Chris Anderson | |
---|---|
Member of the Chattanooga City Council District 7 | |
In office April 15, 2013 –April 11, 2017 | |
Preceded by | Manny Rico |
Succeeded by | Erskine Oglesby,Jr. |
Personal details | |
Political party | Democratic Party |
Chris Anderson is an American politician and Democratic Party political activist. He was a member of the Chattanooga,Tennessee City Council for District 7,but was defeated in a run-off election on April 11,2017. [1] He was the first openly LGBT individual to be elected to Chattanooga's City Council. [2] He also serves as a member of the Tennessee Democratic Party State Executive Committee. [3]
Anderson started his political career as a Democratic Party activist. He was elected in 2003 as the President of the Tennessee Young Democrats which also gave him a seat on the Tennessee Democratic Party State Executive Committee. [4] He was later elected in 2007 as the Executive Vice President of the Young Democrats of America nationally when that organization would be led for the first time by an openly gay President and Executive Vice President. [5] [6] He was elected to the Chattanooga City Council in 2013. [7]
Anderson proposed an equal domestic partnership benefits ordinance which the city council passed on November 12,2013,in a 5–4 vote in favor of allowing domestic partnership benefits for same-sex couples in the city of Chattanooga. [8] On November 19,2013,the city council in a final vote,voted 5–3 in favor of allowing domestic partnership benefits. [9] Before the domestic partnership ordinance went into effect, [10] the Citizens for Government Accountability and Transparency,a local segment of the Tea Party,gathered enough signatures to put repeal of the ordinance to a popular vote in August 2014. [11] [12] The city council did not repeal the ordinance on its own,allowing the vote to proceed on August 7,the general election date for Hamilton County. [13]
On August 7,2014,the voters of Chattanooga repealed Ordinance 12781 by a vote of 62.58% in favor and 37.42% against. [14]
Anderson was the subject of a controversial 2014 recall effort which failed. [15] Anderson filed a lawsuit to stop the recall accusing his opponents of bigotry because he felt the recall effort was part of a political backlash to his Domestic Partnership Ordinance. [16]
Chattanooga is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County,Tennessee,United States. It is located along the Tennessee River,and borders Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020,it is Tennessee's fourth-most populous city and one of the two principal cities of East Tennessee,along with Knoxville. It anchors the Chattanooga metropolitan area,Tennessee's fourth-largest metropolitan statistical area,as well as a larger three-state area that includes Southeast Tennessee,Northwest Georgia,and Northeast Alabama.
Ronald C. Littlefield is an American politician and the former mayor of Chattanooga,Tennessee. He was elected via a run-off election in 2005 after a long term as a city councilman. He was reelected in 2009. He is the former executive director of Chattanooga Venture.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Chattanooga,Tennessee,and is distributed in the metropolitan Chattanooga region of southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia. It is one of Tennessee's major newspapers and is owned by WEHCO Media,Inc.,a diversified communications company with ownership in 14 daily newspapers,11 weekly newspapers and 13 cable television companies in six states.
Robert Phillips Corker Jr. is an American businessman and politician who served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 2007 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party,he served as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2015 to 2019.
The Veterans Memorial Bridge is a steel girder bridge in Chattanooga,Tennessee. It was built in 1984 and has a main span of 420 feet (130 m). It carries Georgia Avenue across the Tennessee River,and Audubon Island,an island in the river on which McClellan Animal Sanctuary is located. It is one of four bridges that cross the Tennessee River at downtown Chattanooga.
Andrew Lawrence Berke is an American attorney and politician from Tennessee. He served as the mayor of Chattanooga from 2013 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party,he represented Hamilton and Marion counties in the 10th district as a state senator from 2007 to 2012. On March 5,2013,he became Chattanooga's mayor-elect,winning more than 72% of the vote,and he was inaugurated on April 15,2013. Berke was re-elected on March 7,2017,and served until April 19,2021,when he was succeeded by Tim Kelly. On October 6,2022,President Joe Biden appointed Berke to serve as administrator of the Rural Utilities Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The Volkswagen Chattanooga Assembly Plant is an American automobile assembly plant in Chattanooga,Tennessee. The plant was formally announced in July 2008 and was formally inaugurated in May 2011.
