Two weeks before Election Day, WMC-TV aired interviews conducted by long-time anchor Joe Birch with the candidates for Tennessee Senate District 31. Incumbent Republican Brent Taylor is seeking re-election to the District 31 seat and election to the new 9th Congressional District simultaneously. He is challenged for the Senate seat by David Weatherspoon.
At the outset of the interview, Birch asked Taylor to explain why he was running for both positions. Taylor claimed that it was “impossible” for him to only run for Congress because the deadline to withdraw from the race for the Senate had passed.
As with much of what Taylor says, there is barely a nugget of truth in this claim.
Taylor is correct when he says the deadline to withdraw from the Senate race had passed at the point where new congressional districts were approved. Yet, the statement that withdrawal was impossible is hyperbole at best.
Following the Louisiana v. Callais decision by the United States Supreme Court, Governor Bill Lee called the legislature into special session to redraw congressional district lines. However, before redrawing the lines and voting on new districts, the legislature had to consider changing several laws to allow the new districts to become effective immediately.
First, the General Assembly changed the law to allow redistricting to occur in the middle of the decade. Previously established law only allowed redistricting to occur following the Census. Then, the legislature amended public notice requirements and allowed local election commissions to publish precinct information online only. Next, the legislature passed a law to allow those candidates who had previously qualified to run for Congress in the old ninth congressional district to be considered qualified in one of the newly drawn districts bearing the same district number as the one in which they originally qualified or to withdraw from running. The eventual notice from the Secretary of State’s office read in part,
“All filings must be received by noon this Friday, May 15, 2026. Candidates who previously qualified for the 2026 congressional election may continue to seek office in a newly drawn district if it retains the same district number. Candidates who wish to change districts or withdraw from the race may do so by filing a notarized written statement with the State Division of Elections, attention Coordinator of Elections.”
While this provision only applies to candidates for Congress, it is disingenuous for Taylor to claim it was impossible for him to withdraw from running for the Senate. Just as the legislature amended multiple laws to effectuate mid-decade redistricting, including allowing previously qualified congressional candidates to withdraw, a similar law could have been passed to allow Taylor and others to withdraw from their state legislative races upon filing to run for Congress. Of course, no one introduced such a proposal.
It is also relevant that Taylor knew prior to the passage of these laws and the new districts that he intended to run for Congress despite being qualified to seek re-election to the Senate. During the deliberations, Taylor declared Rule 13, which is something Senators are supposed to do when legislation on which they will be voting creates a potential conflict of interest. Taylor’s conflict, of course, is that he planned to run in one of the newly drawn Congressional districts.
The “incumbent protection program,” which Taylor and others running for Congress chose not to amend, may have the effect of costing taxpayers $500,000 for a special election. While state law allows one to seek a state and federal office at the same time, one cannot hold both offices at the same time. Therefore, if Taylor wins both the State Senate and Congress, he must resign from one of them. Considering he has now loaned his congressional campaign $1.5 million, we can all guess which district he will abandon.