In the 2nd district, seat "A" incumbent county commissioner Earlena Maples is being challenged by Julia Hurley. Incumbent school board member, William Jenkins is being challenged by Mike Hickman.

In the 5th district, seat "B" incumbent county commissioner Van Shaver, me, is being challenged by democrat, Jan Theodore Hahn.

In the 6th district, three candidates are running for the open school board seat. They are Greg Buckner, Zack Cusick and Aaron Lewis.

In the 21st district House of Reprehensive race.

I think all of us have been spoiled with Jimmy Matlock as our representative for the last 12 years. Jimmy has accomplished great things for Loudon County. We can only hope whoever wins that seat could be as successful as Jimmy has been.

There are three republican candidates seeking that office. What do their previous records look like? What could we expect? In alphabetical order.

Lenoir City mayor Tony Aikens. As bad as he doesn't want to admit it, as a councilman Tony did vote for a property tax increase. As mayor he supported and pushed for the largest tax increase the city had ever seen in the form of the Rain Tax. Now, city officials are pushing for an even larger tax increase to it's residents in the form of a sales tax increase. According to the News herald story, "Aikens broached the idea of a sales tax increase." News Herald 5/30/18. Of course, it's for the children and it will be on the November ballot for the voters to decide. Currently, Lenoir City, the Lenoir City school system and LCUB have a combined debt of more than a hundred million dollars.

Former Loudon County Property Assessor and County Mayor, Doyle Arp. While county mayor, Arp pushed for a wheel tax and a sales tax increase. Both were placed on ballots for the citizens to vote on. Both measures were overwhelmingly defeated. Arp then pushed for a property tax increase and got it. As county mayor, Arp all but shut down access to public records to the point that several citizens took him to court to force him to make records public again. The citizens won. As property assessor, Arp was accused of "Developer Discounting" an illegal action. However, the statute of limitations had run out so he didn't suffer any punishment.
 

Lowell Russell of Monroe County. Russell has never held an elected office before so he has no record to review. But he is close friends with state senator Randy McNally and I think his brother is McNally's security guard. McNally was to biggest supporter of last years huge gas tax increase. That doesn't automatically make Russell guilty by association but one would hope if he were to become our next rep, he will be able to be independent of McNally's influence.

To be clear, I'm taking no side here. I don't even live in the 21st district. Thus I can't even vote in that election.

The 2nd Congressional race has seven republican candidates but only two are serious candidates. Jimmy Matlock and Tim Burchett. Here in Loudon County, most all of us know Matlock well. Jimmy has served in the state house since 2006. Very successfully I might add. His record as an elected official and businessman is impeccable. On the other hand, there's Tim Burchett, a career politician who served in the state house, state senate and Knox County mayor with zero accomplishments. He likes to tout his achievements as Knox County mayor. He just fails to mention that he had very little to do with any of them. County mayors have no legislative authority.  The Knox County commission may have had accomplishments, but the mayor doesn't even have a vote.

I can't imagine how anyone who knows these two men, their backgrounds and accomplishments wouldn't vote for Matlock. Burchett's a do nothing, draw a check from the government, career politician just looking for the next political job.

The governors race basically comes down to one rich guy or the other. Diane Black or Bill Lee would be the best I'm thinking. Randy Boyd will just be Haslem 2.0 and Beth Harwell is a tax raiser. Remember, she voted against the gas tax hike before she voted for it. She doesn't mention that in her ads.

These are the contested races on the August ballot. Early voting begins July 13th.