Philip Norman Bredesen Jr. (; born November 21, 1943) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 48th governor of Tennessee from 2003 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected in 2002 with 50.6% of the vote and re-elected in 2006 with 68.6%. He served as the 66th mayor of Nashville from 1991 to 1999. Bredesen is the founder of the HealthAmerica Corporation, which he sold in 1986. He is the last Democrat to win and/or hold statewide office in Tennessee.
Since 2011, he has been chair of Silicon Ranch Corporation, a firm that develops and operates solar power stations. On December 6, 2017, Bredesen announced he would run for Bob Corker's open seat in the United States Senate, as Corker chose not to seek reelection in 2018. On August 2, 2018, he won the Democratic primary and faced off against Republican nominee Marsha Blackburn. He lost in the general election on November 6, 2018. After losing the Senate race, he and his campaign team founded Clearloop, a renewable energy startup.
Bredesen has been widely characterized as a moderate Democrat who is fiscally conservative but socially liberal.
Early life and private career
Bredesen was born in Oceanport, New Jersey, the son of Norma Lucille (Walborn) and Philip Norman Bredesen. His parents divorced and his mother was employed as a bank teller. During Bredesen's childhood, his grandmother, who sewed for a living, lived with the family. Bredesen grew up in Shortsville, New York, 30 miles from Rochester. He attended Red Jacket Central Elementary and Secondary School in the adjoining village of Manchester.
He received a scholarship to Harvard University, where he graduated with an undergraduate degree in physics. In 1967, Bredesen moved to Lexington, Massachusetts, where he did classified work for Itek and received a draft deferment during the Vietnam War. He sold his controlling interest in HealthAmerica in 1986,
Political involvement
Mayor of Nashville
In 1987, Bredesen ran for mayor of Nashville. He finished second out of 10 candidates with 30% of the vote, behind only 5th District Congressman Bill Boner, who won 46%. Since Boner fell short of the necessary threshold for an outright victory, he and Bredesen faced each other in a runoff. Boner won the runoff, 75,790 votes to 66,153, largely by emphasizing that he was a Nashville native while Bredesen was a Northerner.
In December 1987, Bredesen ran in the Democratic primary for the 5th District congressional seat left open by Boner's victory. He finished a distant second behind Bob Clement, son of former governor Frank G. Clement. Bredesen won the election, defeating Councilwoman Betty Nixon, 78,896 votes to 30,282. A new downtown library was built as a cornerstone of major improvements to the entire library system, the city's downtown entertainment district was renovated, Although mayors had been permitted to serve a maximum of three consecutive terms since the formation of Metro Nashville in 1963, Bredesen did not make an issue of that.
Governor of Tennessee
thumb|Official portrait of Phil Bredesen, hanging in the [[Tennessee State Capitol]]
Bredesen declared his candidacy for the 1994 Tennessee gubernatorial election in November 1993. He won the Democratic nomination for governor, capturing 53% of the vote in a primary that included more than a half-dozen candidates, among them Shelby County Mayor Bill Morris and state senator Steve Cohen. Bredesen garnered more support in East Tennessee than was usual for a Democrat, especially one from Nashville. In November, Bredesen narrowly defeated Hilleary, 837,284 votes to 786,803.
Bredesen launched a war on methamphetamine abuse, focusing on treatment, prevention and public awareness, with the Governor's Meth-Free Tennessee initiative. Criminal penalties and resources for law enforcement were also enhanced as part of this program, which led to a 50% decline in illegal and toxic meth labs. In 2005, Bredesen signed legislation establishing the Tennessee Heritage Conservation Trust Fund, which increased the state's land-buying power in hopes of protecting ecologically significant land and conserving or restoring historically significant areas.
In his 2006 reelection campaign, Bredesen brushed off a primary challenge from John Jay Hooker, winning nearly 90% of the vote.
In August 2008, Bredesen enacted further cuts to TennCare, placing restrictions on services to 10,800 TennCare patients who received some type of home nursing care. The new limits affected about 1,000 of those patients.
In the 2008 elections, Republicans gained control of both chambers of the General Assembly for the first time since Reconstruction. The onset of the Great Recession also limited what Bredesen could accomplish during his remaining years in office. In 2009, he called for nearly $129 million in state spending cuts and enacted a voluntary buyout for state employees that reduced the workforce by 5% without requiring layoffs. In May 2009, Bredesen vetoed a bill that would have allowed people to carry guns in bars, but the legislature overrode his veto.
Post-governorship
Since leaving the governor's office in 2011, Bredesen has been the chairman of a solar energy plant developer. Following the withdrawal of former Senator Tom Daschle as nominee for United States Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama Administration, The Atlantic correspondent Marc Ambinder reported that Bredesen was being vetted as a possible replacement. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius was eventually chosen for the post.
