Ketron Opts Not to Challenge DesJarlais for U.S. House

State Senator Bill Ketron says he won’t run for Congress this fall. Many had expected him to challenge freshman Scott DesJarlais in the GOP primary.

Ketron says he’s wanted to run for Congress since he was young, and many thought this was his year. He just helped redraw the Congressional map to shift his political base of Rutherford County into DesJarlais’s district.

But now he thinks he can do more good in the state Senate than in the U.S. House.

“Serving here in this position, I’m one of 33, in leadership… versus one of 435 up there, starting at the bottom, in the pecking order if you will, that’s how it goes up there. It’s all about seniority.”

Ketron says he also has a responsibility to his family. He says he promised when his father died last year to see after his mother and the family business.

Ketron says he’s backing Congressman DesJarlais’s reelection bid. So far no one has filed to challenge DesJarlais in the primary. As to the general election, Democratic State Senator Eric Stewart says he’ll run for the post.

WPLN’s Joe White contributed to this report.