has been overlooked by this present administration. We must view our public school system from the lens of human rights to address the holistic child and family.

Human rights education promotes values, beliefs and attitudes that encourage all individuals to uphold their own rights and those of others. It develops an understanding of everyone’s common responsibility to make human rights a reality in each community especially our public schools.

As an incoming Governor, I would integrate public education, social, economic, and cultural rights such as health care, housing, or a living wage as human rights in the educational scheme. A child living in poverty cannot benefit fully from the educational process unless their holistic needs are met by addressing their living arrangements, poverty status, food desert, lack of health care, mental health status, trauma from long-term exposure to crime and deaths, ACEs (Adverse Community Experiences), economic disparities and disinvestment in their community,

Tennesseans who do not know their rights are more vulnerable to having them abused and often lack the language and conceptual framework to effectively advocate for them. Growing consensus recognizes education for and about human rights as essential thus this concept must be addressed in our public school system. This concept can contribute to the building of free, just, and peaceful educational environment that can thrive in the State of Tennessee. Human rights education is also increasingly recognized as an effective strategy to prevent human rights abuses.

With the recent derogatory statements made about teachers by Hillsdale College President, it is my belief and desire as the next Governor to rescind all financial agreements past and future with this organization and send them packing back to Michigan. Our teachers are the backbone to our society and we will not tolerate any disrespect of any kind in Tennessee on my watch as the next Governor.

As the next potential Governor of the State of Tennessee, I would rescind all laws attacking a woman’s right to govern her body without any stipulations. Ironically, 70% of American s support Roe v. Wade, what is the purpose of this insidious attack on women’s reproductive health care? Political control and vindictiveness.

As a gubernatorial candidate with personal history of rape and domestic violence, I adamantly stand with women 100% for women’s reproductive health care rights. Our bodies are our choice. Politics should not be the engine to control women’s reproductive health, therefore it is my belief that no political leaders or legislature body should dictate reproductive health that could cause deaths to many women struggling to make decisions for her reproductive future. To force a woman to give birth to a child of a rapist is simply inhumane and cruel no matter what side of the fence you may be on.

If you are raped by your father, grandfather, brother or uncle and get pregnant in the State of Tennessee, you would have to give birth to the baby of your family abusers. This is the most insensitive and barbaric control of reproductive sanctions. It is my believe that we as women are not going back to the days of clothes hangers and unhealthy reproductive choices that could cause unnecessary deaths to women and girls desperate to make their own decisions for their lives.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I would rescind all unethical laws against women’s reproductive health care rights on day one.

The same people that have been protesting about “My body, my choice” when it comes to COVID vaccinations are now saying women do not have any control over their bodies now.

The same Tennessee Republicans that straddle the fence regarding requiring a 12-year old girl to wear a mask in school, that may save her life and the lives of other children, but they will force this same 12-year to keep a baby regardless of how she got pregnant, including rape and incest. As a survivor of rape, I know the consequences of this forced decision on women and girls which could cause physical, mental, emotional and economic devastation.

W.O.M.E.N. will be an initiative with a multi-layered scope to engage, empower and restore women rights thus securing reproductive justice in a humane and dignify way.

As the next Governor, I would work to ensure that every woman can make the best decisions for herself and her family about whether and when to have a child without undue political interference. My work will encompass a wide range of issues, including securing age-appropriate sex education in our schools, fighting pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, and protecting a woman’s ability to make personal, private decisions about pregnancy or any other reproductive issues.

The uniquely designed W.O.M.E.N. would foster a Domestic Violence counterpart which would encompass a wrap-around program to secure the safety and well-being of women caught in the cycle of abuse, human trafficking, mental illness and drug addiction.

The W.O.M.E.N Tennessee Battered Justice counterpart would require that individuals who are the subject of a protective order in domestic violence cases to surrender their firearms to the Sheriff Office or Police Department until the case is resolved. Thus making it a high priority to adopt the MDA (Moms Demand Action’s Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) law. This methodology is a much needed law to protect domestic victims and could be the nucleus to saving victim’s lives. As the next Governor, I would absolutely embrace this much need ERPO methodology.

PROTECTIVE ORDER “PIECE OF PAPER INEQUITIBLE JUSTICE” will be a sidebar in the W.O.M.E.N. Initiative.

In the context of COVID-19, economic and social stressors have provided the perfect environment for firearm-related domestic violence to thrive especially with the passage of the permit-less carry gun bill that was signed into law by the present Tennessee Governor motivated by the NRA. As the next Governor, I am prepared to implement a comprehensive advocacy toolkit to ward off this epidemic of gun violence against domestic victims. The ultimate goal restricting access by preventing prohibited parties from purchasing firearms and ammunition.

The W.O.M.E.N Initiative would integrate a Security Number Change for Domestic Violence Victims with a proper legal committee advisory board. Anyone can be a victim of domestic violence. If you’re a victim of family violence, harassment, abuse, or life-endangering situations, a collaboration with Social Security may be able to assist these citizens.

Strategic advocates will be employed to assist these victims to develop safety plans that include gathering personal papers and choosing a safe place to go. One of the safety measures to evade an abuser and reduce the risk of further violence may be to relocate and establish a new identity. Ascertaining a new Social Security number (SSN) may also be an option. Although it is not routinely appropriate to assign new security numbers, it may be feasible to do so when evidence shows a victim is being harassed or abused, or their lives are endangered.

Applying for a new number is a big decision. A Tennessean’s ability to interact with federal and state agencies, employers, and others may be affected. Their financial, medical, employment, and other records will be under your former SSN and name (if they change your name). If the victim expect to change their name, they will do so before applying for a new number. As the next Governor, I will be very creative in attempting to save the lives of these citizens.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I am totally against the criminalization of homeless individuals. To counteract these barbaric actions of this present administration, I would be proactive in implementing my “Homeless to Homeownership Plan”. Housing should be a human right in the State of Tennessee.

No human being should be sleeping on the streets, while trillions of dollars are allocated to building luxury hotels, upscale apartments and other infrastructure to plump the wealthy developer’s pockets. I am in agreement with economic development in conjunction with Community benefit Agreements but what I am not in agreement is letting people suffer on the streets as if they are chattel slaves waiting to die. Every citizen deserve life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness and they will have the opportunity to receive these benefit in my new administration.

Poverty is a real problem in the State of Tennessee, therefore, if a gubernatorial candidate or politician do not acknowledge the existence of poor people that further reflects that not all citizens are important in this canvas of cultural fiber of diversity. We must lift from the bottom up! Wealth will never trickled down to the poor.

Tennessee ranks 41st in Poverty Rate at 16.7% (poverty rankings by state). The Poverty Rate of Tennessee is moderately higher than the national average of 14.6%.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I will not close my eyes nor turn my head to the economic atrocities going on in the State of Tennessee that have caused great harm to segments of the Volunteer State. No politicians, including the Governor, should violate the constitutional rights of any citizens that deserve the same financial opportunity as any other citizens regardless of their economic status or hardship.

While new development across the State of Tennessee from Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis, Chattanooga to Murfreesboro is bustling with new economic developments while urban decayed neighborhoods and rural Tennessee is suffering at alarming rates. Beautiful apartments, hotels and entertainment establishments are wonderful, but not at the cost of neglecting human capitals in distressed and rural areas.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I prefer to invest in human capital instead of infrastructure that benefits the rich. It will be my goal to circumvent funding to small business owners who have been overlooked for too long and it may be too late for some locally family-owned businesses. Many small businesses also did not received the bulk of the PPP distributions under the watchful eyes of this present Tennessee Governor which had no accountability or oversight. As the incoming Governor, I would launched an investigation to the analysis of PPP funding allocation.

This unbalanced and immoral control of economic funding leads to poverty because not all Tennesseans are getting their fair shake of the prosperity pie or a seat at the table of economic distributions. The poverty rate in Tennessee is 16.7%. One out of every 6 residents of Tennessee lives in poverty.

The next Governor should have a boots-on-the-ground, people-centered and community-driven attitude to serve the people. Consequently, my main goal is to place people back into politics.

Too many families are struggling in the State of Tennessee while economic development is booming in every downtown district thus forcing poor people out of the fiber of culture cohesiveness and familiar safe havens. For children to contribute to Tennessee’s future prosperity, they must be economically secure.

As  a community advocate for over 40 years, I have seen the good, bad and ugly in the State of Tennessee when it comes to children living in rat infested housing, holes in the roofs of children’s bedrooms while sleeping on the floor, hot refrigerators with rats running out upon opening, children living in homes without utilities for months including water, walls separating from the floor of dilapidated homes while grass and trees grow against the walls of poverty, garter snakes in the toilet at any given time, children hair matted with sores, children walking with holes in their shoes, twelve children sleeping in a two bedroom house and lead in water source covered up by the government. On many occasions, children would go to sleep without proper nourishment for several days and the only balanced meal is through school food programs.

In Tennessee, 22.6% of children live in poverty. The range between the poorest and the wealthiest counties is significant, with a low of 5.2 percent in Williamson County to a high of nearly half, 49.1 percent, in Lake County. As clear as geographic differences are, racial and ethnic differences are also stark. While white children are least likely to be in poverty in every category, Hispanic children are most likely to be Economically Disadvantaged, while black children are most likely to live in Extreme Poverty.

Growing up in poverty makes a child less likely to achieve economic success as an adult. Before they reach school age, children are more likely to live in poverty than they are after they enter school. At the same time, research shows children have their most rapid brain development in the preschool years, and the stress of poverty can affect their development for the rest of their lives.

In Tennessee, 15 percent of children live in areas of concentrated poverty, which is associated with high crime rates and low social mobility. Research shows that growth in concentrated poverty is highest in medium-sized metropolitan and suburban areas, while the urban base of concentrated poverty remains high.

The State of Tennessee has the 14th highest child food insecurity rate in the country. One in three children statewide benefit from SNAP, but Feeding America estimated that more than half of Tennessee children qualify.

School breakfast is critical to ensure that children start the school day ready to learn. Unfortunately, 180,000 Tennessee students do not have access to the breakfast program at their school because it requires them to arrive too early.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service estimates that copious amount of black, brown and poor white children live in food deserts in the State of Tennessee with areas without access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food.

All Tennessee children need access to quality. Coordinated mental health care. In low-income underserved communities, children see and experience traumatic killings on a daily basis and never receive trauma care even with the killing of a classmate, mother, father or family member. Our children are our greatest resource! I would much rather see allocation of funding to children mental health compared to new economic development.

Currently, 18% of all children in the United States — nearly 13 million kids total — are living in poverty. Child poverty occurs when a child lives in a household where the combined annual earnings of all adults falls below a federally set income threshold. This threshold varies by family size and composition. In 2018, a family of two adults and two children were officially living in poverty if their household earnings fell below $25,465 annually.

Poverty elevates a child’s risk of experiencing behavioral, social and emotional and health challenges. Child poverty also reduces skill-building opportunities and academic outcomes, undercutting a young student’s capacity to learn, graduate high school and more.

In 2021, the city of Memphis has a poverty rate of 24.6%. Child poverty is 39.6%, while the poverty rate for people over age 60 is the lowest of any age group at 15.3%. It is impossible to tell if and how much poverty rates changed in 2020 due to the failure of the U.S. Census Bureau to release 1-year estimates for 2020. Anecdotally, it appears that poverty in Memphis increased during 2020 for all groups, most likely due to the pandemic. The City of Memphis poverty rate for Blacks is 29.5%, for Hispanics/Latinos is 29.3%, and the poverty rate for non-Hispanic Whites in the city of Memphis is 11.3%.

Despite being a city where poverty is endemic, Memphis has economic assets that have driven growth in select parts of the city. FedEx recently announced that it will move its headquarters from the suburbs to downtown, just a couple blocks away from a neighborhood where two-thirds of the population lives below the poverty line.  Intra-metropolitan inequality is extremely high in Memphis. 

The poverty rate in Nashville-Davidson metropolitan government (balance) is 17.2%. One out of every 5.8 residents of Nashville-Davidson metropolitan government (balance) lives in poverty.

16.7% of Chattanooga, TN residents had an income below the poverty level in 2019, which was 16.9% greater than the poverty level of 13.9% across the entire state of Tennessee. Taking into account residents not living in families, 19.0% of high school graduates and 48.7% of non-high school graduates live in poverty. The poverty rate was 18.3% among disabled males and 25.7% among disabled females. The renting rate among poor residents was 73.9%. For comparison, it was 39.1% among residents with income above the poverty level.

21.8% of Knoxville, TN residents had an income below the poverty level in 2019, which was 36.4% greater than the poverty level of 13.9% across the entire state of Tennessee. Taking into account residents not living in families, 29.8% of high school graduates and 49.4% of non-high school graduates live in poverty. The poverty rate was 21.6% among disabled males and 29.3% among disabled females. The renting rate among poor residents was 80.3%. For comparison, it was 40.4% among residents with income above the poverty level.

Sadly, the poorest county in Tennessee is Grundy County. As the next Governor, I will solicited rural Tennessee to come to the table of economic prosperity to promote equitable outcomes for every Tennesseans.

In Tennessee, Grundy County is one of the rural communities struggling, and was named the by 24/7 Wall Street as the worst place to live in the State of Tennessee. 

Grundy has no hospital, no college, no major retailers and no dentist. It is the “distressed community” and as the next Governor, it is counties such as this one that need the economic inoculation to stimulate growth and bring back sustainability for culturally rich towns such as these.

