October 10, 2007

Nailing Briley ... and Naifeh

The Nashville Scene reports what the political blogosphere has known for weeks - state Rep. Rob Briley, D-Nashville, until recently the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was having an affair with Mary Littleton, chief legislative lobbyist for the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association.

Beyond Briley's personal ethical/moral failing exposed by his cheating on his wife, the relationship with Littleton is itself a ethical black hole given that Briley chaired a legislative committee that had the power of life or death over legislation affecting the organization Littleton lobbies for. And now Jeff Woods of the Scene pinpoints specific legislation that the trial lawyers wanted killed, and Briley killed, while he was involved with Littleton.

Until now, it has gone unreported in the media that, as his personal life disintegrated, Briley was having an affair with a lobbyist named Mary Littleton. Their relationship was common knowledge at the Capitol and eyebrow-raising even among its jaded denizens - not because of personal impropriety but because Littleton lobbies for the state trial lawyers association and Briley, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, controlled legislation important to her employer. Notably, Briley tacked on amendments that effectively killed a Senate-passed medical malpractice reform bill, a primary target of the trial lawyers during this year's legislative session.

And why didn't House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, or Littleton's employer, the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association, step in?

They, too, acted grossly unethically in this matter.

Woods writes:

These friends, who ask not to be named, blame the Capitol's well-publicized culture of sleaze for contributing to Briley's troubles. They question why House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh never intervened to stop Briley's affair with Littleton - a volatile, on-again, off-again relationship they say destabilized the tormented young politician. But it's hard to imagine Naifeh objecting, given that the speaker himself romanced his now-wife Betty Anderson, a lobbyist, in the 1990s....

The trial lawyers also allowed the Littleton-Briley relationship to go on. And the association went into damage-control mode after it was reported in the media that, when Briley was arrested in September, he gave Wilson County jail officials Littleton's name as next-of-kin or contact person. Littleton and Briley both claimed at the time that he named her because she was going to be his lawyer in the DUI case, but later they acknowledged she wouldn't represent him. ...

Even though Briley was obviously deeply troubled and his mercurial affair with the trial lawyers' lobbyist was well known at the Capitol, Naifeh elevated the five-term legislator to the high-powered chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee to start the 2007 session. It was apparently a reward for Briley's loyalty in various leadership fights....

According to numerous lobbyists contacted by the Scene, Littleton's behavior has made her unpopular even within their ethically challenged membership. There is a certain grudging admiration for her tactics, however. "Mary's a huge flirt," one lobbyist says. "She's one of the better femme fatales that I've seen work the legislature. She cuts a wide swath."

And, it's worth noting, even if the Briley-Littleton affair was common knowledge at Legislative Plaza, that doesn't mean everybody who works there thought it was a-ok. I recently received an email from a legislative staffer, whose name I won't reveal, commenting on the Briley-Littleton affair. The email starts with some very good questions.

How is it ethical for the married chairman of the Judiciary Committee to have an affair with the top lobbyist for the Trial Lawyers while they are trying to pass and kill bills he controls?

Did the officers or the other lobbyists for the Trial Lawyers know what was going on, and did they do anything about it? Or did they see this as an advantage for them?

Why is Mary Littleton being allowed by the House leadership and the Capitol Hill press corps to get away with lying about her real "relationship" with Briley? Why are they participating in this cover-up?

I can tell you that people up here are a little afraid of Mary Littleton. She has friends like Betty
Anderson (Jimmy Naifeh's wife, also a lobbyist) and others, and she is a bad news back-stabber. She is pushy, foul-mouthed, and mean. But she is beautiful, and she uses sex and Trial Lawyers money to get what she wants up here.

Incidentally, when asked, Littleton will tell people "there is no relationship." She's being very
technical. (It depends on what the meaning of "is" is.) Not now, maybe, but certainly all during the last legislative session.

What is is equally clear is that House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh cares far more about power than ethics. There's no other explanation for why he would install as chairman of the Judiciary committee an ethically-compromised legislator involved with the lobbyist of a key special interest group most interested in what that committee does.

For his own health, Briley ought to resign from the legislature. For the health of politics, government and public ethics in Tennessee, Naifeh ought to resign as well.

But that unlikely.

And the Scene story ends with an indictment of the culture of sleaze and corruption that characterizes Jimmy Naifeh's House of Representatives.

It's doubtful that Briley's crack-up will curb bad behavior at the legislature. The House leadership isn't showing any inclination to act in any way against the troubled lawmaker. He resigned as Judiciary Committee chairman only after Gov. Phil Bredesen said he should. House Republican leaders have demanded Briley's resignation, but Naifeh hasn't said much, except to call the GOP comments "pretty low-life." Still, some of Briley's friends are holding out hope that his travails might at least do some good by leading to reform. As one asks, "Have they all become so pathetic that they think this kind of stuff is OK?"

The irony in all this is, the biggest low-life in the story sits in the highest seat of power in the House.