A dark money group has hit Rep. Jody Barrett, a Dickson Republican, with attack ads in the special election for the 7th Congressional District. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
A pro-private school voucher group that poured millions into 2024 Tennessee House races is setting its sights on a Republican in the 7th District Congressional special election.
A dark money group called the School Freedom Fund spent almost $20,000 in early August to oppose state Rep. Jody Barrett, a Dickson Republican. Last year, the School Freedom Fund spent more than $3.1 million in state legislative races to boost candidates who backed Gov. Bill Lee’s private school voucher program.
The spending paid off when the legislation narrowly passed the state House at the start of 2025. Barrett vocally opposed and voted against the voucher program.
The group’s spending is expected to grow significantly after it reported in June that the political action committee had a $10 million war chest, according to the Federal Election Commission. Dark money is funding raised to influence elections, typically by nonprofits groups not required to disclose the names of donors.
“It’s not a surprise,” Barrett said in response to questions from the Lookout. “I think most people who pay attention to state-level politics knew what was coming when they saw who was entering this race to replace Mark Green.”
Tennessee’s election to fill an open seat left by Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green is set for an Oct. 7 primary, and the general election is scheduled for Dec. 2. He stepped away from the post with more than a year left in his term, creating a surge of interest in the congressional seat: 19 Republicans and five Democrats have picked up petitions to run.
One candidate for the post, Republican state Rep. Lee Reeves of Franklin, benefited to the tune of $787,100 from independent spending by the School Freedom Fund in 2024. Reeves, who did not respond to phone calls, also received an endorsement in his 2024 campaign from Lee, an unusual move from a governor in a state race. Reeves won by less than 100 votes in the Republican primary.
Club for Growth President David McIntosh, whose group controls independent spending by the School Freedom Fund, recently circulated posts on X, formerly Twitter, saying Barrett is “anti-Trump” and voted against the “school choice” bill. The voucher measure will start this year, providing $7,200 each to 20,000 Tennessee students to use for private-school attendance.
“He’s the opposite of what we need in TN-07. Kick this snake to the curb,” McIntosh’s video says.
The post also contains comments from Barrett in 2016 when he supported Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for the presidency and called Trump “a liberal douchebag.”
Responding to that criticism, Barrett sent comments to the Lookout showing McIntosh also questioned the president by saying, “Donald Trump is the worst kind of politician – he will say anything to get elected.” It was part of a Club for Growth attack ad that circulated in 2016.
Barrett said the group is “having to dig awfully deep” if it is questioning his skepticism about Trump from nine years ago before he took office and showed the type of policies he would support.
Despite $4.5 million in spending by pro-private school voucher groups last year, support for the governor’s bill gained only a couple of votes, including those of Reeves and Rep. Aron Maberry, a Clarksville Republican. The group spent almost $1.8 million in those two races, far outpacing any other spending.
Republican Sen. Jessie Seal also received independent backing totaling more than half a million dollars in his defeat of the late Sen. Frank Niceley, a Strawberry Plains farmer who died in June. Niceley vocally opposed vouchers.
Seal, a Tazewell Republican, voted against the private-school voucher bill along with first-term Sens. Bobby Harshbarger of Kingsport and Tom Hatcher of Maryville.
Hashbarger defeated pro-voucher Sen. Jon Lundberg of Bristol, then voted against the bill even though his mother, U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger, is a major supporter of President Trump, who along with Lee called private-school vouchers the “civil rights issue” of this era.
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