Blackburn touts work with Title IX at private campaign event

Senator Marsha Blackburn was wrapping up her private campaign stop at the DoubleTree Hotel in Jackson on Thursday, Oct. 10, when she made a statement regarding the upcoming Presidential election.
"I know Kamala Harris. I served with her on the Senate judiciary committee," Blackburn said, referring to the Vice-President, who is the Democratic nominee for President. "I served with her on that committee when she was recognized as the most liberal Senator in the entire Senate - more liberal than Bernie Sanders. More liberal than Elizabeth Warren.
"That was based off a study that kept track of our votes. Do you know who that study said was the most conservative Senator?"
Blackburn didn't verbally answer the question, but she pointed to herself, giving the room full of supporters another chance to cheer for the incumbent in the upcoming U.S. Senate vote.
While the public appearance, which lasted about 20 minutes, was a campaign stop and a chance for Blackburn to meet with some of her supporters in West Tennessee and for her staff to get campaign signs to those supporters, Blackburn also wanted to use the event as a time to celebrate an issue she said she's champion in the Senate: Title IX and the importance of women in sports.
"I wanted to set aside Oct. 10 as the day to celebrate women in sports because if you look at the Roman numeral for October, the 10th month, next to the 10th day, then the date is 'XX,'" Blackburn said, making an apparent reference to females naturally having XX chromosomes. "But the Democrats in blocked it because they didn't want to set aside a day to celebrate it."
According to statistics Blackburn reported in her speech, about 300,000 female athletes participated in sports in 1972 when Title IX was passed. That number has grown over the last 52 years to 3 million.
"I'm working with the NCAA on establishing policies to protect and celebrate women in sports," Blackburn said before she introduced her special guest for the evening, sports and political pundit Clay Travis, who started out writing and talking sports about two decades ago and parlayed his opportunities to do so on the local level into his own website and show network called Outkick and having his own daily political talk show called Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.
Travis made a couple of references to Jackson's history in providing quality players for the University of Tennessee, particularly on the offensive line with Trey Teague and Trey Smith, and the 2024 Vols needing some help up front heading into their game with Florida on Saturday.
Travis then transitioned to his main purpose for the appearance as he's been one of the louder voices in the country standing against the notion of allowing men who identify as female to participate in female sports.
He said his website, Outkick, is the only national sports website that says women sports should include only women.
He discussed how elections matter and putting the right people in elected office matters too.
"Look at the state over the last 25 years, one of the most important decisions our state legislature has made is to not have a state income tax," Travis said. "Because of that, we've got a lot of successful people who are moving here because they want more of the money they make from their successes to stay in their pocket.
"We've also got people moving to where I live in Nashville from California, New York and Illinois who are looking for a place where their children can be raised in a community that's doing things right, because the communities where they're moving from are getting things wrong."
He said Blackburn is one of the leaders at the national level getting things right on the women in sports issue.
"And because of that, we need to make sure she stays in the Senate, we put Donald Trump back in office as President and put the right people in office all the way down," Travis said. "I admit I didn't keep up like I should with who was my state representative or on my school board until COVID.
"But we should have the right people in office at all times and not wait for a big issue like that to begin paying attention and then get them there to clean up a mess. The No. 1 dream each of you have is for your kids and grandkids to be successful, and that doesn't happen if we don't preserve liberty. Which means we've got to keep the right people in office. Marsha Blackburn is one of those people."
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news