Voters in parts of Clarksville will choose between a Republican incumbent and a Democratic political newcomer to fill the 75th Tennessee House District seat.
Rep. Jeff Burkhart is running for a second term in the state House representing the district, which was redrawn in 2022. The general election – set for Nov. 5 – will see him square off with Democrat Allie Phillips, a new face in Tennessee politics.
The 75th Tennessee House District previously contained Stewart, Benton and Henry counties, but now it’s just the westernmost parts of Montgomery County – which includes portions of Clarksville and the Fort Campbell military base.
Burkhart denied a request to be interviewed, but his campaign website includes a series of Q&A-style videos.
According to his campaign site and social media, Burkhart is a retired firefighter who grew up on a family farm in Montgomery County. He owns a few small businesses in the area, including the Screaming Eagle Car Wash.
He served on the Clarksville City Council for over a decade, holding office from 2008 to 2020. Burkhart said that he ran for city council “to simply make Montgomery County better.” During his time on city council, Burkhart claimed that he never voted to raise the tax rate and focused on better roads for the area.
“Every 15-20 minutes that you sit extra in traffic is time away from your family,” he said in a video on his campaign website.
On his website, Burkhart called his time serving as a firefighter a wonderful way to serve the community.
“The friendships that we had developed over that time with the coworkers are still friendships that I cherish to this day,” he said in a separate video.
During his time in the state House, Burkhart was the primary sponsor on bills about fire services funding, contractor licensing requirements and registered agent requirements. He also co-sponsored bills about school safety requirements and changes in the state’s taxes.
His opponent is Allie Phillips, a 29-year-old mom who works in social media. She was born in Syracuse, New York, but her family moved to Ashland City, Tennessee, not long after she was born. Growing up, she spent a lot of time in Clarksville until she moved to Hermitage late in high school before attending Middle Tennessee State University, where she got a degree in multimedia journalism.
When she and her husband were shopping for homes, housing prices brought her family to Clarksville. Phillips and her husband were preparing to welcome her second daughter into the world when a visit to the doctor changed their lives.
They found out the fetus wasn’t viable and, in Phillips’ words, “pretty much everything that could be wrong” was wrong. Her doctor explained the risks to her health and life if she stayed pregnant, but she didn’t want to put her life on the line with another young daughter to take care of.
Tennessee's abortion ban had gone into effect just months earlier and her situation wasn’t considered a high enough risk to her health to legally get the procedure in the Volunteer State. By the time she got to a clinic in New York for the procedure, her daughter had passed away in utero, putting her at risk of sepsis and other infections. When she got back to Tennessee, the Center for Reproductive Rights asked if she wanted to be a part of a lawsuit against the state for their abortion ban.
“I said yes very quickly. It was like no doubt in my mind that I wanted to be a part of something bigger than me,” Phillips said.
When she realized that wouldn’t be a quick fix, Phillips went to Burkhart to try and get an exception put into the state’s abortion ban. After not making any progress with him or the prospect of the exception, Phillips learned that Burkhart had run unopposed in the general election for his seat in 2022. Originally, she had planned to help find someone to be a candidate for her party, but something else happened instead. Her mom, her friends and fellow members of the Montgomery County Democratic Party suggested that her name might be one that belongs on the ballot.
“After weighing the pros and the cons, I had a lot more to lose running for office than I did not,” Phillips said. “But I reminded myself that, again, this is bigger than me. If I have to take a step back in my personal life, in my family life, for a sliver of a moment in time to make a difference for my daughter and her children and their children, then that's time well spent for me.”
She said she doesn’t feel like she knows what she’s doing half the time as a candidate, but that she’s learned a lot during this campaign. Before campaigning in this race, Phillips had never run for office. She said her background in politics was voting in presidential elections and that she wasn’t really tuned into local or state races.
“I never wanted to run for office,” Phillips said. “I had no interest in politics, and it's completely out of my comfort zone to do something like this.”
