State and Local Government Class Visits the State Capitol
Posted Mar 14, 2025
This week, Dr. Evans’ State and Local Government class went to Nashville to tour the Capitol and meet with political officials.
The first person that the class spoke with is Brandon Gibson, who is the Chief Operating Officer of the state. She told students that politics is all about relationships. She told them the adage of “When you have the money, you don’t have the time. When you have time, you don’t have the money.” When she was starting her legal career, she did not have as much money and spent a lot of time volunteering for the Madison County Republican Party. She used this to make contacts which helped her late. As she became more successful, she continued to nurture her contacts, but she was busier and so made connections by giving money.
When asked about important lessons she has learned from politics, the first lesson is “see the long game.” We sometimes get caught up in what is going on right now when we need to look beyond a longer horizon. The governor and the state need to plan ahead and realize that the work that you do now puts one in place to be successful later. Second, tell your story better. A lot of politics is about public relations, so she tells commissioners that they need to tell their story better to get the attention they need and convince the public of their success.
Next, students heard from Michael Hendrix and Bess Blackburn of the Governor’s policy office. Blackburn said that policy has two major questions: what can we do and what should we do? The idea is that we should always focus on what we should do but realize that we cannot always achieve that. In the policy office, she said that they start planning for the policies they will promote for the next year as soon as the legislature leaves. Then, they have the “good idea factory” between August and December when they narrow down the policies they want to change. Overall, she said governors prefer executive action over legislation because the legislature sometimes will pass policies that are not what they think are best.
Finally, Blackburn spoke about how she got into the policy office. She was always interested in philosophy and wanted to make it practical, which led her to politics. She worked some in politics and eventually went to law school. The summer before she graduated, she interned with Governor Lee’s office and was offered a job when she graduated. She concluded by telling students that she is a woman of faith and that she sometimes struggles with some things in politics. However, she always remembers Prime Minister William Pitt’s advice to William Wilberforce, the Christian leader who helped end slavery in Great Britain: “You don’t have to choose to use your beautiful voice to praise the lord - or change the world. You can do both.”
Next, Union alum Matthew Grove spoke. Grove is the legislative liaison for the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development. He said that he always wanted to do politics and worked in campaign throughout his time at Union. His first job was with the Office of Faith Based Initiatives but that was not political enough for him, so he sought and found a job as legislative liaison.
Grove told us about his job. During the session, he reviews bills to see if they will affect the department. If the department does not like the bill, they will try to kill Democratic bills but amend Republican bills. Sometimes, they remain neutral on bills because they do not want to upset legislators. They do this in the hope that the Budget Subcommittee bill will not fund it and thus let the bill die. He also says that he has even left a committee room to avoid being called to testify so he does not upset legislators.
Next, the class went to the Department of Economic and Community Development on the 27th floor of the Snodgrass Tower. There we spoke to Union alum Kirby Lewis-Gill and Assistant Commissioner Brooxie Carlton. Kirby told us about how they recruit companies to Tennessee and his work with rural development. Carlton spoke to us about the community development grants that they give out. Most of this money comes from the federal government and they were not sure how much they could give out because of the work of DOGE. She also spoke about how Tennessee’s water infrastructure is crumbling. The federal government provided money for sewer systems in the 1960s but local utilities did not want to raise rates for maintenance. Because of this, we need to replace a lot of lines but neither the state nor utilities have the money to do this.
Our last speaker was Union alum J.D. Cressman. He is the general counsel for the Tennessee Department of the Military. He spoke of how he went to law school, worked a lot in politics, got a job with the Comptroller General’s Office and eventually moved to the Department of the Military. He spoke to the class about his work getting federal aid to Tennessee after the floods in East Tennessee and the more recent tornados because the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency is under that department. Regarding the flood money, he talked about how his office worked 48 hours straight to write the rules to get the federal government to provide the aid. He used this example to show how important government is to the average citizen.
Finally, Dr. Evans tried to remember his time as a legislative intern and gave students a tour of the State Capitol. The class then went to the Cordell Hull building and watched the Senate Judiciary Committee debate several bills before returning to campus.