William Byron Lee (born October 9, 1959) is an American businessman and politician who has served since 2019 as the 50th governor of Tennessee. A member of the Republican Party, Lee was president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Lee Company, a business operated by his family, from 1992 to 2016.

In 2017, Lee described himself as a social conservative. As governor, he has signed bills to ban mask mandates and ranked-choice voting; implemented one of the country's strictest abortion bans; allowed guns to be carried without a permit; created school voucher programs; and increased penalties for protest-related offenses. Lee signed Tennessee's "bathroom bill"; a bill that assures continued taxpayer funding of faith-based adoption agencies that exclude LGBT people for religious reasons; and the Adult Entertainment Act, which banned drag shows in public.

Early life and career William Byron Lee was born on October 9, 1959. He was raised on his family's cattle farm started by his grandparents in Franklin, Tennessee, the Triple L Ranch; the family raises Hereford cattle. Lee is a seventh-generation Tennessean.

After graduating from Franklin High School in his hometown, Lee entered Auburn University in 1977 and graduated in 1981 with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. In college, Lee was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order, a fraternity known at the time for its use of Confederate imagery, and a photo printed in the university's 1980 yearbook shows Lee in a Confederate military uniform at the fraternity's "Old South" party. In 2019, after his attendance came to light, Lee expressed regret for his participation: "I never intentionally acted in an insensitive way, but with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that participating in that was insensitive and I've come to regret it."

Lee was named president and CEO of his family's home services and construction company, Lee Company, holding the position from 1992 until 2016. He briefly served as chairman.

Governor of Tennessee (2019-present)

Elections

2018

In April 2017, Lee announced his candidacy in the 2018 election for governor of Tennessee. A self-described social conservative, he also targeted pro-business Republicans. In the Republican primary election, Lee faced Congresswoman Diane Black, Knoxville businessman and former Tennessee Economic and Development Commissioner Randy Boyd, and state House speaker Beth Harwell. Originally considered a long shot, Lee rose in the polls as Boyd and Black launched negative advertising against each other. He won the August 2 primary with 291,414 votes (36.8%) to Boyd's 193,054 (24.3%), Black's 182,457 (23.0%), and Harwell's 121,484 (15.3%).

Lee defeated former Democratic Nashville mayor Karl Dean in the November 6 general election, receiving 1,336,106 votes (59.6%) to Dean's 864,863 (38.6%). This marked the first time since 1982 that a candidate from the incumbent U.S. President's party was elected governor of Tennessee. This is also the first time that Republicans won three consecutive gubernatorial elections in the state, and the first time that a Republican was elected to succeed another Republican.

As of , this election had the largest number of candidates (28) in a statewide election in U.S. history; the previous record was the 2016 United States presidential election in Colorado. This large surge in candidates was mostly due to the Libertarian Party of Tennessee's protest of the state's party affiliation and ballot access laws.

2022

In September 2020, Lee announced his candidacy for reelection for 2022. He was unchallenged in the Republican primary and endorsed in August 2021 by Donald Trump.

In the November 8 general election, Lee was reelected, receiving 1,129,390 votes (64.9%) to Democratic nominee Jason Martin's 572,818 (32.9%).

During the general election, Lee flipped reliably Democratic Haywood County, home to Brownsville. It is one of only two remaining counties in Tennessee, along with Shelby County, with a majority African-American population. Haywood County has not voted Republican on a presidential level since 1972.

Voter turnout for the 2022 midterm elections in Tennessee was the lowest it has been in nearly a decade, with only 38.57% of Tennessee's registered voters turning out. The last time turnout was this low in Tennessee was in the 2014 midterm elections. This turnout was far below the 2020 presidential election in Tennessee, which saw a turnout of 68.6%.

Lee was sworn in on January 21, 2023.

Tenure

First term Lee was inaugurated as governor January 19, 2019, and delivered his first State of the State address to the Tennessee General Assembly in March 2019.

In May 2019, he signed into law a school voucher bill that created a program to provide public funds to families for private school tuition and costs, starting in the 2020–21 fiscal year, but a judge ruled the program unconstitutional in May 2020, before it could go into effect. Of $64 million in discretionary COVID-19 relief funding for education that went to his office, Lee sent $10 million to charter schools, including $4.4 million to launch new charters.

In July 2019, Lee signed a bill into law that requires school districts to establish threat assessment teams to address potential threats to school safety.

Lee declared October 10, 2019, a voluntary day of prayer and fasting.

In January 2020, Lee proposed a bill to ban abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

In February 2020, Lee signed a bill making Tennessee's official nickname the "Volunteer State". The name originated during the War of 1812, when Tennessee sent 1,500 volunteer soldiers. In February, Lee also proposed a $117 million investment to increase teacher salaries and a $250 million endowment to address mental health in K-12 education. In 2021, Lee appointed John DeBerry as his senior advisor. DeBerry was a Democratic member of the state house whom the Tennessee Democratic Party removed from the 2020 primary ballot.

