FIGHTING FOR ALL TENNESSEANS
Tennessee ranks 44th in healthcare access, 47th in education spending, and 42nd in poverty. Those numbers represent real families with real issues across our state. And they're the result of a legislature that has lost touch with the people it's supposed to serve.
Most candidates decide they want to run for office, then go looking for issues to care about. Rick Ewing did it the other way around. He co-founded a disability advocacy organization when nothing existed for families like his. He joined boards fighting for seniors, for students, for workers. He showed up at community meetings, served on committees, been an active and strong voice long before there was a campaign attached to any of it. The service came first. Running for office is just the next step.
What Rick knows through his own family's experience is the same reality thousands of Tennesseans face every day: these problems are connected. The parent paying more for childcare than rent. The senior choosing between medication and groceries because 46% of Tennessee adults avoid healthcare due to cost. The young professional priced out of the city they grew up in while moderate-income families spend 64% of their income just on housing and transportation. The worker doing everything right and still falling behind in a state that ranks 41st in median household income.
They're all living with the consequences of the same broken priorities. While the supermajority in Nashville spends its energy on culture war battles, the systems working families actually depend on go underfunded year after year.
That's why Rick is fighting for ALL Tennesseans. He's served on boards for disability services, senior support, community colleges, workforce development. Not to collect titles, but because he learned that solutions have to be as connected as the problems.
Tennessee's families deserve a representative who has actually done the work, not someone learning the issues on the campaign trail.
Here's where Rick stands, and why.
The Issues
Working Families & Affordability
Too many Tennessee families are doing everything right and still falling behind. Working full time, making responsible choices, and watching costs rise faster than wages. The state could be making that easier. Instead, it's making choices that make it harder.
Childcare now costs more than in-state college tuition, averaging $14,000 per year. In 2025, Tennessee cut childcare assistance, adding waitlists and copays that pushed working parents further from the help they need. Tennessee also blocks cities from setting their own minimum wage, so even as the cost of living climbs, wages stay frozen. And unlike 31 other states, Tennessee offers no Earned Income Tax Credit to put money back in working families' pockets.
These are choices. And they're the wrong ones.
What Rick Will Fight For:
- Childcare Families Can Afford: Reversing cuts, expanding assistance, and helping working parents stay in the workforce.
- Local Control Over Wages: Ending state preemption so communities can set wages that reflect the actual cost of living.
- A State That Invests in Working Families: Policies like a state EITC that reward work and help families get ahead, not just get by.
Healthcare
For over a decade, the Tennessee legislature refused to expand Medicaid while billions of our federal tax dollars went to support other states. Now, instead of fighting for working families, rural hospitals, and seniors who depend on these programs, the legislature continues to neglect them while federal cuts make our already bad situation worse. Tennessee ranks 44th in healthcare access and 48th in health outcomes. The people who need help are being failed from both ends.
Women's health has become an afterthought. And according to the CDC, Tennessee now leads the nation in maternal mortality. Women in Tennessee are more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or soon after than in any other state in the country.
That's not bad luck. That's bad priorities and willful neglect.
Rick has spent more than two decades both working in healthcare and navigating it as a father. He understands how the system is supposed to work, and he's lived what happens when it doesn't. He's not learning about healthcare on the campaign trail. He's been fighting these battles for decades.
What Rick Will Fight For:
- Medicaid Expansion: Covering hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans, keeping rural hospitals open, and letting families treat health problems before they become emergencies.
- Women's Health: Healthcare decisions belong with patients and their doctors, not politicians. Rick will fight against legislation that restricts access to care and push for real investment in maternal health.
- Protecting TennCare: Opposing cuts, eligibility restrictions, and cost shifts that hurt families already struggling.
Public Education
Rick's mother spent fifty years in Metro Nashville Public Schools as a teacher, principal, and district leader. Education isn't just an issue for Rick. It's his family's legacy. Tennessee ranks 47th in education spending, dead last in the Southeast. The state is underfunding public schools while expanding voucher programs that divert public dollars to private institutions. Class sizes are growing while experienced teachers, underpaid and unsupported, leave the profession entirely. The legislature seems more interested in culture war battles than in funding classrooms. Our children pay the price.
What Rick Will Fight For:
- Funding Public Schools: Every child in Tennessee deserves a quality public education, regardless of where they live. Rick will fight for increased TISA funding and oppose efforts to divert public dollars away from public schools.
- Teacher Pay and Support: Tennessee is losing teachers because we don't pay them what they're worth. Rick supports raising salaries, reducing administrative burdens, and giving educators the resources they need.
- Special Education: As a parent who navigated the IEP process for twenty years, Rick knows how uneven services are across Tennessee. He'll push for clearer guidance, adequate funding, and real accountability.
- Higher Education Access: Through his work with Nashville State Community College Foundation and Meharry Medical College, Rick understands that access to community colleges and HBCUs is essential to workforce development and economic mobility.
Disability Services & Aging Support
This is the issue closest to Rick's heart. When his son Richard was diagnosed with Tuberous Sclerosis, Rick learned firsthand what families face when Tennessee's systems fail them. There was no organization in Middle Tennessee connecting families or fighting for research funding. So Rick co-founded one.
But what Rick learned through his family's experience applies far beyond disability services. Whether it's a child aging out of school-based support, a parent navigating dementia, or an adult child trying to care for a loved one while holding down a job, the story is the same: Tennessee expects families to figure it out alone. Waiver wait lists stretch for years. Caregivers are forced to choose between their jobs and their loved ones. The systems that should help don't exist or aren't funded.
That's why Rick serves on boards for both disability services and senior support like FiftyForward. These aren't separate issues. They're the same broken priorities playing out across generations. And far too many Tennesseans face this reality daily.
What Rick Will Fight For:
- Funding That Matches the Need: Tennessee consolidated its disabilities and aging agencies in 2024, but hasn't funded the programs that would make that consolidation meaningful. Rick believes funding is a statement of priorities.
- Paid Family Caregiving: Supporting policies that allow family members to be compensated for the care they provide.
- Reducing Wait Lists: Waiver programs have unconscionable wait times. Rick will push for funding to get families the help they need.
- Supporting Aging Tennesseans: Through his work with FiftyForward, Rick has seen the value of food assistance, adult day services, and transportation programs. He'll fight to expand them, not cut them.
Jobs & Economic Development
Rick has real experience bringing jobs to Tennessee. He served on the Governor's Workforce Development Board, helping attract businesses and prepare workers. He's spent 20 years at Oracle working with healthcare, pharmaceutical, financial services, and insurance companies. He knows what businesses need to succeed and what workers need to thrive because he's been in those rooms.
What Rick Will Fight For:
- Good Jobs: Economic development should mean jobs that pay living wages with real benefits, not just warehouse work or gig economy positions. Rick will push for investments that bring quality employers to Tennessee while ensuring incentive deals actually deliver for taxpayers.
- Workforce Training: Through programs like GIVE and partnerships with community colleges, Tennessee can prepare workers for high-demand fields. Rick has seen this work and will advocate for continued investment.
- Inclusive Growth: Economic growth should benefit all Tennesseans, including communities that have historically been left behind.
