Behn, Davis Top Contenders In 51st House Race To Fill Beck’s Post

Primary vote set for Thursday.

Image: Aftyn Behn, left, and Anthony Davis are the two Democratic contenders to replace the late Bill Beck in Tennessee House District 51. (Photos by John Partipilo)

By Sam Stockard [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –

The campaign to replace the late Bill Beck in the 51st District House seat pits a progressive businessman already filling the seat temporarily against an activist who wants to bounce off the so-called Tennessee Three.

Rep. Anthony Davis, a Nashville Democrat appointed by the Metro Council to fill the vacancy left by Beck’s sudden death, won’t shy away from liberal stances he took on the Metro Council, though he’s not sure he would go “nuclear” on House Speaker Cameron Sexton if his mic is shut off. He considers his liberal leanings to be tempered by his business life as owner of East Nashville Beer Works.

In contrast, Aftyn Behn has been organizing lobby days and protests since returning to Tennessee in 2016 and takes pride in being removed from the House by former Speaker Glen Casada for disturbing the chamber four years ago. She worked as a lobbyist for the Tennessee Justice Center in 2017 and is now campaign director for RuralOrganizing.org. She’s fighting state overreach, “far-right extremism” and corporate control and has the endorsement of the Democratic Socialists of Middle Tennessee.

The winner of their Democratic primary Thursday will face Republican David Hooven in the Sept. 14 general election to represent District 51, which takes in most of East Nashville and about half of downtown Nashville.

Through two campaign finance reporting periods, Davis has outraised Behn, bringing in $77,000 and spending $41,000. He had $36,150 on hand as of Thursday, the deadline for pre-primary reporting, receiving $1,000 donations this year from Democratic Reps. Caleb Hemmer, Darren Jernigan and Bo Mitchell, in addition to $1,000 contributions from Nashville attorney Charles Robert Bone, real estate magnate Bill Freeman and groups such as the Tennessee Highway Contractors, Tennessee Professional Firefighters and Tennessee Radiologists. Democratic Sen. Charlane Oliver gave $100 to Davis. 

Though not receiving backing from the Democratic establishment, Behn raised $50,000 and spent $20,000 and had nearly $23,000 on hand as of Thursday. Most of her contributions were small, many from out of state, and included $250 from Oliver and $100 from state Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, one of the Tennessee Three.

She’s irritated that the Metro Council selected Davis for the vacant position even though a special session on school safety will be held after Thursday’s primary election.

Hooven had raised only $1,650 from his own donations by last week and filed no pre-primary report.

What made them get in

The untimely death of Beck provided an opportunity Behn and Davis were considering already.

Behn, who says her partner’s child is transgender, says she was putting together a transgender advocacy day at the Capitol during this year’s session but canceled it when the mass shooting at The Covenant School in Green Hills claimed six lives. 

The 33-year-old graduate of the University of Texas in Austin helped put together yet another rally on April 6 when parents and students went to the Capitol and was set for a press conference for Reps. Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson when, she says, three Democratic lawmakers pushed past her to take the “spotlight.”

“Something in me snapped. For someone like me who has literally spent the night on the marble floors outside the governor’s office in 2019 … it felt like I deserved to be here just as much as you all,” she says.

Behn contends Jones, Pearson and Johnson don’t even have a consensus of support within the House Democratic Caucus of 24 members, borne out of a “resistance to a new generation of leadership” from young people and women.

She argues that a new philosophy is necessary because the strategy employed by Democrats over the last decade is failing. Democrats hold only 24 of 99 House seats and six of 33 Senate seats.

Behn had already decided to run a 2024 primary campaign against Beck even though she says she had great respect for him. She points out the 51st District has changed greatly over the last 10 years.

“It’s becoming increasingly more Democratic, even more left perhaps in terms of their perspective and what’s needed,” Behn says.

Heading into the 2024 session, she believes Jones, Pearson and Johnson — who is planning to run against Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn next year — need support. In addition, she says the Democratic Caucus needs more women, especially if Johnson and House Minority Leader Karen Camper, a candidate for the Memphis mayoral seat, win their races.

Behn calls the next election a question about “power” and how Democrats could “wrangle back some power in a Republican supermajority.”

She says Democrats have been begging “for crumbs” for the last decade as a minority party while compromising on their values.

“Has that theory of change worked? No, it hasn’t,” she says.

