Washington, D.C. – If the commentariat are to be believed, nothing has happened this year in our nation’s capital outside the scope of impeachment.
Funny thing about that: while most of Washington and the mainstream media were focused on the story of the day, I knew that back home, Tennesseans wanted to see a values-driven agenda that didn’t hinge on the Republican Party’s success in the 24-hour news cycle.
It wasn’t an easy thing to pull off. It took a lot of elbow grease to drag the Senate’s collective attention outside of the Beltway and into the homes and businesses of the American people; but I left my office for the last time in 2019 feeling a deep sense of gratitude for all I was able to accomplish on behalf of my fellow Tennesseans.
As the first woman senator from the Volunteer State, I felt a renewed connection to the women suffragists who gathered in Nashville in 1920 to bring their 72-year campaign for the vote across the finish line.
To honor the 100th anniversary of their stunning victory, this year I introduced the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemorative Coin Act.
The bill authorized the Treasury to create $1 silver coins honoring the suffragists at zero cost to the taxpayer with all proceeds benefiting the Smithsonian Institution’s Women’s History Initiative.
It was a successful, symbolic effort, and a reminder that no person — man or woman, old or young — should ever be legally defined as somehow less than.
On that same note, back in January I filed my first piece of legislation in the Senate: the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act. The bill compliments the Trump Administration’s pro-life agenda, and would place a statutory prohibition on funneling tax dollars to abortion providers.
Tennesseans understand that pro-life policies are important — and that the label covers more than the protection of the unborn. My bipartisan “Rural Health Agenda,” a package of three bills, will put federal dollars to work on behalf of Tennesseans whose access to health care has been decimated by the recent wave of rural hospital closures.
Read the rest of Senator Blackburn’s op-ed in The Tennessean.
Senator Blackburn serves on the Senate Armed Services, Veterans’ Affairs, Judiciary, and Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committees.
