BillHobbs.com is a frequently updated blog of original reporting and commentary by Bill Hobbs, a longtime Nashville journalist and media relations adviser. I am currently serving as communications director for the Tennessee Republican Party, a job I began on Oct. 29, 2007.
The Tennessee Center for Policy Research has compared Gov. Phil Bredesen's budget pork with the contributions to his 2002 and 2006 campaigns and found something rather startling: Nearly every proposed private, nonprofit and non-governmental recipient of Bredesen's last minute half-billion dollar budget request have ties to the Bredesen administration
Proposed grants to nonprofits whose board members or employees donated substantially to Bredesen’s reelection campaign include:
$1 million to the Ladies' Hermitage Association. Four board members of the nonprofit in charge of preserving Andrew Jackson's estate donated a total of $7,600 to Bredesen during the last election cycle.
$500,000 to the East Tennessee Veterans Memorial Association in Knoxville, whose directors and Advisory Board members gave Bredesen $11,600 in campaign contributions. Bredesen Supreme Court appointee Gary Wade and state attorney Randy Tyree are active in the leadership of the organization.
$500,000 to the African American History Foundation of Nashville, whose chairman, T.B. Boyd III, donated to Bredesen's campaign coffers in both 2006 and 2002.
$50,000 for a second consecutive year for the state Historical Society's Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. Three of the Historical Society's board members are Bredesen contributors, and three are political cronies including Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell, state Sen. Douglas Henry (D-Nashville) and former state Rep. Joe Fowlkes (D-Cornersville).
"This rash of proposed handouts to campaign contributors and political allies raises the specter of political kickbacks," said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson. "This is a step back for Bredesen, who pledged to take steps to reduce patronage and cronyism in his scandal-ridden administration."
TCPR says the budgetary "pork" allocations "raise questions of political payoffs."
Of course they're political payoffs. The Bredesen administration has always been a pay-to-play administration, from the sale of trooper promotions for campaign donations to questionable TDOT contracts and now the budget pork.
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The Tennessee Center for Policy Research has compared Gov. Phil Bredesen's budget pork with the contributions to his 2002 and 2006 campaigns and found something rather startling: Nearly every proposed private, nonprofit and non-governmental recipient of Bredesen's last minute half-billion dollar budget request 