Early Voting: July 12 – 27

ELECTION DAY August 1! (8 am - 8 pm)

If elected, I will work to preserve the traditional, conservative character of Knox County. I will fight against liberal Democrat attempts to turn Knox County into a place of high taxes, rampant homeless population defecating and urinating in public, and Soros-backed social justice District Attorneys, who let criminals go but will prosecute citizens who try to defend themselves. To get a glimpse of a Knox County future with liberals in control, simply investigate crime, homelessness, and tax statistics for metropolitan areas that have been run by Democrats for years such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Washington DC, Memphis, Atlanta, and Detroit. Knox County citizens do not want a government run by liberals.

ANDY FOX

Raised in Knoxville

Married to college sweetheart, Laurie, for 32 years

Christian, in the past 30 years has been a member of Sevier Heights Baptist Church and Lonsdale Community Church.

Raised their three children, Anna Catherine (28), Bailey (24), and Grace (22)

Education, Business, & Community Service

Graduate of Knox County Schools.

Graduate of University of Tennessee, B.A., 1991

Graduate of University of Tennessee College of Law, J.D., 1995

Practicing law since 1995 with a general trial practice

Provided free legal service to draft a 2021 referendum petition to cap city of Knoxville property taxes

Serving as local counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, pro bono, to protect girl athletes against males competing in female sports

From 2020-2022 fought in the courts against unconstitutional government mandates on businesses and masking of children

Provided free legal service to Tennessee Firearms Association in 2016 and 2019 against liberal city of Knoxville’s unconstitutional gun restrictions.

 

What Andy Fox Has Done for the Community

More About Andy

Andy doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks the walk, and has for decades, by participating in grassroots civil liberties organizations and providing hundreds of hours of free or low cost legal services to organizations whose purpose is standing up for our freedoms, and are dedicated to preserving American’s culture, sovereignty, and security.  Andy Fox has worked over 1200 hours, of which $207,600-worth were donated pro bono, in his fight for conservative values.

How has Andy Fox Defended Our Freedom and Conservative Values?

Below is a list of some of the cases Andy has donated his time or been involved in. You can learn more about any of these legal cases by clicking on the plus sign on the right side of each box containing the case title. Links to some articles about the various issues are included. 

Defending a Persecuted Student's Free Speech

Pellissippi State Community College persecuted a student who wanted to proselytize his Christian faith in his spare time, by defining his proselytizing as “soliciting,” and prohibiting his free-speech activities unless he followed certain administrative procedures intended for nonstudents exercising commercial speech.   Andy Fox filed a federal case as lead counsel, with Alliance Defending Freedom serving as co-counsel in 2011, settled in 2013.  Pro bono.

Dew Complaint Packet

Dew Settlement Agreement

Defending Conservative and Religious Freedom of Expression

Andy Fox read a newspaper article in the Knoxville News Sentinel, which discussed a circumstance that he recognized as viewpoint discrimination committed by Knox County schools.  He recruited the involvement of his friend Bill Becker, counsel for Freedom X, an organization dedicated to protecting conservative and religious freedom of expression.  Andy served as local counsel for Freedom X in a lawsuit filed against Knox County schools on behalf of individuals in the local chapter of ACT for America, an organization dedicated to preserving America’s culture, sovereignty, and security.  Pro bono, with a small fraction of fees recovered.

Federal case filed and settled in 2014:
Defending 2nd Amendment Rights of Carry Permit Holders in Parks
Case filed by Andy Fox against the city of Knoxville in Knox County Chancery Court, for Knoxville’s refusal to honor state statutory law, which allowed persons with gun carry permits to bring their handgun into state, county, or municipal parks or parklike property.  Case filed in 2016, non-suited as moot in 2017 because the Tennessee General Assembly changed the law.
Challenges COVID Lockdown of Roller-Skating Rink

Case filed by Andy Fox in Davidson County Chancery Court in April 2020, under the old system for challenging unconstitutional actions by the Tennessee state government.  The Court of Appeals found the case to be moot because the state was no longer engaging in lockdown at the time of the appeal.

