Main Street Journal: Feature Article: The State Legislature and our Future: Can Anyone Know What’s to Come?

The following article is taken from the March 2009 issue of the Main Street Journal. Click “Subscribe Online” above to start your subscription.

The State Legislature and our Future: Can Anyone Know What’s to Come?
By: Michael Roy Hollihan

The biggest problem in writing about what to expect in the 2009 Tennessee State Assembly is the uncertainty of the House. When last year’s elections handed the Republicans the 50-member majority they had longed for, it was a short scuffle before newly risen House Majority Leader Jason Mumpower (R-Bristol) solidified the voting bloc he expected would carry him to the position of Speaker of the House. Democrats seemed to accept the inevitable change glumly, though Speaker Jimmy Naifeh was disconcertingly close-mouthed. During the brief two months between the general election and the start of the 2009 session, Mumpower went about setting plans and agendas, regularly informing the press of Republican plans for State government, now that they were in control.

Mumpower also planned for the unlikely. He asked for – and got – pledges from every House Republican to vote for him as Speaker. After the “Naifeh Seven” Republicans had been coerced into supporting Jimmy Naifeh in the previous session, he wanted to take no chances. Mumpower’s ascension seemed assured.

Ah, the best laid schemes of mice and men . . . on that fateful January day, Mumpower watched in shocked horror as his plans were thrown into the dumpster of history. Outgoing Speaker Jimmy Naifeh (D-Covington) and his lieutenant, Rep. Gary Odom (D-Nashville), had been working quietly on the down low to recruit East Tennessee Republican Kent Williams (R-Elizabethton) into a plan that kept Naifeh’s hand covering the hand on the leadership lever. Naifeh got every Democrat in the House – all 49 of them – to support Williams’ surprise self-nomination as a candidate for Speaker. Naifeh and his Democrats out-maneuvered Mumpower and installed Williams instead. Williams would later maintain he’d kept his pledge to vote for a Republican, just not the one they expected him to.

In the space of minutes, the smoothly worked out transition from a Democratically controlled House to a Republican House was shattered. Suddenly the future was terra incognito, no one knew what was next nor had any idea how to proceed. No one except Williams, with Naifeh to guide him, and probably not even Williams, who had never been anywhere near leadership until that moment.

For starters, every committee assignment and chairman selection Mumpower had worked out was tossed out. Williams would have to make his own choices, in the space of days. He surprised most when he announced his appointments – keeping an even mix of Republicans and Democrats on every committee (the exceptions being the powerful Government Operations, and Calendar and Rules committees, with a one-vote Republican majority) and kept many previous chairmen in place. Where Mumpower had made it clear that since the Republicans had finally taken a majority – albeit a small one) – they would be firmly in control, Williams proclaimed that parity was the new order, with slight advantages to Republicans befitting their slight lead.

Williams also altered a long-standing practice from the Naifeh era whereby committee chairs could sit in on any sub-committee meeting under their leadership and cast a vote in those sub-committees. Naifeh himself was barred under this setup from sitting in on any committee. It was, in a manner of speaking, a reward for allegiance that gave great power to committee chairs even as it made fealty to Naifeh paramount in getting the chairmanship. Now, in the Williams House, committee chairs are barred from voting in subcommittees and Williams granted himself a vote in all committees. He cannot trust anyone to follow his directions – he’s not a Democrat and to Republicans he’s a traitor — and so must be sure he is the one with the final, determining vote.

Another aspect to the Republican dominance of the House is more directly important to Shelby Countians . From the days of “Boss” E. H. Crump through the Naifeh / John Wilder era, control of the Legislature has rested disproportionately with West Tennessee. The presumed leadership of the Legislature was coming from the state’s literal geographic opposite: Mumpower comes from the same town as the Senate’s Speaker, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey — Bristol. East Tennessee is the state’s Republican bastion, closely followed by Nashville’s southern and eastern suburbs. There is little love lost for the Democratic stronghold of Memphis and West Tennessee.

