Who Won The Republican Primary In State Senate District 28?
Posted on August 31, 2008 at 5:18 pmMick Wright wants to know:
No Republicans filed to run against Tennessee Senate Democratic leader Jim Kyle in District 28 this year. The Shelby County Election Commission recorded 80 write-in votes in the August primary election, but the Tennessee Dept. of State Elections Division seems to assume there was no winner. How many write-in votes does a candidate need in order to win? Or are they even really counted at all? Why isn’t the list of write-in candidates available online?
Further discussion in the comment thread.
Photographer: Your Committee Owes An Apology, Senator
Posted on August 17, 2008 at 7:04 pmThe campaign of state Senator Rosalind Kurita stands accused of copyright violation:
Safco said she was surprised when she got a negative campaign ad in the mail from Barnes’ opponent, Sen. Rosalind Kurita, that featured a familiar photo.
“The first thing I thought is, ‘How did she get those pictures, and why didn’t anybody call me?’” Safco said.
Safco doesn’t know for sure how Kurita got her photos, but said she assumes they were probably taken off of Barnes’ campaign Web site.
Safco called Kurita’s campaign office.”I explained the situation,” said Safco. “They were using images that belonged to me. They did not have my permission to use those images.
“She claims Kurita’s campaign then referred her to a Nashville advertising agency. Safco said that agency won’t return her calls.Kurita sent a statement to Channel 4 News saying that candidates for office have a very broad freedom of speech, and have the freedom to get their campaign message out.
Calls to Barnes and the Nashville advertising agency were not immediately returned.
Safco insists that this is not about politics for her, and that she only wants her copyright settled. Safco said anytime someone uses her work for their gain, she should get paid. Safco has requested $500 from Kurita and an apology.
“I think that would take care of it for me,” Safco said.
Barnes & Ignoble: Kurita Vexed By Plans To Challenge Election Result
Posted on August 16, 2008 at 12:45 pmTim Barnes has decided to call for a recount and the state senator who narrowly defeated him by 19 votes in the 22nd District Senate race is not pleased:
Kurita declined to listen to Barnes’ claims, saying the results speak for themselves.
“I won. It’s over,” she said Friday while in Memphis at a Governor’s Energy Task Force meeting.
“(Barnes) can do or say whatever he wants,” she said.
Barnes also said he has at least one affidavit from a voter who saw Kurita entering a polling place and walking into a room marked “No candidates allowed” with her deputy campaign manager.
Barnes said the sighting happened about 2 p.m. Election Day at the Harpeth High School in Kingston Springs.
“All I can tell you is we’re dealing with a state senator for 12 years who knows the rules and chose to violate them,” Barnes said, adding that he would never do such a thing.
“I would never intrude on a place where people are voting,” he said. “I am appalled at the lack of respect for the sanctity of the polling place.”
Kurita refused to listen to Barnes’ claims.
“I’m not going to listen to any accusations he may make,” she said. “I don’t even want to hear them. He can make any kind of accusations he wants. The fact is I won the election. It’s time to move on.”
Kurita said she has not spoken to Barnes since the election.
“It’s been a week now, you think you would have heard,” she said, adding that he was “grasping to find anything.”
Barnes also said he has affidavits from voters claiming to have received harassing phone calls at odd nighttime hours from people claiming to be part of his campaign.
Additionally, Tennessee Journal reports that Senator Kurita has retained former state senator Bob “The Reptile” Rochelle to represent her if the election is contested.
Kurita Makes A Mail Call
Posted on August 6, 2008 at 7:38 amFollowing up on her negative television ad, Senator Rosalind Kurita, Clarksville Online reports, has issued a mailer to residents of the 22nd district leveling some of the same charges:
The new mailing attempts to paint Barnes as specifically tailoring his law practice to represent spouse abusers, drunk drivers and repeat offenders. Mind you, the yellow pages are filled with ads by a myriad of attorneys offering their services for a wide of array of legal situations. Tim Barnes has no exclusive lock over legal representation for anyone needing it. Thus, it would seem the declared ‘three strikes’ of this flyer are invalid. Voters must be vigilant and diligent in reviewing campaign material that ends up in their mailbox.