 

Challenges Knox County Mask Mandate

State case challenging Knox County BOH mask mandate, filed in 11/2020, dismissed as moot in 2021).

The following was reported in The Compass Knox on November 10th, 2020:

 

A lawsuit filed on behalf of two plastic surgeons seeking to have Knox County’s mask mandate tossed out has been moved to federal court after an amended complaint raised constitutional questions.
Knox County wants to move the lawsuit to federal court because it deals in part with federal constitutional issues.
On Friday, lawyers for Drs. Steven J. Smith and Jason J. Hall filed an amended complaint to the original lawsuit they filed in July. It shifts the nature of their objections to the legal authority for the Knox County Board of Health to issue an order requiring people to wear masks when social distancing can’t be achieved inside publicly accessible buildings.

Attorney Daniel Herrera filed the original complaint in Knox County Chancery Court, alleging the Board of Health used faulty data to conclude a mask mandate was necessary to slow the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.Attorney Andrew Fox joined the physicians’ legal team and drafted the revised complaint filed on Friday.“These mandates did not come from a legislative body,” Fox said in an interview on Monday. “That’s big. Legislative bodies are accountable to the people.”Dr. Martha Buchanan, director of the Knox County Health Department, and Dr. Jack Gotcher, chair of the Board of Health, were initially named as defendants but have been dropped from the revised filing. Unlike the initial complaint, the new filing focuses on whether the Board of Health had the authority to issue the mandate.

The new complaint alleges that Knox County does not have a compelling government interest to restrict individual liberties, and the mask mandate is arbitrary and not narrowly tailored enough to accomplish the Board of Health’s intent. The plaintiffs are asking for a temporary restraining order to prevent enforcement of the mandate while the case is pending.
“If something’s going to be narrowly tailored, it needs to be effective in what it purports to do,” Fox said.

The complaint lists a number of rights the plaintiffs believe have been violated by the mandate.The right of bodily dignity under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I of the Tennessee Constitution. The right of bodily dignity is a concept that includes the right to privacy used to underpin the Row v. Wade decision on abortion rights.The right of personal freedom and freedom from physical restraint by the government under the same provisions of the federal and state constitutions.The right to the unrestricted use of real property — in this instance, the plaintiffs’ offices — under the same constitutional provisions.The unreasonable seizure of their persons under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I of the Tennessee Constitution.The right against compelled speech, because the mandate requires businesses to post signs explaining the order.

"You Pay, You Say" Voter Tax Cap Initiative
The ‘you pay, you say’ campaign, a citizen-initiated petition to establish limits on taxation levied by the city of Knoxvillewas an ordinance-by-voter-petition, drafted by Knoxville attorney Andy Fox.
“This charter provision allowing the introduction of an ordinance by citizen petition has been a part of the Knoxville Charter since 1923,” said attorney Andy Fox. “During the Ashe and Haslam administrations, changes were made three times to the citizen-initiated ordinance process. Each time, the City of Knoxville acknowledged this citizen petition mechanism as lawful under the Home Rule provision of the Tennessee Constitution, found in Article XI, Section 9.”

 

Knoxville Proposed Ordinance Petition

Federal Case Involving Knox County Mask Mandate
Andy Fox represented students who opposed the involuntary masking mandate imposed on them by a federal court judge in the Eastern District of Tennessee. Andy Fox made the arguments the judge should have heard by filing the Motion to Intervene and other documents on March 4, 2022, a Friday.  By Monday morning, March 7, 2022, at 11 A.M., the judge sua sponte ordered the existing parties to mediation, presumably after his staff had reviewed Andy’s Motion to Intervene.
Alliance Defending Freedom fighting Federal Mandate Allowing Males to Compete Against Girls

Court allows Christian schools, female athletes to intervene to protect fairness in women’s sports

ADF attorneys represent Association of Christian Schools International, three female athletes, who will fight federal mandate allowing males to compete against girls

Wednesday, Sep 14, 2022

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – A federal district court issued an order Wednesday that allows the Association of Christian Schools International and three female athletes in Arkansas to intervene in a lawsuit that challenges the Biden administration’s reinterpretation of federal law that allows males to compete on female athletic teams. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent ACSI and the female athletes.

