Nancy is running for our children. As a teacher, she shelters in place during active shooter drills, discusses whether they should flee, fight, or hide, and fields their questions about what is being done to keep them safe. She hears their concerns when they ask if we are going to war and if they will be drafted. She sees the lack of mental health care and emotional support provided even though there were 45 school shootings in 46 weeks in 2019. All of these reasons, along with the rising bullying rhetoric coming from adults, are the impetus for Nancy’s decision to shift her public service from only helping the children in her classroom, to helping all of Tennessee’s and America’s children. (And hopefully help the adults along the way too.)
Tennessee needs to consider our children in all of our legislative decisions, because if it isn’t good for our children, then it isn’t good for the future of our country.
Each year Nancy teaches about Enlightenment thinkers where she encounters the same authors that our nation’s founding fathers were reading. The question they struggled with and we still struggle with today is “What is the role of government?” And while we debate that issue, one thing that Nancy believes from her reading of these same authors is that people came before the government, therefore the government should serve the people. If your government is not serving you, you should make changes.
