A shaky rollout, growing opposition, and a high‑stakes November vote put Knoxville’s proposed sales tax hike on uncertain ground
Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon’s sales tax referendum effort’s unfocused slog out of the gate in its early stages puts the outcome in doubt. Nevertheless, getting voters to pass a tax on themselves may be made easier given the blue tint of Knoxville’s recent voting patterns.
Kincannon’s May 22 sales tax referendum announcement was of particular interest to me in that in early 1988 I was tasked as principal designer of the only city sales tax referendum campaign of which I can find a record. On January 1, 1988, Victor Ashe took office as Knoxville’s mayor. A pledge to not raise property taxes was part of his campaign platform. That wasn’t unusual: no one runs for mayor saying they’ll raise property taxes, the most-hated tax of all. However, a subsequent-to-election surprise was that the city budget faced a $3 million shortfall (about $9 million in today’s dollars). That left three choices: cut $3 million from the budget, backtrack and raise property taxes – or roll the dice on a sales tax referendum. I’d been named Ashe’s press secretary and public affairs director.
Ashe decided to give voters a choice: a three-quarter cent sales tax increase, or cut the budget. From the moment he chose the referendum route, Ashe did a masterful job of lining up support from groups throughout Knoxville who normally would have opposed a sales tax increase. He defined his goals in terms of hiring new police officers and firefighters, road paving, code enforcement, parks, and job creation, and the administration never deviated from them. My role was as principal campaign communications planner and implementer.
The campaign was a daily, full-throttle push to convince voters that increasing a tax on themselves would benefit them. Though (as I recall) six previous attempts in 17 years had failed, on September 15, 1988, in a special election, the referendum passed with 63 percent of the vote.
Kincannon’s initial messaging at best was unfocused—and at worst revealed a lack of preparation. She was thrown big, fat, softball questions in a May 29 interview with WUOT Radio — a full week after the May 22 referendum announcement. An example: “The city has enjoyed a lot of successes in the past year that you mentioned in your budget. What are you excited about in the city right now?” Nevertheless, not until the third published interview question on the WUOT website did Kincannon mention the referendum, the biggest thing she’ll do as mayor, and on which her political reputation rests. It should have been part of every answer, regardless of the question.
By this writing, a campaign may have taken shape. But the mushiness at the start enabled opposition to galvanize. On July 7, the News Sentinel published this story: “Campaigns for and against Knoxville’s sales tax hike are live. Here’s how to get involved.” Betsy Kampas Henderson, running for Knox County Mayor, wrote a column opposing the referendum. Another potential problem: the election is set for November 4 and five city council seats are on the ballot. Each candidate will be asked if they support or oppose the tax itself. The safe answer is that they support giving voters the choice. But if pushed to say whether they support or oppose the tax, in such circumstances it’s always politically easier — and smarter — to oppose.
Kincannon may be helped by city voters’ increasingly Democratic Party leanings. When Bill Haslam left the mayor’s office in 2011, he did so as perhaps Knoxville’s last Republican mayor. His successors, Madeline Rogero and Kincannon, are well to the left of the average red-state Tennessean. Democrats’ general thinking on taxes, described in an AI overview,
is a plus for Kincannon: “Democrats tend to have more trust in the government’s ability to spend tax money wisely and are more open to higher taxes to fund services.”
Such sentiments explain average red-state Tennesseans’ concerns about the people pouring into Tennessee from blue states. There’s a hope that the arrivals aren’t bringing blue-state politics—and such views on taxes—with them. A question often asked is why would they replicate here what they’re trying to escape there? Maybe most wouldn’t, but the idea of, “We could stand to pay more in taxes,” certainly can exist among people who trust government to spend money wisely. Therefore, the dominant color of Kincannon’s referendum may not be green, the color of money, but the blue hue of an increasingly Democratic Knoxville.
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