JOBS & INTERNSHIPS

The Beacon Center is Tennessee’s premier free market policy and public interest litigation organization. Beacon is pound for pound the most effective state-level think tank on the planet. With a staff of just a dozen, Beacon has achieved remarkable victories that have empowered Tennesseans to reclaim and protect their freedoms. Our recent accomplishments include:

• Repealing the state death tax and Hall Income Tax, becoming just the second state in history to eliminate an income tax. These tax cuts have cumulatively saved taxpayers more than $5 billion to date.
• Enacting universal school choice for families all across Tennessee.
• Leading the effort to enshrine right-to-work in the Tennessee Constitution, an amendment that passed with 70% of the vote in 2022.
• Advancing free market healthcare reforms, including direct primary care, an overhaul of Tennessee’s certificate of need laws, Medicaid work requirements, and a Right to Try Law that allows terminally ill patients to access life-saving treatments.
• Helping usher in the nation’s first Right to Earn a Living Act to bring about occupational licensing reform, and successfully repealing multiple licensing laws, resulting in Tennessee leading the nation in the reduction of licensing barriers.

More than 5.4 million Tennesseans have directly benefited from our work. But we’re still not satisfied, and we won’t be until Tennessee becomes and remains the freest, most prosperous state in the nation.

That’s why we are looking for new talent. Beacon seeks a Government Relations Manager who will help take our organization—and the freedom of our fellow Tennesseans—to the next level. The main role of the Government Relations Manager will be to support Beacon’s already-successful government relations and advocacy capacity and drive our policy and legislative agenda at the state Capitol and in local communities across Tennessee. He or she will report directly to our Vice President of Policy & Advocacy.

Beacon is a lean, innovative organization that operates like a start-up. We are not afraid to take risks and develop new ways to solve old problems. And neither should our Government Relations Manager. He or she should have an entrepreneurial spirit, strategic agility, and a high velocity of work, and be persuasive, results-oriented, optimistic, and curious.

We believe that the principles of free markets, individual liberty, and limited government are the foundation of a prosperous and opportunity-laden society, so our Government Relations Manager must believe in and abide by these core principles.  

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Manage Beacon’s government relations arm day-to-day with our Vice President of Policy & Advocacy, turning Beacon’s policy ideas into action through advocacy at the state and local levels.
• Collaborate with our policy team to develop annual policy initiatives, and then establish and execute a legislative or executive strategy around those initiatives.
• Serve as a liaison to the governor’s administration and members of the General Assembly and their staff on all legislation in which the organization is involved, including meeting with and advising policymakers within the governor’s administration and legislature.
• Serve as liaison to local government officials in communities across Tennessee on Beacon’s core policy priorities.
• Coordinate with Beacon’s external affairs team to identify partners, coalitions, and individuals to assist in our government relations strategy at both the state and local levels.

Preferred Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher
• 2+ years working in or around the Tennessee General Assembly, elsewhere in state government, or for another state legislature, Congress, or state or national public policy organization
• In-depth understanding and respect for free market principles