Grundy County stats are shameful and this rural county should have been given a lifeline of hope and economic development years ago. Over the past five years, Grundy’s population has decreased by 2.9%. Meanwhile, Tennessee’s population has grown by 3.8%. The poverty rate is more than 11% higher in Grundy than the rest of the state. Compared to all of Tennessee, about 15% less adults hold a bachelor’s degree in Grundy. The life expectancy for someone living in Grundy County is 72.5 years, but the state average is 76.3 years. The typical household in Grundy County earns $31,919 a year, well below the median household income statewide of $48,708.Only 73.2% of adults have a high school diploma, the smallest share of any county in the state.

Grundy County residents deserve to have decent livable wage jobs, services, education and health care they deserve and that is afforded to the rest of the state.

It is my belief that our lack of gun safety measures are bipartisan and all Tennesseans should be concern regarding this epidemic of senseless killing of innocent people. The mass killings at the Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee should have been a wake call to the need for gun safety measures.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I believe in the 2^nd Amendment which is every citizen’s right to bear arms, but I am totally against permitless gun legislation that unleash illegal guns on the streets of the State of Tennessee without common sense gun safety measures, gun training, gun management and proper gun storage. Illegal guns are getting into the hands of innocent children, teenagers, criminals and gang members which will continue to be a public crisis in this state if we do not get control of illegal guns across the State of Tennessee. There must be adequate gun safety measures in this Volunteer State.

Sadly, drug trafficking and gang members are moving to the rural communities and recruiting young rural children. Unregulated guns are entering this untapped Tennessee landscape of unsuspecting citizens. As the next Governor, I would like to implement a proactive plan to circumvent these actions by employing a Gang Prevention and Awareness Task Force Plan to combat a crime epidemic before it manifest which this plan would bring all stakeholders to the table such as youth, parents, teachers, pastors, police officers, sheriffs, youth leaders, community leaders, and business owners.

I would absolutely support gun access reforms such as expanding background checks, waiting periods on purchases, “red-flag” laws, stopping the sale of assault weapons, making large-capacity gun magazines illegal, banning weapons sales to younger than 21, and closing the loop-hole in purchasing guns at gun trade shows. In certain cases, I would also be in support of mental evaluations, Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO), closing the boyfriend loophole and improving civil and criminal domestic violence records in the background check system. Congress and state legislatures should prohibit a firearm transfer until the results of a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) check indicate that the buyer is not prohibited from possessing guns.

Gun safety measures should be a public outreach initiative to teach teenagers the importance and risk of possessing a firearm. Consequently, anger management, conflict resolution, racial relations and accountability should be incorporated into this public outreach initiative training which should entail parents, students, teachers and counselors.

Recreational and the right to bear arms are one aspect, but when innocent citizens are being carjacked, robbed at gas stations, shot on highways and robbed at gun point in the safety of their homes, this is an epidemic that must be address. In 2021, over thirty children lost their lives and 345 died due to gun violence in the City of Memphis.

Up 8% from 2019, the violent crime rate in the Nashville, Tennessee, metro area stands at 616 incidents per 100,000 people — well above the national rate. The increase in violent crime in the Nashville area was led by homicides, which surged by nearly 29% year over year.

Rising rates of deadly violence have continued well into 2021 in Nashville. As of early July, 68 homicides were committed in the city proper, up from 43 at the same point in 2020 and 30 the previous year.

Memphis has set another record, but it’s not one to celebrate. The Bluff City has set the record for the most homicides. In 2021, Memphis had 346 homicides, compared to 325 the pass year. The city broke the 2016 record of 230 homicides in 2020.

There were 304 murders in the city of Memphis in 2021 and at least 31 of the homicide victims were under 18. There were just over 400 homicides in the state of Tennessee in 2019, meaning that almost one out of two homicides occurred in Memphis.

The 2019 crime rate in Chattanooga, TN is 580 (City-Data.com crime index), which is 2.1 times greater than the U.S. average. It was higher than in 97.5% U.S. cities. The 2019 Chattanooga crime rate fell by 2% compared to 2018. The number of homicides stood at 33 – an increase of 14 compared to 2018. In the last 5 years Chattanooga has seen increasing violent crime and decline of property crime.

As the next Governor, I will incorporate organizations, researchers, and data to follow the science to curtail this gun safety measures in the State of Tennessee.

Gun violence in Tennessee has a direct connection to gun safety measures. In an average year, 1273 people die and 2,220 are wounded by guns in Tennessee.

Tennessee has the 14^th-highest rate of gun violence in the United States. In Tennessee, the rate of gun deaths increased 48% from 2011 to 2022, compared to a 33% increase nationwide. The rate of gun suicides increased 20% and gun homicide increased 103% compared to a 12% increase and 70% increase nationwide, respectively.

The cost of gun violence should be a concern to every Tennesseans. Tennessee has the 8^th-highest societal cost of gun violence in the United States at $1,346 per person each year. Gun deaths and injuries cost Tennessee $9 billion, of which $433 million is paid by taxpayers.

Gun deaths by intent. In Tennessee, 56% of gun deaths are suicides and 40% are homicides. This is compared to 59% and 38% nationwide, respectively.

Gun suicides and suicide attempts. Every year, an average of 718 people in Tennessee die by gun suicides and 119 are wounded by gun suicide attempts, a rate of 10.0 suicides and 1.8 suicide attempts per 100,000 people. Tennessee has the 13th-highest rate of gun suicides and gun suicide attempts in the United States.

Children and Teens Gun Deaths. Guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens in Tennessee. In Tennessee, an average of 117 children and teens die by guns every year, of which 31% of these deaths are suicides and 62% are homicides. In the United States, 35% of all gun deaths among children and teens are suicides and 60% are homicides.

Gun Homicides and Assaults. Every year, an average of 519 people in Tennessee die by gun homicides and 829 are wounded by gun assaults, a rate of 8.1 homicides and 12.3 assaults per 100,000 people. Tennessee has the 13th-highest rate of gun homicides and gun assaults in the United States. In Tennessee, 82% of all homicides involved a gun, compared to 76% nationwide.

Intimate Partner Homicides. In 2019, 18 women were fatally shot by an intimate partner in Tennessee. 67% of female intimate partner homicide victims were killed with a gun, compared to 67% nationwide.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I will have a people-oriented, community-centered appetite for more radical system change to rethink the role of privatized prisons.

We need an attitude shift for criminal justice reform and that shift will start with me as the next Governor of the State of Tennessee. The more we believe that people in prison are violent and dangerous, the more inclined we are to accept the State of Tennessee’s bulging prison populations and costs, along with the mass incarceration of black, brown and poor white people, as somehow necessary for public safety.

Thankfully, over the course of the past decade, that tragically misbegotten narrative has been increasingly disrupted by pioneering thinkers and activists like myself. As a community advocate, I have highlighted how disparate laws and enforcement approaches, many rooted in nothing more than racism on the one hand and the protection of privilege on the other, have resulted over time in wildly disproportionate rates of incarceration for people of color.

As a community advocate, I have called attention to the vast numbers of people ensnared in the criminal justice system who have been found guilty of minor crimes or, stunningly, of no crime at all, but who cannot find their way out because their poverty keeps them from paying the draconian fines, bail and bonds that lock them in place and deprive them of any hope of a livelihood.

I have demonstrated and legally addressed how a system that claims to be fair and impartial instead has been almost perfectly designed to discriminate against people based on skin color, disability, gender orientation and economic status.

A decade ago society largely took the phenomenon of mass incarceration as an unfortunate but necessary given, but presently however, that narrative is changing.

A growing number of people including some community advocates, policymakers and law enforcement officials are recognizing mass incarceration for what it is: racist, unfair, and a terrible waste both of taxpayer resources and of human potential.

That’s why, today, there is a bipartisan movement to end mass incarceration, because responsible people on both the political right and left agree that the system as it currently functions must be reformed. Unfortunately, the State of Tennessee is slow to embrace this mindset due to privatization of prisons are beneficial to the rich and caustic to the poor.

Myths and systemic mindsets are hard to change, therefore, so much of America’s criminal justice system as it exists today is driven by the threefold, closed-loop logic of fear, racism and indifference. Why has a freedom-loving country become the developed world’s most aggressive jailer of its own people? Why have Americans tolerated the staggering costs of a voracious and self-perpetuating prison industrial complex?

To truly reform America’s criminal justice system, we are going to have to do the hard work of untangling ourselves, step by step from the vicious growl of the fear, racism and indifference that has shaped it.

The data tells us it is not because of worsening crime. In the State of Tennessee our prison system is remotely ineffective in improving the lives and behaviors of those who pass through it. No restorative justice, workforce development, skill training, behavior modification, drug rehabilitation, conflict resolution, housing management, and mental health care.

Recidivism is high in the State of Tennessee because there is no precise comprehensive plan to equip felons that are released with no life skills. Felons are released and are treated as if they are stigmas or misfits in the communities in which they return. I believe in second chances and a person should not be treated as a felon their whole life which their voting rights should be restored through the proper procedures.

We have tolerated this abuse of mass incarceration out of fear. We have been led to believe, or chosen to accept, that violent crime is pervasive in our society, even though that is not true based on copious research. That fear, abetted by opportunistic politicians exploiting it for political gain, convinces us that only ever more draconian laws (“Three strikes! No, one strike! Just lock ’em up!”), life-ruining practices (“Who cares if they can’t make bail and get to work — that’ll teach ’em!”), and swelling prison populations and costs (“Let ’em rot!”) will protect us. In the face of danger, any harshness, no matter how pointless, feels appropriate and satisfying.

As Tennesseans have tolerated it because in the State of Tennessee a largely white governing majority, steeped in centuries of white supremacist orthodoxy, has too easily associated “dangerous” crime with race. Early in the failed “war on drugs,” which has ruined far more lives than it has saved, crack cocaine use, which was more prevalent in the black community, was criminalized to a level unseen for powdered cocaine use, which was more common in the white community. Today’s opioid epidemic shifted from being treated as a crime problem to a public health crisis only when its deep reach into white America became clear. The fascination of policymakers in the 1990s with so-called “super predators” played on fears of young black men, and policies like stop-and-frisk legitimized racial profiling. Black defendants get harsher sentences and higher bails than white defendants charged with similar crimes. This is what institutionalized racism looks like.

Finally, we have tolerated it out of indifference. The financially well-off can afford to be unconcerned with a system whose abuses target the poor. White people can afford to be unconcerned with a system whose abuses target people of color. We are not a society that easily connects the dots from another person’s or group’s experience of injustice to a diminishment of our own lives.

To truly reform Tennessee’s criminal justice system, we are going to have to do the hard work of untangling ourselves from the vicious snarl of the fear, racism, and indifference that has shaped it. Nowhere is that more evident than in what sociologists call the “school-to-prison pipeline.” As research has demonstrated, even in preschool black schoolchildren are disciplined, suspended, and expelled at rates far higher than white children, an obviously unjust dynamic that increases their likelihood of colliding with the justice system.

But that is just one of many manifestations of a system in desperate need of reform. As the next potential Governor, I am interested in a community movement to end mass incarceration. I will be supporting better effective people-centered policing while taking on gun violence and the system that perpetuates the too-easy availability of deadly firearms. I will be seeking to working with legal representation, non-profits, youth leaders, pastors, teachers, community leaders, corporations and other civil organizations to assure that the justice system is fairer and thrive to reduce local jail populations, including addressing bail bond reform. Reforming the criminal justice system will require all of these changes and more.

Most fundamentally it will require a change of mind and a change of heart. The change of mind is to replace our knee-jerk tendency to “get tough” as our perpetual response to crime and to focus instead on whether policies are actually effective.

The change of heart is to remember that a crucial element of justice is redemption. In our society, in our democracy, and in our many faith traditions, we believe in the possibility of people coming back from a mistake and rebuilding their lives. At an even deeper level, the change of heart is to understand how a system that robs any group of dignity or hope will only feed our collective divisions, paranoia, and all the human and financial costs that come with that. We are not strengthened by robbing others of their dignity; we are only made smaller.

As the next Governor, I will implement the first Comprehensive Crime Prevention Plan to address the out-of-control crimes across the State of Tennessee. This plan would address effective communication skills training, police cultural awareness, police brutality accountability, Conviction Review Units, Tennessee Innocence Commission, Tennessee Violence Interruption Program, Tennessee Hospital-based Violence Interruption Program and Tennessee Outreach Youth & Management Advocacy Program, mental health counseling, ACEs (Adverse Community Experiences), trauma intervention, homeless, drug counseling, poverty, parenting awareness programs, teacher collaborative programs, community-driven solution protocols, and disinvestment in poor neighborhoods.

A Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) is a division of a prosecutorial office that works to prevent, identify, and remedy false convictions. They are sometimes called Conviction Review Units (CRUs).

Under my progressive community-focused leadership, the Tennessee Innocence Commission will be developed to review credible post-conviction cases in which the defendants and their advocates claim wrongful conviction.

Under my progressive community-focused leadership, Tennessee Restorative Justice will be integrated in every aspects of the criminal justice system. Some of the most common programs typically associated with restorative justice are mediation and conflict-resolution programs, family group conferences, victim-impact panels, victim–offender mediation, circle sentencing, and community reparative boards.

