Marsha Blackburn

Mary Marsha Blackburn (née Wedgeworth; born June 6, 1952) is an American politician and businesswoman serving as the senior United States senator from Tennessee. Blackburn was first elected to the Senate in 2018. A member of the Republican Party, Blackburn was a state senator from 1999 to 2003 and represented in the United States House of Representatives from 2003 to 2019, during which time the ''National Journal'' rated her among the House's most conservative members.

A supporter of the Tea Party movement, Blackburn is a staunch ally of president Donald Trump. She opposes abortion, same-sex marriage, and the Affordable Care Act. On November 6, 2018, Blackburn became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee, defeating Democratic former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen. Blackburn became the state's senior senator in January 2021 upon the retirement of Senator Lamar Alexander. Upon the retirement of Congressman Jim Cooper in 2023, she became the dean of Tennessee's congressional delegation. She won reelection to a second Senate term in 2024 against Democratic nominee Gloria Johnson.

Blackburn has said she is considering running for governor of Tennessee in 2026.

Early life and education

Marsha Wedgeworth was born in Laurel, Mississippi, to Mary Jo (Morgan) and Hilman Wedgeworth, who worked in sales and management. She placed fourth during a beauty pageant in high school.

Blackburn attended Mississippi State University on a 4-H scholarship, earning a Bachelor of Science in home economics in 1974.The Marsha Blackburn Collection web page
, Mississippi State University Congressional and Political Research Center; retrieved December 5, 2013. Blackburn was elected both as secretary and president of the Associated Women Students at Mississippi State University.

Early career and political activity

In 1973, before graduating from college, Blackburn worked as a sales manager for the Times Mirror Company. From 1975 to 1978, she worked in the Castner Knott Division of Mercantile Stores, Inc. In 1978, she became the owner of Marketing Strategies, a promotion-event management firm. As of 2016, Blackburn continued to run this business.

Blackburn was a founding member of the Williamson County Young Republicans.Baker, Jackson
''Marsha Blackburn – Beacon of the Right''
, ''Memphis Magazine'', July 2011; retrieved December 6, 2013. She was chair of the Williamson County Republican Party from 1989 to 1991. In 1992, she ran for Congress in Tennessee's 6th congressional district, losing to incumbent Bart Gordon, and was a delegate to the 1992 Republican National Convention. In 1995, Blackburn was appointed executive director of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment, and Music Commission by Tennessee governor Don Sundquist, holding that post through 1997.

Blackburn was a member of the Tennessee Senate from 1999 to 2003, and rose to be minority whip. In 2000, she took part in the effort to prevent the passage of a state income tax bill.

U.S. House of Representatives

Redistricting after the 2000 census moved Blackburn's home from the 6th district into the 7th district, and created a gerrymandered district that stretched for 200 miles from eastern Memphis to southwest Nashville. In 2002, Blackburn ran in the Republican primary for this congressional seat. Of the four main candidates, she was the only one from the Nashville suburbs. The other three ( Mark Norris, David Kustoff, and Brent Taylor) were all from Memphis or its suburbs. Blackburn was endorsed by the conservative Club for Growth. The three Memphians split the vote in that area, and she won the primary by nearly 20 percentage points.

In the general election, Blackburn defeated Democratic nominee Tim Barron with 70% of the vote. She was the fourth woman elected to Congress from Tennessee, and the first woman elected to Congress from Tennessee who did not succeed her husband. She was reelected seven times.

Tenure

Blackburn served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003 to 2019. During her House tenure, the ''National Journal'' rated her among the House's most conservative members.

In November 2007, Blackburn unsuccessfully ran for Republican conference chair. She was a senior advisor on Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential campaign, before resigning her position in the Romney campaign and endorsing Fred Thompson for president. Blackburn was an assistant whip in Congress from 2003 to 2005, as well as deputy whip from 2005.

