I didn’t grow up dreaming about becoming a politician. I wanted to write songs and start a band (I did that, but that’s another story). I got into public service because somebody wanted to blast into one of the hills of Nashville’s beloved Highland Rim to build a massive shopping mall. So I did what a lot of people do when something they care about is threatened: I got involved.

I knocked on doors. I talked to my neighbors. We organized. We won.

And somewhere along the way, I learned something important: government can actually work. When regular people pay attention, show up, and have leaders who are willing to listen, we can solve problems together.

That experience eventually led me to serve as Mayor of Oak Hill and then, in 2020, to run for the Tennessee Senate. I flipped a seat that hadn't changed parties in more than two decades.

I’m a mom, a former small-business owner, a Vanderbilt MBA, a former mayor, and now a Tennessee state senator. Before politics, I spent years in the music business. I’ve balanced budgets, made payroll, raised kids, sat through soccer games, worried about college tuition, and spent more hours than I care to count trying to understand why government sometimes makes incredibly simple things so complicated.

That probably explains a lot about how I approach this job.

I’m not particularly interested in whether an idea came from the political left or the political right. I want to know: Does it work? Is it fair? And does it make life better for Tennesseans?

That’s why I’ve fought to protect public schools, reform our broken Department of Children’s Services, protect reproductive freedom, reduce gun violence, hold government contractors accountable, protect Tennessee’s land and water, and stop corporations and special interests from writing the rules for themselves.

It’s also why I’m working on some big ideas that don't fit neatly into the usual partisan boxes.

I’m working with multinational corporations to help them pay for the packaging they dump into Tennessee instead of making taxpayers pay to bury it.

Representative Behn and I are working to legalize and regulate cannabis, then use the revenue to fix our roads instead of sending Tennessee dollars across state lines.

And I’ve been traveling around the world to learn more about data-centers, AI, and energy so that we can give communities the final say before enormous data centers move in and consume our water and electricity.

I’ve always focused on getting corporate money out of Tennessee politics so our elections belong to voters again.

Different problems. Same basic principle:

The people who live here should have more power than the people who profit here.

I love Tennessee. I love Nashville. And I still believe government can do really good things when we stop treating politics like a team sport and start treating it like a job.

There’s a lot that needs fixing.

I’m here to work on it.