EPB of Chattanooga,formerly known as the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga,is an American electric power distribution and telecommunication company owned by the city of Chattanooga,Tennessee. EPB serves nearly 180,000 homes and businesses in a 600-square mile area in the greater Chattanooga area and Hamilton County. In 2010,EPB was the first company in the United States to offer 1 Gbit/s high-speed internet over a fiber optic network,over 200 times faster than the national average. As a result,Chattanooga has been called "Gig City" and held up as a national model for deploying the world's fastest internet and the most advanced Smart Grid electric distribution system in the United States. On October 15,2015,Chattanooga implemented the world's first community-wide 10-gig Internet service.
Thomas Eric Watson is an American politician and police officer from Cleveland,Tennessee. From 2006 to 2014,he was a Republican member of the Tennessee House of Representatives for the 22nd district,encompassing Cleveland,Meigs County,Polk County,and parts of Bradley County. Watson served one term as sheriff of Bradley County from September 2014 to September 2018.
Get After It Media LLC,formerly known as Luken Communications and Reach High Media Group,is a privately owned American broadcast holding company,based in Chattanooga,Tennessee,which owns or operates around 80 television stations in the United States and six digital television multicast networks.
The 2014 United States Senate election in Tennessee took place on November 4,2014,to elect a member of the United States Senate from the State of Tennessee. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander defeated Democrat Gordon Ball,and was re-elected to a third term in office with 61.9% of the vote against 31.9%.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Tennessee since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26,2015. Governor Bill Haslam quickly announced that the state would abide by the court's decision,and same-sex couples began to marry in Tennessee. Previously,Tennessee had banned same-sex marriage both by statute and its State Constitution.
The Chattanooga Whiskey Company is a producer of bourbon whiskey and "Tennessee High Malt" bourbon whiskey,located in Chattanooga,Tennessee. The company was founded by Tim Piersant and Joe Ledbetter. The brand was launched in April 2012,and the company simultaneously announced its intention to help change local distilling laws. The launch met with some initial criticism,primarily due to where the product was made,but Hamilton County laws prohibited the manufacture of "intoxicating liquors" at the time. Local public awareness eventually became a catalyst in galvanizing support to change Prohibition-era distilling laws. In March 2015,the company opened the first legal distillery in Chattanooga since Prohibition. The first experimental whiskey,"Batch 001:Tennessee High Malt",was released in August 2017.
Kim H. White was president and CEO of River City Company in Chattanooga,Tennessee. River City Company is a non-profit organization created in 1986 to aid in the redevelopment and revitalization of downtown Chattanooga. White has been with River City since 2009. Before that,she was president and CEO of the Corker Group and of Luken Holdings. White is a graduate of Hixson High School and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Senator Corker praises White's work as head of River City.
On February 9,1893,Alfred Blount,an African American and a Chattanooga native,was taken from his jail cell in the county jail and brutally beaten,stabbed,and hanged from the Walnut Street Bridge in Chattanooga,Tennessee. Blount was charged with assault of a woman by the name of Mrs. M. A. Moore. Moore,51 and widowed,claimed she was cleaning her house when a man entered through her back door requesting food. Moore,assuming it was a neighbor of hers,invited the man in and called out to her African-American house boy Sam to bring the man some food. Upon realizing Sam's absence,Moore herself went into the kitchen to prepare food before reporting being grabbed by the arm and attacked by the man. After hitting the man with her hand,Moore fainted and laid unconscious in her house before recalling the incident to her neighbor,Mrs. DeRochement.
Rick McKenney is an American businessman. He is currently known as the CEO of the insurance company Unum. Previously the Unum chief financial officer since 2009,in April 2015 he became CEO and president. Before Unum,he was CFO for Sun Life Financial and Genworth Financial. In 2016,he was on the Wall Street Journal CEO Council.
Dan Howell is an American politician from Cleveland,Tennessee. Since 2013,he has served as a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives for the 22nd district. He is a member of the Republican Party.
The murder of George Floyd on May 25,2020,triggered a wave of protests throughout Tennessee in late May and early June 2020. These protests continued throughout the year.
The 2022 Hamilton County mayoral election was held on August 4,2022,to determine the next mayor of Hamilton County,Tennessee. Republican nominee Weston Wamp,son of former U.S. Representative Zach Wamp,won with 57.9% of the vote,defeating Democratic nominee Matt Adams.
Mayoral elections in Chattanooga are held every four years to elect the mayor of Chattanooga,Tennessee.