Richard Briggs never planned on getting involved in politics.
As a practicing heart surgeon in Knoxville in 2007, Briggs, currently the republican candidate for the state senate seat in District 7, said he decided to run for a position in the Knox County Commission Office after growing tired of the “dishonest and corrupt government” that was crowding Tennessee’s legislature.
An active participant of Leadership Knoxville at the time, a comprehensive, servant-leadership program, Briggs said the members decided it was time for Knoxville community members with no interest in politics to step up and take a place in office.
“I went over that day and got a petition (to run),” he said.
He was elected into office to represent District 5 in Knox County in 2008 and was re-elected for a six year term in 2010.
His decision to run for a position in the state senate, Briggs said, came after growing tired of Knoxville’s representation in Nashville, finding republican state senator Stacey Campfield to be “very embarrassing.”
Briggs said his mission to improve the senator’s position shouldn’t be too difficult.
“Let me tell you what I won’t do,” Briggs said. “I won’t be an embarrassment to the county. You won’t see me getting arrested for wearing a mask. You won’t see me on TV getting arrested for harassing the governor … that’s just not what I do.”
Briggs’ professional life includes his successful medical practice and service as U.S. army colonel. His military career includes commanding combat hospitals in Afghanistan and Baghdad and working as a combat surgeon during Desert Storm. After moving to Knoxville in 2000, where Briggs started as a single individual with a solo medical practice, he eventually merged with other Knoxville surgeons and became one of the only medical doctors in Knoxville and Oak Ridge performing heart surgeries.
Briggs noted that his life beyond the political circuit makes him a candidate not constrained by outside influence.
“I’m not a career politician,” he said. “I don’t need the job … When you’re not obligated to anyone, you have this tremendous freedom to do what you think is right.”
Briggs has built his political platform on one key belief: that the most important thing in a person’s life is a well-paying job with benefits so they and their family can have a good, middle-class American life.
The first building block of this fundamental belief, Briggs said, is education, noting his support for Governor Bill Haslam’s Tennessee Promise program and it’s overarching goal to promote a greater workforce in Tennessee.
This greater workforce will then make Tennessee more attractive to big businesses and young college graduates hoping to start their own businesses. Briggs called this kind of atmosphere a “business environment.”
Ultimately, Briggs said he feels confident about his campaign after having knocked on the doors of 50,000 Knoxville residents and getting to know personally who he is representing and their individual concerns.
“Don’t listen to what other people say, don’t listen to what I say,” Briggs said. “Look at my record. Look at what I’ve done for the last 30 to 40 years trying to take care of the poor, what I’ve said about health care and jobs and balancing the budget … Everybody that can vote in my district, they know me. And, I think they know where I stand.”