Twenty state attorneys general, led by the state of Tennessee, are challenging guidance documents issued by the U.S. Department of Education that interpret Title IX, which prohibits “discrimination on the basis of sex,” to bar discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Among other things, these documents would require that schools subject to Title IX allow males who identify as female to participate on female athletic teams and use female-designated showers and locker rooms.

“The Biden administration’s radical push to redefine sex threatens the safety, competitiveness, and equality of female athletes,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jonathan Scruggs, who argued before the court in favor of the intervention motion that was granted. “We are pleased that the Association of Christian Schools International and the female athletes we represent will have the opportunity to participate in this case. Female athletes deserve to compete on a level playing field. Allowing males to compete in women’s sports undermines fair competition, impairs female athletes’ safety, and threatens female athletes’ opportunities to obtain the many benefits of athletic competition that Title IX was designed to safeguard.”

ACSI’s schools have approximately 500,000 students throughout the country. The ACSI schools compete against public schools that receive federal financial assistance and are required to adhere to the new federal mandate. This places Christian schools and their female athletes at a disadvantage because the public schools they compete against in athletic events would be required by the Biden administration to permit males to compete on female sports teams.

The three female athletes ADF attorneys represent in the case, The State of Tennessee v. United States Department of Education, are Arkansas public school students Anna Scarborough, Cate Ford, and Amelia Ford.

The states of Tennessee, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia filed the lawsuit in August 2021 “to prevent [federal] agencies from usurping authority that properly belongs to Congress, the states, and the people and to eliminate the nationwide confusion and upheaval that the agencies’ recent guidance has inflicted on states and other regulated entities.”

Andrew Fox, one of nearly 4,600 attorneys in the ADF Attorney Network, is serving as local counsel in the case for ACSI and the female athletes.

https://adfmedia.org/press-release/court-allows-christian-schools-female-athletes-intervene-protect-fairness-womens

https://adfmedialegalfiles.blob.core.windows.net/files/ACSI-InterventionOrder.pdf

Defending a Christian Minister’s Right to Share His Faith with College Students

John McGlone sought to share his Christian faith with UTK students, and the University of Tennessee prohibited him from doing so through its unlawful “sponsorship” plan to regulate speech on campus.  UTK’s policy was vague and “vested unbridled discretion in a government official over whether to permit or deny expressive activity. . . .”

 

Andy Fox served as local counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom and the Center for Religious Expression.  The case was dismissed in federal court, but lawyers for ADF and CRE successfully persuaded the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to reverse the dismissal.  The University of Tennessee settled the case after losing in the Court of Appeals.

Preliminary Injunction

McGlone Motion

McGlone Reversal from Dismissal

McGlone Settlement

Defending a Woman Providing Sidewalk Abortion Counseling from Vicious Harassment and Physical Attack

Erika Schanzenbach has a passion for reaching out to women who are on the brink of aborting their child, to teach them about the reality of abortion, inform them of God’s love for them and their child, and persuade them that there is another way out of their predicament besides aborting their child.  She was subjected to extreme harassment and even physical attack by abortion mill “escorts.”  Andy Fox teamed up with attorneys from the Thomas More Society, Martin Cannon and Michael McHale, to obtain protection for Erika in Bristol, Tennessee, and elsewhere, when she exercises her rights of free speech on public property.

 

https://www.thomasmoresociety.org/case/schanzenbach-v-skeens-and-bristol-regional-womens-center

Althea Petition

Cheryl Petition

Denise Petition

Rowan Peition

First Appeal Opinion Alethea

First Appeal Opinion Denise

First Appeal Opinion Hanzlik

First Appeal Opinion Rowan

First Appeal Judgement Alethea

First Appeal Judgement Denise

First Appeal Judgement Hanzlik

First Appeal Judgement Rowan

 

Ready to Support Andy For Knox County Commissioner – District 9?

You can donate or volunteer your time to Andy’s campaign. All are welcome to join in and help get Andy Fox elected. Knox County District 9 needs Andy Fox and you can help make it happen!