Get the Facts on Mark White
• Even though Tennessee is ranked 46th in student funding, White voted this year to cut $70 million from public schools and eliminate pay raises for teachers.
• Mark White supports every scheme that takes your tax dollars from public schools and gives them away to for-profit online schools, well-connected charter operators and private schools.
• In June, Mark White voted for a law that would force your wife or daughter to carry a rapist’s child. White’s extremist law criminalized all abortions in Tennessee—even in cases of rape and incest.
• Mark White is one of the radical politicians supporting Tennessee’s lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which would end health coverage protections for 1 million Tennesseans with pre-existing conditions
• In March, as the pandemic hit Tennessee, Mark White blocked funding for nursing homes to protect vulnerable residents from the coronavirus and now more than 500 elderly Tennesseans are dead.
• Mark White has voted for more than $1 BILLION worth of tax breaks for millionaires, big corporations and Wall Street investors, which has shifted Tennessee’s tax burden onto working families
• Endorsed by a corporate special interest group that opposes any increase to the $7.25 minimum wage, paid family leave policies and Medicaid expansion
Mark White underfunds our public schools and disrespects teachers.
Under Mark White, the state legislature is under-investing in our public schools. In 2020, Tennessee ranked 46th in the nation for student funding and second to last in the Southeast. In fact, our public school teachers earn less today than they did a decade ago after adjusting for inflation.
That’s why it was so astonishing in June, when Mark White voted for a budget that cut $70 million from education and eliminated teacher pay raises.
At the same time Mark White is underfunding schools, he’s also passing laws that divert tax dollars away from our public classrooms. Supported by well-connected special interest groups, White has voted for multiple schemes that defund our schools, including Gov. Bill Lee’s unconstitutional private school voucher law.
Mark White would force your daughter to carry her rapist’s child.
This summer, Mark White voted for one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country. Under the Mark White-Gov. Bill Lee law, all abortions in the state of Tennessee are banned — even in cases of rape and incest. (SB 2196, 2020)
White’s extreme beliefs on abortion are completely out of touch with Tennesseans, who believe a woman and her family should decide what healthcare is best for their family — not politicians.
But White’s radical views are nothing new. In 2019, White voted for a similar law to ban all abortions if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. (SB 1257, 2019)
White is jeopardizing health coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and Tennessee’s healthcare economy.
White supports the state’s extreme lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act. Mark White is supporting the state’s lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act. If White is successful, more than 1 million Tennesseans with pre-existing conditions could lose their health coverage.
In addition to endangering health coverage for millions of Tennesseans — like cancer survivors and people living with diabetes, White’s lawsuit could also eliminate patient protections that prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against people with chronic illnesses and return us to the days of patients being denied treatments because of cost.
White opposed funding to protect seniors from COVID-19 and blocked healthcare funding for low-income mothers. Seeing the deadly impact of COVID-19 was having in nursing homes, some lawmakers proposed funding to help long-term care facilities protect vulnerable senior citizens from the virus. Not Mark White. He voted to block the health funding and COVID-19 has devastated nursing homes across the state.
White also voted against funding for a new health program that would provide insurance to every new mother for a year if no other insurance was available. The program was seeking to turn around Tennessee’s horrendous maternal mortality rate, but the funding measure failed.
White has voted against Medicaid expansion multiple times. Even though hospitals are closing throughout the state and 10 percent of Tennesseans don’t have health insurance, Mark White is still blocking Medicaid expansion.
If adopted, Medicaid expansion would inject $1.4 billion a year into Tennessee’s healthcare economy and provide health insurance to 300,000 Tennesseans who are not offered health coverage through work.
White voted to create junk insurance that doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions. Instead of strengthening health insurance options for Tennessee families, Mark White voted this year to create a new breed of health insurance — a policy that can discriminate against customers and doesn’t have to cover treatments for pre-existing conditions. (SB 645, 2020)
White is endangering struggling hospitals. Tennessee leads the nation in hospital closures per capital, but instead of strengthening our hospitals, Mark White is undermining our entire healthcare industry.
In addition to blocking Medicaid expansion, Mark White voted for rule changes that healthcare experts say will cause more suburban and rural closures. (HB 2350, 2020) And once these hospitals close, communities suffer with economic development and business retention.