One Shot, Two Kills: Odom Was The Mastermind Of The Speaker Williams Coup
Posted on February 20, 2009 at 8:16 amJackson Baker reveals that Speaker Jimmy Naifeh was not aware of the plan to get all 49 Democrats to collude in electing Rep. Williams Speaker until the last moment:
Longtime House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh was never a party to the arrangement and only came to know of it at 5 p.m. the day before the scheduled Speaker election. Naifeh had in fact consistently importuned Williams (along with other friendly Republicans) to vote for him as Speaker right up until the eve of the vote. “And I couldn’t vote for Speaker Naifeh. I just couldn’t,” says Williams, who bases that resolve on his having given a now famous public vow to vote “for a Republican.”
Again, Williams insists and Odom concurs that Naifeh was utterly ignorant of the plot and knew nothing of it until the last minute, as it were, and then, with his own dreams of retaining the Speakership expiring, merely acquiesced.
This directly contradicts a widespread suspicion among Republicans and, for that matter, some Democrats not now serving in the legislature that the wily Naifeh must have had a hand in the undertaking. (One such Democrat was former state representative Kim McMillan of Clarksville, who served as majority leader under Naifeh and is now a candidate for governor. While making a visit of her own to Memphis on Wednesday night, McMillan, a Naifeh loyalist, made it clear she thought the longtime Speaker had to have been a participant in the plot. “That just sounds like Speaker Naifeh!” she said with an admiring smile.
But not so. In point of fact, Odom – who had intended to challenge Naifeh for the Speakership had the Democrats maintained their majority – chose, when asked point-blank, not to dispute the interpretation that his involvement in the Williams affair had been aimed at both Naifeh and Mumpower.
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4 Responses to “One Shot, Two Kills: Odom Was The Mastermind Of The Speaker Williams Coup”
Should one be even more impressed with Odom or more repulsed?
Odom did have a hand in formulating the plan. However, I know for a fact that when it came right down to implementing the plan, Rep. John Litz of Morristown was the one to convince Williams to make the vote.
Litz, Williams, and Naifeh met in the old Speaker’s office, located on the same floor as the two chambers at 5 pm on Monday before the Tuesday morning vote. So, the part of Naifeh not knowing until the day before seems to hold true.
Dang. If I just lived across Highway 70, I’d have real representation in the General Assembly. Instead I’ve got The Kingmaker and The Ancient Mariner.
This story keeps getting better and better. I wish I had been there.