May 31, 2006

Tennessean Spotlights Naifeh's Last-Minute Legislative Corruption

Tennessean reporter Trent Seibert follows up the blogosphere with a good report on the legislature's last-minute passage of a legislative pension increase and an incumbent-protection bill, and even mentions how House Speaker Jimmy Soprano Naifeh violated House rules to get the latter passed.

As the clock ticked into the final minutes of Tennessee's legislative session late Saturday, lawmakers voted on two issues that helped themselves, rather than voters: They increased their pension benefits and made it more difficult for opponents to get on the ballot.

These two pieces of legislation were among the last two voted on, lost among a blizzard of hurried votes and last-minute legislation that flew across lawmakers' desks as the deadline neared for members of the General Assembly to go home.

Some are saying that House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, who oversees the state House of Representatives, played fast and loose with the voting rules to push through the last-minute legislation.

"If it's good legislation, why do they hide it and do it at the last minute?" said Steve Gill, morning talk show host on Nashville's WWTN 99.7-FM. He said callers who had seen the actions on the House floor were appalled. "It's particularly shameful to see what amounts to a third world country dictatorship on display in the state legislature," he said.

Naifeh allowed lawmakers to push the buttons of colleagues who sit next to them in the House chamber - colleagues who were not in the chamber or who had already left because the session was wrapping up, according to Rep. Chris Clem, R-Lookout Mountain. That's normally allowed for uncontroversial votes, but Clem - noting that about 30 members were missing from the chamber - tried to get Naifeh's attention to make sure the strict voting rule was called for on the bill that toughened the candidate requirements. "He promptly ignored me," Clem said.

Clem said he does not know if he could have stopped the bill since the strict rules were adhered to, but said, "Thirty people weren't in the chamber."

Naifeh, a Democrat, did not return a call left Tuesday at his Covington home.

House Minority Leader Bill Dunn called on Gov. Phil Bredesen on Tuesday to veto the bill that he described as the "incumbent protection bill."

A call left with Bredesen's spokeswoman went unanswered Tuesday.

"It was right at the last minute," Dunn said. "This is not good government, and it gives us a bad name."

Update: The Nashville City Paper reports on the legislator pension increase, but not the incumbent protection bill.

Update: The pension increase legislation was sponsored by state Rep. Charles Sargent, R-Franklin. I live in Franklin, but not in Sargent's district. If I lived in his district I'd be considering mounting a write-in campaign against him. If his legislator pals hadn't changed the rules to make that virtually impossible.