The race is one of the Tennessee General Assembly’s more competitive ones in this election.
Image: Democrat Shaundelle Brooks (left) and Republican Eva Romero (right) are running for the Tennessee House of Representatives in District 60. Image Credit: Martin B. Cherry / Nashville Banner & Canva.
***Note from The Tennessee Conservative – this article posted here for informational purposes only.
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Article by by Lillian Avedian [The Nashville Banner, Creative Commons] –
State Rep. Shaundelle Brooks (D-Hermitage) is running for reelection against Republican Eva Angelina Romero to represent Tennessee House District 60 in one of the more competitive Nashville statehouse races.
The race to represent District 60, which encompasses Nashville suburbs including Donelson, Hermitage and part of Old Hickory, will determine whether this swing district that has been narrowly held by Democrats for 15 years will remain blue.
Brooks has served in the statehouse since 2024, when she was elected by about 2,300 votes. The seat was vacated by former State Rep. Darren Jernigan, a Democrat who represented the district from 2013-2024. In 2012, Jernigan won by just 95 votes.
Brooks and Romero each ran unopposed in their respective primaries. Neither responded to the Banner’s questionnaire sent to all candidates or to interview requests in time for publication of this article.
Brooks entered politics to advocate for gun control legislation after her 23-year-old son Akilah Dasilva was killed in a 2018 mass shooting at a Waffle House in Antioch.
“I went to D.C. I came back here to the Capitol. Beg, plead, testify in committees, and I got ‘no,’” she told the Banner in an interview in Oct. 2024. “I decided I have to do something, because nothing was working.”
“I get greeted a lot with the Second Amendment. I’m all for it, but I feel like guns shouldn’t be in the wrong hands, because guns in the wrong hands cost me my son, caused my family eternal grief,” she continued.
During her first term, she proposed “Akilah’s Law,” which would have made it an offense to sell, deliver or transfer a firearm to a person with a known history as a “patient in a mental institution” within the previous five years. Brooks said that this bill would have allowed prosecutors to bring charges against the father of the Waffle House shooter, who gave the guns that were used in the shooting to his son.
HB 0947 moved forward in subcommittee yet was taken off notice in committee this year. Some advocates cautioned that the bill could have unintended consequences and discourage people from voluntarily seeking mental health treatment such as counseling.
On her website Brooks lists strengthening violence prevention, expanding mental health crisis response, and investing in youth opportunity and prevention programs as priorities if reelected.
Romero is a real estate agent and co-founder of a dental clinic with her husband. She is a board member of the Tennessee Housing Development Agency.
Romero has centered much of her campaign on limiting property taxes. If elected she says she would support a two percent cap on annual property tax increases and a freeze on property taxes for homeowners 65 and older.
“It impacts our most vulnerable, our first time homebuyers, our kids,” Romero said in an interview in July with the podcast Music City Mindset. “We have to figure out a way where people can at least know that they’re going to be safe and not taxed out of the home.”
“In my dream world, I would probably try to get away with property taxes, but I don’t think we’re there yet,” she continued.
Romero also supports Amendment 2, one of three constitutional amendments on the ballot this year. “Yes on 2” would amend the Tennessee Constitution to prohibit the legislature from establishing a state property tax. Tennessee has not collected state property taxes in more than 75 years.
Brooks has pursued establishing limits on property taxes while in office. She introduced a bill this year that would limit property taxes levied by counties to $3 per $100 of the assessed property value. HB 2325 was deferred to the January 2027 calendar.
Metro Nashville collected $1.26 billion in property taxes in 2024 and would see a $98 million decrease in local revenue if that bill passed, according to the legislature’s fiscal review committee. Property taxes are the largest source of revenue for Metro Nashville. This year 56.69 percent of the revenue for the city’s $3.85 billion budget comes from property taxes.
Romero also supports deploying license plate readers across Nashville. Her website states that she would “push for state legislation ensuring that local officials cannot prevent police departments from connecting to available public safety data feeds and technology.” License plate readers have faced growing opposition from across the political spectrum in Nashville and statewide due to privacy concerns.
Campaign spending
Romero has far outraised Brooks in campaign contributions, according to campaign finance filings. Romero has raised about $84,000 as of this week, and Brooks, about $7,600.
Romero’s donors include former CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger; Plaza Mariachi co-founder Diane Janbakhsh; car magnate Lea Beaman; and board chair of the Tennessee Latin American Chamber of Commerce Victor Berrios.
Some of Romero’s donors live outside of Tennessee, including 19 real estate agents from California, Texas, North Carolina and other states. Romero has received donations from Friends of Police PAC and Latinos for Tennessee.
Brooks is endorsed by Everytown for Gun Safety, the Tennessee Hispanic Action Network, AFL-CIO and Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood. She has received donations from State Reps. Bob Freeman and Gloria Johnson, Metro Councilmembers Mike Cortese and Jacob Kupin, and commercial developer Dan Heller.
One Response
Our Constitution was NOT written for people with their lack of temperament.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pFr0qvpxKI
Something is wrong with all black people – Pastor David Manning