Why I Am Suspending My Campaign

Running for public office has been one of the truly great experiences of my life.  It has been an absolute pleasure to run as a Democratic Party candidate in Hamilton County.

However, I am announcing that effective today, I am suspending my campaign for the Tennessee House of Representatives, District 26.

I want to thank the many people who have supported, contributed to and volunteered for my campaign.  I wis h to acknowledge two very special people within the Hamilton County Democratic Party - Paul Smith (HCDP Chair) and Stephen Harper (HCDP Treasurer) as they were the first to encourage my candidacy.  And, I am especially proud of those Democratic candidates who appeared on the ballot with me.  It is a great group.  I urge all who supported me to turn their attention to electing our candidates for House (JoAnne Favors, Sandy Norton Smith, and Frank Eaton), and Andrae McGary (TN Senate District 10), and, of course, Dr. Mary Headrick as our next Congressional Representative in District 3.

I have been offered the opportunity to lead the National Institute of Staff and OrganizationalDevelopment (NISOD), an outreach arm of the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin focusing upon community and technical colleges.  Since 1978, NISOD has been dedicated to the professional development of faculty, administrators, and staff, and to the continued improvement of teaching and learning, with the ultimate goal of student success.  More than 500 community colleges around the world are NISOD-members, including almost every large community college district, the majority of urban and technical colleges in the United States and Canada, and more than 200 small, rural colleges around the world.  NISOD’s annual International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence, held each May in Austin, Texas, has been the largest conference targeting community colleges for the last six years.

 
I will accept the offer and plan to begin as NISOD Director on September 1.  

Please follow me on Facebook and Twitter - I want to stay connected to my friends in Hamilton County.

Don't Look for My Yard Signs

I recognize that my candidacy for the Tennessee House of Representatives District 26 is an uphill fight.  The Republicans have already declared this District to be “safely Republican.”  My opponent has a huge amount of money to fund his campaign (largely from various Political Action Committees and special interest groups).  In addition, at this point I am not well known among the voters of the newly configured 26^th District.

I have been asked many times on the campaign trail, “Where are the yard signs for Miller?”  My answer is that there are NO signs.  I will do what I can with the resources I have, but I will not be using yard signs.  Against the advice of several experienced political activists, I am running my campaign without the use of the ubiquitous yard signs that have littered the landscape for the past several weeks.  That is correct – NO YARD SIGNS! 

Here is why I will not be using yard signs.  First and foremost, the thousands of political signs are visual pollution and, in fact, often a safety hazard.  

I have scoured the research literature on political campaigns and have not found any definitive studies that demonstrate that there is a causal relationship between election success and the use of yard signs.  In an article in Politics Revealed by Katie Garland titled, “Political Yard Signs, Do They Really Work?,” the author concludes, “The fact is that there are more effective ways to persuade and convince voters that a candidate is right for the job.”

The two traditional strategies that I will focus upon are: 

• Knocking on doors – I am convinced that talking with people face-to-face is a more effective way to persuade voters.   
•  Register voters – The most important factor in any election is registering voters to increase the possible number of people who could vote for a candidate.  Then they need to get out and vote.

Also I will build upon my use of social media to present my candidacy to the voters.  I know the power of tools such as Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, Twitter and more.  The use of these Web applications was a big part of why Barack Obama was elected President.  A Pew Research Center study shows ten percent of users ages 18 and up used social networking to get politically engaged  That figure jumps to 37 percent among voters ages 18 to 29.

A story in Connect Amarillo describes how one voter looks at campaigns.   "Facebook gives you more information and guys like myself don't have a lot of time to watch the news and gather information from the news," 26-Year-Old Neil Bates said.  "So, I get on Facebook and I look at the person's bio and watch all of his campaign commercials."

Soon, I will launch a series of videos that will stake out my positions on issues that are very important to the 26^th District.  I am also pleased to announce that my opponent and I have agreed in principle do have a least one campaign debate.  I will be walking neighborhoods and talking to people from Lakesite to Downtown Chattanooga and from Middle Valley to Snow Hill. 

But, if you want to know about the Lawrence G. Miller who seeks to be the next Representative to the Tennessee General Assembly, House District 26, then check out my campaign Website, Blog, campaign Facebook and personal Facebook pages, and follow me on Twitter. I promise you that I will reveal much more about my qualifications and views than you will see in a typical political campaign, including my opponent's.

However, you will not see yard signs for Lawrence G. Miller.

My Meet & Greet in Hixson

About 35 people came by for my campaign Meet & Greet at the North River Civic Center in Hixson.  Thanks to all who came out.  Special thanks to those who helped me with the event:  Gary Fisher, Henry Spratt, Laura Howard, Janis Hashe, and (of course) my wife Mary and son Michael.

Personally, I think the bar was raised in terms of the food we had at this Meet & Greet!  All the food was freshly prepared by the candidate (with some much appreciated assistance from the family).  The menu included:  pork tamales, veggie tamales, cheese enchiladas, puerco pabil enchiladas, frijoles refritos, black bean and corn salsa and tomato/cilantro salsa.  

