Anne Backus to run for Tennessee House seat
ANNE BACKUS
Backus will be the only Democrat in the race and will not face an opponent in the Aug. 1 primary election.
She said she was encouraged to enter the race by people in the district who felt their concerns weren’t being listened to or represented in the state legislature.
She pledges to anchor her campaign “with the Anderson County values of honesty, transparency, and doing right by her neighbors,” according to a release.
“I want to take the people’s voice back to the Tennessee House of Representatives,” Backus said.
She said she also is concerned about the efforts to limit the people’s voice and attendance at Tennessee House sessions and committee hearings. “It is undemocratic and must be stopped,” Backus said.
Among other concerns that she would address as a state representative are support for public schools and for commonsense gun safety laws, she said.
Backus said she will advocate for universal background checks, safe-storage requirements and extreme-risk protection laws.
She said she believes the life of a child is worth more than all the guns, a message seen on signs carried by families of Covenant School students and others advocating for gun safety in the year after the Covenant School shooting in Nashville that took the lives of three students and three adults.
She opposes tax dollars being used for vouchers for private schools. Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher bill recently failed to pass in this legislative session, and Backus said she would oppose vouchers if proposed again next year, instead directing
public funds to public schools.
Backus said she supports affordable health care for everyone, and she especially supports access to women’s reproductive health care.
“Tennessee’s extreme laws insert the government into decisions on reproductive health care that should be between a woman and her doctor,” she said.
She said Tennessee ranks 43rd among the states in maternal death rates related to or aggravated by pregnancy, and is among states with the highest death rates, according to a report by American Health Rankings.
Backus said she actively supports equality and equity for all, regardless of race, gender, gender identity, religion, or economic status.
She is involved in social advocacy as the founder and co-chair of PFLAG’s Oak Ridge chapter and as a member of the Oak Ridge-Anderson County NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge.
She is a volunteer for Court Appointed Special Advocates of the Tennessee Heartland, advocating for abused and neglected children in Anderson County Juvenile Court. Although challenging, she said, she believes this is her most-rewarding and impactful work.
“Through my CASA volunteer work in Juvenile Court, I have seen the difference that resources and family support can make in a child’s life,” Backus said.
She said that her job as a project manager at Y-12, where she worked for 33 years, taught her about listening to and working with people.
“That gave me the skills to work with groups of diverse people to achieve a goal on time and under budget,” she said.