2018 U.S. Senate campaign
[[File:2018 United States Senate election in Tennessee results map by county.svg|thumb|350px|alt=Final results by county|Final results by county in 2018:
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On September 26, 2017, incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker announced he would not seek reelection in 2018. On December 6, 2017, Bredesen announced that he would run for Corker's open seat. Marsha Blackburn won the Republican primary on the same day.
In April 2018, Corker said that Bredesen was "a very good mayor, a very good governor, a very good business person" with "real appeal" and "crossover appeal", and that the two of them had cooperated well over the years, but that he would vote for Blackburn and contribute to her campaign. Corker said that he would not campaign against Bredesen. After Corker's praise for Bredesen, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Corker that such comments could cost the Republican Party its Senate majority. Shortly after Corker's comments, President Donald Trump tweeted an endorsement of Marsha Blackburn, who was running for the Republican nomination in the Senate race.
According to Politico, Bredesen represents a "center-right coalition" including "Chamber of Commerce-type Republicans."
Blackburn defeated Bredesen in the November 6 election. Although polls showed the race to be close for much of the cycle, Blackburn pulled ahead after the confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which are believed to have mobilized Republican voters. In the general election, Bredesen lost by just under 11 points, taking 43.9 percent of the vote to Blackburn's 54.7 percent. He carried only three counties — Davidson, Shelby and Haywood. The race was called for Blackburn less than half an hour after the polls closed.
Political positions
Bredesen has been described as a moderate Democrat. According to The Tennessean, he is a "political moderate", "known for his middle-of-the-road, fiscally conservative politics" and has "occasionally irritated liberals in his party". On The Issues, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization that examines politicians' records and statements, identifies Bredesen as a "moderate populist conservative". According to the Political Encyclopedia of U.S. States and Regions, Bredesen has embraced both fiscal conservatism and social liberalism "in a way that has a broad appeal to voters across the political spectrum". In his 2018 Senate campaign, Bredesen ran on a moderate platform.
The New York Times wrote of Bredesen's 2018 campaign that "in an indication of how precarious it can be to run statewide as a Democrat in the South, he also made no mention of his party and did not refer to President Trump by name."
Social issues
Bredesen has said the Affordable Care Act "needs fixing." In 2018, he said, "I was not a fan of the Affordable Care Act but when it passed, I said, 'it's the law of the land, let's make it work.'"
Bredesen is pro-choice on abortion. He supported a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in 2006, but supported the right of same-sex couples to adopt children. He supports non-discrimination protections for same-sex couples.
Bredesen had an A grade from the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) as governor, but in 2018 was downgraded to a D grade. As governor, he vetoed bills to allow guns in bars or restaurants that serve alcohol. He also signed into law a bill allowing gun owners with handgun permits to carry their firearms in public parks. In 2009, Bredesen said he would not veto a bill exempting certain firearms from federal regulations, allowing the bill to become law without his signature, but he had vetoed a similar bill earlier (his veto was overridden).
Regarding immigration issues, Bredesen has taken positions that are commonly associated with both parties. In 2004, Bredesen introduced a bill to "end the practice of issuing state drivers' licenses to undocumented persons." He supports DACA for undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children.
Judicial nominees
In October 2018, Bredesen broke with the Democratic Party and endorsed the confirmation of Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. The endorsement came the day before the final confirmation vote on the nomination.
Economic and fiscal issues
Bredesen leans conservative on fiscal issues. He ran for governor opposing the state income tax and as governor made cuts to the state's government health care plan due to its financial trouble. Bredesen opposed the Republican Party's 2017 tax reform, saying it provided "crumbs" to the middle class. As governor, he proposed increasing taxes on cigarettes. In 2007, he expressed uncertainty about the Bush tax cuts stating they would not help everyone. He also sought to eliminate the grocery tax break arguing that funding was needed for the state's budget. He did not raise the sales tax and opposed raising taxes on gas, but did support increasing a tax on cable services. He supports an increase in the minimum wage. Later that year, he married Andrea Conte in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, England. The two have one son, Ben. He identifies his faith as Presbyterian.
Bredesen is a licensed pilot as well as a hunter and outdoorsman. He also paints as a personal hobby alongside his business and political career. During his tenure as governor, he occasionally used his own artwork for the official governor's holiday cards. In 2006, the card featured a painting titled Afghan Girl, which was based on a photograph taken during a visit Bredesen made to Afghanistan earlier that year.thumb|Bredesen's Afghan Girl painting
In 2018, Bredesen's net worth was estimated to be between $88.9 million and $358 million.
Bredesen is a founding member of the nonprofit Nashville's Table and he served on the board of the Frist Center.
References
External links
- - official campaign site
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