Stacey Campfield

The leader of the Black Caucus considered asking members of the group to vote on whether to give Campfield honorary membership without voting rights, but Campfield said he only wanted full membership saying "Separate but equal did not work in the 1960s and anything short of full membership is an insult to equal rights."

Stacey Campfield (born June 8, 1968) is an American politician.

He served as the Republican member of the Tennessee Senate from the 7th district, including Knoxville, Farragut, University of Tennessee, Powell and other parts of Knox County.

Stacey T. Campfield was born on June 8, 1968.

Originally from Vestal, New York, and a 1986 graduate of Vestal High School where he was named "Sportsman of the year" for Wrestling and later was inducted into their high school hall of fame, Campfield moved to Knoxville at age 25.

He received an associate degree in Marketing from Broome Community College in 1989.

He received an A.S. in marketing and a B.S. in Management from Regents College of the University of the State of New York (now Excelsior University).

He has been involved with the Young Republicans, the College Republicans, and the American Red Cross.

Campfield is an unmarried Catholic.

He was first elected in 2004 to the Tennessee House of Representatives.

In 2005, Campfield said that he was interested in joining the legislative Black Caucus.

Campfield described the group's bylaws as racist because he said they restrict membership based on race, which described as being more restrictive than the Ku Klux Klan's bylaws that only restrict based on the ideology of white supremacy.

As of 2006, felons were eligible to vote in Tennessee as long as they are not delinquent on any payments of child support or victim restitution.

Because there is no law prohibiting voting by non-felons who are delinquent on child support payment, a bill was proposed dropping the eligibility for felons of being timely with child support payments in 2006.

Campfield opposed the bill, saying that one way a felon can show rehabilitation is by being timely on any child support payments.

Campfield sponsored a bill to issue death certificates for aborted fetuses in 2007.

Campfield said he wanted people to be able to find out how many abortions were being performed in Tennessee and to note the loss of human lives.

Tennessee already required abortions to be reported to the Office of Vital Records, and the number of abortions performed in the state was publicly available.

In 2008, Campfield sponsored a bill requiring public colleges in Tennessee to allow their full-time employees with state-issued handgun-carry permits to carry their handguns on campus.

The Tennessee Board of Regent opposed the bill, saying that only campus security police at universities should possess weapons on their campuses, and that local police are the best way to protect community college campuses.

Two years later, he sponsored a bill to make private the names of people with state-issued handgun permits, but not the names of people whose permits had been revoked.

Also in 2008, Campfield proposed a bill to ban teachers from teaching as part of the lesson plan about homosexuality in Tennessee's public elementary and middle schools, saying that the topic should only be discussed by each student's family.

The bill died in committee.

The Tennessee Equality Project opposed the bill, saying that teachers need not advocate for or against homosexuality, but they should allow students to debate the issue of homosexuality.

In 2008, Campfield proposed a bill to prohibit Tennessee public colleges from admitting illegal immigrants.

Campfield said that if students cannot enroll in classes with unpaid parking tickets, then students should not be able to enroll in classes if they are in violation of federal immigration laws either.

In 2009, Campfield introduced a bill to limit lottery winnings to $600 for people on public assistance.

Campfield said that people on public assistance should not be buying lottery tickets and instead should be using that money to buy food for their children.

Tennessee law already prohibited the use of public assistance money to purchase lottery tickets.

The bill also prohibited prisoners from redeeming winning lottery tickets.

In 2010 Campfield was elected to the State Senate.

The seat was previously held by Tim Burchett.

His opponent, Democrat Randy Walker, had openly solicited support from moderate Republicans in the November election but was defeated 37–53%.

Tennessee holds open primaries, where any voter may vote in any party's primary election.

Campfield introduced a bill to change to a closed primary.

The bill would only allow a registered voter to vote in a primary election if the voter was affiliated with that particular political party.

Campfield said that voters often vote in the other party's primary in order to vote for a weaker candidate or one that is closer to the voter's own party's politician positions, both of which Campfield opposed.

In three successive years, 2011—SB 1802, 2012—SB 2177, 2013—SB 489, Campfield sponsored bills to grant state tribal recognition to six groups of not publicly documented Native American descendants, which would have also appointed the six groups, known collectively as the "Confederation of Tennessee Native Tribes", as the means for other Native Americans not relocated during the "trail of tears" to receive state recognition as Native American Indian tribes.

On August 7, 2014, Campfield was defeated 66%-28% in the Republican state senate primary by Knox County Commissioner Richard Briggs who outspent Campfield almost 4 to 1 (Briggs $380,000.00 to Campfields $100,000.00).

Briggs had courted many high-profile Democrats who had openly encouraged Democrats to cross party lines to unseat Campfield in the Republican primary.