Tennessee Violence Interruption Program (TENN VIP) will be a community-based approach to reducing communal and interpersonal violence that treats violence as a public health problem. In the State of Tennessee, many children, teenagers and youth adults are living with untreated trauma because of exposed daily encounters and violence which have cause post traumatic syndrome that leads to other social, economic, psychological and behavioral problems.

This concept of Violence Interruption is not a new phenomenal, but the State of Tennessee has not capitalize off of this innovative plan to combat crime and gun violence in our communities. Instead, political leaders have signed into law a permit-less gun carry bill which further exacerbate this problem.

Individuals providing violence interruption services are known as violence interrupters. Techniques used include mediation and measures to address underlying causes of violence. These mediations are usually between rival gangs. The violence interrupters are people who have lived experience and usually come from the neighborhoods they work in. Maintaining respect and trust from the community is of the utmost importance to foster strong relationships with the individuals who are being served so that they maintain their credibility as messengers.

TENN V.I.P will also help these individuals access services that can address the underlying root causes of an individual’s actions. For example, job training, job placement, parenting skills, drug addiction assistance, housing relocation, etc. The initiatives use a public health model to prevent violence and crime by treating them as diseases. TENN V.I.P. initiatives will be placed in schools, churches, community centers, civil organizations, community parks, hospitals, etc. There will be a specific hotline to access this service. 

Violence interruption is distinct from law enforcement as an approach to ending violence, although the two approaches can sometimes be regarded as complementary to one another. The component that makes this strategy so successful is the community partner agencies and the interrupters themselves

Tennessee Hospital-based Violence Interruption Program (TENN H.V.I.P.) will reach survivors of violence in the hospital. There, case managers and social service providers try to meet victims’ basic needs and support them, while also working to prevent retaliation. Some programs will involve police officers assistance, pastors, and other community leaders.

Mental Health Co-Responder working hand-and-hand with police officers. When mental health providers partner with law enforcement in a strategic and thoughtful manner, it’s possible to improve outcomes for those suffering from mental illness, substance abuse disorders and other emotional/cognitive impairments. A mental health professional acting as an on-scene consultant to both the police officer and to various involved citizens can reduce the likelihood of the situation escalating to violence. This, rather than the fantasy of eliminating law enforcement and turning such situations exclusively over to the mental health system, actually has the potential of enhancing public safety over the long term—particularly for those most at-risk.

My special program for youth will be the Tennessee Outreach Youth & Management Advocacy Program (TOY MAP).

In the State of Tennessee, it is time to address real problems and solutions to the crime epidemic in our communities across the State of Tennessee. There must be funding allocated to this gap in safety and protection for our citizens.

We cannot dismiss or leave our children of this great State hanging without a life-line of hope, consequently living in poverty-stricken and crime riddle neighborhoods where their only protection is running for their lives when bullets are dancing in the air.

Around the corners of rural Tennessee, rural neighborhoods have gang members that are lurking in the middle of the night for innocence children. TOY MAP will try to stop the manifestation of gang affiliations before it permeates the rural areas. We will have creative markers in place to identify this growing problem in rural areas.

This youth program will be geared to working in underserved and marginalized urban communities with high rates of gun violence, thus getting on the ground with increasing gang affiliations in the rural communities in the State of Tennessee. TOY MAP will work from a holistic prospective integrating the family, community, and high-risk children in this circle of combating crimes of violence in our State where guns are prevalent on every street corner.  Using community leaders, community organizations, community churches, non-profits, this initiative will identify those who are gang-affiliated or with known gun related histories. In our larger cities such a as Memphis, Chattanooga, Nashville, Murfreesboro and Knoxville we will implemented models that target specific individuals, neighborhoods and broader violence and crime reduction strategies.

We will have a community-driven built out TOY MAP program that will cover but not limited to the following specified programs:

• Youth Empowerment Services
• Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOP) Day Treatment
• Outpatient Services
• In-Home and School-Based Services
• Child Welfare
• Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
• Violence Interruption Service
• Youth and Young Adult Justice
• Drug Education and Outreach
• Child Trafficking
• Innovation Outreach

TOY MAP will creatively incorporate interventions to our core services to better meet the needs of young people and families served. For example, we might include evidence-based interventions such as Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy when we work with young people with trauma histories; or we may use Peaceful Alternatives to Tough Situations with justice-involved youth; or Strengthening Families to support parents in the child welfare system. We will decide which interventions to incorporate to our TOY MAP programs in partnership with the parents, residents, local community stakeholders, pastors, community leaders, civil organizations and any other entity that can serve this innovate program as a lifeline to our youth.

TOY MAP will developed interventions that supplement our program core services. Innovation outreach like Street Rapp, “Tennessee Has Talent (THT)”, and Basketball Great, “Work With A Hero” will help participants build their skills and connect them to economic opportunities.

In 1991, Memphis Black homeownership beats United States average. In 2022, the blacks in Memphis are 63% rental individuals. This housing atrocity is playing out across the State of Tennessee where the original tenants in neighborhoods are being forced out of their familiar environment to high cost rental housing causing these struggling citizens to uproot from their families, communities, churches and social networks.

This is systemic gentrification and moreover intentional genocide of black, brown and poor white communities who economically and legally cannot fight back due to living in poverty.

This methodology is placing the “creative class” residents in these newly upscale development areas where they are afforded the opportunity to live, work and play in their staged environment. Consequently, the black, brown and poor whites struggle to live, survive and succumb to the detriments of discriminatory policies and practices to force these citizens further into poverty.

Ironically, the middle-class families are slowing losing financial grounds and some have also succumb to the devastation of homeless. There are families across the State of Tennessee living in hotels and their cars which the pandemic has added an additional level of coping in a poverty state. Sadly, there are limited amount of homeless shelters and now this present administration has passed a law to criminalize the homeless from sleeping on public space.

As the next potential Governor, I have a proven record of serving the homeless for decades. Everyone deserves a place to call home. I am an advocate of homeless to homeownership programs.

Tennesseans are challenged to find safe and habitable housing in their community because of credit worthiness, poverty status, and their criminal record. Underserved and marginalized individuals are either ineligible for or denied housing because of their own or a loved one’s criminal history.

As the potential next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I am interested in advocating and working with the legislature body to support a Housing as a Human Right Bill to assure affordable housing for every citizens.

A Tennessee Rental Commission is greatly needed in the State of Tennessee assure fairness and equality for all Tennesseans. Apartments and houses are being sold from under families without a moment notice. Sending people struggling to fins somewhere to live with the City of Memphis in need of 30,000 affordable homes and this housing scheme is metastasizing all over the State of Tennessee.

In March of 2022, senior citizens were given a short notice to move out of several high rising apartments here they had lived for twenty years only to find out that the Memphis Housing Authority had sold their familiar dwelling to an out-of-town investor. These senior were uprooted from their friends and safety net environment.

This housing atrocities is multi-layered and multi-dimensional. HUD (Housing Urban Development) original was implemented to assist the low income and severely low-income to ascertain affordable housing. With the shift in allocating the funds to rich developers and investors, these funds allocated for low-income families are now being routed through to developers to create luxury apartments which this will cause a lack of wealth transfers to black, brown and poor white children for generations to come. This governmental funding shift will further exacerbate poverty and lack of generational wealth.

In Illinois, landlords can refuse to rent to prospective tenants solely based on a record of arrest, even if the tenant has never been convicted of a crime.

Criminal background checks often contain inaccurate or outdated information. For home seekers, inaccurate background checks can be devastating and can even result in homelessness. This impact extends to families of individuals with records, who also suffer the consequences of housing discrimination.

As a next potential Governor of the State of Tennessee, I am motivated to working with the legislative body to encourage an innovative way of promoting homeownership opportunity or apartment rental by implementing the Restoring Rights and Opportunities Coalition of Tennessee which can lead to the passage of the largest expansion of sealing records in the State of Tennessee for qualified individuals that deserves the American dream of homeownership. Nevertheless, people will still be challenged to access housing even after going through the long process of successfully petitioning the court to seal their record because of the bake in systemic racism of our governmental practices and policies. Under the current Tennessee law, individuals have no recourse against bad information, including sealed records, appearing on a background check.

By implementing and working with the Tennessee legislature body, the proposed Tennessee Housing Human Rights Act will set standards that landlords cannot just use whatever they get on a background check as a reason for denial, they need to take a closer look for accuracy.

Housing as a Human Right creates a civil rights violation under this proposed Tennessee Housing Human Rights Act to refuse to sell, rent or otherwise make housing unavailable to any buyer or renter based on:

1. An arrest not leading to a finding of guilt;
2. A juvenile record; or
3. A criminal history record ordered expunged, sealed or impounded.

The Tennessee Housing Human Rights Act, would not be able to use these types of records in a housing decision.

People are more than their records. Everyone deserves the opportunity to be considered as an individual. People with records and their families, like everyone else, deserve a home to build a future.

The major problem in our educational system today is not having all players at the table. I believe in placing people back into politics, therefore, I would be a strong advocate of giving the parents, youth, teachers, LGBTQ community, homeless individuals, community leaders, principals, pastors, educational liaison, community organizations, non-profits, immigrants and business owners a seat at the table of educational equity. These citizens should have an input into the pathway of success for our children which would promote a more cohesive unity in the community being educational shareholders.

Tennessee currently ranks 44th in education funding and we must have the educational stakeholders at the table to truly identify the real needs of the students, teachers and the classroom. We must invest more funding into schools and less into large corporations to be competitive across the United States and the world. After all, it would be our students that drives the corporations with their creative edge of digital knowledge and innovative ideas. The investment starts with them.

As the next Governor, with my vast history as an educator, Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) would not provide public schools with enough money because the expected funding regarding the new formula would not close the gap between what the state calculates students need for education and the higher amount local government spends.

The funding formula should incorporate not only expenditures tied to students but holistic strategies to address student’s homelessness, poverty, trauma, mental health, nutritional, housing & economic disparities in order to address the whole child. Addressing money tied to the child instead of resources a school district needs will be detrimental in the long run. The formula should have been a merger of BEP (Basic Education Program) and TISA to produce a long-term solution to systemic problems associated with students beside educational needs. Even though school districts will benefit from the TISA funding, some public schools will get a smaller proportion of state funding under TISA than they did under BEP.

I am of the belief that until the Governor and the legislature body realized that we must combat educational deficient with common sense holistic approaches and not out-of-state private voucher remedies that would cause greater harm to our greatest resources our children.

Children must have the quality environment to learn to encourage a foundation to earn more as well-rounded adults ready to conquer this fast pace digital world. As the next forward-thinking Governor, my team would work to encourage and fully fund our public educational system which must be viewed as a human right for all students.

My progressive educational team would secure pre-k expansion, vocational training and skill training, holistic wrap-around services to help parents, establish a community-driven plan to eliminate barriers to accessing quality childcare and quality education across the State of Tennessee. Our whole child methodology would entail addressing the child’s physical, mental, emotional well-being, thus incorporating homelessness issues, housing, health care disparities, economic disparities, school inequities, food deserts, dental care, trauma intervention, gang awareness, drug counseling, environmental exposures and ACEs (Adverse Community Experiences). Many low income children are living in environmental unsafe communities that place them at greater risk for behavioral and learning disabilities.

As part of my plan, we will fight to increase teacher pay and per pupil funding so educators and school districts can focus on delivering high-quality instruction, instead of making ends meet.

The Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) need to be addressed from a holistic approach to entail the fiber make-up of all 95 counties, thus addressing every district unique needs especially the rural areas that lacks broadband accessibility.

Historically, the State of Tennessee has used what was called the Basic Education Program (“BEP”), a resource-based approach to determine funding for schools. Recently, the Tennessee General Assembly replaced the old BEP formula with new legislation called TISA (Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement).

It would be wise to consider current outcomes before expanding school privatization across the state. Charter school performance is especially abysmal in Tennessee.

Consequently, Success rate and lack of accountability of voucher schools have had a poor rating across the United State. Only five of the state’s 116 charter schools have a success rate of over 20%, and 37% of the state’s charter schools have a success rate of 5% or less.

National studies have proven them to be ineffective at improving academic outcomes. Studies show that students who participate in private school voucher programs actually fare worse academically than students educated in public schools.

To make matters worse, voucher programs and charter schools lack adequate oversight and transparency, but divert millions of public tax dollars to unaccountable private operators. Charter schools in Tennessee have opened the door to fraud and corruption. Here are just a few of many charter school horror stories in our state:

This is further proof that TISA will not work in the State of Tennessee. TISA is a backdoor approach to integrating the private voucher schools which have been presented as a student-centered approach to funding our education system. However, the legislation does little to ensure dollars at spent in a way that actually impacts classroom outcomes. TISA will not drive improved student performance and does not address the effective needs of our education system.

Tennessee currently ranks 44th in education funding. This formula does not move the needle in a meaningful way. After the adjustments are made to account for new funding, Tennessee will still be investing less per student than many other states.

As the next Governor, I will not support vouchers due to its failing rate and the direct harm they have cost students in the past.

As part of my plan, we will fight to increase teacher pay and per pupil funding so educators and school districts can focus on delivering high-quality instruction, instead of making ends meet.

As the next Governor, we will prioritize mandatory teacher pay increases, address provisions that create back door avenues for public dollars to fund private schools, and work to ensure that cost sharing between municipalities is both equitable and fair.

TISA does not address the shortage of teachers needed to adequately support students. Currently, Tennessee school districts hire 11,000 more teachers than the current formula funds and TISA does nothing to ensure more teachers will be hired and supported by State funding.