Committee assignments

* Committee on the Budget
* Committee on Education and the Workforce
* Committee on Energy and Commerce
** Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, vice-chair
** Subcommittee on Communications and the Internet, chair
** Subcommittee on Health Care
** Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, vice-chair – Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade
* Committee on Judiciary
* Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
* Select Investigative Panel on Planned Parenthood, chair

U.S. Senate

2018 election

In October 2017, Blackburn announced her candidacy for the Senate seat being vacated by Bob Corker. In her announcement, she said that House Republicans were frustrated with Senate Republicans, who they believed acted like Democrats on important issues, including Obamacare. In the announcement, Blackburn called herself a "hardcore, card-carrying Tennessee conservative", said she was "politically incorrect", and noted with pride that liberals had called her a "wingnut". She dismissed compromise and bipartisanship, saying "No compromise, no apologies." She also said that she carried a gun in her purse. On August 2, Blackburn received 610,302 votes (84.48%) in the Republican primary, winning the nomination.
Blackburn largely backed President Donald Trump's policies, including a U.S.–Mexico border wall, and shared his opinion of National Football League national anthem protests. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence endorsed her. During the campaign, Blackburn pledged to support Trump's agenda and suggested that Democratic nominee Phil Bredesen would not.

For most of the campaign, polls showed the two candidates nearly tied. But after Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Blackburn pulled ahead. Some believe the hearings mobilized Republican voters in the state, even though Democrats won the House. Blackburn won the election with 54.7% of the vote to Bredesen's 43.9%, an unexpectedly large margin. She carried all but three counties in the state ( Davidson, Shelby, and Haywood), the most counties ever won in an open Senate election in Tennessee.

2024 election

On August 1, 2024, Blackburn and Democratic state representative Gloria Johnson won their respective party nominations. This was the first all-woman general election for a Tennessee Senate seat.

Blackburn was reelected with 63.8% of the vote to Johnson's 34.2%. She carried all but two counties in the state ( Davidson and Shelby).

There was speculation that Blackburn could be Donald Trump's running mate in his 2024 presidential campaign, but Trump instead chose JD Vance.

Senate tenure

Blackburn was sworn in as a U.S. senator on January 3, 2019. She is the first woman in history to represent Tennessee in the U.S. Senate. Upon Lamar Alexander's retirement in 2021, Blackburn became the senior U.S. senator from Tennessee.

Committee assignments
* Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
** Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband
** Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Protection (Ranking Member)
** Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries, Climate Change and Manufacturing
** Subcommittee on Tourism, Trade, and Export Promotion
* Committee on Finance
** Subcommittee on Health Care
** Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
** Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight
* Committee on the Judiciary
** Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights
** Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law (Ranking)
** Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety
** Subcommittee on Intellectual Property
** Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law
* Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Political positions

Blackburn is a Tea Party Republican. She has been called staunchly conservative, and has sometimes attended functions of, and met with leaders of, far-right groups. She has called herself "a hard-core, card-carrying Tennessee conservative."

GovTrack estimated Blackburn to be the most ideologically conservative member of the Senate in the 2019 legislative year. In 2024, Blackburn served as chairperson for the Republican National Committee's official party platform.

Abortion and stem cell research

Blackburn staunchly opposes abortion and sought to overturn ''Roe v. Wade''. In 2013, she was chosen to manage debate on a bill promoted by House Republicans that would have prohibited abortions after 22 weeks' gestation, with limited exceptions for rape or incest. She replaced the bill's prior sponsor, U.S. Representative Trent Franks, after Franks made controversial and dubious statements.

In 2015, Blackburn led a panel that investigated the Planned Parenthood undercover video controversy, in which anti-abortion activists published a video purporting to show that Planned Parenthood illicitly sold fetal tissue. Subsequent investigations into Planned Parenthood found no evidence of fetal tissue sales or of wrongdoing, but in 2017, when Blackburn announced that she was running for Senate, she ran a controversial advertisement saying that she "fought Planned Parenthood and we stopped the sale of baby body parts". In 2015, Blackburn claimed that 94% of Planned Parenthood's business revolves around abortion services, which FactCheck.org found to be "wrong" and that "no one can say for sure what the percentage is".

In March 2016, Blackburn chaired the Republican-led Select Investigative Panel, a committee convened to "explore the ethical implications of using fetal tissue in biomedical research". Democrats on the panel characterized the probe as a politically motivated witch hunt.