Second term In March 2024, Lee signed the ELVIS Act, which is designed to protect musicians from unauthorized use of their voices by artificial intelligence technologies and against audio deepfakes and voice cloning. It was noted to be the first such enacted legislation in the nation.

In 2022, Lee signed a bill into law that prohibits localities in Tennessee from using ranked-choice voting.

In 2025, Lee proposed the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, which provides roughly 20,000 scholarships worth $7,500 to be used for private school tuition, at a total cost of $447 million. The general assembly narrowly passed the program, despite opposition from Democrats and Republicans from predominantly rural districts, and it went into effect in the 2025-26 school year. In 2026, Lee and the legislature expanded the program to include 35,000 students.

Disaster and emergency response COVID-19 pandemic

On March 12, 2020, in response to the growing number of COVID-19 cases, Lee issued an executive order declaring a temporary state of emergency in Tennessee to "facilitate the treatment and containment of COVID-19." He extended the "stay-at-home" mandate through April 2020. Lee issued further orders for a "limited continuing state of emergency" through 2020 and 2021 to facilitate the state's eligibility for federal economic aid, and allowed the Tennessee National Guard and Tennessee State Guard to continue to assist with COVID-19 response efforts.

In March 2020, as the number of COVID-19 cases grew, Lee urged school districts to close through March to prevent the further spread of the disease. In April, as the number of COVID-19 cases continued to grow, he asked all school districts to close for the remainder of the school year. In October 2020, after a member of Lee's security detail tested positive for COVID-19, Lee said that he and his wife would quarantine at home, likely for two weeks.

Throughout the pandemic, Lee opposed a statewide mask mandate and "touted Tennessee for being one of the last to close early in the pandemic and among the first to reopen." On April 28, 2020, Lee signed an executive order allowing gyms in 89 out of 95 counties to open on May 1. By September, he lifted restrictions on businesses and gathering restrictions in Tennessee, except for the state's six most populous counties. By April 2021, Lee declared that COVID-19 was "a managed public health issue in Tennessee and no longer a statewide public health emergency"; ended local authority on mask mandates in 89 counties; and called for remaining local restrictions to be lifted.

As the highly contagious Delta variant spread in Tennessee, Lee said that he had "no real concern" about it. COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations surged in Tennessee from July to August 2021. Tennessee's COVID-19 vaccination rate was among the lowest in the country. Lee encouraged Tennesseans to get vaccinated, but opposed vaccine mandates and, amid the resurgence of COVID-19 cases, maintained that it was a personal choice whether to get vaccinated. He also dismissed suggestions to return to restrictions or offer COVID-19 vaccine incentives.

In 2021, Lee blocked the Tennessee Department of Health from reaching out to teenagers to encourage them to get vaccinated. In July 2021, his administration fired the state's vaccine chief, Michelle Fiscus, who had angered some Republican state legislators by promoting vaccination for eligible youth. The state Health Department stopped vaccination-related outreach to minors for all diseases, not only COVID-19. Lee opposed offering vaccine incentives even as the Tennessee government spent nearly $500,000 to incentivize farmers to vaccinate cattle against respiratory disease as part of the "Herd Health" program, launched in 2019 under Lee.

In August 2021, Lee signed an executive order that allowed parents to let their children opt out of school mask mandates. The next month, Lee vowed to fight President Joe Biden's plan to require COVID-19 vaccines for federal employees and federal contractors, as well as to require businesses with more than 100 employees to require vaccination or weekly COVID-19 testing; Lee asserted that the action was unconstitutional.

In November 2021, Lee signed a bill into law that restricted the ability of localities to implement public health restrictions, such as mask mandates.

2019 west Tennessee flooding

In July 2019, Lee toured damage in West Tennessee inflicted by flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Barry. A series of tornadoes in Tennessee on March 2–3, 2020, killed 25 people and injured 150. Lee oversaw the state recovery efforts and surveyed the damage in Nashville, visiting Germantown, Tennessee State University, and Cookeville.

Hurricane Helene In September 2024, Lee declined to declare a state of emergency as Hurricane Helene approached the state from the Gulf of Mexico with torrential rain, flash floods, high winds, and tornadoes. Instead, while catastrophic flooding was occurring in his state, he proclaimed September 27 a "voluntary day of prayer and fasting". Eventually Lee was persuaded to ask for a declaration and the federal assistance that would ensue. Once he requested a declaration of a state of emergency, President Biden immediately granted it.

Political positions

2020 presidential election