I don’t want bigger government

As a progressive candidate for the Tennessee House of Representatives, I don’t want bigger government—I want different government. One that prioritizes people, not lobbyists and wealthy corporations. One that won’t turn away our federal tax dollars, or siphon our state tax dollars into private pockets. One that stays out of our medical decisions and our personal lives.

ALLISON’S UPDATES

💔 Heartbreakingly Beautiful

The day I moved to Chattanooga 27 years ago, I gazed out my car windows and thought, I can’t believe I get to live here.  I wasn’t driving past the aquarium or the revitalized downtown or anything new or manmade. I was on I-24 East, gaping at the stunning...

Home Depot and Hamster Wheels

Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus, the billionaire Republican donor, claims that “socialism” has destroyed the American work ethic. He uses the word the way many Republican politicians do—to mean any public investment in people. Like, using tax dollars to build...

Marching on Capitol Hill

In journalism school I was taught never to write about a future event as if it’s already happened. If it’s Tuesday morning and you’re writing for the Wednesday paper about a new pizza place that’s set to open Tuesday night, that’s how you phrase it. It didn’t open; it...

A Walk in the Weeds

Even if you don’t have school-age kids, please read this nerdier-than-usual story about Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher push. It says everything about how our state government works now, and how it isn’t serving Tennesseans. When Lee was elected in 2018, he resurrected...

Mind Your Manners

After the Kansas City shooting—the latest chapter in a uniquely American story of anguish and inaction—I said a few things my mother wouldn't have liked. As a native southerner raised by a native southerner, I got daily lessons in being polite. Here are some lessons...
Get to know

Allison Gorman for State House District 26

I’m a native Tennessean and a graduate of the UT School of Journalism. I work as an editor and a writer. My husband and I have lived in Chattanooga (District 26) since 1997 and raised our three daughters here. 

As a member of the State House, I will be a progressive voice for the people of Tennessee.

Policy Points

01

Reproductive Rights

Tennessee bans abortion from the moment of conception. The Republican majority in the State House didn’t just vote for this ban, which hundreds of Tennessee doctors warned was dangerous to pregnant women; they also voted against an exception for raped children. That’s because these legislators answer to lobbyists, not to medical experts or their own constituents. Most Tennesseans don’t support this ban.

02

Public Education

Tennessee’s public schools are poorly funded. Our public-school teachers are poorly paid. Now, against the wishes of most parents and local school boards, our state government is giving public school dollars to private schools through $7,000 vouchers, and to for-profit charter schools. This is a deliberate strategy by Republican legislators to defund and dismantle public education and reward the deep-pocketed “school choice” groups that finance their campaigns.

03

Gun Safety

Most Tennesseans support reasonable laws that make it harder for dangerous or unstable people to get firearms. Unfortunately our Republican legislators answer only to the gun industry. Tennesseans—including children—are paying the price. Between 2011 and 2021, as Republicans loosened our state’s gun laws, the rate of gun deaths of minor children in Tennessee increased 180 percent. The Tennessee GOP has chosen guns over kids every time.

04

Health Care

Hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans don’t have health insurance but don’t qualify for TennCare. As a result, Tennesseans are sicker than most Americans and have more medical debt, and our rural hospitals are closing because patients can’t pay their medical bills. Every year our Republican-led government turns away billions in our own federal tax dollars that would address these problems by expanding Medicaid. There’s no logical reason why.

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Reproductive Rights

I’ll push to restore access to abortion in Tennessee to the reasonable, medically responsible limits allowed under Roe v. Wade. I’ll also push for broader access to birth control and science-based sex education.

Public Education

I’ll push to fund K-12 education fully and strategically, so every Tennessee family will have the choice to send their child to an excellent public school in their own neighborhood.

Gun Safety

I’ll push for what most Tennesseans want: safe storage laws, universal background checks, a red flag law, and the restoration of the permit requirement, including gun-safety training.

Health Care

I’ll push to expand Medicaid (TennCare), so hundreds of thousands more Tennesseans can afford to see the doctor and buy medicine. It’s an economic winner—and the ethical thing to do.

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Know more about

Why I’m Running

This Isn’t the America My Father Died For

Op-Ed, originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press February 13, 2017 A long time ago, a scrappy kid from St. Louis, inspired by watching his big brother fight for a noble cause, badgered his parents into letting him join the Marines at age 17. They were...

10 Things About Me

I’m a progressive candidate running to represent District 26 in the Tennessee House of Representatives. Here’s what else you should know: I’m a native Tennessean. Raised in Memphis, schooled in Knoxville (GBO!), married a guy from Nashville, lived in Chattanooga since...

Why I’m Running: The Hero

I don’t remember my dad, but he was my hero. Dad was a med-evac pilot in Vietnam. He was shot down trying to rescue eleven wounded soldiers in the heat of battle. My first memory is attending a ceremony honoring him as the most decorated Marine in the Vietnam War. I...

Why I’m Running: The Wounded Warrior

When my dad was killed in action, my gentle mom became a casualty of war too. Left to raise two little girls on her own, there were days she struggled just to get out of bed. Yet in a neighborhood full of silent witnesses, it was Mom who walked across the street alone...

Why I’m Running: The Role Model

My dad was a devout Catholic, raised in a big Irish family in St. Louis. My mom was a deeply spiritual Protestant, raised in a southern family with ministers on both sides. After Dad was killed in Vietnam, Mom honored him by raising my sister and me Catholic; she took...

Why I’m Running: The Underdog

When I was seven, I inherited a hundred dollars from one of the whiskery great-great aunts my Memphis family had in abundance. (That’s all we had in abundance, and that ended up being my only inheritance.) I used the money to buy a typewriter, and I used the...

Why I’m Running: The Path

On February 13, 2017, I wrote an opinion column for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Less than a month into Donald Trump’s presidency, the country was so tense I felt like I was trapped in a house with the smoke alarms blaring. In my op-ed, I wrote about the cruel...

No More “Boys Will Be Boys”

Like most middle-aged people, I have some gauzy memories of summer. You know, playing kickball in the street, catching fireflies in jars, riding bikes until the streetlights came on. But here’s another summer memory that’s stuck with me: my neighbor Mark sitting in...

Magnets, Metaphors, and Morals

You might have noticed the arrow on my campaign signs. It’s a compass pointing north. “True north” is how I explained it to my husband when I got the idea. “Magnetic north,” he said. He’s a hiker. “It’s a metaphor,” I said. My mother, who spoke in metaphors, used to...

Boilerplate Email

Nothing makes my blood boil more than a boilerplate email from my government representative. If I’m concerned enough about an issue to call or write them, I expect something more than a canned reply.Don’t thank me for contacting you when you famously avoid contact...