Former State Representative and U.S. Senate candidate Joe Carr announced on Tuesday that he will run for mayor of Rutherford County.
Carr spent years in the Tennessee state legislature and championed several key pieces of legislation that conservatives celebrated.
Most notably, Carr wrote and passed the nation’s first ‘No Sanctuary City’ Law. He also wrote and helped enact Tennessee’s E-Verify Law along with Tennessee’s law disallowing state taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens.
In his decision to run for mayor, Carr highlighted his desire to be a part of the solution for the issues that face Rutherford County.
“Together, I firmly believe we can lead this county in the right direction. Without reservation, we’ll take on MiddlePoint, we’ll ensure growth is smart & manageable, and we’ll keep our families, faith & business communities strong for generations to come!” Carr said in a Facebook post announcing his candidacy.
The current mayor of Rutherford County, Bill Ketron, may be vulnerable to a political challenge. He has received sharp backlash as he has been in legal trouble over inappropriate use of campaign funds. State auditors found hundreds of thousands of dollars missing from multiple campaign accounts. Ketron blamed poor accounting. However, he was ordered to pay $135,000 for the campaign law violations.
Rutherford County continues to be one of the fastest growing counties throughout the state of Tennessee.
Since leaving the Tennessee state legislature, Carr has remained active in Tennessee’s political scene. Carr ran for U.S. Senate in 2014 in an attempt to oust incumbent Lamar Alexander by providing a more conservative option for voters. For a short time, Carr worked for Governor Bill Lee’s administration.
Most recently Carr endorsed and campaigned for Dr. Manny Sethi in the 2020 Senate Republican primary.
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Cooper Moran is a reporter for the Star News Network. Follow Cooper on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
The term, “conservative,” is too nice a word to refer to right-wing bigots as.