TISA does not guarantee a boost in teacher pay. The $125 million dollars set aside for teacher compensation is part of a funding plan, not a spending plan. Counties decide how to spend the money and TISA does mandate that funds be spent on teacher pay increases. According to a Tennessee Department of Education report, only 16% of school districts gave out the last cycle of promised pay raises.

As a former teacher, many educators use their own personal funds to purchase students materials, school supplies and personal toiletries for their students. Teachers are the backbone to our society.

Municipalities will ultimately bear the costs. The current administration has set a four-year grace period in which the local contributions to TISA are lowered until 2027. However, after that time, the contribution limits will automatically increase to the level contemplated by the formula and municipalities will be faced with the difficult decision on which taxes to increase to make up for the gap created after the grace period has ended.

I would need all TCAP examinations that have place teachers in a vulnerable position for years. Teachers are professionals.

In my Tennessee Teacher’s Loyalty Plan, I would address special housing loans, incremental wage step-up pay, wrap-around services to cater to the personal needs of our beloved teachers, and student loan forgiveness programs. After the first year, teachers would receive a 10% raise in pay based on classroom performance.

All across the State of Tennessee, citizens are being gentrified or evicted out of their homes and apartments because of the loyalty to rich developers and slumlords that have not been governed by a Rental Commission. As the next Governor, I would have my fingers on the pulsation of the communities across the State of Tennessee to assure no Tennesseans are left behind due to their social or economic status. Providentially, I have a working rapport with homeless individuals across the State of Tennessee.

In 1991, Memphis Black homeownership beats United States average. In 2022, the blacks in Memphis are 63% rental individuals. This housing atrocity is playing out across the State of Tennessee where the original tenants in neighborhoods are being forced out of their familiar environment to high cost rental housing causing these struggling citizens to uproot from their families, communities, churches and social networks.

This is systemic gentrification and moreover intentional genocide of black, brown and poor white communities who economically and legally cannot fight back due to living in poverty. Citizens are being displaced in Nashville, Chattanooga, Murfreesboro and Knoxville due to greedy rich investors and their ties to our governmental leaders.

This housing methodology is placing the “creative class” residents in these newly upscale development areas where they are afforded the opportunity to live, work and play in their staged environment. Consequently, the black, brown and poor whites struggle to live, survive and succumb to the detriments of discriminatory policies and practices to force these citizens further into poverty.

Ironically, the middle-class families are slowing losing financial grounds and some have also succumb to the devastation of homeless. There are families across the State of Tennessee living in hotels and their cars which the pandemic has added an additional level of coping in a poverty state. Sadly, there are limited amount of homeless shelters and now this present administration has passed a law to criminalize the homeless from sleeping on public space.

As the next potential Governor, I have a proven record of serving the homeless for decades. Everyone deserves a place to call home. I am an advocate of homeless to homeownership programs.

Tennesseans are challenged to find safe and habitable housing in their community because of credit worthiness, poverty status, and their criminal record. Underserved and marginalized individuals are either ineligible for or denied housing because of their own or a loved one’s criminal history.

As the potential next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I am interested in advocating and working with the legislature body to support a Housing as a Human Right Bill to assure affordable housing for every citizens.

A Tennessee Rental Commission is greatly needed in the State of Tennessee assure fairness and equality for all Tennesseans. Apartments and houses are being sold from under families without a moment notice. Sending people struggling to fins somewhere to live with the City of Memphis in need of 30,000 affordable homes and this housing scheme is metastasizing all over the State of Tennessee.

In March of 2022, senior citizens were given a short notice to move out of several high rising apartments here they had lived for twenty years only to find out that the Memphis Housing Authority had sold their familiar dwelling to an out-of-town investor. These senior were uprooted from their friends and safety net environment.

This housing atrocities is multi-layered and multi-dimensional. HUD (Housing Urban Development) original was implemented to assist the low income and severely low-income to ascertain affordable housing. With the shift in allocating the funds to rich developers and investors, these funds allocated for low-income families are now being routed through to developers to create luxury apartments which this will cause a lack of wealth transfers to black, brown and poor white children for generations to come. This governmental funding shift will further exacerbate poverty and lack of generational wealth.

In Illinois, landlords can refuse to rent to prospective tenants solely based on a record of arrest, even if the tenant has never been convicted of a crime.

Criminal background checks often contain inaccurate or outdated information. For home seekers, inaccurate background checks can be devastating and can even result in homelessness. This impact extends to families of individuals with records, who also suffer the consequences of housing discrimination.

As a next potential Governor of the State of Tennessee, I am motivated to working with the legislative body to encourage an innovative way of promoting homeownership opportunity or apartment rental by implementing the Restoring Rights and Opportunities Coalition of Tennessee which can lead to the passage of the largest expansion of sealing records in the State of Tennessee for qualified individuals that deserves the American dream of homeownership. Nevertheless, people will still be challenged to access housing even after going through the long process of successfully petitioning the court to seal their record because of the bake in systemic racism of our governmental practices and policies. Under the current Tennessee law, individuals have no recourse against bad information, including sealed records, appearing on a background check.

By implementing and working with the Tennessee legislature body, the proposed Tennessee Housing Human Rights Act will set standards that landlords cannot just use whatever they get on a background check as a reason for denial, they need to take a closer look for accuracy.

Housing as a Human Right creates a civil rights violation under this proposed Tennessee Housing Human Rights Act to refuse to sell, rent or otherwise make housing unavailable to any buyer or renter based on:

1. An arrest not leading to a finding of guilt;
2. A juvenile record; or
3. A criminal history record ordered expunged, sealed or impounded.

The Tennessee Housing Human Rights Act, would not be able to use these types of records in a housing decision.

People are more than their records. Everyone deserves the opportunity to be considered as an individual. People with records and their families, like everyone else, deserve a home to build a future.

As the nest Governor, if we can build million dollar hotels and apartments with tax incentives to large corporations with very few taxpayer’s benefits, we certainly should be able to feed every Tennesseans in this State.

Poverty, disinvestment in poor neighborhoods, lack of health care and nutritional disparities create inequities. In order to close the health equity gap, we must address the disparities such as food desserts, accessibility to quality food and governmental oversight in these underserved neighborhoods.

Ironically, people living in food deserts tend to consume less nutritious foods and have poorer health outcomes. In a report published in 2016, it was estimated that over one million people in Tennessee (one fifth of whom are children) live in low-income communities with insufficient access to full-service grocery stores. I will make addressing food deserts within the state a top priority.

No child should go to bed or to school hungry. TENNESSEE FOOD would bring mobile pantries to these underserved communities that have been food deserts for decades. Satellite grocery stores would be erected in these underserved communities to assure proper nutritional value and eliminate transportation problems.

Special senior citizens food delivery services will be designed to deliver the nutritionally-sound food to senior’s doorsteps which would make it convenient and safer for these elders.

As the next Governor, I have a people’s comprehensive plan to stop gentrification and displacement of poverty-stricken individuals living in urban sprawl neighborhoods. These individuals have lost hope of being a part of the economic equation of prosperity, but I am listening and will stop the hemorrhage of economic unfairness.

This process is going on all over the State of Tennessee and no politician want to address this genocidal act on poor people. Gentrification is “the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, typically displacing current inhabitants in the process.” In the State of Tennessee, many poor residents are being forced out of their culturally-connected communities because of cities catering to the affluent creative class. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and planning.

Sadly, the formerly urban ambiance of the urban projects and dilapidated homes are getting an upscale, glamorous makeover at the expense of everyday residents with low- and middle-income salaries. HUD funding are no longer being allocated to low income families, but so often given to rich developers to create apartment to rent to the poor which these individuals will never accumulate generational wealth for their children.

Across the State of Tennessee, citizens living in apartment buildings are slowly being priced out of their hometown or city, but more immediately, Tennesseans are being priced out of their homes.

The new landlord’s rent hikes are massive, scaling up between $400 and $1,000 per month on what mainly were studio apartment rentals. The landlord, described by some tenants as decidedly pleasant at first, claimed the hikes were necessary to keep up with inflation. However, it’s important to point out that landlords know this information at the time of purchase, meaning they bought the building with the full intention of raising these rents by astronomical amounts. Other luxury apartments are being built in Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, Murfreesboro and Knoxville with the intention of knowing low-income or moderate income families will not be able to move in which is a form of desegregating again.

In our questionnaires, Tennesseans demanded answers about unfair treatment and lack of economic investments in their underserved communities who “raised concerns about gentrification, displacement and transformations in their communities.”

Poor people are losing their homes in Tennessee because of discriminatory tax lien sales of family properties while tax incentives are given to large corporations and private investors to displace these economically strap individuals. Local and state polices regarding tax lien sales have changed and often deny poor people the right to hold on to their properties.

As the next Governor, I would be focusing on rent-stabilized apartment and rent commission strategies. As a general rule of thumb, landlords of rent-stabilized apartments are only permitted modest rental increases as per city standards.

As the next potential Governor, I have a proven record of serving the homeless for decades. Everyone deserves a place to call home. I am an advocate of homeless to homeownership programs.

Tennesseans are challenged to find safe and habitable housing in their community because of credit worthiness, poverty status, and their criminal record. Underserved and marginalized individuals are either ineligible for or denied housing because of their own or a loved one’s criminal history.

As the potential next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I am interested in advocating and working with the legislature body to support a Housing as a Human Right Bill to assure affordable housing for every citizens.

A Tennessee Rental Commission is greatly needed in the State of Tennessee assure fairness and equality for all Tennesseans. Apartments and houses are being sold from under families without a moment notice. Sending people struggling to fins somewhere to live with the City of Memphis in need of 30,000 affordable homes and this housing scheme is metastasizing all over the State of Tennessee.

In March of 2022, senior citizens were given a short notice to move out of several high rising apartments here they had lived for twenty years only to find out that the Memphis Housing Authority had sold their familiar dwelling to an out-of-town investor. These senior were uprooted from their friends and safety net environment.

This housing atrocities is multi-layered and multi-dimensional. HUD (Housing Urban Development) original was implemented to assist the low income and severely low-income to ascertain affordable housing. With the shift in allocating the funds to rich developers and investors, these funds allocated for low-income families are now being routed through to developers to create luxury apartments which this will cause a lack of wealth transfers to black, brown and poor white children for generations to come. This governmental funding shift will further exacerbate poverty and lack of generational wealth.

In Illinois, landlords can refuse to rent to prospective tenants solely based on a record of arrest, even if the tenant has never been convicted of a crime.

Criminal background checks often contain inaccurate or outdated information. For home seekers, inaccurate background checks can be devastating and can even result in homelessness. This impact extends to families of individuals with records, who also suffer the consequences of housing discrimination.

As a next potential Governor of the State of Tennessee, I am motivated to working with the legislative body to encourage an innovative way of promoting homeownership opportunity or apartment rental by implementing the Restoring Rights and Opportunities Coalition of Tennessee which can lead to the passage of the largest expansion of sealing records in the State of Tennessee for qualified individuals that deserves the American dream of homeownership. Nevertheless, people will still be challenged to access housing even after going through the long process of successfully petitioning the court to seal their record because of the bake in systemic racism of our governmental practices and policies. Under the current Tennessee law, individuals have no recourse against bad information, including sealed records, appearing on a background check.

By implementing and working with the Tennessee legislature body, the proposed Tennessee Housing Human Rights Act will set standards that landlords cannot just use whatever they get on a background check as a reason for denial, they need to take a closer look for accuracy.

Housing as a Human Right creates a civil rights violation under this proposed Tennessee Housing Human Rights Act to refuse to sell, rent or otherwise make housing unavailable to any buyer or renter based on:

1. An arrest not leading to a finding of guilt;
2. A juvenile record; or
3. A criminal history record ordered expunged, sealed or impounded.

The Tennessee Housing Human Rights Act, would not be able to use these types of records in a housing decision.

People are more than their records. Everyone deserves the opportunity to be considered as an individual. People with records and their families, like everyone else, deserve a home to build a future.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, it is my belief that no person should go without healthcare. Healthcare should be a human right. Astronomical health care costs and lack of access continue to drive individuals, families, and businesses past their breaking point while insurance companies continue to soak-up billions of health care dollars as millions of children’s basic needs go unmet. Medicare has provided guaranteed health care for millions of seniors for more than 51 years. It’s time we have a Medicare for all, single-payer health care system that would end health disparities, effectively control costs, and assure that everyone has equal access to an excellent standard of care.

We stand at the crossroads between guaranteeing healthcare to everyone through an improved and expanded Medicare program and leaving increasingly more people at the mercy of the market with legislation.

Under my new administration, I would take on our market-driven system and fight for an improved and expanded Medicare for all. In contrast to our current system, a Medicare-for-all health plan would provide comprehensive healthcare benefits for all medically appropriate care without regard to income, employment, or health status. Instead of many insurers, each with a variety of health plans and cost-sharing schemes, funding for healthcare would be administered from a single government fund based on a uniform set of benefits. Payments would be negotiated by representatives of the Medicare-for-all plan and representatives of hospitals, physicians, and other providers.

