NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee's new appointee to the state Board of Parole says she will continue to pursue a slander lawsuit in which she accuses the chair of the House finance committee of saying she was trying to have the representative killed.

Mae Beavers is a former Republican state representative, senator and gubernatorial candidate who has been in a longstanding feud with state Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, going back two decades.

Earlier this year, Beavers filed suit against Lynn in Wilson County Circuit Court, seeking $100,000, The Tennessean reports. Beavers, who was appointed to the state parole board this month, told the paper she will continue to pursue the suit against Lynn as well as a defamation suit against former Wilson County election commissioner Ann Calabria.

Beavers, a social conservative who has rallied against gay marriage and pushed bills to restrict the bathrooms transgender students could use, unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2018. While running, Trevecca Nazarene University canceled a summit Beavers had planned on homeland security amid criticism that its speakers were anti-Muslim.

After dropping out of the governor's race, Beavers endorsed Lee ahead of the primary. In response to her six-year appointment to the parole board, the Council on American-Islamic Relations last week announced it would monitor her actions for any anti-Muslim bias.

Both Lynn and Calabria are fighting the lawsuits Beavers has filed against them.

In the complaint against Lynn, Beavers claims the representative told a member of the Wilson County Republican Party that Beavers had tried to break into her house and was trying to have her killed.

Beavers says she has experienced personal humiliation, public ridicule, loss of reputation and emotional distress as a result of the comments.

Lynn has denied making the remarks.

Beavers also is seeking $60,000 in damages from Calabria in a separate lawsuit after Calabria posted on Facebook that Beavers was laundering money and referred to her as "one solid crook."

The comments came after Beavers transferred funds in March 2018 from her gubernatorial campaign account to Patriot PAC, a political action committee she created the day before. Patriot PAC then donated money to Beavers' mayoral campaign and to two other PACs with which Beavers had ties.

The transfer of money to her mayoral campaign account ahead of the August gubernatorial race was illegal, state campaign finance officials determined.

In addition to her Facebook comments, Calabria wrote a letter to the editor published in the Lebanon Democrat, charging that Beavers returned the money only "after she was caught," and that she was "clearly attempting to violate the conduit rule and funnel money from her governor's race into the county mayor's race."

In her response to the lawsuit, Calabria argued that her statements about Beavers were "facts that were truthful," as well as opinions based on facts.

Beavers has filed lawsuits against multiple newspapers in the past, including the Lebanon Democrat in 1998 and the Macon County Chronicle in 2012.

Speaking of her appointment to the parole board at a salary of $102,000 (91,000 Euros) a year, Beavers said she has a "real interest in that area."

"I like to see people get their lives straightened out," she said.