Rep. Kent Coleman On Keeping The Dems Together To Vote For Speaker Williams

By Kleinheider Posted on January 25, 2009 at 9:24 pm

The Murfreesboro legislator contends the famous recess before the nomination for House Speaker was necessary to keep potential “Mumpower Democrats” on the reservation:

My first understanding that that was a possibility took place in the caucus meeting, which was scheduled for 11 o’clock on Tuesday morning and we go into session at noon. At that time, we were informed that the existing speaker (Rep. Jimmy Naifeh) could not get the votes necessary to elect a speaker, and somebody submitted the proposal that Kent Williams would vote for himself if he were going to get elected as speaker, and the only way he could get elected as speaker, in our mind, was for all the Democrats to vote for him. But at the time we first left our caucus meeting to go on to the floor, it was my impression that Kent Williams did not have the necessary votes to get elected speaker. Not until we recessed after the House members were sworn into office that we took a recess and received the commitments from some Democrats that might have in the past pledged their support to Jason Mumpower.

permalink

Tags: Gary Odom, Jason Mumpower, Jimmy Naifeh, kent coleman, Kent Williams, Speaker election  

Comments