Prescription drugs, medical devices, and other related supplies would be negotiated in bulk for the entire State of Tennessee population at reduced prices. There would be a single standard of excellence in care for all – not bronze for some and platinum for others. People would be free to seek care from any participating healthcare provider. We would receive the care our doctors and nurses determine we need – not what a profit-seeking insurer deems it will cover or deny. Consequently, care would be provided without deductibles or copayments thereby easing economic inequality and health disparities. This approach would begin by examining our market-driven healthcare system and the failings of our private insurance system. My plan would include discussions on why adding a government-run public insurance option to the private insurance marketplaces could not remedy the problems the marketplaces face and on the limitations in care under a market-driven system. It would also examine the major features of a Medicare-for-all system and how our State could provide healthcare as a right, not a privilege

This plan would address the many inefficiencies of our “system” and its high financial costs. Likewise, our failure to provide healthcare to all those who need it, as well as the vast disparities in health and healthcare in terms of class, race, and sex would be addressed. Finally, our failure to guarantee healthcare to all exacerbates economic inequality through high out-of-pocket costs for care, medical debt, and bankruptcy.

Medicaid Program needs a people-oriented overhaul to address eligible citizen’s health care needs.  TennCare provides health coverage to eligible low-income adults, children, pregnant women, older adults, and people with disabilities. It covers approximately 20 percent of all Tennesseans and 50 percent of all Tennessee children but many Tennesseans are slipping through the cracks of health care disparities. Many citizens do not show up at hospitals unless they have a true emergency due to the out-of-pocket deductibles. Numerous Tennesseans use urgent care facilities to doubt the high cost of health care. Expanding Medicaid is not a simple solution because there are many factors that one must address to accomplish this task such as abusive medical claims and billings, abusive ICD-10 and CPT-Coding, double billing clients for false diagnosis or misdiagnosis to increase Medicaid reimbursements, and out-sourcing the billing process which further complicates Medicaid fraud.

Medicaid expansion is vital for the State of Tennessee by only if we secure a sound practice of medical and pharmaceutical accountability. According to Census reports, nearly 800 thousands Tennesseans are uninsured. Medicaid expansion would decrease this number by nearly half. Instead, the Tennessee legislature rejected over $10 Billion dollars in health benefits for disadvantaged Tennesseans over the last eight years. (Over $1 Billion dollars per year). As a result, nearly 400,000 Tennesseans are left without health insurance which have compound the problem due to medical bankruptcy and homelessness.

TennCare must be expanded in order to receive significant federal funding that will help cover nearly 400,000 uninsured Tennesseans. Medicaid expansion by itself will not close the healthcare gap, but other factors must be considered such as poverty, education, systemic racism, healthcare workers cultural insensitivity, accessibility to get to the facility and location.

To further close the healthcare gap and increase coverage, we must acknowledge the fact that not all healthcare providers accept TennCare. Consequently TennCare may not fully cover services needed for adequate care.

To address the rural hospital closures across the State of Tennessee, my administration would design and employ the Tennessee Rural Equity Assessment Tool (TREAT) which would be a holistic approach to recruit, rejuvenate and reassess the continuum care of each rural demographic. Health care should be a human right.

The closure of rural hospitals are a convoluted matter that would have to be addressed with Tennessee rainy day funds, Medicaid expansion, strategic reinvestment set-aside tax incentivized grants, local tax revenues or subsidies from other businesses that offset losses, recruitment of traveling rural nurses and physicians, broadband satellite health care support services, 24-hour minor emergency clinics, new CPT and ICD-10 billing methods, tele-medical service, community economic development initiatives, Universal Health Care, home health programs, medical support lab services, and increase in livable wages to stimulate the economic growth in rural areas. After the analysis of the TREAT Assessment, a Rural Comprehensive Hospital Plan would be implemented to erect new rural hospitals per capita.

As the next Governor, I have the expertise to identify and implement a plan to stop pharmaceutical abuse in the State of Tennessee. Major pharmaceutical abuse is being performed through physicians and pharmaceutical companies especially through ICD-10 (International Code Diseases) and CPT (Current Procedural Terminology) Coding. I would employ a Pharmaceutical Abuse Team to combat a long-standing problem in the State of Tennessee which is an underground monopoly on unknowing citizens.

Even when Medicaid Expansion is achieve you would still have to address this abuse loophole. Tennesseans are being overcharged due to false billing or brand name medications are being prescribed instead of generic name. This is the medical billing loophole that have caused many patients especially senior citizens to suffer at the hands of physicians and pharmaceutical companies. As the next Governor, I will break the code of silence which would save millions of dollars of pharmaceutical abuse and overcharge to the patients through billing errors and classification.

Drug manufacturers are not slowing down with price increases this year, even as the pandemic persists. This January, manufacturers raised the prices of over 800 brand and generic medications. These January price increases have become typical for manufacturers.

Among drugs covered under Part D, 17% (567 drugs) had price increases of 7.5% or more between 2019 and 2020; 11% (1,106 drugs) had price increases above the rate of inflation but below 7.5%; 9% (285 drugs) had price increases below inflation; and 41% (1,385 drugs) had price reductions.

Factors that, in turn, increase prescription drug use include population growth, the aging of the population, an increased number of prescribers, and promotion of prescription drugs to stimulate demand. Brand name drugs cost about three times more than generic drugs.

As the next Governor with the expertise in Public Health Administration and Community Health, I am full support of the Senate Finance Committee recently released legislative to be included in a forthcoming reconciliation bill that includes several provisions to lower prescription drug costs for people with Medicare and private insurance and reduce drug spending by the federal government. The prescription drug provisions in the Senate reconciliation legislation would reduce the federal deficit by $288 billion over 10 years (2022-2031), according to CBO. It would also reduce out-of-pocket spending by Medicare beneficiaries and limit increases in drug prices for Medicare and private insurance. The provisions would be implemented over several years beginning in 2023 (Figure 1). This brief examines the potential impact of these provisions for Medicare beneficiaries nationally and by state, based on legislative communication released on July 7, 2022.This is exactly where we need to be going in the State of Tennessee for the welfare and economic sustainability of our citizens.

As the next Governor, I want to bring racial equity to all drug addictions. Crack cocaine users were criminalized and many families were destroyed due to parents being put in jail, lost their homes and jobs from crack cocaine usage. On the other hand, the approach toward Opioid users were preventive measures, holistic treatments, family outreach and Narcan protocol to save lives.

Tennessee is among the hardest-hit states when it comes to the opioid epidemic. The story of its impact is often told in numbers: 1,268 opioid overdose deaths in Tennessee in 2017; more than six million painkiller prescriptions in our state in 2018. Only when this drug use affected the white community is when the State of Tennessee allocated over $50 Million to saves these lives.

Other dangerous drugs, particularly MDMA and diverted pharmaceuticals, are available and abused to a much lesser extent. Heroin is the least available and abused illicit drug in Tennessee. Cocaine, particularly crack, is the greatest drug threat to Tennessee which has limited funding and preventive measures. Crack cocaine is readily available and commonly abused even in 2022 while these individuals are walking around with detrimental health problems and mental illness and no politician is addressing this issues of black, brown and poor white individuals.

Decades of harsh and extreme sentencing have left us with Tennessee’s highest incarceration rate of people living in underserved and marginalized communities which I will challenge excessive punishment, especially for children and people living with poverty, addiction, or mental illness.

Incarceration is a permanent punishment for many Tennesseans especially poor black citizens, even after they are released from prison, parole conditions require formerly incarcerated people to pay restitution, supervision fees, and other costs. Loss of employment and housing, threatened immigration status, and disqualification from welfare benefits, student loans, and certain licenses often condemn formerly incarcerated people and their families to lifelong poverty.

As the next Governor, will be investigating harsh drug laws as racially biased and ineffective, challenging excessive habitual offender laws, and calling for smart reforms to undo our reliance on abusive and hopeless sentencing policies.

The Crack vs. Heroin Project found that racial disparities rooted in the 1980s campaign against crack cocaine still persist today despite more compassionate rhetoric about the opioid crisis.

In a yearlong investigation, the Asbury Park Press and the USA TODAY NETWORK examined hundreds of thousands of arrest records and federal drug convictions nationwide over the past 30 years. Reporters found that Black people are arrested far more frequently and punished more severely than white people for drug crimes, even though drug use within the two racial groups is roughly the same.

The racial gap in drug enforcement and sentencing is a byproduct of America’s punitive response to the crack crisis of the late ‘80s and the war on drugs it unleashed.

President Richard Nixon initiated the “war on drugs” in 1971 in order to criminalize Black people. A decade later, the same deeply rooted presumption of guilt and dangerousness on which Nixon capitalized fueled a heavily punitive approach to crack cocaine.

Sensationalized stories of “crack babies” and violent “crackheads” routinely portrayed crack users as Black, even though most crack users were and still are white, the Network reports. Crack users were painted as “dangerous degenerates” who were “scary and threatening” and needed to be locked up.

The stigma was so wrong for African Americans. They couldn’t get the help they needed because everybody looked at them as ‘less than.

Policymakers responded with tough-on-crime laws, including the bipartisan Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which featured a 100-to-1 powder cocaine-to-crack disparity and dedicated three-quarters of $1.7 billion in federal funds to law enforcement and incarceration. In 1988, Congress provided hundreds of millions more for police and prisons, and made crack the only drug for which simple possession was a federal crime.

Fifteen states followed suit and enacted more severe penalties for crack offenses, with quantity disparities between powder cocaine and crack ranging from 2-to-1 in California to 100-to-1 in Iowa and North Dakota. To deter drug crime, Delaware discussed bringing back the whipping post and North Carolina officials wanted to revive the use of chain gangs.

“The racial implications of the 1986 law were devastating,” said Eric E. Sterling, then legal counsel to the House of Representative’s Subcommittee on Crime, who helped write the 1986 bill.

From 1991 to 2001, nine times as many Black people as white people went to federal prison for crack offenses, the Network found. Black people’s sentences for crack were double that for white crack offenders in federal court during that period: 148 months compared to 84 months.

Despite the more compassionate view of drug addiction today, racial inequities in drug arrests and sentencings persist.

When white people started getting addicted and dying from opioids, the narrative shifted. Those abusing heroin and prescription painkillers were routinely depicted in the media as sympathetic victims, Helena Hansen, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at New York University, told the Network.

Public policy also shifted: three-quarters of the $7.4 billion Congress allotted in 2018 to fight the opioid epidemic went to research, treatment, and prevention rather than police and prisons.

But racial disparities persist. Ms. Hansen observed:

When the articles mentioned Black and Latino opioid users, it was a crime report, their criminal history, their court appearances were described, and their personal history was not described. There was not a humanizing biography of the people in the story.

In 2016, Black people were still being arrested at a rate more than twice that of white people for cocaine, the Network found. Black people in 21 states were arrested at a rate at least three times higher than white people for narcotics and cocaine offenses combined in 2016.

Even though heroin and prescription opioids are more deadly, the Network found there were nearly four times more arrests for cocaine than opioid drugs in 2016. Far more Black people (85,640) were arrested for cocaine than white people were arrested for heroin and other opioids (66,120) that year.

Policymakers have done little to address the racially discriminatory impact of the war on drugs. Congress reduced the disparity between powder cocaine and crack from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1 in 2010, but experts say that ratio has no basis in science and the Network found it perpetuates the double standard for people convicted of crack offenses in the federal court system, who are overwhelmingly Black.

Meanwhile, people with convictions for nonviolent drug offenses and their families continue to suffer the consequences of an unfair system. At the federal level, people with drug offenses have been barred from receiving public assistance and housing benefits, federal student aid, and even veteran benefits. As the Network reports, drug convictions often prevent people from getting steady jobs, voting in elections, and living in desirable housing.

Gradually ridership in leaving the underserved communities because the focus is on the “creative class” who are young and wealthy professionals who want to live, work and play in their walkable space. Unfortunately, many poor people do not have that luxury of playing while they are struggling to survive in blighted and crime riddled neighborhoods. Every Tennesseans should be able to be afforded these same amenities in their neighborhoods if they so desire. My goal is to give every Tennesseans life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness no matter what your race, religion, gender identity, disability, social status or zip code.

Public transportation is a cornerstone of urban infrastructure which have left poor people out of the equation. We have to go back and redesign a Tennessee Statewide transportation modality that incorporate all Tennesseans and not just the affluent communities.

Many individuals living in poverty struggle with securing employment but find it difficult to get to good paying jobs due to lack of transportation resulting from the lack of credit worthiness to purchase an automobile. Others have lost their driver’s license due to incarceration, child support, DUI and financial hardship. Now, with widespread reductions in ridership, the pandemic’s impact on public transit could lead to reduced service, fare increases, and staff layoffs, proposals that would significantly impact communities that are already lacking transportation access.

As a progressive Governor, I would focus on what the COVID-19 pandemic could mean regarding the end of public transportation which could be the ongoing public health crisis, as well as renewed attention to racial and social justice, as an opportunity to make transportation more equitable in the future. 

As the next Governor who owns two electric cars and operated my 100-acre farm with solar panels and wind turbines, I know the importance of preserving our environment for the next generation.

I would start with the younger generation of children, by implementing an innovative “climate literacy” school plan to engage the next generation to preserve our climate by active accountability which would in term build a safer, healthier, restore our global climate leadership, enhance our national security and provide a livable climate for today’s youth and future generations.

Every high school in the State of Tennessee should have a certified renewable energy solar installation program. We could employ electric and hydrogen fuel cars, farmers use more corn and electric operated farm equipment, waterless heaters, urban solar panel farms, electric street buses and electric Amtrak connectivity across the State of Tennessee. Our road-map should be to “keep the fossil fuel in the ground”. Cease all new oil pipeline in the State of Tennessee.