This media outlet is reminded of a previous refrain by the senator when her ban proposal failed, “I’m a nurse, not an attorney.” Fortunately for her, we are all U.S. citizens with guaranteed rights and protections of the U.S. Constitution and Tennessee State Constitution.
When contacted for a response to this last minute mailing effort, Barnes, who is challenging Senator Kurita for the Senate District 22 seat, would only say, “Either this an intentional attempt to deceive the public or an appalling display of ignorance of our constitutionally protected rights in a criminal proceeding.”
Democratic Senator Rosalind Kurita Fights Back
Posted on August 4, 2008 at 11:14 amAs we mentioned last night, Senator Rosalind Kurita has gone negative in her Democratic primary race for her state Senate seat.
After voting for a Republican Speaker in 2007 and refusing to commit to supporting the Caucus candidate in 2009, several of Kurita’s Democratic colleagues have lined up with money and district visits to help Tim Barnes defeat Kurita.
Until now, Kurita had been running warm and fuzzy media not even mentioning her party affiliation or her opponent. Not anymore. Ros has unleashed the dogs:
Kurita Opens Up On Primary Opponent
Posted on August 3, 2008 at 10:49 pmLeaving nothing to chance, Senator Rosalind Kurita, the swing vote who gave Republican Ron Ramsey the Speaker’s chair, goes negative on her primary opponent Tim Barnes, a man backed by members of her own Democratic Caucus:
In an ad that ran on Meet the Press this morning, Sen. Kurita ran a negative ad which claimed Barnes was “risky” because as a lawyer he represented clients for DUI offenses while she worked in the Senate to increase punishments for drinking and driving. The ad also made the claim that Barnes failed to (or improperly filed) taxes on 4 separate occasions.
RELATED: Ed Cromer says Kurita’s still the favorite.
Getting Right With Wilder
Posted on May 28, 2008 at 1:35 pmYesterday, we pointed out that state Senator Jim Kyle, despite his accusations of disloyal and partisanship against those who voted against John Wilder’s attempt to extend the Tennessee Plan for selecting judges, had in 1994 originally voted against the Tennessee Plan.
Asked for a response to the apparent inconstancy, Senator Jim Kyle’s office released the following statement short, simple and unusual for a politician:
“John Wilder was right. I was wrong.”
Putting The Personal, The Politics and the Partisanship Over Principle And Previous Votes
Posted on May 27, 2008 at 5:36 pmClint Brewer today attempts to make the case that Senator John Wilder’s failure to extend the Tennessee plan for judicial selection was not a case of partisan politics, as Wilder himself asserted upon his defeat on the Senate floor, but instead was simply a case of senators following a tradition laid out by Senator Wilder of respecting the committee system.
In trying to bypass the committee system and bring the bill straight to the floor it was Wilder, Brewer suggests, who violated the status of the Senate being the Senate.
Regardless of what you think of the Tennessee Plan or Wilder, anyone who watched this video had to be struck by the sadness of the display. Here was, in essence, a Tennessee political icon, asking former allies who had stood with him before to stand with him again.
Was it partisanship that led the Republican coalition to stand with their new Speaker in insuring that the Tennessee Plan, as presently configured, would die or was it just politics.
When Wilder had power, he was the one, he was the dealmaker, he could get members to break way from their party caucuses and join him. That was because he had power and a political future.
It was not party, principle or a spirit of bipartisanship that led folks to follow Wilder before. Wilder held the gavel. He was the shotcaller. He may have been a benevolent dictator in the past but the point was he was no kind of dictator at all anymore.
He was asking these Republicans to go against their Speaker, the future of their party, out of personal loyalty. His central argument was not for the Plan, but for him. Sure, he articulated a defense but the speech was designed not to be persuasive on the merits of the plan. It was an opportunity for Wilder to drop names, Woodsen, Crowe, Burchett in an attempt to make a personal appeal for support.
