A Democratic legislator reprimanded for participating in gun violence protests on the Tennessee House floor earlier this year announced a run for U.S. Senate on Tuesday. 

What You Need To Know

  • Democratic Tennessee legislator Gloria Johnson announced she is running for U.S. Senate Tuesday

  • Johnson is one of the so-called Tennessee Three legislators who were reprimanded for using a bullhorn on the House floor earlier this year to protest inaction on gun violence legislation

  • Johnson was a teacher at a Knoxville high school when a student shot and killed a classmate in 2008

  • If she wins the Democratic primary next March, Johnson would face off against Republican Masha Blackburn for the Senate seat in November 2024

If she wins the primary vote next March, Gloria Johnson could face off against Republican incumbent Marsha Blackburn for the Senate seat in November 2024.

“We’ve got to do better, we can do better, and Tennesseans deserve better,” Johnson said to a cheering crowd in front of Central High School in Knoxville, where she had been a teacher when a student fatally killed a classmate in 2008.

On Tuesday, the 61-year-old recalled sitting in her classroom preparing for the school day when she heard screaming and looked out her window to see kids running down the hill, having just seen one of their classmates take his last breath, she said.

“I can’t tell you the trauma that came from that day for the students, for the parents, for the staff and the teachers," she said. "It was just unbelievable, and the fact that we are still seeing that today and nothing has been done, we have got to do better. We have got to do something, and, well, this is the something I decided to do.”

Johnson and two other representatives in the Tennessee Legislature came to national attention earlier this year when they used bullhorns on the House floor to protest inaction on gun violence legislation after a mass shooter killed three elementary schoolers and three adults at a private Christian school in Nasvhille.

While Johnson, who is white, narrowly survived a Republican-led expulsion vote in April for speaking without being formally recognized, fellow Democratic legislators Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, who are Black, were ousted. Pearson and Jones were both reelected in August.

Johnson was first elected to the Tennessee House in 2012. She decided to run after being “fed up with elected officials attacking the rights of public school students and teachers,” she said on her website.

She lost a reelection bid in 2014 but won back the seat in 2018 and has been reelected every two years since.

“We need to make sure that every family has access to affordable health care, every kid has a great school in every district,” Johnson said Tuesday. “It shouldn’t matter where you live. Everyone should have a great school. We need to raise wages so people earn a living wage, and we need to increase our union involvement because that’s what built the middle class.”

The last time a Democrat represented Tennessee in the U.S. Senate was Al Gore before he resigned to become vice president in 1993. Blackburn has represented Tennessee in the Senate since 2018.

“It’s no surprise that radical socialist Gloria Johnson decided to jump into the race at the urging of liberals in Washington,” Blackburn said in a statement reacting to Johnson’s announcement. “State Rep. Johnson is as woke as they come, and she would be a puppet for Joe Biden ... pushing that divisive, destructive agenda here in Tennessee.”