David Hatley

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Manufacturers, fabricators, engineers, and trade workers — the people who make things in Tennessee rallied behind a state that makes more.

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Small business owners, shop operators, craftspeople, and entrepreneurs — the people who sign the front of the check and never stop building.

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We are hitting the roadComing to your part of TennesseeAnd sharing what we will do for Tennesseans

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Tennessee is roughly 120,000 starter homes short right now. The costs that kill a starter home are mostly fixed. Infrastructure requirements and permitting delays add up to 25% to the price of a new starter home — and they cost a developer about the same whether he builds 1,400 square feet or 4,000. So he builds 4,000. That’s not greed. That’s arithmetic.

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We will never sell or share your information.

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David Hatley would change the arithmetic two ways.

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Infrastructure grants with conditions. The state helps pay for the water, sewer, and road work a city would otherwise push onto the developer. In exchange, the community agrees to set aside 5 to 10% of every new development for homes priced at $250,000 or less, and to move inspections and approvals faster to avoid long, drawn-out, and expensive new developments. Cities get the infrastructure they need. Developers stop paying for it. Working families get houses they can actually buy.

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Roll back the code changes that priced people out. Tennessee has adopted pieces of the international energy and electrical codes that add real cost to every new home without making it meaningfully safer. Tennessee should decide how Tennessee builds, not politics from DC.

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David Hatley would create an independent, nonpartisan State Auditor — elected statewide, just like 24 other states, required to hold a CPA or equivalent credentials, with authority to conduct forensic and performance audits, subpoena records and testimony, and protect whistleblowers who come forward.

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The existing audit divisions and their funding move to the new office, rather than being duplicated. And the auditor gets audited too: outside peer review, published methodology, public tracking of whether agencies actually fix what gets found.

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David Hatley would rebuild the portal Tennessee already has — not a second website. Every legally disclosable contract, grant, amendment, and payment posted within 30 days, with the recipient, the agency, the funding source, and a plain-English description of what the money bought. Searchable, downloadable, linked to the underlying contract.

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Agencies certify their own numbers. An independent audit checks them. And it goes into law, so the next administration can’t quietly turn it off.

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— Ban Contractors’ Contributions to Politicians

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David Hatley would ban contributions from significant state contractors — the company, its owners, its senior officers, and the PACs they control — while they’re seeking or performing state work. And he’d end no-bid contracts outside documented emergencies, where speed is the point, but secrecy isn’t.

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David Hatley would pause new approvals until Tennessee writes real rules, and ends the giveaways: no PILOTs, no abatements. At least half the new tax revenue a data center generates would go directly to cutting property taxes for homeowners in the county hosting it.

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Tennessee has 62 data centers operating and 16 more proposed. Under current law, a company qualifies for a major sales-tax exemption by investing $100 million and creating 15 permanent jobs — roughly $6.7 million in capital per required job. It then buys electricity at a 1.5% tax rate and negotiates a county PILOT that can hold down its property taxes for twenty years.

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Flock cameras are getting abused far too often across our great state. David Hatley will be tough on fighting crime, and while Flock cameras are helping solve more crimes, the current system is flawed and invasive. Corrupt people are violating the privacy of our average citizens. In addition, people are frequently getting stopped by police when the system mistakenly identifies them as a criminal. This has to stop.

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David Hatley would make life without parole mandatory for an adult convicted of a second serious child sex offense committed after the first conviction became final. No parole. No sentence credits. No work release.

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The law would be written narrowly and carefully — a short list of the most serious offenses, proved on the record — so it holds up and applies the same in every county.

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Getting there means putting full-time reading coaches inside the hundred lowest-performing elementary schools and leaving them there. Requiring every elementary teacher to demonstrate competency in the science of reading before licensure. Replacing the retention debate with mandatory daily intervention for kids who aren’t reading by third grade. Doubling the Grow Your Own apprenticeship in rural districts.

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It’s still not enough. Healthcare will be short 15,000 workers by the mid-2030s. For every five skilled tradespeople retiring, only two are replacing them. And our TCATs have waitlists in exactly the programs employers need most — welding, mechatronics, practical nursing, industrial maintenance, HVAC.

