Tim Burchett

When 30-year incumbent Jimmy Duncan announced his retirement in July 2017, Burchett entered a crowded seven-way Republican primary to succeed him. He defeated his nearest challenger, state representative Jimmy Matlock, by just under 12 percentage points. He faced Democrat Renee Hoyos in the November general election. However, the 2nd has long been a Republican stronghold. With a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+20, it is one of the most Republican districts in the nation, and tied for the third-most Republican district in Tennessee. It is one of the few ancestrally Republican districts in the South; the GOP and its predecessors have held it without interruption since 1857. For this reason, the Republican primary has long been reckoned as the real contest in this district. The Democrats have not made a substantive bid for the seat since 1964, and have only managed as much as 40 percent of the vote twice since then.

As expected, Burchett won the general election in a rout, taking 65.9 percent of the vote to Hoyos' 33.1 percent.[18] When he took office in January 2019, Burchett became only the seventh person (not counting caretakers) to represent the 2nd since 1909. This district gives its congressmen very long tenures in Washington; all six of Burchett's predecessors have held the seat for at least 10 years, with three of them serving for at least 20 years. He also ended a 54-year hold on the district by the Duncan family. John Duncan Sr. had won the seat in 1964, and was succeeded upon his death in 1988 by his son, Jimmy.

Like Duncan, Burchett has maintained a strongly fiscally conservative record.

• Committee on Foreign Affairs[19]
  • Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations
  • Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment
• Committee on Transportation[20]

• House RV Caucus[21]

In 2006, while he was a state senator, Burchett failed to report six political action committee checks totaling $3,300. The Registry of Election Finance did not fine him.[22]

Two years later, in 2008, while still a State Senator, he was fined $250 for failing to disclose three PAC contributions that totaled $1,500.[22]

In 2012, an investigation into campaign finance irregularities involving Burchett's Knox County mayoral campaign fund began after the Knoxville News Sentinel published discrepancies in the campaign's financial reporting.[23]

Independent freelance writer Pam Strickland filed a citizen complaint with the Tennessee State Ethics Board. Strickland writes a weekly column for the News Sentinel. On September 6, 2012, a "show cause" was issued by the Tennessee State Board of Ethics. The vote was 4–1.[24][25]

Burchett blamed this third offence on his spouse, who had filed for divorce. He was not married during the first two offences. Unlike the first two offenses, a full audit and investigation was ordered on this third offense, revealing that almost $20,000 in campaign money had been misappropriated for personal use. On October 23, 2012 the State Board of Ethics decided to take no action against Burchett due to multiple corrective measures that were added before the meeting.[26]

In February 2018 the Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Burchett had failed to report a $10,000 payment from a solar electric company to him on his campaign finance forms and various financial disclosure forms. The story reported that two months earlier the FBI had questioned people regarding Burchett committing income tax evasion.[27]

After the story broke, Burchett gave a statement to WBIR that he was correcting errors in his campaign financial disclosures and income tax forms, describing his failure to report all income as an "oversight".[28]

In 2013 and after his divorce, $900 in cash was left by an unnamed person for Mayor Burchett on April 1, 2013. He was out of town and asked his chief executive assistant, Diana Wilson, to deposit the money in his personal account. The bank was closed, so she placed the money in an envelope and left it under the mat on Burchett's desk. The next morning, Wilson discovered that the money was missing, and notified the authorities immediately. After days of investigating, the money was not found and no suspects had developed. The local authorities notified the mayor's chief of staff that they needed to interview all the mayor's staff members. A few hours after being notified of this, the police were notified by Burchett's office that the money had been found. The police wanted to give polygraphs to two members of Burchett's staff. He refused to allow polygraphs, and ended the investigation.[29]

In December 2020, Burchett was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives who signed an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden prevailed[30] over incumbent Donald Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of the election held by another state.[31][32][33]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that called signing the amicus brief an act of "election subversion." Additionally, Pelosi reprimanded Burchett and the other House members who supported the lawsuit: "The 126 Republican Members that signed onto this lawsuit brought dishonor to the House. Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions."[34][35] New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell, citing section three of the 14th Amendment, called for Pelosi to not seat Burchett and the other Republicans who signed the brief supporting the suit. Pascrell argued that "the text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids Members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United States. Trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that."[36]

Tim Burchett has maintained an active Twitter account, including posting videos summarizing events on the House floor. Burchett received negative media attention in November 2012 for an item he posted on Twitter during a Tennessee Volunteers football game, in which he tweeted that he needed to get his nephew (a high school football player who hoped to be recruited by a university football program) "some tats and a criminal record so UT will be interested." Following public criticism of the tweet that criticized the football team of the university in his county, Burchett said: "I didn't think anyone read that stupid thing. It was probably up for about five minutes."[37]

In April 2019, Burchett made a controversial post on his Twitter account which included a video of him referring to "DIRTBAG Serbians," after he met the Kosovo Albanian leadership in Washington, D.C. A Kosovo Serb advocacy group known as the Kosovo Project condemned Burchett's action as a "hate-filled Twitter rant", noting that the use of the word "dirtbag" to refer to an entire ethnic or religious group was unacceptable and accused him of ignoring crimes committed against Christian Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo. Despite widespread criticism, he refused to apologize and backed up his comments by stating he was referring to Serbian rapists.[38][39]