November 6, 2002

Blurring Reality

The Tennessean attempts to blur the impact of the income tax on state legislative races by looking at how "backers of taxes" fared last night, tossing votes for the sales tax increase into the mix to make it appear as if the income tax was less of a factor than it really was.

Says the paper: If members of the state House of Representatives who voted for new taxes earlier this year feared a voter backlash, it didn't materialize for most of them Tuesday night. Across the state, 38 incumbents who voted for either an income tax or a sales tax increase faced opposition. Four had clearly lost late Tuesday night. The rest won re-election.

Okay. Here's the point: Some anti-income tax legislators voted for the sales tax increase in order to get the budget passed and bring the legislative session to an end without an income tax.

TaxFreeTennessee.com has this roundup of what happened to legislators who voted for the income tax:

Of the 45 members of the Tennessee House of Representatives who voted for the Naifeh income tax bill, only 30 are returning to the House of Representatives in January.

Two of the 15 who are not returning have died, and 5 did not seek re-election. One, Bobby Sands of (D-Columbia) ran for the State Senate, and was defeated by anti-tax Republican Bill Ketron.

Seven of the pro-tax legislators ran for re-election and were defeated. Republicans Ralph Cole and Zane Whitson were defeated in their primaries by Jerome Cochran and David Hawks. Cole still would not take no for an answer, and mounted a write-in campaign against Cochran in the general election, only to be rejected by the voters in the 4th District for the second time this year. In District 70, John White was defeated in the Democratic primary by former State Representative Calvin Moore. Moore, who had indicated a willingness to support the income tax when he served in the legislature before, was in turn defeated by Dr. Joe Hensley, who got the Republican nomination after a write-in campaign in the primary on an anti-tax platform.

In the general election, voters also rejected pro-tax Republicans Ronnie Davis (Dist. 11) and Stancil Ford (Dist. 10), and pro-tax Democrats Dotle "Butch" Lewis, Jr. (Dist. 47) and Paul E. Phelan (Dist. 79).

Of the 8 Republicans in the House who voted for the income tax, only three were returned by the voters: Steve McDanial, Robert Patton and Raymond Walker. This significantly increases the likelihood that Steve McDaniel will not be re-elected to his position as House Republican Leader.

There is also speculation that Representative Frank Buck (D-Dowelltown) may challenge Jimmy Naifeh (D-Covington) for the position of Speaker of the House. Naifeh's position as speaker could be jeopardized by the loss of ten pro-tax Democrats in his caucus. Buck, also a Demcorat, may find his challenge to Naifeh strengthened by an alliance of anti-income tax Democrats with the newly strenghtened anti-tax Republican caucus.

Go to TaxFreeTennessee.com for a chart listing details.