The Mexican food represented a connection to my Hispanic heritage.  Yes, I am Hispanic - my grandfather was born and raised in Chihuahua, Mexico. During my remarks, I reference the story of my grandfather, Anton Baca Subia.  He and his cousin made their way to Detroit, Michigan, where Tony worked for years in the automobile industry.  His story is the great story of so many immigrants who came to America to better themselves and to provide for their families.

I also took the opportunity to talk about some of the specific ideas that I want to bring to Nashville as the District 26 Representative.  Economic development in the 21st century must be addressed differently.  We are living in a highly competitive world economy.  Our education systems need to be revised to emphasize innovation and critical thinking.  We should seriously consider restructuring the Tennessee HOPE (lottery) scholarship program to include adults who need further education and training.  I suggest that we direct the resources of this huge amount of money specifically to Tennessee community colleges and Technology Centers.  That is how we would get the most bang for the buck.

I also addressed three elements of economic development that need the attention of the legislature. 

• We should do much more to encourage entrepreneurship and grow small businesses
• Public transportation should be expanded - too many people cannot get to where the jobs are
• We have totally underestimated the economic impact of the arts and cultural activities.

More about these issues in future Blog posts.  Again, thanks to all who came!

Voter ID Laws Diminish Ability to Participate in Democracy

Corporations, 1 per-centers and Republicans are working to ensure you don’t vote because they honestly believe you don’t count . . . Country club conservatives are converting voting from a universal right of citizenship to a privilege exclusive to select society members. - Leo Gerard, AlterNet

Since 2010, there has been a spate of new laws and changes to existing laws perpetrated in the guise of eliminating “voter fraud.”  The fraud, however, is that these laws are actually another element of a concerted plan to disenfranchise and discourage voters.  

New voter ID laws were passed in Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.  Oklahoma voters approved a voter ID proposal placed on the ballot by the Legislature.  Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas tightened existing voter ID laws to require photo IDs.  In addition, new laws in Texas and South Carolina are on hold pending Department of Justice preclearance.

A survey by the Brennan Center at New York University showed that many Americans, primarily women, do not have proof of citizenship under their current name and certain groups, primarily the poor, elderly and minorities are less likely to possess the documents the new voter ID laws require.  “We found the ability to get documents isn’t that simple. The documents are costly for many, many voters and there are serious transportation barriers for many voters. We just found really significant problems,” stated Keesha Gaskins, co-author of the report.

Recently, Rep. Steve Cohen (Tenn.) introduced the Voter ID Accessibility Act, which would require any state with a photo ID mandate to notify voters and offer them a free ID. “We haven’t seen much indication of voting fraud, but we have seen a lot of fraud in the mortgage business and the financial business,” Cohen said. “You wonder why they’re doing this.”

If elected to represent the 26^th House District, I would make every effort to introduce legislation similar to Congressman Cohen’s as a stop-gap measure to lessen the terrible impact of Tennessee’s Voter ID Law.  Ultimately, we should be expanding the number of people who participate in democracy through voting, not cutting people out from this process.

The National Conference of State legislatures has an excellent resource on Voter Identification Requirements

Miller Now Listed on Ballotpedia

Ballotpedia is a great concept.  Similar is style and operation to Wikipedia, Ballotpedia is a collaborative project that concentrates on elections and candidates.  I consider it to be a very reliable source of information and use it often when looking at issues and key players in the political world.  There are well over 200,000 articles available on Ballotpedia.


Further details on Ballotpedia are available HERE

You can see my article on Ballotpedia HERE

Early Voting Begins in Hamilton County

Every one should consider Early Voting.  There are four locations in Hamilton County and anyone can vote in any of these locations.  

With all of the changes that have been made to the election process, Early Voting will give you a chance to make sure that all of your registration information is accurate.  If you have a problem while Early Voting  you should immediately contact the Hamilton County Election Commission to get any issue resolved.  

Hamilton County Election Commission
700 River Terminal Road
Chattanooga, TN 37406
(423) 493-5100

Email: Vote@HamiltonTN.gov

The Commission regular hours are Monday through Friday 8:00 AM. to 4:00 PM


If you need any further assistance with a concern about your voter registration, contact the Hamilton County Democratic Party at (423) 266-4125.



To view the Democratic Party Sample Ballot, CLICK HERE

Ross's Landing Lauded by City Parks Alliance

Ross's Landing is part of the newly configured TN House District 26.  Although there are some issue that need to be fixed, the development of the waterfront in the downtown Chattanooga is truly something that we can all be proud of.  


 
Like so many great things in 21st Century Chattanooga, the projects that changed downtown, starting with the Tennessee Aquarium, were accomplished by multiple segments of the community who came together to get things done.

This Nooga.com story highlights the selection of Ross's Landing as a “Frontline Park,” a designation from the national urban park advocacy group City Parks Alliance.  According to Catherine Nagel, executive director of City Parks Alliance, Ross's Landing was selected for recognition because it exemplifies "the power of partnership to create and maintain urban parks that build community and make our cities sustainable and vibrant.” 


 
Larry Zehnder, administrator for Chattanooga Parks and Recreation Department, said Chattanooga's investments in parks and other public spaces are a large part of the reason it has been named a “most livable city” multiple times in the past decade."

I strongly support such investment in our community. and the continuation of the power of partnership to get important things accomplished.