As a result, the Legislature has moved further right, Behn says, but she believes she can help flip eight to nine seats by backing stronger Democratic women in Knoxville, Rutherford County and Memphis and changing the losing mind-set of the Democratic Caucus, which she says is unable to imagine a world in which it holds at least 50% of the seats.

“It’s not just about working across the aisle,” she says, noting the plan is to shift from “one of the most extreme legislatures in the country, next to Idaho, which is overtaken by white supremacists.”

Davis touts predictability

Owner of East Nashville Beer Works on Trinity Lane, Davis continues the tradition he and Beck started by holding an ice cream social at Amqui Station in Madison. Last week’s event, though, included some of Davis’ adult beverages from his brewery.

“I did sort of feel called with his passing,” Davis says of Beck. “He and I had always talked about maybe me running at some point.” 

Davis served on the Metro Council from 2011 to 2019 and worked to elect Beck to the Legislature, even considering a run to the state House in 2014 when Beck was elected. His two children are 5 and 8 now, though, making service in the General Assembly a little more manageable.

He steers away from Behn’s criticism of the Metro Council’s decision to put him in the seat, saying it was based mainly on the need to have someone in the post for the planned Aug. 21 special session on school and gun safety, which Gov. Lee has not officially called.

“I didn’t tell them to do that, and I don’t make their decisions for them,” he says, acknowledging Beck’s people reached out and encouraged him to run for the District 51 seat. The vote for him was unanimous.

If elected, Davis says he will back “Democratic values” in what is a “very blue district.”

“I want to defend us on all fronts when Republicans are attacking women and reproductive rights, when they’re attacking LGBT issues, they’re attacking teachers, laborers. They’ve been attacking the city of Nashville,” Davis says.

Defense is critical, he says, against the Republican-controlled Legislature, which took steps this year to control appointments to Metro’s airport authority, sports authority in addition to votes on Fairground issues such as the expansion of the speedway. The moves are considered a reaction to the Metro Council’s decision not to bring the Republican National Convention to town.

Though pressing toward middle age, the 42-year-old Davis says he’s more in tune with a younger crowd and mentions his vocal stances on gun safety, Medicare for all and health benefits for partners while serving on the Metro Council. Yet he also finds he’s pushed back to the middle because of his business ownership. 

He recently got an honorable mention from Moms Demand Action, an advocacy group for responsible gun laws. He wants everything from an order of protection and gun confiscation from unstable people to gun storage laws, assault weapons bans and tighter background checks.

“If they won’t work together, I’m happy to yell and scream and fight. I’m happy to fight for our issues,” he says. But he adds the caveat that Democrats are in the super-minority and have to find ways to work with Republicans, who are still flinching from this year’s regular session.

Passing anything substantial will require a combination of Democrats and moderate Republicans, he notes.  

“They well overplayed their hand in the spring and they were trying to subvert democracy and boot a couple of our members, which is just nuts,” he says. Davis adds he would have “vehemently defended” Democratic Caucus members who used bullhorns to lead a protest that shocked Republican members.

Republicans voted to expel Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis for leading an anti-gun rally on the House floor and narrowly allowed Rep. Johnson of Knoxville to remain. Jones and Pearson were reappointed to their seats a week later but are standing for election again this fall.

Davis will not be allowed to serve on committees because he won’t be officially elected when the session starts, a practice the Speaker’s Office has made in recent months and years.

Nevertheless, Davis says he would “swallow” his pride and work with Republicans “if they come in good faith” to work on gun control and safe weapon storage and other critical issues “designed to stop mass shootings”. 

So far, though, Republicans have mostly discussed ways to improve mental health treatment in advance of the special session. And some have encouraged the governor not to call one. Still others have mentioned the possibility of boycotting the session.

Asked how he would react to a move to ignore Gov. Lee’s request for an extreme risk order of protection law, Davis says, “I hope it’s not a sham and they’re really coming in good faith and doing the session, if the governor continues through with the session and they show up and it’s not a sham.”

*Note: This article was edited for length and style by The Tennessee Conservative per The Tennessee Lookout’s republishing guidelines.

About the Author: Sam Stockard is a veteran Tennessee reporter and editor, having written for the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, where he served as lead editor when the paper won an award for being the state’s best Sunday newspaper two years in a row. He has led the Capitol Hill bureau for The Daily Memphian. His awards include Best Single Editorial from the Tennessee Press Association. Follow Stockard on Twitter @StockardSam