I love Tennessee’s special way of doing things. No other state could give us Dolly, Beale Street and Jack Daniel’s, all rolled into one. No other state is the Volunteer State. We have our problems, but we figure out together how to solve them.
Tennesseans were kind to let me represent us in Washington, D.C., for 32 years, longer than almost anyone in state history. I’d still be doing it if our friends in the state legislature had not scrambled our congressional districts. Not once but twice in a decade. Now the legendary 5th District, Nashville’s district, omits Nashville entirely and stretches from our suburbs through 17 counties all the way to Memphis.
Any district, no matter
its shape, can be won with the right candidate. Fortunately, Tennesseans have such a candidate in Chaz Molder. He’s got the perfect background to represent all of us. He’s a former University of Tennessee student body president who’s been mayor of Columbia for two very successful terms. He’s a lawyer who grew up interning at the Tennessee Farm Bureau. He’s blessed with a great wife and kids. He looks like the Marlboro cowboy (but doesn’t smoke). He has been working to help all Tennesseans have a brighter future for most of his young life.
Chaz Molder has the character to serve
Chaz is the best new candidate I’ve met in many, many decades. He has the heart and soul to be a U.S. representative we can all be proud of. He has a backbone of steel and has proven that his voice is Tennessee’s voice, not anyone else’s. He is only interested in what helps make all Tennesseans – rural, urban and suburban – stronger.
After a lifetime in politics, I am often discouraged by what’s happened to America. Too many people are having trouble getting by while Washington has been spending our tax dollars like drunken sailors. We now have a $40 trillion debt! Just paying interest is now one of the largest “programs” in the federal budget.
A record of balancing budgets and getting results
As mayor, Chaz balanced eight budgets in a row without raising property taxes. Meanwhile, we haven’t had a balanced budget in Washington in over a quarter of a century!
Chaz can win. Although Tennessee has been a strong pro-Trump state, most people I talk to are tired of the president’s focus on his ballroom, his arch, his war in Iran, his family’s grifting and his endless insults toward anyone he doesn’t like at the moment. I grew up in Shelbyville, not far from Columbia, and people throughout our state want change. We want someone who acts like a decent Tennessean, not a bully.
The kind of Tennessean Washington needs
It takes good candidates to get America back on track. It takes people like Chaz, and his wife Liz, and their three kids, who have the true Tennessee spirit. They are honest, decent folk who serve their community and their church and have the youth and the energy to be leaders we will all be proud of.
I was always a “Blue Dog” in Washington, eager to take on anyone – Democrat or Republican – who stood in the way of common-sense solutions. I never let my political party or powerful patrons tell me how to vote. A lot of people in Washington hated me for that, but it’s the Tennessee way, the only way to really be Tennessee’s voice in Washington.
Give Chaz a chance. You’ll be glad you did.
Former U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a Nashville Democrat, represented Tennessee's 5th Congressional District in Congress from 2003 to 2023.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Chaz Molder is the Tennessean Washington needs | Opinion