Birtherism

In 2009, Blackburn sponsored legislation requiring presidential candidates to show their birth certificates. The bill was in response to conspiracy theories, commonly known as "birther" theories, that alleged that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Her spokesperson said that Blackburn did not doubt that Obama was an American citizen.

China

In December 2020, Blackburn posted, "China has a 5,000-year history of cheating and stealing. Some things will never change..." on her Twitter account. The European Union bureau chief for China's state-owned ''China Daily'', Chen Weihua, responded by tweeting, "This is the most racist and ignorant US Senator I have seen. A lifetime bitch". In what appeared to be a thinly veiled reference to Chen, Blackburn asserted in response that the U.S. would "not bow down to sexist communist thugs". One of Chen's tweets was, with an apparently sarcastic comment, retweeted by Republican Senator Marco Rubio. The Chinese American rights group Tennessee Chinese American Alliance protested Blackburn's comments as insulting to the Chinese community.

In August 2022, Blackburn led a congressional delegation to Taiwan, where she met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. Her delegation was the third such delegation to visit Taiwan following Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit early that month. During her visit, Blackburn voiced support for Taiwan, calling it an "independent nation" and a "country", and also supported further U.S.-Taiwan relations and combating the "New Axis of Evil", which she defines as Iran, Russia, and North Korea, led by China. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and condemns most visits by U.S. lawmakers.

In July 2023, Blackburn criticized the movie ''Barbie'' for "bending to Beijing to make a quick buck" after it was alleged the film contained a map of the world displaying the nine-dash line, a territorial claim by China to the South China Sea that the international community rejects. In a statement addressing like criticisms, Warner Bros., ''Barbies production company, said the map was a "child-like crayon drawing . . . not intended to make any type of statement".

In 2024, Blackburn was targeted by the Chinese government's Spamouflage influence operation.

Israel

In October 2023, Blackburn voiced support for Israel during the Gaza war, saying, "The United States has a moral obligation to defend Israel, and as Israel is surrounded by hostile actors funded by Iran who seek the destruction of the Jewish state and deny its right to exist, that's a solemn responsibility."

Climate change

Blackburn rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. In a 2014 debate with science communicator Bill Nye, Blackburn rejected the science and urgency of the issue, claiming that there is "no consensus" in the scientific community about the causes of climate change.

Contraception and the right to privacy

In March 2022, Blackburn called '' Griswold v. Connecticut'', a landmark Supreme Court decision holding that the Constitution protects the liberty of married couples to buy and use contraceptives without government restriction, "constitutionally unsound" as a ruling that "gave the court permission to bypass our system of checks and balances".

Donald Trump

Blackburn strongly supports Donald Trump.

In November 2016, Blackburn joined Trump's presidential transition team as vice chair. She was a staunch supporter of his and backed most of his policies and proposals. She nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize for his negotiations with North Korea. '' Vox'' speculated that Blackburn's ties to Trump, who won Tennessee in the 2016 election by 26 points, helped boost her Senate candidacy.

During Trump's first Senate impeachment trial, Blackburn left the chamber for a television interview. She also garnered attention by reading a book during the proceedings. Blackburn spent time during the trial to tweet about Alexander Vindman, calling him unpatriotic for allegedly "badmouth ngand ridicul ng the U.S. in front of Russia. In November 2019, #MoscowMarcia started trending on Twitter after Blackburn tweeted allegations against Vindman on her Twitter account. ''The Week'' characterized her tweet as a "conspiratorial smear". In her post, she wrote "Vindictive Vindman is the 'whistleblower's' handler". The tweet was in reference to Vindman, a decorated army official and Purple Heart veteran, who became a central figure in Trump's impeachment proceedings in Congress after testifying he heard Trump pressure the president of Ukraine to investigate the son of one of his chief political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden.

After Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, Blackburn supported Trump's false claims of victory and raised funds to support the Trump campaign's effort to overturn the election results in court. In an interview on November 20, she briefly called Biden the "president-elect" but later retracted this as a mistake. On January 2, 2021, Blackburn and 10 other Republican senators announced that they would vote to oppose certification of the results of the election on January 6, the joint session of Congress in which the certification of a presidential election occurs, citing false allegations of widespread election fraud, irregularities, and unconstitutional changes to voting laws and voting restrictions. But after a mob of Trump supporters violently stormed Capitol Hill that day, she voted to certify the results of the election.

In May 2021, Blackburn abstained from voting on the creation of the January 6 commission.

Education

In 2021, when President Biden proposed universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds and subsidized child care for low- and middle-income families, Blackburn likened the proposal to the communist policies of the Soviet Union. She also falsely claimed that the Biden administration proposed to put children in pre-K even if their parents did not want to send them there.

Fiscal policy

Blackburn was among the 31 Senate Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which raised the U.S. debt ceiling.

Gun rights

After the 2018 Thousand Oaks shooting on November 7, 2018, which resulted in 12 deaths, Blackburn responded to a question about the shooting in a Fox News interview by saying, "how do we make certain that we protect the Second Amendment and protect our citizens? We've always done that in this country. Mental health issues need to be addressed."

In March 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom criticized Blackburn for accepting over $1 million in campaign donations from the National Rifle Association of America and voting against gun control measures, including the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which passed in 2022.

Health care and pharmaceuticals

Blackburn opposed the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), saying upon its passage, "freedom dies a little bit today." She supported efforts to repeal the legislation. In 2017, while arguing for its repeal, Blackburn falsely said that two of its popular provisions (protections for people with preexisting conditions and allowing adult children to be on their parents' health plans until they're 26) "were two Republican provisions which made it into the bill." In her declaration that she would run for the Senate in 2018, she said that the failure to repeal the ACA was "a disgrace".

At October 2013 congressional hearings on the ACA, Blackburn said the website healthcare.gov violated HIPAA and health information privacy rights. The next day, when a CNN interviewer pointed out that the only health-related question the site asked was "do you smoke?", Blackburn repeated her criticism of the site for violating privacy rights.

According to ''The New York Times'' in 2017, Blackburn's best-known legislation was her co-sponsorship of a bill that revised the legal standard the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had used to establish that "a significant and present risk of death or serious bodily harm that is more likely than not to occur", rather than the previous tougher standard of "imminent danger", before suspending the manufacturer's opioid drug shipments. The legislation passed the House and the Senate unanimously, but was criticized in internal Justice Department documents and by the DEA's chief administrative law judge as hampering DEA enforcement actions against drug distribution companies engaging in black-market sales. Joe Rannazzisi, who had led the DEA's Office of Diversion Control, said he informed Blackburn's staffers what the effects of a 2016 law she co-sponsored would be. Blackburn said her bill had "unintended consequences", but Rannazzisi said they should have been anticipated. He said that during a July 2014 conference call he told congressional staffers the bill would cause more difficulties for the DEA if it pursued corporations that were illegally distributing such drugs.Ex-DEA official says Blackburn had warning on opioid law
, Jonathan Mattise, October 26, 2018. Retrieved August 14, 2019. Blackburn and Representative Tom Marino, the main co-sponsor of her House bill, sent a letter requesting an Office of Inspector General investigation about Rannazzisi, saying he tried to intimidate Congress in the July conversation. Rannazzisi said he was removed from his DEA position in August 2015.

Immigration

Blackburn supported Trump's 2017 executive order imposing a temporary travel and immigration ban barring citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. She has often expressed support of Trump's immigration policy, especially his plan to greatly expand the Mexico–United States barrier. In March 2021, Blackburn visited the southern border of the United States with several other Republican senators; she accused President Biden of encouraging a surge of illegal immigration.

LGBT rights

Blackburn opposes same-sex marriage and in 2004 and 2006 voted for proposed constitutional amendments to ban it. Of the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in '' Obergefell v. Hodges'', Blackburn said, "Despite this decision, no one can overrule the truth about what marriage actually is—a sacred institution between a man and a woman." In 2010, she voted against repealing the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

During her tenure as a representative, Blackburn sought to remove Kevin Jennings, a gay man who worked in the United States Department of Education, saying that Jennings "has played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America’s schools".

