Tim Burchett
Timothy Floyd Burchett (born August 25, 1964) is an American politician who is the U.S. representative for , based in Knoxville, serving since 2019. A Republican, Burchett was formerly mayor of Knox County, Tennessee. He served in the Tennessee General Assembly, first in the Tennessee House of Representatives, in which he represented Tennessee's 18th district. He later served in the Tennessee State Senate, representing the 7th district, part of Knox County. Early life and education. Burchett is a native of Knoxville, where he was born in 1964 and attended West Hills Elementary School, Bearden Junior High School, and  Bearden High School. After graduating from Bearden High School in 1982, he enrolled in the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where he earned a B.S. degree in education. He is a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. State legislature. Burchett's first election to public office was in 1994, when he won a seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives. He served in the House for two two-year terms, from 1995 to 1998. In 1998, he won a four-year term in the Tennessee State Senate, representing the 7th district. He succeeded Clyde Coulter "Bud" Gilbert. He was reelected  twice, serving a total of three four-year terms, from 1999 to 2010. In 2006, while a state senator, Burchett failed to report six political action committee checks totaling $3,300. The Registry of Election Finance did not fine him. In 2008, while still a state senator, he was fined $250 for failing to disclose three PAC contributions that totaled $1,500. Roadkill In 1999, Burchett received national media attention for sponsoring a bill to legalize the eating of roadkill, wild animals killed by vehicles, before notifying the county game warden. He defended the proposal as a "common-sense  thing" intended to prevent edible meat from being wasted. Eating roadkill was already legal – as it is in most places – but required prior notification of the county game warden. Burchett's bill allowed processing and consumption of roadkill before notifying the warden. Burchett proposed the bill after being contacted by a constituent who had been penalized for giving a needy family the meat from a deer his vehicle had accidentally hit. Salvia divinorum Burchett sponsored a bill in 2006 to make illegal "possessing, producing, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to produce, manufacture, or distribute the active chemical ingredient in  the hallucinogenic plant "Salvia divinorum" in the state of Tennessee." He said, "We have enough problems with illegal drugs as it is without people promoting getting high from some glorified weed that's been brought up from Mexico. The only people I’ve heard from who are opposed to making it illegal are those who are getting stoned on it." The bill was signed into law on May 19, 2006, and went into effect on July 1, 2006. Burchett originally wanted to make violations a felony offense, but the bill was amended during its passage to make it a Class  A misdemeanor. In a news report published shortly before the signing of the bill by Governor Phil Bredesen, Burchett was quoted as saying, "it's not that popular but I'm one of those who believes in closing the barn door before the cows get out... in certain hands, it could be very dangerous, even lethal." A store owner who had stopped selling the herb due to Burchett's bill said that he saw little point in banning salvia, "I have no idea why it's being outlawed. It's a sage. People in South America have been using it  for years and years." The same report also gave the general counterargument of salvia proponents that legislation banning "Salvia divinorum" reflects a cultural bias, as there are fewer prohibitions on more addictive substances such as alcohol and nicotine, and questioned how effective the bill will be, pointing out that "Salvia divinorum" has no odor and is easy to grow, so enforcement will be difficult. Knox County mayor. Burchett became Knox County mayor in September 2010, succeeding Mike Ragsdale, who left office due to term limits. Burchett defeated former Knox County Sheriff Tim Hutchison in the Republican primary and Democratic nominee  Ezra Maize in the general election. On February 10, 2012, Burchett appeared on WBIR-TV and officially announced that the county's first "cash mob" would be held at the Emory 5 & 10 store in South Knoxville. The cash mob gained national attention, and was mentioned in "Time" magazine. In 2012, Tennessee's Registry of Election Finance unanimously decided to take no action against Burchett regarding an inquiry into his campaign disclosure forms. U.S. House of Representatives. Elections. When 30-year incumbent Jimmy Duncan announced his retirement in July 2017, Burchett entered a crowded seven-way Republican primary to succeed  him. He defeated his nearest challenger, state representative Jimmy Matlock, by just under 12 percentage points. He faced Democratic nominee Renee Hoyos in the November general election. The 2nd has long been a Republican stronghold. With a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+20, it is one of the nation's most Republican districts, and tied for the third-most Republican district in Tennessee. It is one of the few ancestrally Republican districts in the South; the GOP and its predecessors have held it without interruption since 1859. For this reason, the Republican primary has long been reckoned as the real  contest in this district. Democrats have not made a substantive bid for the seat since 1964, and have received as much as 40% of the vote only twice since then. As expected, Burchett won the general election in a rout, taking 65.9% of the vote to Hoyos's 33.1%. When he took office in January 2019, Burchett became only the seventh person (not counting caretakers) to represent the 2nd since 1909. This district gives its representatives very long tenures in Washington; all six of Burchett's predecessors held the seat for at least 10 years, with three of them serving  at least 20 years. He also ended a 54-year hold on the district by the Duncan family. John Duncan Sr. won the seat in 1964, and was succeeded upon his death in 1988 by his son, Jimmy. In February 2018 the "Knoxville News Sentinel" reported that Burchett had failed to report a $10,000 payment from a solar electric company on his campaign finance forms and various financial disclosure forms. The story reported that two months earlier the FBI had questioned people about Burchett committing income tax evasion. After the story broke, Burchett gave a statement to WBIR that  he was correcting errors in his campaign financial disclosures and income tax forms, describing his failure to report all income as an "oversight". Tenure. Section::::"Texas v. Pennsylvania". In December 2020, Burchett was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of "Texas v. Pennsylvania", a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated incumbent Donald Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to  challenge the results of an election held by another state. Iraq. In June 2021, Burchett was one of 49 House Republicans to vote to repeal the AUMF against Iraq. Immigration. Burchett voted against the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 which authorizes DHS to nearly double the available H-2B visas for the remainder of FY 2020. Burchett voted against Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 1158) which effectively prohibits ICE from cooperating with Health and Human Services to detain or remove illegal alien sponsors of unaccompanied alien children (UACs). Personal life. In June 2008, Burchett married Allison Beaver in an impromptu ceremony  conducted by Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen. In April 2012, Beaver filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences". The divorce was finalized later that year. In 2014, Burchett married Kelly Kimball. He later became a legal guardian to Kimball's daughter.