This concern had already popped up in the days after the Fall elections, when the Commercial Appeal’s Richard Locker talked with Rep. Mumpower to suss out the expected House Speaker’s attitudes to Shelby County. In that interview, Mumpower said, “If I’m fortunate enough to become speaker, it’s going to shine a brighter light on my community. All my life, I’ve heard people there lament that most Tennesseans believe the state ends at Knoxville.”

That’s worrying and he seems aware of it, as he then said, “But I am keenly aware of the need to be a speaker for the whole state, from Mountain City to Memphis. I care just as much about the other end of the state and everything in between. I have a deep appreciation for Memphis and Shelby County. It’s an epicenter for popular culture.” Had Mumpower become Speaker, that might be reassuring.

The actual Speaker, however, is a one-term representative who is utterly unfamiliar with West Tennessee, much less Shelby County in particular. In fact, he only made his first real visit with a two-day stop in mid-February. It would not be unfair to say that, even though he appears to appreciate his loftiness of responsibility, he is likely to be provincial in his basic attitude. Witness the party affiliation he invented after the state Republican party ousted him: Carter County Republican.
Williams left most of the Shelby County committee chairs in place (John Deberry at Children and Family Affairs; Ulysses Jones at Ethics; and Craig Fitzhugh at Finance, Ways and Means) only demoting Rep. Mike Kernell (Democrat from the University of Memphis area) from the chairmanship of the Government Operations committee to be replaced with Rep. Susan Lynn – from the eastern Nashville area. And he put Rep. Curry Todd, a Shelby Republican, in charge of the important State and Local Government committee.

Todd, too, faced his own leadership surprise. When the Shelby County legislative delegation met to elect officers, it was expected that Todd would continue as chairman. Instead, Democratic Senator Jim Kyle put his name forward and was elected by the Democratic majority in the delegation. Todd’s re-election was pro forma and no one has been able to explain Kyle’s sudden interest, except as a way to keep his name in some kind of spotlight, no matter how weak, for potential runs at other state offices down the road.

But as chairman of both the Shelby delegation and his own committee, and the House’s majority party, it might have been expected he would pick up some pull within the House that would benefit his home. Now, all of that’s gone.

It might proved helpful to some of Shelby County’s plans for changes in taxing authority, local income tax and local rule that would originate in Todd’s committee before going to a full House vote. Then again, giving Democratic Shelby County such independence, especially in regards to an income tax or some variant, is likely a non-starter. Republicans, in fact, had planned to pass language for the State Constitution that would explicitly bar an income tax from ever being passed; to allow a foot-in-the-door local income tax might be hawkishly and preemptively voted down.

But again, there is no way of knowing beforehand any more. Williams wasn’t part of the House during the last go-round over an income tax during the Sundquist administration, and he has voted in favor of some pro-spending issues in the last session, especially the squandering of the tax revenue over-collection last year. He now faces a State budget crisis that dwarfs Sundquist’s manufactured apocalypse scenario and he’ll need all the tax revenues he can find.

On the Senate side, not much is expected to change from previous plans. Senator Paul Stanley said in an interview recently, “The budget is the overwhelming issue on the legislative agenda this year. We have an expected billion-dollar shortfall in Tennessee. The legislature must now look at how the federal stimulus money can be used to help soften the blow of this budget gap.” But he also warns, “Due to budget restraints, programs calling for substantial new money are not likely to pass.”
Bills that might create new tax streams, like separate taxing authority for schools, might be seen as threatening to the State’s efforts to balance the budget but Stanley sounds sure. “The one issue I was hoping to address and pass this session was the Special School District bill. It remains to be seen how the House will deal with this type of issue, however, I am confident the Senate would pass this bill.”

And he is cautious when he looks across at his House colleagues. “I think the impact of Speaker Williams election remains to be seen.” He is optimistic though about bi-partisanship this session, repeatedly saying he thinks relations will be “amicable.”

But for all that the Senate has settled down into its modern Republican epoch, the House is now the open question, rather than its partner in change. The House is now the very embodiment of change, just not in any way that any Tennesseans – save Naifeh, Odom and Williams – expected. Everything there rests on a one-term backbench legislator from a small county with both a huge chip on his shoulder and a constant need to turn his head to watch his back.

It can’t be easy and the chip is sure to fall. Where? Who can say?

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