Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R)

The congresswoman from the 7th District is Marsha Blackburn, a Republican elected in 2002. She grew up in a Farm Bureau family in Laurel, Miss., where her father sold oil-field production equipment. Her interest in gardening and canning won her a 4-H college scholarship at Mississippi State University, where she majored in merchandising and clothing. She helped pay her way through college by selling books door-to-door. She then became a sales manager with Southwestern Company, which sells educational materials, and moved to Williamson County. Her hilltop home is known as “Up Yonder,” named by its former owner, Grand Ole Opry star Minnie Pearl. Blackburn became director of retail fashion for a Nashville department store and was appointed by Republican Gov. Don Sundquist as executive director of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment and Music Commission. In 1992, she was the Republican nominee who challenged Democrat Bart Gordon in the 6th District. She lost 57%-41%. Blackburn was elected in 1998 to the Tennessee Senate, where she became an outspoken opponent of Sundquist’s proposed income tax. She was well known there for her appearances on conservative radio talk shows and for organizing rallies against the income tax.

When Republican Rep. Ed Bryant decided to run for the Senate, Blackburn sought to replace him. Seven candidates ran in the GOP primary, three of them familiar figures in the Memphis area. Blackburn was the only well-known candidate from the Nashville area. She benefited from $100,000 in advertising and another $90,000 in contributions by the national anti-tax group Club for Growth, and from attacks by the Shelby County candidates on one another. She ran as anti-abortion rights, pro-gun and pro-military. Blackburn won 40% to 20% for the runner-up, and went on to easily win in the general election.

In the House, Blackburn’s voting record is among the most conservative. She has urged across-the-board cuts for non-defense discretionary spending, and she co-sponsored the bill to make sales taxes deductible in states that have no income tax; it was passed as part of the corporate tax bill. On the Energy and Commerce Committee, she urged renewal of the federal ban on Internet access taxes and sponsored a bill to reduce regulations on cable programming. A fervent advocate of the music industry central to her district, she has fought to protect intellectual property rights of artists against illegal music downloads. On energy issues, she supported a gas tax holiday in 2008 after prices at the pump spiked upward and she participated in the recess protest on the House floor after Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to allow a vote on opening up coastal areas to oil drilling.

In the immigration debate of recent years, Blackburn has been an outspoken advocate of securing the borders, including erection of a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border. She called for cutting federal funds to cities that don’t enforce immigration laws and also pushed to ban banks from giving checking accounts or credit cards to illegal immigrants. A staunch supporter of the Iraq war, she criticized fellow Republicans who opposed President George W. Bush’s troop “surge” strategy in January 2007. “Whose side are you on?” she said. “Are you on the side of freedom, or are you on the side of allowing the terrorists to get the upper hand?”

Blackburn was mentioned as a possible candidate for the Senate or governor in 2006. But once she won a seat on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, she had sufficient incentive to remain in the House. After the 2006 election, she was one of four candidates for chairman of the Republican Conference, but she was eliminated on the second ballot. Instead, she became communications chair for both the National Republican Congressional Committee and the conservative Republican Study Committee.

In 2008, she faced a primary challenge from Shelby County Register Tom Leatherwood, whose campaign gained ammunition when it was revealed Blackburn had misreported more than $440,000 on campaign finance disclosure forms dating to her first House campaign in 2002. Blackburn filed amended returns, but the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission. The underdog Leatherwood, hoping to cement West Tennessee support, also charged that Blackburn had used her campaign funds to help her family’s businesses and that she hadn’t been effective in Washington. But Blackburn easily won the primary, 62%-38%, carrying every county except Shelby. She won easily in November.

In the presidential contest that year, Blackburn initially endorsed Mitt Romney but went on to be a busy campaign surrogate for eventual nominee John McCain. She was a frequent defender of his sometimes controversial vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.