It turned out, however, that his relationship with these Republicans was not personal but political. They did not go against “principle” to vote with Ramsey anymore than they did when they went with him.
In fact, if there is to be charges of partisanship, if by partisanship one means putting party before principle, one could point just as easily to other side. While people accuse Rosalind Kurita, of playing Ron Ramsey’s lapdog in this vote, that charge is capricious when one considers that Kurita is the senate’s chief populist when it comes to “democratizing” offices.
She wants just about every office one can think of voted on by the people, one could not imagine her feelings would be different on the subject of judges.
Senators Jim Kyle and Doug Henry, however, voted against implementation of the Tennessee Plan in 1994. One would expect, at least in Henry’s case, he did so based on his strict constitutionalism, what changed this time?
Was it partisan politics that lead these Democrats who voted against the plan then to embrace it now? Was it personal?
Or was it, just as Brewer suggests, just politics?
Keeping The Fire Going On The Kyle/Kurita Feud
Posted on May 19, 2008 at 5:11 pmJohn Rodgers reports that Senator Rosalind Kurita had a bit a fun today needling Senate Democratic Majority Leader Jim Kyle. The Rodgers report is sort of disturbing in and of itself considering Kurita’s role in electing Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey but the fact that it was Jim Kyle’s bill compounds the issue.
Kyle beefed with Kurita in the press recently with Kyle’s attempt to play up the talk that Kurita had proposed an amendment to outlaw attorney’s advertising their expertise in DUI cases because her primary Opponent, Tim Barnes, is DUI Lawyer.
That was certainly not the first time, however. While many Democrats have either forgiven or attempted to forget Kurita’s vote for Ramsey, that vote on January 9th, 2007 seems to be a sin Jim Kyle will not forgive.
If Everybody Else Is Going To Pander, Jim Kyle Wants In
Posted on May 8, 2008 at 1:54 pmFrom a press release:
Democratic Leader Senator Jim Kyle, D-Memphis, announced today that he supports allowing Tennessee to participate in a suspension of the 18-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax.
Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain have proposed such a national gas tax holiday as consumers face the crunch of gas prices that have topped $3.50 per gallon. However, Tennessee may not be allowed to take part in the program.
Under current state law, Tennessee’s gas tax must be increased to make up the difference if the federal gas tax is decreased. In 2006, Kyle passed a two-year suspension of this law. That suspension expires on July 1, 2008.
“If 49 states in the country are going to have a gas tax holiday, then I believe that Tennessee should have one, too,” he said. “I’m committed to making sure that we get a break at the gas pumps just like everyone else.”
UPDATE: Rep. Susan Lynn has an amendment to the technical corrections bill all ready to go on this issue.
Senate Bigwigs Back down From Quid Pro Quo On Open Government
Posted on April 23, 2008 at 10:48 amJohn Rodgers reports on big open government news this morning out the Senate Finance Committee. It appears that the quest for a quid pro quo from open government groups has been abandoned:
The Senate Finance Committee gave its unanimous approval this morning to the first major change to the state’s open records law in 25 years, sending the measure to the Senate floor.
The Finance Committee approved the bill after Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle of Memphis backed away from a move to require good government groups involved in the open records bill to disclose where they received their funding.
See the bill here and Rodgers explanation of the differences between the Senate and House versions here.
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A Public Records Quid Pro Quo
Posted on April 22, 2008 at 12:46 pmSome of legislators want to know more about those clamoring for open government laws before they go voting on any legislation that would let you keep tabs on what they are up to:
Democratic Sens. Douglas Henry, of Nashville, and Jim Kyle, of Memphis, argued that groups like the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government and Common Cause of Tennessee should be required to give more comprehensive information about their memberships if they are to be added to an advisory panel on open government.
Frank Gibson, who heads the coalition, says he’s willing to give more details about his group’s members. The Associated Press is a member.
The Senate Finance Committee decided to put off a vote on the measure sponsored by Sen. Randy McNally, an Oak Ridge Republican, until Wednesday.
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