All State of Tennessee federal building should be adorn with solar panels by 2030. All government vehicles should be electric operated including police officer’s vehicle.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I believe LGBTQ+ youths and all people deserve to be supported and affirmed in their identity and to have meaningful access to resources and supports that will allow them to thrive.

In order for the State of Tennessee to be the front runner against systemic racism, we must thrive for complete diversity and inclusion in our Volunteer State. Therefore as the next Governor, I will leave no Tennesseans behind due to antiquated mindsets and bigotry.

LGBTQ+ children, youth, and families too often experience trauma due to bias, and discrimination, including within their family, in their communities, and from public systems designed to serve their needs.

As the next Governor and LOVE IS LOVE Initiative Team will work in partnership with the legislature body and public service organizations to help them develop new and better practices and policies that transform how they interact with and support LGBTQ+ children, youth, and families. The antiquated mindsets of Tennessee political leaders must change and that change starts with me being the Governor of the State of Tennessee.

LOVE IS LOVE Initiative will honor the full identities of children, youth, and families and the fluid nature of the lived experience in all the work that we will do. We will constantly center the race, socioeconomic status, ability, and language of the LGBTQ+ children, youth, and families with whom we will be working with

We recognize that we cannot adequately support LGBTQ+ youth unless we directly address how systems are oppressive and how racism, homophobia, and transphobia are perpetuated. We also recognize that many systems are operating in a larger environment that attacks the well-being of LGBTQ+ children, youth, and families—an environment focused on debates about bathrooms, conversion therapy, or the national movement to allow for federal and state tax dollars to fund child welfare agencies that will not serve LGBTQ+ people on the basis of individual religious beliefs.

We will work to dismantle systemic oppression. We will support systems in respecting the full, diverse, and unique experiences of LGBTQ+ people.

Our work will be successful when all children can live their personal truth and celebrate their sexual and personal identity without fear of repercussions, harassment, or denigration either from society or their families and communities.

Our primary focus is to ensure that the full identity of children, youth, and families is at the core of our work.

We will value all aspects of who people are including their race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, ability, and language. This is at the core of the work we do with and for LGBTQ+ children, youth, and families in order to promote their healthy sexual and identity development—learning to love and celebrate all the aspects of who they are.

We will do this by using a cultural lens of diversity with these approaches:

Influencing federal and state policies that support the specific needs and best practices of LGBTQ+ children, youth, and families.

Providing consultation to sites and partners that attend to the intersecting identities of youth.

Creating and disseminating resources and providing technical assistance that supports the needs of and centers the intersecting identities of youth. All Tennesseans must be at the table of equity and prosperity for all.

As the next Governor, I would address the systemic racism in our Tennessee Immigration Policy. I would welcome all immigrants in the State of Tennessee because we need a diverse inclusive cultural fiber to move in direction that would build growth and awareness for the world to see when they visit Tennessee. Immigrants will also be at the table when decisions are made for the State. All of my decisions as the next Governor will be people-centered and community-driven.

In my new administration, I want to be the new pathway to diversity and inclusion for all Tennesseans. Many people are moving to Tennessee and I would entertain all cultures especially beloved immigrants. No one group or race should have a monopoly on Tennessee.

While immigrants of all statuses, ethnicities, and backgrounds are seemingly under attack these days, it’s also clear that some immigrants are being attacked more than others. From Latino parents unfathomably being separated from their children, to migrants from a handful of predominately Muslim countries being banned from the United States, to skyrocketing rates of deportations of migrants from African countries. The common thread among these headlines highlights what history has continued to show us—that people of color are the targets of unjust policies and practices.

An estimated 281 million people, approximately 3.6% of the world’s population, currently live outside their country of origin, many of whose migration is characterized by varying degrees of compulsion. Notwithstanding that many migrants choose to leave their countries of origin each year, an increasing number of migrants are forced to leave their homes for a complex combination of reasons, including poverty, lack of access to healthcare, education, water, food, housing, and the consequences of environmental degradation and climate change, as well as the more ‘traditional’ drivers of forced displacement such as persecution and conflict.

While migration is a positive and empowering experience for many, it is increasingly clear that a lack of human rights-based human rights-based migration governance at the global and national levels is leading to the routine violation of migrants’ rights in transit, at international borders, and in the countries they migrate to.

While migrants are not inherently vulnerable, they can be vulnerable to human rights violations. Migrants in an irregular situation tend to be disproportionately vulnerable to discrimination, exploitation and marginalization, often living and working in the shadows, afraid to complain, and denied their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

I will address the Human rights violations against migrants can include a denial of civil and political rights such as arbitrary detention, torture, or a lack of due process, as well as economic, social and cultural rights such as the rights to health, housing or education. The denial of migrants’ rights is often closely linked to discriminatory laws and to deep-seated attitudes of prejudice or xenophobia .

I  would work to promote, protect and fulfill the human rights of all migrants, regardless of their status, with a particular focus on those migrants in vulnerable situations who are most marginalized and at risk of human rights violations. My administration would promote a human rights-based approach to migration, which would place the migrant at the center of migration policies and governance, and seeks to ensure that migrants are included in all relevant Tennessee action plans and strategies, such as plans on the provision of public housing or national strategies to combat racism and xenophobia.

In the State of Tennessee, COVID-19 will not be a soundbite of gestures and superficial legislative agendas. This COVID-19 recovery must entail a holistic approach that would address many of the societal ills that existed before this pandemic such as poverty, disinvestments in poor neighborhoods, health care disparities, economic inequities, school inequalities, mental health issues, homelessness, food deserts, drug atrocities, gentrification, crime and environmental exposure.

We must be very precise in the roadmap we take to address the needs of every Tennesseans in this state, therefore erasing the biases and institutional racism that promotes these atrocities on underserved and marginalized communities.

This Mental Health Initiative will set the stage to curtail the high incidence in crime across the State of Tennessee especially in urban communities. Mental health must be a priority in this State to hopefully save lives in the future. The political leaders in the State of Tennessee can build all the new luxury infrastructure they want but until they address real issues regarding real people, our communities will continually deteriorate with homicides due to metal anguish.

Mental health is the leading cause of poverty, homelessness and criminal behavior. Until we break the cycle of mental health epic, we will continue to have high crime and physical abuse on innocent citizens by way of carjacking, rape, assault and battery, domestic violence, human trafficking, and homicides.

Medicaid is the largest payer of mental health and substance abuse services in the country. Statistics show that 1 in 5 individuals in a given year are affected by mental illness. Medicare for All and Medicaid expansion would provide access to mental health and substance abuse services for an additional 60,000 Tennesseans with the opportunity to give every citizens the accessibility to mental health care. Studies also show that 1 in 20 people have a severe mental illness and that expansion could provide services to an additional 15,000 Tennesseans with these mental manifestations.

As the next Governor, I have worked with the mental health community, National Mental Health Association, Veteran Administration, National Coalition for the Homeless, Youth Villages, Lakeside Mental Health Facility, HCA and a host of other organizations to reduce the stigma around mental health diagnoses and prioritize the whole person.

My Public Health and Community Health Education would be a great asset to this public servant position as Governor. I have a working rapport with TDMHSAS Division of Mental Health Services which I would roll out a funding mechanism to address these community problems that would better serve Tennesseans.

More specifically, the division along with the Mental Health Initiate Team would be tasked with working with community partners throughout the State to increase awareness and to create tailored programs, which will lead to higher participation rates.

Domestic Violence is a serious problem in the State of Tennessee and the time in now to activate a plan to save these victim’s lives. To combat this brutal epidemic, it will take a Governor with sensitivity to women needs and attacks on their lives. Domestic violence has no room for ego or antiquated mindsets toward women. Therefore, this Domestic Violence Initiative –SAW (Stop Abusing Women) will take all hands on decks to bring about a safety net to assure women that they can live in the State of Tennessee without fearing for their lives or running to stay alive. It is time to take the SAW away from the abuser of women.

The first step to making this Domestic Violence Initiative real is to regulate gun safety measures. I would rescind the permitless gun carry bill on day one of my administration. I believe in the 2^nd Amendment but I do not support guns in the hands of individuals that use them to hurt women. Ironically, more women in the rural areas experience more violence than any other women in the State of Tennessee possibly due to them not having community outreach facilities in their areas.

As the Governor, I would assure all 95 counties have a shelter for battered and abused women with wrap-around services to assist them in breaking the cycle of abuse. The SAW Team would continue to work in substantive ways to educate the public about the problem and to prevent violence against women and their dependent children.

The SAW Team would build a collaboration with various partners, including government agencies, MDA (Moms Demand Action) women’s advocacy and self-help organizations. Clients also received childcare support, education and job skills training, and mental health counseling. 

In the SAW Teen Awareness Program, the county’s local rape crisis center will deliver counseling for middle and high school students on topics such as sexual harassment, sexual assault, and dating violence. They will also provide were resources they can turn to for help.

SAW (Stop Abusing Women) will partnership with the YWCA of Tennessee to develop a specific Children in Crisis program to provide a support group for children who have witnessed intimate domestic violence. Children that witness these behaviors often repeat the cycle of abuse further down the road in life.

When it comes black children in the juvenile justice system, most politicians in the State of Tennessee have turned a blind eye to the mental and social atrocities these children face. With the discriminatory mindset of District Attorneys across the State of Tennessee, many of these children find themselves being treated as an adult in the court system.

In the State of Tennessee, we must recruit and solicit District Attorney that possess cultural sensitivity and a sense of fairness to dispel his or her antiquated mindset regarding minority children.

In response to significant racial and ethnic disparities present at all stages in the juvenile justice process, our Juvenile Court Disparities Plan would implement reforms to make the system more equitable. Our modality for effective change will include:

• Forming working groups composed of juvenile justice professionals and diverse community partners to address existing racial and ethnic disparities. All stakeholders will be at the table of discussions which would be community-driven.
• Using regular data collection and analysis at each decision point in the juvenile justice process to guide future efforts at diminishing those disparities.
• Ensuring that race and ethnicity are distinguished from each other in youth surveys for accurate data analysis.
• Developing more community-based diversion pathways and alternatives to detainment.
• Enhancing culturally/linguistically competent programs and services for youth at each stage of the justice process.
• Layout a holistic plan for youth involved with the juvenile justice system that have mental health and/or substance use disorders. These typically affect their academic performance, behavior, and relationships with peers and adults.

• Targeted trainings for juvenile correctional facility professionals regarding mental health screening and treatment referrals would point more youth toward the necessary treatment for their unique needs. Particularly, mental health diversion initiatives and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) which helps patients adjust their thinking and behavior patterns have shown positive results in reducing delinquency and recidivism among justice-involved youth.

• JUENVILE COURT DISPARTIES PLAN (JCDP) toolkit includes evidence- and research-based practices, tools, and resources that educators, families, facilities, and community agencies can use to better support and improve the long-term outcomes for youth with disabilities in juvenile correctional facilities. The toolkit focuses on four key areas of juvenile corrections: facility-wide practices, educational practices, transition and re-entry practices, and community and interagency practices.

As the Governor, I would develop a holistic comprehensive plan for raising the awareness of disproportionate contact of minority youth with the juvenile justice system and promote the best practices and policies to eradicate the problem of overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system.

For people connected to the Memphis juvenile courts, April 2012 is unforgettable. That’s when federal investigators determined that the Shelby County juvenile court system discriminated against African-American defendants.

The Justice Department said the system punished black children more harshly than whites. In the most incendiary finding, investigators said the court detained black children and sent them to be tried in the adult system twice as often as whites.

The finding came after a three-year investigation, but not everyone in the Shelby County court system buys it. “I said I’ve been here a long time. I’ve never seen any evidence of that happening,” says Judge Curtis Person. He has led the Shelby County juvenile court in Memphis for the past eight years and steadfastly denies allegations of discrimination.

This is the problem and that is one of the reason that as the next Governor, I would launched a political and judicial investigation across the State of Tennessee.

Nine-thousand children face delinquency charges in the red-brick juvenile courthouse each year. Many are handled outside of court, but around 3,000 are prosecuted by the district attorney’s office. Lawyers say about 90 percent of those prosecuted are poor and black.

But Shelby County public defender Stephen Bush says he worries about the lack of mental health services and other ways to rehabilitate children in the system. Sadly, this behavior is still going on in the Shelby County Juvenile Court System today.

As the next Governor, I want to save our small towns, cities and state by reversing the twin blights of suburban sprawl and urban decay. I will not sit on the sideline and watch small towns decline while the surrounding countryside be paved over for a jumble of roads, large manufacturing companies, stores, parking lots, and tract housing. The beauty of our beloved Tennessee is the beautiful scenic landscapes of native trees, wildflowers, native wildlife and rolling hills and mountains. We must have a happy balance in rich development projects, economic greed and preserving our natural resources of invaluable land.

A growing number of Tennesseans have grown disgusted with a throw-away culture that allows once-magnificent cities and towns to wither away while treasured landscapes are ruined by careless development not incorporating our Tennessee nature into their concrete plans that may or may not bring the jobs to the community of the working poor. Tennesseans are tired of the constant driving, the ugliness of our cities and towns, the feeling of isolation brought about by sprawl and disinvestment in rural areas. They want the safe, verdant, walkable neighborhoods but not at the cost of neglecting our invaluable land.

But reversing 50 years of car-dominated sprawl will not be easy. We could incorporate environmental friendly protocols to bring back the sustainability of our beautiful invaluable land.

