BALLOT BREAKDOWN
GENERAL SESSIONS JUDGE, CONT. Brian A. Horowitz
Division IX Brian A. Horowitz grew up in Nashville and attended the University of Tennessee, Knoxville where he earned a degree in finance. Horowitz later attended Massey School of Business at Belmont University, where he received his
Sam Coleman
Division X Sam Coleman is a graduate of Tennessee State University, where he earned a B.S. degree in political science, and a masters degree in public administration. He went on to graduate from Nashville School of Law in 1989. Coleman began his public
MBA before earning his JD from Nashville School of Law. In 2019, he opened his own firm, Wahoo Verde, which focuses on criminal defense and boasts humorous slogans such as, “When you got the legal shitz... Call Brian Alexander Horowitz!”. His law firm sells the opportunity to have dinner & drinks with Horowitz on its website, offering it as a method for consultation. Horowitz currently
sits on the Board of Directors for Benton Hall Academy, a private school for children who learn differently. Running as a Republican, he has stated that he believes in decriminalizing poverty, and putting that into practice by taking a defendant’s financial background into account when evaluating court fines and fees. He believes in being a judge for the average person.
service in 1978 working for the Corrections Department and later, as an administrator for the Department of Youth Development. Coleman specialized as an attorney in criminal, civil, probate, landlord and tenant law. He served as Metro Council Member for District 32 from 2003 to 2011 and District 33 from 2015 until being appointed a judge in 2017. Coleman serves as a pro bono attorney with Legal Aid
of Nashville and is an adjunct instructor at Nashville Paralegal Career School and the Tennessee Correction Academy. He is a member of the NAACP, the American Bar Association, and the Nashville Bar Association. He believes that the law is the “manifest will of the people” and that it must “be administered with compassion and applied equitably.” He has pledged to serve the court fairly and with integrity.
Lynda Jones
Division IX Lynda Jones was born in Lima, Ohio, but has been a resident of Nashville for more than 30 years. Jones holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee Knoxville and a law degree from the University of Memphis.
John Aaron Holt Division XI
Incumbent and native Nashvillian, John Aaron Holt, graduated from David Lipscomb University in 1977 with his Bachelor of Science degree and Nashville School of law in 1982. Prior to his election as judge in 1998, he served as an attorney in
For 22 years she was the managing partner of Jones Law Group. In 2011, she was named Advocate of the Year by the Nashville Alliance for the Mentally Ill. She was first elected to be a General Session Judge in 2014. During her first term, she oversaw the creation of Nashville’s Homelessness Court, a program connecting people experiencing homelessness to resources and information to help them avoid
accruing a criminal record of non-violent charges directly related to their homelessness. She is the presiding Judge of the Homelessness Court. Jones currently serves on the board of Dismas House, an organization that empowers formerly incarcerated Tennesseans as they enter back into society. She is also a member of Nashville’s Behavioral Health and Wellness Advisory Council.
private practice for thirteen years. He served two terms as a Metro Councilman, as well as presiding judge over the Davidson County General Sessions Court from 2001-2003. In 2019, Holt was investigated and disciplined alongside Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins, who was recently defeated by Khadija Babb in the May 3rd County Primary election, for reportedly paying
prostitutes and for marijuana usage during a trip to Costa Rica with former judge Casey Moreland who is currently serving time on corruption charges. Holt is a member of the Nashville Bar Association, Tennessee Bar Association and the American Judges Association. He’s also a donor of the Tennessee Innocence Project, a group focused on overturning wrongful convictions.
School Board Metropolitan Nashville School Board members represent the public’s voice in public education, providing oversight for what the public schools need and what the community wants. An effective school board member has an important role in keeping your local school on track and setting policies that affect the children of their represented district. In 2021, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a law allowing partisan school board elections. Prior to that, school board elections were bi-partisan. The Metropolitan Board of Public Education consists of nine elected members, one member being
elected from each of the nine school districts. The term of office is four years. The terms are staggered so that no fewer than four members are elected every two years. School board members must be at least 25 years old by the beginning of the elected term. The member must be a resident of Davidson County for at least five years and a resident of the school district that the member seeks to represent for at least one year and continue to reside there during their elected term. The member can hold no other elected or appointed public office and must be a qualified, registered voter.
SCHOOL BOARD D2
Rachael Anne Elrod Rachael Anne Elrod is running for reelection to the school board in District 2. Elrod was
originally elected to the School Board in 2018, and presently serves as the Board’s ViceChair. She studied Education at Austin Peay State University and has worked both as a teacher and a consultant. Elrod has two young children. Speaking on her accomplishments during her time on the School Board, Elrod has highlighted efforts to both increase pay for teachers, and to integrate social-emotional learning (SEL) into schools. Additionally, there has been a push for additional psychologists in
order to meet national recommendations, and to expand advocacy centers that provide students with spaces to work out emotional issues outside of the classroom. Within her current campaign, Elrod has outlined a number of priorities for improving schools, including expanded access to high quality pre-k, increasing classroom resources, and supporting a student-focused curriculum that takes into account the needs of the whole child.
Edward Arnold Edward Arnold earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1978 and his
PAGE 16 | July 20 - August 3, 2022 | The Contributor | NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
master’s degree in Sociology from Middle Tennessee State University in 1982. He is currently a doctoral student at Tennessee State University. Until he retired, Arnold worked for the State of Tennessee as an information resource specialist. Arnold is a native Nashvillian who ran for Davidson County School Board in 2014 and 2018 but did not win. He is also the father of three children who have attended public schools in Nashville.
Arnold advocates for removing capital expenditures from the Metro Nashville Public Schools budget. He also proposed a method of funding public schools that he titled, Teacher Incentive for Public Schools (TIPS), where solutions to research identified obstructions to academic achievement are addressed and funded before the budgeting of operational and capital expenditures.
