Author

J. Holly McCall

J. Holly McCall

Holly McCall has been a fixture in Tennessee media and politics for decades. She covered city hall for papers in Columbus, Ohio and Joplin, Missouri before returning to Tennessee with the Nashville Business Journal. Holly brings a deep wealth of knowledge about Tennessee’s political processes and players and likes nothing better than getting into the weeds of how political deals are made.

Nashville mayoral candidates Jeff Yarbro, Freddie O'Connell and Matt Wiltshire backstage before a June 15 forum at Nashville Children's Theatre. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Poll shows just over one week from Nashville mayoral race, O’Connell leads pack

By: - July 24, 2023

The first poll in the Nashville mayor’s race since businessman Jim Gingrich suspended his campaign on July 17 shows Metro Councilmember Freddie O’Connell leading the field. The poll was conducted by Washington-based GBAO Strategies on behalf of the Tennessee Laborers PAC July 17-19 and surveyed 500 local voters. GBAO has conducted polls for the Laborers […]

COMMENTARY
A metaphor for women in politics: Sure, Fred Astaire was good, but Ginger Rogers did everything he did, backwards and in high heels.(Photo by RKO Radio Pictures/Getty Images)

Dancing backwards in high heels

By: - July 21, 2023

In his 1978 book “The World According to Garp,” John Irving wrote, “In this dirty-minded world you are either somebody’s wife or somebody’s whore, or fast on your way to becoming one or the other.”  While I don’t agree with Irving, there’s some applicability in how politics treats women who run for office or serve […]

Nashville mayoral candidates, from left: Metro Councilmembers Freddie O'Connell and Sharon Hurt, Jim Gingrich, and Sen. Heidi Campbell. (Photo: John Partipilo)

O’Connell mayoral campaign snaps up former team of Jim Gingrich in Nashville

By: - July 21, 2023

The campaign team of former Nashville mayoral candidate Jim Gingrich, who suspended his campaign on Monday, will join the staff of Metro Councilmember Freddie O’Connell. Sources in both campaigns say the Gingrich staff took an internal vote on which candidate to move to, after almost a week of wooing by other candidates. “We are incredibly […]

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaking at the Tennessee Republican Party Statesmen's Dinner on July 15, 2023 in Nashville. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Gov. Ron DeSantis woos Tennessee Republicans at state party dinner

By: - July 17, 2023

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, wooed more than 1,850 Tennessee Republicans at the state party’s annual fundraising dinner in Nashville, an event at which the specter of former President Donald Trump loomed. State Republican officials said the event was one of, if not the largest events of its […]

The need for healthcare workers is not expected to lag, analysts say. Shown here is a nurse in the emergency room at MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown, Maryland. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

As COVID-19 emergency orders end, more than 31,000 lose TennCare coverage

By: - July 10, 2023

More than 31,000 Tennesseans have lost health care coverage as the state’s safety net insurance program winds down from the COVID public health emergency. An “unwinding report” obtained by the Tennessee Lookout documents that, as of April, slightly more than 80,000 people were eligible to have TennCare coverage renewed. Of those, more than 21,500 failed […]

The Tennessee Capitol (Photo: John Partipilo)

Former Democratic Tennessee lawmaker Roy Herron dies after jetski accident

By: - July 9, 2023

Roy Brasfield Herron, former state lawmaker and former chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party, died in Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center on Sunday, one week after sustaining injuries in a jetski accident on Kentucky Lake. He was 69.  “Roy loved his family with all his might,” said the Rev. Nancy Carol Miller-Herron, Roy’s spouse of 36 […]

Clipboards prepared for canvassing featuring materials about Nashville Justice League-endorsed candidates during the 2019 election. (Photo: Nashville Justice League)

Nashville Justice League launches to help progressive city council candidates

By: - July 6, 2023

The Nashville Justice League, a political action committee comprised of  progressive organizations, is relaunching in time to support candidates in the Aug. 3 Metro Nashville municipal elections. Founded in 2019 by the Central Labor Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee, TIRRC Votes and The Equity Alliance, the organization executed grassroots campaigns on behalf of 15 […]

COMMENTARY
A mob rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to overturn election results. (Photo: Alex Kent)

What you do matters.

By: - July 3, 2023

After spending a few days in Washington, D.C., recently for an editors conference, I found myself with a few hours before my plane back to Nashville and decided to go to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  The museum opened in early 1993; three decades later, it was still packed, and that’s a good thing. […]

"Trans people are divine," reads a sign at a Nashville event hosted by clergy on Feb. 6, 2023. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Federal court temporarily halts Tennessee ban on transgender care for minors

By: - June 29, 2023

In a partial victory for transgender Tennesseans, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday on portions of new law prohibiting trans minors from obtaining gender affirming care, ruling the law likely violates the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Judge Eli Richardson granted the injunction to the plaintiffs — among them, parents […]

Cade Cothren, ex-chief of staff to former House Speaker Glen Casada, ducks into a car Tuesday after being arraigned on a host of federal charges. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Federal prosecutors will not oppose request for subpoena of texts, phone records in Cothren, Casada case

By: - June 15, 2023

Prosecutors will not oppose a request by attorneys for Cade Cothren, former chief of staff to former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada, to subpoena records between Cothren and a potential witness in the upcoming trial of Casada and Cothren on federal bribery, theft and kickback charges. The response by prosecutors, filed in federal court on […]

Damon Curry Morris, second from left, Racheal Spriggs, third from left, and Tikeila Rucker, fourth from right, at a June 9 press conference in Memphis to address their banning from school property after speaking at a school board meeting. (Photo: Theryn Bond)

Shelby County Schools sued after banning “School Board Five” from meetings

By: - June 13, 2023

Five Memphis education advocates have filed suit against the Shelby County Board of Education and the district’s chief safety and security officer, alleging their First and 14th Amendment rights have been violated after they were banned from attending school board meetings.  Tikeila Rucker, Rachael Spriggs, Damon Curry-Morris, Amber Sherman and Lajuana Abraham — also know […]

COMMENTARY
(Photo: Getty Images)

What’s in a name? Translating Tennessee’s laws

By: - June 12, 2023

Tennessee lawmakers like to give fancy names to laws that don’t remotely represent what the titles suggest.  For instance, Gov. Bill Lee on June 5 ceremoniously signed the Transportation Modernization Act at a table by the side of Donelson Pike in Nashville, surrounded by a clutch of lawmakers as airplanes from the nearby Nashville International […]