Save Our Land, Save Our Towns will be the focus of TENN SOIL to facilitate change, change in private attitudes, and change in public policy. Through education and advocacy, the TENN SOIL would champion the use of regional planning with people-centered and community-driven methodology, growth boundaries for large manufacturing companies and preserving traditional town design to keep the character of each town unique make-up for the next generation.

TENN SOIL will protect rural areas and encourage the redevelopment of cities and towns that house people of all ages, races and incomes to be a part of redevelopment plans by integrating Community Benefit Agreements in the fiber of their design.

Fortunately we live in a democracy where the power of good ideas can triumph over all obstacles.

The decline of cities, the rise of suburban sprawl and depletion of our farmland is a difficult issue to grasp, and the solutions require rising above conventional thinking in the State of Tennessee. The number one shown be to preserve our invaluable land. Save Our Land, Save Our Towns will be the focus for the dedication to helping citizens, civic groups, and elected officials understand the ramifications of sprawl and find sensible alternatives.

The State of Tennessee has a rich heritage of farming and as the next Governor I would fight to keep that tradition in the family. Since its founding, Tennessee has had a rich farming heritage. With due care, this heritage will continue along with growth and progress into the foreseeable future. The creative initiative SOFFT – Saving Our Family Farms Together will be the roadmap to stopping the loss of our farms. Special tax incentives will be earmarked for family farmers to curtail the financial hardship of these families that have been neglected by politicians for decades.

As the next Governor, I would seek ways to preserve the state’s farmland while keeping farms profitable. Every year, Tennessee loses approximately 60,000 acres of farmland. With the provided resources, this trend can be slowed or reversed. I am determined to promote SOFFT – Saving Our Family Farms Together!

The farms all over the State of Tennessee are being threaten by massive residential development and irresponsible overgrowth of large manufacturing companies receiving massive tax incentives to violate our rights as family farmers. If you love your fresh vegetables, flowers, pumpkins, seasonal family photo shoots, scenic Sunday drives, I will help you save your farm. As a farmer, I will fight to save these beautiful, agricultural areas and preserve them for years and generations to come.

We must preserve our family farms to secure our food source for ten future without depending on other countries.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I will not ignore the needs of the rural communities. There must be a Rural Economic Development Plan implemented to assist these failing communities that have been neglected for too long in the scheme of trillions of dollars going to out-of-state investors.

It is time for the government leaders to take responsibility and designate economic development, funding and pilot-in-lieu-of-taxes to these struggling communities embodied in poverty, lack of connectivity, and lack of workforce development. The Rural Economic Development Plan would address the elements of a thriving rural community to bring about true equity in these areas.

Rural communities require three interconnected, baseline elements to thrive: sectors, workforce, and community and connectivity. Rural economic development initiatives typically tie into one or more of these key elements.

Sectors. Sectors refer to stable or growing tradable industries that bring wealth into communities, create employment opportunities, and carry strong multiplier effects that support the overall economy. Thriving rural communities play to their region’s strengths, supporting sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, energy, tourism, and postsecondary education.

Workforce. People are the lifeblood of any community. A healthy, skilled workforce is the most important factor in attracting and retaining employers in key sectors. In addition, workers spread wealth and create additional jobs by buying goods and services within their communities.

Community and connectivity. The most intangible element, community and connectivity includes services and amenities critical to quality of life, such as transportation infrastructure and access to broadband, healthcare, childcare, and arts and culture. Because these assets support the workforce, they are essential to developing thriving sectors.

The Rural Economic Development Plan of Tennessee will be the front runner to kicking off the economic growth of these forgotten rural communities. A special funding plan will be implemented to address rural hospital closings.

As the next common-sense ecological Governor, I would engage the State of Tennessee in collaboration to develop and implement climate-smart farming solutions. I would use some of the rainy day funds and tax incentives for the next five years to advance innovative agriculture-climate solutions that will meet the mutual goals of TENN BEAR to reach net-negative greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the agriculture industry.

The TENN BEAR (Better Ecological Agricultural Resource) would bring together farmers, ranchers and scientists to co-create and rapidly expand innovation, adaptation and the adoption of climate-smart technologies. This unprecedented initiative centers on the development and deployment of a comprehensive, interoperable data-driven framework.

TENN BEAR would jointly worked on conservation agriculture and climate issues and advancing their collaborative efforts to achieve the mutual goal of driving climate solutions in agriculture.

Agricultural activities within the farm gate contribute roughly 13 percent of global GHG emissions, yet have the potential to be a powerful climate solution. Agricultural research and data are critical to this solution, and TENN BEAR’s strategy envisions a data-powered, climate-action framework will address productivity and resilience, while enabling rapid-response adoption of farmer-driven, climate-smart solutions.

Climate change is the greatest environmental challenge of our time and TENN BEAR will be on the cutting edge initiative to address this serious task. Farmers and ranchers would be on the frontlines and have an important role to play in driving solutions that could deliver a host of benefits, including improved water quality, enhanced biodiversity and a resilient food system. We need to help bring natural and technological innovations forward to tackle climate change together.

As the next Governor, my commitment to climate change will advance a number of innovative, data-driven projects designed to help farmers reduce GHG emissions and build more climate resilient operations:

• Create, test and deploy incentives for durable soil health practice adoption in row crops;
• Expand technologies that can increase adoption of regenerative practices;
• Advance climate, nature conservation and socio-economic goals in range and pasture lands; and
• Invest in research to advance adoption of regenerative agriculture as a climate solution.

TEEN BEAR and its unprecedented public-private partnerships will accelerate the development of tools from startups and gets relevant and accurate data into the hands of farmers so they can make smart decisions about their farms.

As the next Governor, I would execute a progressive State of Tennessee pretrial system reform. Legal advocacy groups in Tennessee have asked Shelby County Court officials to change their bail and pretrial detention practices, or face a lawsuit about their constitutionality.

On any given night in America, nearly half a million people sit in jail before trial, mainly because they can’t afford bail. The money bail crisis hits every corner of the U.S., from the largest cities to the smallest towns.

People Detained Pre-Trial are Much More Likely to be sentenced to prison. Sitting in jail, people can lose their jobs, homes, child custody, and much more.
The damage has a domino effect, and lasting impact, on people’s lives.

Tennessee lawmakers are looking to fine-tune the state’s cash bail system — one that some say is effective but others consider burdensome on the state’s working poor.

For two days, legislators heard from criminal justice reform advocates, district attorneys, local officials, judges, sheriffs and representatives from the bail industry as they brainstormed legislative ideas.

Reformers highlighted the state’s rising jail population and the high cost to taxpayers in detaining Tennesseans for nonviolent crimes before trial — some of whom are ultimately acquitted — and pleaded with lawmakers to develop custom risk assessment for each defendant and save cash bail as a last resort.

But opponents to bail reform argue that, while there is room for improvements, doing away with the current bail system, which they consider effective, would risk letting loose offenders, contribute to higher crime rates and eventually add costs to local law enforcement for re-arrests. 

While the jail population in the U.S. has grown substantially since the 1980s, the number of convicted people in jails has been flat for the last 15 years. Detention of the legally innocent has been consistently driving jail growth, and the criminal justice reform discussion must include a discussion of local jails and the need for pretrial detention reform. This report will focus on one driver of pretrial detention: the inability to pay what is typically $10,000 in money bail. Building off our July 2015 report on the pre-incarceration incomes of people in prison, this report provides the pre-incarceration incomes of people in local jails who were unable to post a bail bond. This report aims to stimulate a more informed discussion about whether money bail makes sense, given the widespread poverty of the people held in the criminal justice system and the high fiscal and social costs of incarceration, and offers recommendations for how states and counties can move beyond unnecessary pretrial detention.

People in jail are even poorer than people in prison and are drastically poorer than their non-incarcerated counterparts.

We find that most people who are unable to meet bail fall within the poorest third of society. Using Bureau of Justice Statistics data, we find that, in 2015 dollars, people in jail had a median annual income of $15,109 prior to their incarceration, which is less than half (48%) of the median for non-incarcerated people of similar ages. People in jail are even poorer than people in prison and are drastically poorer than their non-incarcerated counterparts.

Andrea Woods, staff attorney for the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU, explained under Shelby County’s current system, people who cannot afford to pay their bail can be jailed indefinitely, even if they are not a flight or safety risk.

“The person may not even learn what their bail amount is unless they ask,” Woods observed. “The legal processes don’t address their bond, don’t provide them the opportunity to seek release; and it can be days or weeks before they have a lawyer who can try to get them out, if they can’t afford their bail.”

The ACLU of Tennessee, along with the Wharton Firm and Memphis nonprofit Just City have asked the court in writing to ensure a person’s financial circumstances are examined prior to any bail hearing, among other reforms.

Groups like Tennessee Voices for Victims argue loosening bail polices could pose a safety threat to communities. As the next Governor, I would certainly pose a healthy balance to this matter to be sensitive to victim’s families and to make sure every case is researched to assure that hard core criminals are not being released to bring harm to the community again.

Josh Spickler, executive director of the group Just City, pointed out Shelby County’s is not the only Tennessee court to come under scrutiny for its bail practices. He noted last year, a federal judge ruled Hamblen County’s cash bail practices violated constitutional rights.

“The reasons that we keep people in a jail are really only twofold,” Spickler noted. “Are they a risk of not returning to court, and are they a risk to the safety of the community? When you put money into that equation, it can quickly result in what we have here in Shelby County, which is a jail full of poor people.”

Spickler stressed other types of releases, such as unsecured bonds, still hold people accountable. However, he acknowledged the system can fail victims. He cited a recent case in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in which a person with a history of violent crime had been released on a relatively low bail amount when he killed six people and injured dozens of others at a Christmas parade.

“But I think the key takeaway there is that this is an outlier,” Spickler cautioned. “It is a very rare event. We do have some data about people who are accused of crimes while out on bail, and those are tiny.”

According to the Vera Institute, in 2019, Shelby County spent nearly $139 million, more than 30% of the county’s budget, on its two jail facilities.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I would reevaluate the way we address crime in our State and take the rehabilitation approach instead criminalization for non-violent offenders. This mass incarceration overall would consist of workforce development and skill training, behavior modification programs, drug counseling, housing management, financial literacy, educational development, mental health counseling, anger management training and restorative justice.

1 in 30 adult black males in Tennessee are incarcerated, only slightly below the average of 1 in 26 for all states. While black Tennesseans make up 16.8 percent of the state’s population, they make up 44.1 percent of its prison population.

Hispanics, on the other hand, make up 4.9 percent of the Tennessee population and 2 percent of its prison population.

The report outlines various drivers of these disparities, including “biased decision-making in the criminal justice system” as well as “a range of individual level factors such as poverty, education outcomes, unemployment history, and criminal history.”

In the State of Tennessee, children are getting killed by homicide every day on the streets of Tennessee and it appears that our politicians have turned a blind eye to this epidemic on black, brown and poor white children. I am committed to bringing justice to the epidemic of urban children being killed at the backdrop of irresponsible permitless gun carry law such as with no gun safety measures. The deaths and blood will be on the legislative body’s hands who did not give long-term cognitive reasoning before they decided to appease the NRA.

Last year in Memphis, Tennessee, 350 victims were killed by homicide and 128 of these victims were black children. There has bene no outcry of this homicide epidemic and definitely no crime prevention or funding has been allocated to these loss of lives. Many families have not received any trauma therapy or intervention which further complex the negligent oversight of devaluing these children’s lives and the families’ grieving for years from these traumatic experiences.

Children playing in their own yards are shot down in an environment that supposed to be safe which many of these communities have survived for years with no police precincts. Not once have Governor Bill Lee allocated funds to curtail and console these underserved families that do not count in his equation of lack of humanity or justice, but after all, this is the same Governor that withheld families $739 Million in TANF funds. If these were affluent children dying in these homicides he would have allocated funds expeditiously.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is committed to improving the justice system’s response to crimes against children. OJJDP recognizes that children are at increased risk for crime victimization. Not only are children the victims of many of the same crimes that victimize adults, they are subject to other crimes, like child abuse and neglect, that are specific to childhood. The impact of these crimes on young victims can be devastating, and the violent or sexual victimization of children can often lead to an intergenerational cycle of violence and abuse.

The purpose of SOURCE (Saving Our Urban Raised Children Epidemic) is to improve and expand the Tennessee’s efforts to better serve child victims by presenting the latest information about child victimization, including analyses of crime victimization statistics, studies of child victims and their special needs, and descriptions of programs and approaches that address these needs.

Just like the $50 Million were allocated to the Opioids epidemic, I will allocated millions into this trauma initiative to combat crime in underserved communities. No parent should have to start a Go Fund Me page to bury their precious babies. Sadly, with the drug epidemic and gang affiliations moving to rural communities, you will see a rise in homicides in rural areas of Tennessee that normally do not have an abundance of crime. I want to be the boots-on-the-ground Governor that place intervention and stop gates in place to decrease the deaths of children in this Volunteer State. Our children deserve to live in a safe environment across the State of Tennessee without worrying about getting shot or seeing their friends dying in front of them.

As the next Governor, I am determine to revisit tax incentives and pilot-in-lieu-of-taxes protocol to bring economic justice to all taxpayers. Qualified Opportunity Zone incentive has not benefited the low-income underserved communities across the State of Tennessee nor has it benefited the taxpayers across the State.