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End the waitlists in those five programs. Pay TCAT instructors competitively, because you can’t scale a program you can’t staff. Cover credential exam fees for every high school student who earns one. Double registered apprenticeships in four years.

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David Hatley’s plan begins reentry 180 days before the gate opens, not after. Every eligible person leaves with identification in hand, medication and care lined up, a verified address, transportation, and an appointment already on the calendar — a job interview, an apprenticeship, a class, a treatment slot. Mental-health and addiction screening starts at the first contact with the system, not at intake. Drug, mental-health, and veterans courts expand to reach every judicial district, with treatment capacity funded alongside them.

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When people leave prison with no job and no purpose, they reoffend. David Hadley will cut recidivism in half by giving them a path to work and a reason to stay on the right track. When former offenders have jobs, crimes go down, and communities get safer.

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Tennessee’s violent crime rate runs about 65% above the national average. But the number that explains it is this one: only 39% of violent crimes here get solved — an eleven-point drop in a decade. Six out of every ten murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults end with nobody caught. The victim gets no justice. The offender stays on the street and does it again.

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David Hatley will be the toughest governor this state has seen on crime, because that is what it will take to get us back to safe. His plan puts the money where cases actually get solved: clearing the crime-lab backlog, hiring detectives and forensic scientists, expanding TBI’s violent-crime team, protecting witnesses, and giving rural sheriffs regional investigators and same-day state assistance. He will significantly increase the clearance rate of crimes, ensure priority evidence processed in 30 days, and results published every quarter.

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Deaths did fall 34, but we need to be honest about why: naloxone went over the counter, treatment expanded nationally, the supply shifted. Other states did the hard work. Tennessee caught the wave.

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Tennessee has already passed real restrictions on adversarial foreign ownership. David Hatley would close what’s left open. Buyers of farmland and land near military bases, water systems, and energy infrastructure would disclose the actual people and entities in control. The restrictions would cover long-term leases and options, not just deeds — because nationally, most foreign-held acreage acquired in a recent year came through leases rather than purchases. The Attorney General would get subpoena power and the authority to unwind illegal deals.

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And farmers get a real alternative to selling. Conservation easements, succession and estate planning help, and farm viability grants — voluntary, at three levels of commitment, so a family isn’t forced to choose between a permanent restriction and a developer’s offer.

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David Hatley would consolidate those rights into one law and give parents one place to use them.

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That means access to textbooks, course outlines, and instructional materials. Notification when a school employee suspects a crime has been committed against your child. Consent before graphic sexual content, and the right to remove your child from instruction you object to. Discipline for any employee who tells a child to keep something from their parents.

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I would create within the Attorney General’s office and advocate for parental rights. To assist the Attorney General and protect parental rights, I would establish a single portal with a tracking number, a seven-day response, and a 30-day answer in writing, so a disagreement gets resolved instead of turning into a lawsuit three years later.

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Rights on paper aren’t rights. Parents deserve a system that actually works.’

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Tennessee already requires parental consent before a minor opens a social media account. David Hatley would give that law teeth and give parents real control.

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David Hatley believes we must get ER care close to all Tennesseans, because the difference in driving hours or minutes is lives lost. We must look at areas where we have already done this successfully in Tennessee and expand on that, and stop the closing of our rural hospitals.

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Healthcare should be about keeping people healthy, not profiting off them getting sick. David Hatley will expand prevention, improve rural access, and invest in mental health and addiction recovery.

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This one is personal, and I’ll say why plainly. I’m pro-life. That comes from my own family — from watching a very small baby fight to live in his first weeks, and from the years my wife and I spent on a waiting list hoping to adopt. That wait taught me something I still believe: there is a home out there for every child.

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Start with the basics: without a secure border, you don’t really have a country. Living here is a privilege, not a free-for-all. Veterans died protecting this country, and we owe them borders that mean something and laws that get enforced.

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My focus is safety. If someone is here illegally and commits violent crimes, they shouldn’t be in our communities, and the state should be working to see they aren’t.

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— Protecting Women’s Sports

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I believe in protecting the integrity of the game and the privacy of the athletes who play it. Women’s spaces should be for women — and that includes locker rooms and teams.

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Tennessee law should reflect that, so women and girls keep a level playing field, safe locker rooms, and the dignity of competing in the sports built for them.