Back in April of 2023, state Representative Gloria Johnson of Knoxville got to be a known quantity, not only statewide but to the nation at large, as a member of the “Tennessee Three,” the trio of Democratic legislators whose zeal for gun reform made them targets for expulsion by the GOP House supermajority.
She survived the expulsion vote, as her cohorts did not, either because — as some believe — they were African-American and she was not or — as the Republican whose dissenting vote saved her maintained — because she differed from them in not having challenged the “decorum” of the House quite as seriously.
Whatever the reality, Johnson fully shared the outrage of fellow protesters Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville at Republican inaction following a lethal shooting rampage at Nashville’s Covenant School. And the lesser degree of her martyrdom would give her at least a measure of the national recognition earned by the two Justins, both of whom were immediately returned to office by their local legislative bodies.
The publicity generated by the expulsion incident doubtless was a factor in Johnson’s subsequent decision to seek the U.S. Senate seat currently held by the arch-conservative Republican Marsha Blackburn. But long before the bump in her statewide name recognition, the veteran legislator had earned respect in the House for her unstinting dedication to progressive principles.
Over the years, Johnson, a Knoxville special education teacher, had frequently gotten under the skin of Republican leaders, to the point that they had managed to reapportion her out of her seat, leaving her residence six blocks out of her home district. Undeterred, she sat out a session, moved, and was re-elected from a new, adjacent district.
Johnson’s campaign for the Senate brought her to Memphis over the Memorial Day weekend, and at one of her stops, a Saturday meet-and-greet affair at The Broom Closet on South Main, she undertook to explain both her own mission and the failings of Senator Blackburn, whom she accused of being dishonest and a “fearmonger” in the senator’s speeches, press releases, and frequent blog postings in which Blackburn accuses Democrats of a multitude of sins, up to and including disloyalty.
“Instead of focusing on hate and division,” Johnson said, “we need to be focusing on bringing people together, keeping people healthy and educated and earning a living wage, with access to things like paid family leave and childcare infrastructure.”
As an example of the incumbent’s dishonesty, Johnson recalled having seen a video in which “Marsha Blackburn actually said that we’re in a cooling period, that here’s no such thing as global warming. She said that back when she ran in 2018. Bless her heart, science is real. Just to let y’all know, I believe in science and research and data and use it daily. Yes.”
Johnson, who is simultaneously running for re-election to her state House seat, included the GOP legislative supermajority in the General Assembly in her criticism, notably, for their refusal to accept Medicaid expansion.
“Literally, Tennesseans are dying, while we refuse to expand Medicaid. And, you know, it is fair to say that their policies are certainly putting women and girls at risk. They’re putting the LGBTQ community at risk.”
She cited a recent Vanderbilt University poll which, she said, showed state voters favoring “not only medical cannabis, but recreational cannabis. They favor Medicaid expansion. Protecting the public schools. Things like universal background checks and [gun] safe storage, and extreme risk-protection orders or red flag laws.”
The same poll, she said, had her edging out Blackburn with women voters, 49 percent to 43 percent, and close behind the incumbent with other demographic groups.
(It should be noted that the prospect of Johnson’s doing well in a general election race depends, of course, on her winning out in the August Democratic primary, where she is opposed by Marquita Bradshaw of Memphis, who derailed the senatorial hopes of Nashville’s James Mackler by upsetting him in the primary in 2018. Bradshaw was easily beaten in that year’s general election by Republican Bill Hagerty.)
