State Rep. Gloria Johnson ended months of speculation yesterday by confirming that she will run for re-election to her state legislative seat this year, while also running for U.S. Senate. 

Sen. Richard Briggs has sponsored a bill to prevent anyone from running for two offices at the same time.

“My heart is in serving Tennessee in whatever capacity I am able,” said Johnson, a Democrat who represents state House District 90, which spreads across North and West Knoxville.

She announced last September that she would run this year for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn. But until yesterday, she had not said whether she would also seek a fifth term in the state Legislature.

In the interim, Knoxville City Councilwoman Seema Singh had announced that she would seek to fill Johnson’s legislative seat. Yesterday, Singh said she would suspend that campaign and would support Johnson.

"I will be endorsing and supporting her wholeheartedly,” Singh said. “We're both working to save the (90th District) seat."

But the state Legislature — specifically, its Republican supermajority — may have other ideas. A bill sponsored by two Republican Knox County legislators, Sen. Richard Briggs and Rep. Dave Wright, would prohibit any candidate from running for more than one office on the same ballot.

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea to run for or hold two offices at the same time,” Briggs said in an interview yesterday.

The legalities and timing of that bill are a little murky. Briggs said it was his understanding that if the bill were passed before April 4 — the filing deadline for state and federal candidates this year — it would apply to the 2024 election cycle. But, he allowed, “It may need to be settled by the courts.”

Johnson said she has already been certified as a U.S. Senate candidate. She pulled a petition yesterday for the state House seat and plans to file it today. She criticized Briggs’ bill as anti-democratic.

“It’s just one more thing they do to try to stop me from serving constituents who are asking me to run,” she said. “Why don’t they let the voters decide? Why are they taking the choice away from the voters?”

Deciding to Run

Johnson said when she first announced for the Senate bid, she wasn’t sure whether she would also seek to keep her legislative seat. In the subsequent months, she said, many people have urged her to make sure she doesn’t end the election without a platform to carry on her advocacy.

She said she wasn’t concerned that running for the local seat would undermine her statewide Senate campaign — which, she acknowledged, will be “an uphill battle” in a state that has voted strongly Republican for the past several election cycles.

“I just really don’t see that at all,” she said. “Because I am continuing to fight for Tennessee families at every level.”

Johnson, one of the more vocally progressive members of the state Legislature, shot to statewide and national prominence last year as part of the “Tennessee Three” — the three Democratic lawmakers that the Republican majority sought to expel for staging a short protest for gun safety regulation on the floor of the House.

She survived the expulsion effort by one vote, while state Reps. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, and Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, were both expelled. Both were quickly reappointed and then re-elected to their seats. (There are also bills in the Legislature this year aimed at preventing expelled legislators from being immediately reappointed or re-elected.)

Johnson’s elevated profile has helped with fundraising. Last month, she announced that she had raised $2.3 million since starting her run — a record level of donations for the first two quarters of a Democratic senatorial campaign in Tennessee.

Still, it leaves her far behind the $5.4 million Blackburn has raised so far this cycle. The Republican incumbent has a total of $7.4 million in cash on hand.

Johnson said she will continue her statewide Senate campaign with no drop-off in effort as she also seeks to keep her state House seat. Should she win both, she said she would step down from her legislative seat, which would then be filled by a special election. 

She said she remains optimistic about the Senate run, even though it is generally viewed as a longshot campaign. Blackburn won the seat with relative ease in 2018, defeating former Gov. Phil Bredesen by a margin of 55 percent to 44 percent.

“From what I’m seeing across the state, the level of excitement for this Senate race, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Johnson said.

Legislative Roadblock

Briggs denied that his bill is aimed at Johnson in particular. The bill would prohibit any candidate from appearing on the same ballot for two public offices. It makes exceptions for political party positions like Democratic or Republican state executive committees. 

“I’ve been having conversations on this for three years with people,” Briggs said. “I had no idea that Gloria wanted to run for Senate three years ago.” He said the issue was first raised to him in relation to a Town of Farragut election.

The bill also blocks anyone from holding a local government office and another elected office in Tennessee at the same time. Briggs said that under current state law, it could be possible for somebody to serve simultaneously on a city, county and state legislative body.

In practice, people who are elected to one office while holding another typically step down from one of them — as Briggs himself did when he was elected to the state Senate while serving as a Knox County commissioner. He was not, however, on the ballot for both offices in the same election.

As to whether Johnson filing her legislative petition today would protect her from subsequent legislative action, Briggs said he wasn’t completely sure. But he said state election officials have indicated that candidates can’t be considered certified for the ballot until after the April 4 deadline, so a bill passed before that point should be in force for the 2024 elections.

The bill moved without much opposition on Tuesday through the Senate State and Local Government Committee, which Briggs chairs. A few senators raised concerns about possible impacts on officeholders in their own districts, but only the two Democrats on the committee opposed it and it passed 6-2-1.

It is now headed to the Senate Calendar Committee to be scheduled for a floor vote. In the House, it will be in the Elections and Campaign Finance Subcommittee on Feb. 14. 

Johnson did not say whether she would seek to legally challenge the bill if it becomes law. The Knox County Democratic Party blasted it as an effort to interfere with local voters’ ability to choose their representatives.

“Republicans have shown they will do anything to consolidate power and limit the will of the voters,” KCDP official Jack Vaughan said in a statement. “The people of Knoxville keep sending Gloria back, and this targeted bill is yet another attempt to destroy the very thought of political ideological differences.”

In 2022, the Republicans in the Legislature redrew Johnson’s district to exclude her home residence, leaving her in fellow Democratic Rep. Sam McKenzie’s district. Johnson had to move in order to qualify to run again. She said the bill is one more effort to keep her out of the Legislature.

“They have left me with my hand in the air for 45 minutes, they’ve cut my mic, they’ve given my district a closet instead of a member office, they’re brought expulsion papers against our district’s chosen representative, and they’ve drawn my block out of the precinct that I lived in for more than 30 years,” she said. “They are so triggered, it seems men are just too emotional to govern.”

If Johnson were legally excluded from running for the District 90 seat, Singh said she remains ready to step forward.

“If there are any issues, I'm suspending my campaign, not ending it,” Singh said. “And the first sign that she can't do it, I'm here to protect the seat.”