BBBTV12 Serving Anderson, Roane, and Morgan Counties
(Submitted)
Anne Backus, a retired project manager at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, has filed her petition with the Anderson County Election Commission and has been approved as a candidate for District 33 State Representative.
Backus will be the only Democrat in the race and will not face an opponent in the August 1 primary.
She was encouraged to enter the race by people in the district who felt their concerns weren’t being listened to or represented in the state legislature. She pledges to anchor her campaign with the Anderson County values of honesty, transparency, and doing right by her neighbors.
“I want to take the people’s voice back to the Tennessee House of Representatives,” Backus said. She also is concerned about the efforts to limit the people’s voice and attendance at Tennessee House sessions and committee hearings. “It is undemocratic and must be stopped,” Backus said.
Among other concerns that she would address as a state representative are support for public schools and for common sense gun safety laws.
Backus said she will advocate for universal background checks, safe storage requirements and extreme risk protection laws. She believes the life of a child is worth more than all the guns, a message seen on signs carried by families of Covenant School students and others advocating for gun safety in the year after the Covenant School shooting in Nashville that took the lives of three students and three adults.
She opposes tax dollars being used for vouchers for private schools. Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher bill recently failed to pass in this legislative session, and Backus said she would oppose vouchers if proposed again next year, instead directing public funds to public schools.
Backus said she supports affordable healthcare for everyone, and she especially supports access to women’s reproductive healthcare. Tennessee’s extreme laws insert the government into decisions on reproductive healthcare that should be between a woman and her doctor, she said. She pointed out that Tennessee ranks 43rd in maternal death rates related to or aggravated by pregnancy and is among states with the highest death rates, according to a report by American Health Rankings.
Backus actively supports equality and equity for all, regardless of race, gender, gender identity, religion, or economic status. She is involved in social advocacy as the founder and co-chair of PFLAG’s Oak Ridge Chapter and as a member of the Oak Ridge-Anderson County NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge.
She is a volunteer for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of the Tennessee Heartland, advocating for abused and neglected children in Anderson County Juvenile Court. Though challenging, she believes this volunteer effort is her most rewarding and impactful work.
“Through my CASA volunteer work in Juvenile Court, I have seen the difference that resources and family support can make in a child’s life,” Backus said.
She refers to her job as a project manager at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, where she worked for 33 years, as an experience that taught her about listening to and working with people. “That gave me the skills to work with groups of diverse people to achieve a goal on time and under budget,” she related.
Backus will be on the 2024 ballot in the August 1 primary and in the November 5 general election. For more information, see her campaign website at https://backusfortn33.com/.