In 2013, Blackburn voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act in the House, but voted against the Senate's version of the act, which expanded VAWA to apply to people regardless of sexual orientation. She argued that increasing the number of targets for VAWA funding would "dilute the money that needs to go into the sexual assault centers, domestic abuse centers, ndchild advocacy centers", and said VAWA ought to remain focused on supporting women's shelters and facilitating law enforcement against crimes against women, rather than addressing other groups or issues.

Blackburn voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to ban discrimination against LGBT employees. In August 2019, she co-signed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit employment discrimination based upon sexual orientation or gender identity.

Supreme Court nominations

On October 26, 2020, Blackburn voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States. Barrett was confirmed by a vote of 52–48. Blackburn wore a mask that read "Grin and Barrett" to the Senate vote.

On March 22, 2022, during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, Blackburn asked Jackson to define the word "woman". "'I can’t—' Jackson replied. 'You can’t?' Blackburn said. 'Not in this context. I’m not a biologist,' Jackson said. 'The meaning of the word woman is so unclear and controversial that you can’t give me a definition?' Blackburn asked." On April 7, 2022, the Senate voted 53–47 to confirm Jackson to the Supreme Court; Blackburn voted against Jackson's confirmation.

Tech policy and antitrust

Blackburn has advocated increased regulation of technology companies and criticized alleged anti-conservative bias on major platforms. In June 2018, she published an op-ed arguing for greater oversight and restrictions on tech companies that sparked a vocal backlash among Google employees. During a 2020 Commerce Committee hearing in which she claimed that tech companies stifle free speech, Blackburn asked Google chief Sundar Pichai about the employment status of an employee who had criticized her.

In the 117th United States Congress, Blackburn introduced the bipartisan Open App Markets Act alongside Senators Richard Blumenthal and Amy Klobuchar. The legislation is intended to curb Apple and Google, the operators of the App Store and Google Play, from engaging in anti-competitive behavior in app markets. Blackburn also worked with Blumenthal to introduce children's online child safety legislation, known as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).

Telecommunications policy

Blackburn opposes net neutrality in the United States, calling it "socialistic". She opposes municipal broadband initiatives that aim to compete with Internet service providers. She supported bills that restrict municipalities from creating their own broadband networks, and wrote a bill to prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from preempting state laws that blocked municipal broadband.

In 2017, Blackburn introduced to the House a measure to dismantle an Obama-administration online privacy rule that the FCC adopted in October 2016.Cecilia Kang
Congress Moves to Overturn Obama-Era Online Privacy Rules
, ''New York Times'' (March 28, 2017). Her measure, which was supported by broadband providers but criticized by privacy advocates, repealed the rule that required broadband providers to obtain consumers' permission before sharing their online data, including browsing histories. The measure passed the House in a party-line vote in March 2017, after a similar measure passed the Senate the same week. She subsequently proposed legislation that expanded the requirement to include internet companies as well as broadband providers. As of 2017, Blackburn had accepted at least $693,000 in campaign contributions from telecom companies.

Women's rights

In 2009, Blackburn voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Personal life

Marsha married Chuck Blackburn in 1974. They live in Brentwood, a suburb of Nashville in Williamson County, and have two children. She is a Presbyterian and a member of Christ Presbyterian Church.Barnette, Amy
''Marsha Blackburn – 7th Congressional District''
''The Commercial Appeal'', June 30, 2010; retrieved December 5, 2013.

Blackburn is a member of The C Street Family, a prayer group that includes members of Congress.Inside The C Street House
, Salon.com, July 21, 2009. She is a former member of the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board.

Blackburn is the author of ''The Mind of a Conservative Woman: Seeking the Best for Family and Country''. The book was published on September 1, 2020, by Worthy Books.

Electoral history

See also

* Women in the United States House of Representatives
* Women in the United States Senate

Notes

References

External links

Official U.S. Senate website

Campaign website

Podcast website
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1952 births
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