April 28, 2005

Dictator Update: Naifeh Blinked!

State Rep. Stacey Campfield, Tennessee's only blogging legislator, reports that smart legislators forced House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh to follow the law, something he intentionally refused to do yesterday. Here is an excerpt from Campfield's latest blog post, with links added by me:

Another big day on the hill - Steve Gill and Bill Hobbs are really on their game. They have really put heat on Speaker Naifeh for his actions yesterday. The House was abuzz with the news of the NRA hustle that went down yesterday.

Many blogs like Nashville Files are reporting on the situation (and probably many more that I haven't had time to see). Bloggers have really drawn attention to the incident by sending e-mails, posting comments, and calling legislators. Today we started the session and Representative Glen Casada was recognized. I'll try to describe how it happened:

Casada addressed Speaker Naifeh by making a motion that the House vote to reconsider the motion yesterday to send Rep. Curry Todd's bill... But he didn't get to finish. Naifeh broke in: "You are out of order. Next motion!"

Later Rep. Casada was recognized again. He said something like "Mr. Speaker, under parliamentary procedure I invoke rule 40."

There was silence.

The Speaker and his staff did not know what to do. They grabbed their procedure and law books and huddled. About 5 minutes passed...

By the way, my hat's off to state Rep. Glen Casada, my state rep and one of the few Republicans in the state House who simply won't give an inch to Naifeh.

Rep. Casada, please blog. Just imagine how many fits you could give Naifeh if you did.

UPDATE: Blake Wylie has more. And he has even more here.