Cheri Siler wants to change the status quo.
Siler is a Knox County educator, a mother of six and the Democratic candidate for Tennessee state Senate. The native Knoxvillian graduated from UT with a bachelors degree in Business Administration in 1991 and a masters in Mathematics Education in 2004.
After months of dissatisfaction with the current representative for District 7, Stacey Campfield, Siler decided to run for office. Siler said she disagreed in particular with Campfield’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill and his proposed legislation to reduce welfare assistance for needy families if their children did not perform well in school.
When she emailed Campfield, asking him to reconsider his stance, Campfield told her to “let him handle it,” Siler said.
“That really lit a fire inside me,” Siler said. “The more people I talked to about it and how angry I was about it and the dismissive-ness of our elected official, just really made me start thinking about what could be done about it.”
What could be done about it, Siler said, was for her to put her name in the running for the next election. Last December, after conferring with her husband, kids and close friends, she made the decision.
“I was motivated by hearing myself complain about the current status of things and not seeing anything on the horizon that was going to lead to change,” Siler said. “And complaining only gets you so far.”
In order to get started on the campaign trail, Siler reached out to State Representative Gloria Johnson, who used to teach with Siler at Central High School. Johnson helped her get in touch with the Knox County Democratic Party, where she found guidance in building a website and starting her campaign. In August she was uncontested in the Democratic Primary.
If elected, Siler said her highest priority will be making sure that the voters in the 7th District are listened to.
“That’s what got me into this, not feeling heard by an elected representative,” Siler said.
Coming from a teaching background, Siler puts education very high on her list of priorities, calling it the “backbone of economic development in our area.”
Siler said she thinks Governor Bill Haslam made a “grave error” in not expanding Medicaid and aims to advocate for affordable healthcare rights for the average Tennessee citizen.
“Working people deserve to not have to make the decision of whether to take their child to the doctor or pay their rent,” Siler said. “Expanding Medicaid would push a lot of money into our economy, expand jobs and help people have a better quality of life.”
The higher the quality of life, Siler said, the more attractive Tennessee will be to business looking to locate here. Siler hopes to encourage the legislature to raise the minimum wage over time to $10.10 per hour. Tennessee does not currently have a state-specific minimum wage and defaults to the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
As a female running for office in a state where men vastly outnumber women in the legislature, and a Democrat in a Republican majority, Siler said she offers a different perspective.
“The bottom line is that I stepped into this to make a change for Knoxville and to do something different and whether it’s Campfield or Briggs, the policy decisions will be much the same,” Siler said. “And so I’m still the choice for something different and I think it’s clear from the results of the primary that Knoxville’s ready for a change.”