There is little transparency for Tennessee’s tax credits. Generally speaking, economic incentives fall under two umbrellas: tax credits and cash grants. Tennessee currently offers a variety of tax credits to companies depending on levels of investment or job creation.

The Beacon Report stated, “Despite the fact that thousands of companies qualify and claim millions of dollars per year due to these credits, little is known about them or their effectiveness. Under Tennessee law, even though companies are claiming funds that would otherwise pay for core services benefitting all taxpayers, tax credits are considered confidential. In fact, until 2017, when a new law mandated that the Department of Revenue publish a report stating the number of taxpayers claiming the various credits, the cost to the state in the most recent tax year, and existing liabilities from credits carried over from previous years, nothing was made public about these credits.4 The results from the first report, released in December 2017, were alarming. Overall, more than $218 million was claimed in Fiscal Year 2017 alone, with an additional $134 million claimed in Fiscal Year 2018. Even worse, the state faces a $878 million liability from unclaimed credits as companies are often eligible to roll over unclaimed credits up to 15 years.5 This impending liability should concern state legislators and other policymakers, as companies are most likely to seek the unclaimed credits once the economy enters a recession as company profits fall. This windfall of claimed credits would compound any state government budget problems at a time when tax receipts would likely be in decline. The public deserves to know when specific companies are exempt from paying a portion of state taxes since these foregone funds shift the burden of core services onto a smaller tax base. The lack of transparency surrounding these credits also hurts elected officials and other policymakers as well. State lawmakers rely on access to information to determine and enact good public policy. For example, there is currently a large emphasis in Tennessee on economic development for rural areas of the state.

Outgoing Gov. Bill Haslam even created a task force to make recommendations to ensure that Tennessee’s rural areas experienced the same growth as the state’s urban areas.6 During the recent gubernatorial campaign, forums were held focusing exclusively on rural and agricultural issues.7 With the state’s cash grant programs, a company’s location is known, allowing lawmakers to determine if these programs are tailored to meet the needs of rural communities. On the contrary, Tennessee lawmakers from rural areas have no way of knowing whether these expensive tax credits are helping attract development to their districts or are they concentrated in urban areas, further eroding the tax base necessary to provide the essential services needed in these generally poorer communities. Not only is the lack of data not confined to analyzing whether these credits adequately address rural issues, but also whether these programs are beneficial at all. In 2015, the General Assembly passed legislation requiring an economic impact analysis of the state’s business tax credits be conducted every four years. In the only report produced so far, the Anderson Economic Group, which was commissioned to conduct the analysis, stated that the lack of firm level data “considerably limited the options for our analysis.”

If these programs continue to exist, Tennessee citizens deserve to know who is receiving these credits and grants with effective accountability measures in place.

Under my new administration, firstly, I would conduct an analysis on the benefits and liabilities of these tax incentives. Secondly, I would employ every tax incentives be incorporated with Community Benefits Agreements with a stipulation of 25% set-aside jobs and a clawback clause. A Community Benefits Agreement is a contract between a developer and community-based organizations representing residents’ interests. The agreement spells out the benefits the community will receive in return for supporting the developer’s project in their neighborhood.

As the next Governor, it is my intent to govern an even playing field for all citizens regarding tax incentives. The People’s Opportunity Zone tax incentive has the potential to unleash much-needed economic growth in high poverty communities across the State of Tennessee where communities that investors too often overlook. This POZ tax incentive will have a robust people-driven, community-centered focus in place committed to uplifting rural and urban communities across the State of Tennessee. This people-driven plan will be to help restore the original promise of opportunity zones by steering private capital to reinvest in underserved communities that have been historically left behind and working to level the economic playing field.

The goal would be help stimulate tax incentive that can help bring economic development to low-income communities. Every community is different, whether you are urban micropolitan or a rural community your community needs will be addressed. Regionally tax incentives are not working because what happens in one community does not necessarily drive investment in economic development in other areas. Underserved and marginalized communities are viewing the aggressive economic development in affluent communities but continuously suffer from blighted communities with dilapidated house, rat infested lots, poor public works benefits, and environmental exposure due to unregulated manufacturing companies releasing toxic in the air.

With creative people-driven tax incentives, I would allocated economic power in rural communities, small communities, and urban sprawl areas.

The American middle class is stable in size, but losing ground financially to upper-income families. About half (52%) of American adults lived in middle-class households in 2016. This is virtually unchanged from the 51% who were middle class in 2011.

Earnings have been flat or stagnant for many middle-class workers in the United States while health care, education, and housing costs are rising. Surveys show that Americans accurately perceive these pressures too and share a broad belief that the middle class is struggling. Seven in ten respondents to a Northwestern Mutual survey said that the middle class was staying the same or shrinking. One-third said the middle class might disappear entirely.

As the next Governor, I would address and assess who would be the middle-class after the pandemic.

Each of these ways of systematically measuring the U.S. middle class reveals decline: Fewer millennials are middle-class than Gen Xers or baby boomers were at the same age. Middle-class workers are earning a national income share that is 8.5 percentage points lower, which translates to a 16.0 percent reduction. And the middle class is shrinking.

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to further accelerate these trends. Workers in the service sector, unable to work remotely, were disproportionately displaced from their jobs. Other employment disruptions led firms to automate more jobs. The increased costs and risks of interpersonal contact could speed firms’ adoption of robotics, payment machines, and other labor-saving technology. Efforts by the U.S. government to support workers and businesses will help prevent families from falling into poverty, but the massive restructuring of the economy resulting from the pandemic will likely generate further declines in the middle class and a disproportionate entry into the lower class.

• 2-person family middle-class income range: $40,158 to $119,874
• 3-person family middle-class income range: $45,967 to $137,216
• 4-person family middle-class income range: $54,118 to $161,546

As of Jul 23, 2022, the average annual pay for the comfortable jobs category in Tennessee is $42,058 a year which works out to be approximately $20.22 an hour. This is the equivalent of $809/week or $3,505/month.

In 2017, Tennessee was the thirty-fifth-richest state in the United States of America, with a per capita income of $28,764.

Upper-middle class households were defined as households with an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000. Tennessee ranked 6th among all states with a net migration of 3,215 to the state during the time period with 10,664 moving to the Volunteer State and 7,449 moving elsewhere. This is the problem. Many creative class affluent families are moving to the State of Tennessee while underserved and marginalized individuals are being forced out of our beloved State. As the next Governor, I want all social and economic citizens to stay in Tennessee including the homeless individuals and displaced veterans.

Through the Tennessee PPP distribution, numerous large corporations, mega churches and organizations received the funding while small businesses fail by the waste side struggling during this pandemic.

As the next Governor, I will launched a forensic investigation into this matter to bring equity to the bias allocation of federal funds that were original supposed to help the people experiencing financial hardship. The CARES ACT funding will also be investigated after weekly benefits were cut off abruptly which placed many Tennesseans in financial hardship during this devastating and traumatic pandemic.

TENN HOME VIP will bring our heroes out of the shadows of cardboard boxes, allies, dumpsters, dilapidated homes, street benches, over-grown railroad tracks and over paths. As a Governor with the heart of the people, I stand with the heroes who gave their lives for my freedom to run as the first African American woman for the Governor of the State of Tennessee.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee who have serve homeless veteran for over 25 years, I would consider it a privilege and responsibility to provide exceptional care and support to those who honorably served our country and State, as well as their families. This holistic program would, provider mobile service to the homeless veteran, transitional homes, mental health care, drug counseling, rehabilitative therapy services, nutritional programs, portable tiny homes, PTSD support, long-term care, or short-term skilled nursing care with healthcare professionals specially trained in providing the physical, emotional, and mental support veterans may need.

My new administration would increase funding to the Tennessee Department of Veteran Affairs and assist with public, private and non-profit partnerships with other employers to help connect veterans with good paying jobs to assure financial sustainability.

This program for homeless veteran work closely with the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) to assist eligible veterans with accessing federal funding for their care, even though this community outreach program would be independent of the Veteran Administration.

These programs and community outreach service would be under the jurisdiction of the Tennessee Homeless Veteran Initiative Program (TENN HOME V.I.P.) Board with members appointed by the Governor, homeless veterans and stakeholders at the table to address the real needs of the community across the State of Tennessee.

Oversight of the day–to–day management and operations of the TENN HOME VIP would be vested in the Executive Committee of the Board which would exercise its authority for planning, implementation and operation of this unique initiative to provide service for homeless veterans. Uniquely designed tiny homes would be the idea setting for this transit group.

Our purpose would to provide top quality of service and quality of life for every homeless veteran, with respect and dignity. The staff would be dedicated, knowledgeable, professionally trained, and motivated to ensure our American heroes reach their care goals.

As the next Governor, I would work hard to bring every citizens to the table of economic prosperity and quality of life especially our heroes that deserve more than a cardboard box on the streets in Tennessee.

As the next Governor, it is imperative that we bring equity and safety to our veterans across the State of Tennessee. A special transitional team would be implemented to meet these specific needs of veterans outside of the Veteran Administration. This program would be veteran and community-driven to ascertain the optimal treatment and care for these heroes. Mental counselors will be sent out into the canvas of the community across the 95 counties to identify and assist these veterans. Special programs and service will also be erected for family members such as respite care or transitional training and adjustment.

My number one priority is bringing equity to the rural communities with broadband expansion. I would revitalize rural Tennessee through progressive broadband development.

There is a large gap in broadband access across the State of Tennessee especially in rural Tennessee. Broadband connectivity has a significant positive impact through economic development, education, healthcare, and employment. However, many rural Tennesseans do not have access to it. Mostly in rural areas are at a major disadvantage and this must change in the State of Tennessee.

In order for the State of Tennessee to be competitive, we must invest into labor reform and workforce development training.

Skill training should begin in middle school so that our students must have hands-on skills and training to give them a competitive edge for the future. As Tennesseans, we must be prepared for the future of digital migration.

As the next Governor, I have stood with Union Workers across the State of Tennessee for over 25 years. Unions are the backbone to our workforce. As the incoming Governor, I would support Unions 100% to secure good playing jobs with good benefits.

Large corporations can work hand and hand with Unions to assure the quality of life that our Tennesseans need to prosper and thrive in this great state.

I am supported of medicinal usage of marijuana especially for veterans. One motivation for legalization is the economic benefits that can come from the regulated commercial availability of marijuana. Increased tax revenues, job growth, and investment opportunities all are powerful incentives to push for legalization.

Drug legalization would benefit the State of Tennessee in several ways: save Federal, State, and local governments billions of dollars a year; lead to reduced crime and safer neighborhoods; and enhance public health.

States that legalize marijuana have recognized various economic benefits. There are direct tax proceeds generated for the state. States employ thousands of employees of oversee the production, distribution, and management of the sector. There are also potential savings to the legal enforcement of the industry if certain criteria are no longer considered illegal.

Cons of decriminalizing drug production, distribution and use:

• New users for drugs. …
• Children and teenagers could more easily have access to drugs.
• Drug trafficking would remain a problem. …
• The first few countries which decide to legalize drugs could have problems of drug tourism.

As the nest Governor, I want to bring equity to all Tennesseans when it comes to tax incentives. Therefore, I will be allocating Small Business Tax Incentive and Empowerment Equity Loans and Grants for small businesses that have been struggling financially especially during this pandemic. It will take many small, businesses years to recover if at all.

Many of these small businesses did not receive PPP loans and it is time for the Governor and legislature body to make it right by these citizens. Small businesses are the driving force to our economic and we should do everything possible to assist in their sustainability. In the State of Tennessee, we must have small businesses thriving to pass on generational wealth.

Historically, the politicians in the State of Tennessee has intentionally overlooks the economic hardship that African Americans have suffered from decades through economic neglect, disinvestments, cultural insensitivity to being survivors of African descendants that have suffered from many atrocities on American soil and in the State of Tennessee,

Now the Governor and the legislature body wants to remove slavery out of Tennessee Constitution with no compensation to these citizens have waited too long for Restorative Reparation.

As the fight for reparations for the descendants of enslaved African Americans stalls at the federal level, state and local officials are taking matters into their own hands.

I will be the innovative Governor in this State that address TENN ROOTS (Reparation Outreach Opportunities to Survivors) which will a 500-page report detailing with the harms done to Black residents in the State of Tennessee. The plan will made recommendations ranging from reforms in policing to housing grants for Black families that were forced from their homes to make way for various Tennessee state projects like freeways and parks.

As the next Governor, I will start with housing but this Restorative Reparation Plan will incorporate all forms of repair such as housing grants, cash payments, business grants, access to education, and healthcare. In the State of Tennessee, we must address and bring to the forefront the explicit connection from slavery to Reconstruction to Jim Crow to the contemporary moment where there are state and federal policies that intentionally and actively discriminated against Black communities that actually have caused these education gaps that have caused these wealth disparities.

Due to the pandemic, this devastation has caused added financial hardship to these disenfranchised survivors known as the Tennessee Roots. It is time to make it right for the citizens that have lived in poverty, worked subservient jobs, experienced discriminatory actions on all levels of insidious behaviors, abused by the judicial system, targeted by police brutality, cycled through the prison system, survived through bank and housing discrimination, loss of family farms due to USDA discrimination and other atrocities that go unnoticed even in 2022 by the Governor of the State of Tennessee and the legislature body.

It is time to bring equity, equality and justice in this arena of every citizens must have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Reparations must be given to make this segment of individuals in our society whole. Black Tennesseans deserve better and I will give them a seat at the table for economic prosperity and social justice.