While Phillips admits she is inexperienced in politics and that she doesn’t know each and every bill she hopes to sponsor, she said one of her bigger hopes is that she can help reverse decisions made by the Tennessee Republican supermajority in recent years.
“Will my bills be something that I really want to do? Or is it going to be taking away the harm that they already caused?” Phillips said. “I feel like I'm going into a daycare and they, the Republicans, are toddlers that drew [with] Sharpie all over the walls, and I got to go scrub the walls before I can paint.”
Infrastructure and education
Burkhart points to infrastructure, education and public safety as priorities for his campaign, but didn’t provide many specifics when it comes to education.
He voted last year to allow teachers and staff in Tennessee schools to carry concealed firearms in schools and in 2023 he voted to “protect children from gender mutilation” through a ban on gender-affirming care for youth, a ban that’s now facing a challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Burkhart also described himself in a video on his website as “probably more conservative than a lot of Republicans” and said that he doesn’t want the government to fill roles that businesses can.
“If the private sector can do it, the government doesn’t need to be doing it,” Burkhart said.
Phillips also has infrastructure concerns. She thinks that Interstate 24 should be widened to make it more efficient to get into and out of Nashville. She’s also concerned with the lack of sidewalks leading to schools in her area and believes that a local train system, like an Amtrak, for people who commute into Nashville from places like Clarksville and surrounding areas should be examined as an option.
“This is my idea, how to execute it? I don't know fully how to execute it yet, but that's okay,” she said. “I think having an idea and then getting people to help you with that idea is the beauty of politics, because nobody knows everything.”
Phillips said she doesn’t support the school voucher program that Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee advocated for in recent months, something the conservative governor unsuccessfully lobbied for throughout this spring’s legislative session.
Taxes
Burkhart said he doesn’t want to raise any of Tennessee’s taxes.
“Government should be run like you run your household, not on borrowed money, strictly by [saying], ‘We’ve set a budget and we’re going to live by it,’” he said.
Phillips does not support bringing an income tax to Tennessee and knows families can’t handle any more coming out of their paychecks. She points to a bill from the previous session that proposed cuts to the grocery tax as the kind of bill she would want to support.
There’s a new fee in Tennessee on electric and hybrid vehicles that residents pay when they renew their tags. Phillips understands that this is to offset the lost revenue from the gas tax, but said it’s really increasing taxes for people with hybrids who still buy gas.
“At the same time, why are we punishing people for being fuel efficient? Why are we punishing people for using electric vehicles?” Phillips said. “That's where our society wants us to move towards, is to get rid of gas powered vehicles and to go fully electric, but with hybrids, people in Tennessee are being double taxed because we're paying that fee for the electric vehicle and we're paying gas tax.”
Other platform issues
Burkhart also said he wanted to be “a phone call away” to his constituents and that his cell phone number would be posted where people could find it, though there is no contact phone number posted on his campaign website.
Burkhart also wants to provide for the community around Fort Campbell, the military base not far from the Tennessee-Kentucky border.
“Making sure they have what they need, whether it be at a state level or a local level or even at the federal level, is something that if I can help in any way, that’s what I want to do,” he said.
Phillips isn’t totally sure what Tennessee can do for a federally-funded military base like Fort Campbell. But, she thinks more should be done to help veterans find opportunities for work, housing and education after they’ve served.
“My platform is about caring for others and wanting to help people, and that's what I will stand by for literally anybody,” Phillips said. “Regardless of the who you are, where you came from, what you've done, as long as you're not hurting people, as long as you're not just like an active criminal, I want to help you. I want you to have a great life, because we're all here for a short time.”
Phillips extends that idea to her stance on abortion, which she defines as “pro-choice.”
“I believe in women having the right to choose what happens, whether they want to stay pregnant - keep the baby, stay pregnant – put the baby up for adoption, whether they need to terminate for medical reasons, personal reasons,” Phillips said. “I believe that that choice should be between the woman and her medical professional.”
Abortion is not mentioned on Burkhart’s campaign website.
