Diane Lynn Black is an American politician and nurse who served as a U.S. Representative for from January 3, 2011 to January 3, 2019. The district includes several suburban and rural areas east of Nashville. A Republican, she was previously elected to the Tennessee Senate, serving as floor leader of the Republican Caucus. She unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination in the 2018 Tennessee gubernatorial election.
Before becoming a state Senator in 2004, she had previously served as a state Representative for six years from 1998. Prior to her election as a Republican state representative, Black had voted in two Democratic primaries in 1996. Black was the Assistant Floor Leader of the Senate Republican Caucus, a member of the Senate Government Operations Committee, and the Vice-Chairwoman of the Senate General Welfare, Health and Human Resources Committee. She was elected the Tennessee Senate Republican Caucus Chairwoman in 2006. In May 2009, Black's legislative aide forwarded an email depicting a collage of United States Presidents. President Barack Obama's section of the collage was represented by a black square with two eyeballs. Black's reprimand of her aide was criticized as too lenient by two political blogs and Tennessee Democratic Party Chairwoman Chip Forrester. Black said the email did not represent her views and that the reprimand of her aide was in keeping with the legislator's human resource policy for email guideline violations.
Black was one of two female U.S. Representatives who prefer the title "congressman"; the other was Republican Marsha Blackburn, also of Tennessee. Both departed the House at the end of the 115th Congress.
2010 election
In December, 2009, she became a candidate for Tennessee's 6th congressional district to succeed Bart Gordon, who did not run for reelection. Her biggest competition in the Republican primary came from former Rutherford County GOP chairwoman Lou Ann Zelenik and State Senator Jim Tracy. On August 5, 2010, Black won the Republican primary with 31% of the vote, over Zelenik and Tracy, who earned 30% each. Brett Carter won the Democratic nomination after well-known elected officials declined the candidacy, leading most Democratic observers to write off the seat as a Republican pickup. CQ Politics rating this race as "Safe Republican". In the November election, Black won with 67 percent of the vote.
On August 2, 2017, Black announced her intention to run for Governor of Tennessee in the 2018 election. In March 2018, the Tennessean reported that Black had missed over 50 votes in the U.S. House, the most out of any member of the Tennessee delegation. The newspaper noted that it is typical for members of Congress running for a higher office to miss votes, but that some votes were on major pieces of legislation, including: reopening the government following the 2018 shutdown and fund the U.S. military. Black lost to Bill Lee in the Republican primary on August 2, 2018.
Political positions
During her 2018 gubernatorial run, Black "positioned herself as an ally of President Trump who would crack down on illegal immigration and introduce work requirements for government benefits," according to The Washington Post. The American Conservative Union gave her a 91% evaluation in 2017.
National security
Black supported President Donald Trump's 2017 executive order to impose a temporary ban on entry to the U.S. to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries. She stated that "We should insist upon the most careful and cautious vetting possible for refugees from failed states and hostile nations and I commend the President for taking this duty seriously after the failures of the Obama administration."
Black often advocated against the Obama administration's EPA rules. She also supported the Trump administration's repeal of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. Black championed a loophole which allowed one trucking company to skirt emissions rules, allowing the firm to produce trucks that emit 40 to 55 times the air pollutants of other new trucks. When the Obama administration sought to close the loophole, Black introduced legislation in 2015 to protect the loophole; the bill failed. She later appealed to the Trump administration's EPA head, Scott Pruitt, to protect the loophole, which he did. As of February 2018, individuals and entities related to the Fitzgerald trucking company had donated $225,000 to Black's 2018 campaign for Tennessee Governor; 12% of the total money from outside sources in her campaign. In September 2017, Fitzgerald hired its first federal lobbyist; it was a former aide to Black.
In May 2018, Black said that pornography was "a big part of the root cause" of school shootings. She also said that school shootings were rising due to the "deterioration of the family," mental illness, and violent movies.
Personal life
Since 1980, Diane Black has been married to David Black. Although the two met in high school, they went their separate ways after graduation. She married her high school sweetheart shortly after graduating, but he struggled with alcoholism and abruptly abandoned the family when she was pregnant with her third child. David's first marriage, which lasted seven years, ended amicably in divorce. The two met again several years later, and he proposed to her on a ski lift. David legally adopted her three children. In 2013 financial disclosure forms, Black listed 115 assets jointly held with her husband. These assets were valued between $32 million and $146.9 million. In 2012, these assets were worth between $34.4 million and $142.19 million.
