About
John Rose (R-Tenn.) has represented Tennessee’s 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2019. He ran for his third term in 2022 and won in his solidly Republican district.
Rose previously served as Tennessee’s Agricultural Commissioner from 2002–03. He has worked in the information technology sector and is currently the owner and president of Boson Software, LLC, an IT training company.
Rose raised ethical concerns when he married Chelsea Doss (now Chelsea Brooke Rose) who he met when she was a 17-year-old high school senior and he was judging state-wide competitions for students such as the State Job Interview contest in 2007. As The American Prospect noted, it is “newsworthy that a powerful conservative Tennessee politician married someone less than half his age, after several connections between the two when the young woman was in high school and college, including the granting of a scholarship to her named after Rose’s parents.”
After the 2020 presidential election, Rose adhered to the GOP playbook by casting doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s victory. He spread the Big Lie, objected to certifying the Electoral College results, and voted against both impeaching Trump for inciting the mob and establishing a special House committee to investigate the insurrection, among other measures.
January 6, 2021
- Just hours after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Rose joined 146 other congressional Republicans in refusing to certify Biden’s win of the 2020 presidential election.
- Rose voted against impeaching Trump for his role in instigating the attack on Congress and the Capitol, and for fanning the flames once the riot broke out. In a prepared statement, he wrote: “This impeachment process has been an embarrassment to our country, an insult to our Constitution, and a distraction from the real work Congress should be accomplishing for the American people.”
- Rose objected to awarding the Capitol Police a Congressional Gold Medal for their heroism in responding to rioters on Jan. 6.
- Rose voted against establishing a House committee to investigate the genesis of the mob attack that disrupted congressional proceedings underway that day.
The Big Lie
- After the 2020 election, Rose frequently amplified the Big Lie by tweeting about baseless claims of voter fraud. For instance, on Dec. 23, 2020, he wrote: “If you never actually investigate evidence of voter fraud, you cannot claim that evidence of voter fraud doesn’t exist. The American people deserve a careful investigation into these allegations of widespread voter fraud.”
- On Nov. 6, 2020, Rose signed a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr urging the Justice Department to investigate irregularities and accusations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
- On Dec. 1, 2020, Rose wrote an op-ed alleging widespread voter fraud in the federal election, particularly because of mail-in voting. In it, he claimed that “We have learned a lot in the 2020 election about what doesn’t work, and the universal mail-in voting test has resulted in chaos. It is well documented that mail-in ballots increase the danger of fraud, abuse and administrative errors in counting votes.”
- On Dec. 10, 2020, Rose signed an amicus brief in a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of the presidential election in four swing states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
- Rose justified his refusal to certify the 2020 Electoral College results by releasing a statement that said, in part: “I have heard from an overwhelming number of Tennesseans in my district who have serious concerns over the 2020 election process.”