While the halls of federal buildings are empty, Americans cope with the impacts of the federal government shutdown. Here’s what you need to know, plus some state political news.
7th Congressional District Special Election Results
This week, former state General Services Commissioner Matt Van Epps won the Republican primary in the special election for the Tennessee 7th Congressional District seat previously held by Mark Green. He moves on to the general election on Tuesday, Dec. 2, and will face State Rep. Aftyn Behn, who won a 4-way race to be the Democratic nominee.
President Trump won the TN-7th by about 22 points in 2024, but Republicans only ran about 8 points ahead of Democrats during the primary phase of this special election. Van Epps will be the favorite, and there’s plenty of money behind his campaign, but keep an eye on this one. Special elections can get weird.
9th Congressional District
State Rep. Justin Pearson has joined the race in the Democratic primary for the TN-9th alongside longtime Congressman Steve Cohen. Pearson gained notoriety as a member of the “Tennessee Three,” who were expelled from the House of Representatives after shutting down the floor to protest inaction in combatting gun violence in the aftermath of the elementary school shooting at the Covenant School.
Shutdown Update
It is day 9 of the federal government shutdown and we are no closer to the government opening again than we were last week. No one needs me doing political prognostications, so I’ll just say this—don’t be surprised if this is the longest shutdown in U.S. Government history.
To the credit unions who responded to our recent survey on ways they are serving their affected federal government employees, thank you! For others who wish to fill it out, you can do so here.
Credit unions should now be prepared for the shutdown to move beyond impacting just federal employees and include some of our communities’ most vulnerable.
WIC and SNAP Programs at Risk
The State of Tennessee can continue administering SNAP and WIC food assistance programs with remaining dollars. However, both of these programs will not be funded any further until the government reopens. While reports indicate that SNAP’s funding levels should remain adequate for longer, the WIC program only has a week or two left before it would have to pause.
While the Trump administration has signaled that they would use tariff revenue to continue funding, legal experts have poured cold water on the legality of such a maneuver, since it would violate Congress’ Article 1 duty to appropriate money. Moreover, there are existing legal challenges to the Trump administration’s tariff collection scheme, which further risks the tariff revenues being refunded and unavailable for any such workaround.
Regardless of the political and legal ramifications, the bottom line is that more than 100,000 Tennessee children on the WIC program will have less access to food in the coming weeks. Another 711,000 Tennesseans on SNAP risk losing their benefits if the shutdown continues further down the line.
While the shutdown politics will go on, all we can do is what is right in front of us. And increasingly, our members are going to be right in front of us with some big asks. How will we rise to the occasion and serve each and every one of them in the best way we can?
Consider donating money and time to your local food pantries, which will undoubtedly be strained to the limit during this season of shutdown, inflation and holidays.
