Speaker Williams Intends To Be Around Awhile
Posted on March 29, 2009 at 1:42 pmThe Speaker of the House talks about the legislature and his reelection plans at a Carter County legislative breakfast:
Williams, who afterward was stripped of his party affiliation by Tennessee Republican Party Chairwoman Robin Smith, did not mention Mumpower, whose seat at the front table remained vacant.
“I know I’m going to have some challenges,” Williams said. “I’ve had a couple of problems with my own party, but we’re getting those ironed out. We just have a small minority, I think, here in Carter County that would rather see someone out of Nashville tell us what to do in Carter County than to have our own down there. But like I said, that’s a small minority, and I think in 2010 in November we’ll show what a small minority that is.”
Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey of Blountville, who supported Mumpower, told the crowd he is working well with Williams.
“The speaker of the House and the speaker of the Senate have to work together — period,” Ramsey said after getting a partial standing ovation.
SEE ALSO:
Commentary on the Mumpower noshow
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.
SEE ALSO:
Jeff Woods
Mediaverse
Why Kick Him Out?
Posted on January 26, 2009 at 11:25 pmWhile the Tennessee Republican Party has not yet taken the action against Speaker Kent Williams many expect them to, Rep. Stacey Campfield and others are patiently waiting for the inevitable. They wait for the day that the state party takes away Kent Williams’ ability to appear as a Republican on a Tennessee ballot.
My question is why? Why would a Republican who wants desperately to witness the end of Williams’ political career want the TNGOP to throw him out? Williams may be just a sophomore representative but one needs to be careful when describing him as a political lightweight.
In 2006, Kent Williams unseated an incumbent legislator, Jerome Cochran, to gain his seat in the legislature. Two years later, the same man challenged him again with support from members of the house caucus and again he emerged victorious. And say what you want about how he got there, the man is Speaker of the House. It is a powerful position and one that will allow him, tight budget times or not, to help the people of his district.
Speaking of his district, Carter County is not exactly a haven for liberalism. You don’t run as a Democrat in Carter County. Not if you expect to win anyway. East Tennessee is Republican country, hill country. If the Republicans throw him out, Williams will be able to play the martyr. He will be able to say that he didn’t leave the party but that the party left him.
East Tennesseans are Republicans but they are also independent minded. If the party shuns him he can fashion a narrative as the independent Republican that got thrown out by an overzealous, hyper-ideological party.
If they leave him as a party member, however, that’s when things truly get tricky politically for Kent Williams.
You see, while it may offend the sensibilities of party members, the best way to get rid of Williams is to leave him be. Williams can’t win a Republican primary. He has to run as an Independent. He doesn’t have a choice. He’s not trying to go out like Kurita. So in two years, in 2010, Kent Williams will file for reelection as an independent. He will no longer be a Republican.
So why make it easy for him? Why not force him to leave? Then, not only is he the rogue legislator who colluded with Democrats to make himself speaker, he is the ungrateful Judas, a man who refused the outstretched hand of a forgiving party.
It’s a no brainer. It may be hard. It may be distasteful. But if Republicans really want to hurt Kent Williams politically, they should leave him as one of them.
SEE ALSO: Brainstem
Rep. Kent Coleman On Keeping The Dems Together To Vote For Speaker Williams
Posted on January 25, 2009 at 9:24 pmThe 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.
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Rep. Susan Lynn Blogs On The Kent Williams Sexual Harassment Story
Posted on January 22, 2009 at 7:31 amThe representative breaks down the last week:
After the election last week, I was contacted by a Nashville blogger that had knowledge of the incident two years earlier. He asked me if I would like to comment on his blog. I declined once more and immediately called my caucus leader to inform him that I was contacted by the blogger. We agreed to remain firm in our position not to comment on the incident.
On Sunday night the press started calling me. I refused to comment. Their phone calls persisted all day on Monday at which time I still refused to comment. In addition, they repeatedly contacted my leadership. In the early evening on Monday some media informed our press secretary that they intended to issue a public records request to our leadership for any information pertaining to the incident. When leadership arrived at the office on Tuesday morning members of the media were waiting with their requests for public information.
Rep. Kelsey Files Ethics Complaint Against Speaker
Posted on January 21, 2009 at 3:35 pmThe only legislator to travel to Carter County and actively campaign for Williams’ primary opponent continues the campaign:
MEMPHIS - Representative Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) filed an Ethics Complaint today against Speaker of the House Kent Williams for Williams’s acts of sexual harassment and for making a false statement to the public regarding the allegations. Rep. Kelsey filed the Complaint directly with Speaker Williams this afternoon via e-mail.
It was revealed yesterday that on March 27, 2007, Williams solicited a sexual act from Rep. Susan Lynn in the legislative parking garage, telling her, “I will give a week’s pay just to see you naked.”
A memo written by House Republican Leader Jason Mumpower chronicles that Williams admitted the charge of sexual harassment, apologized to Rep. Lynn, and was reprimanded by Leader Mumpower.
Yesterday, Speaker Williams issued a public statement, saying, “I have never sexually harassed anyone nor have I been reprimanded for any such behavior.”
“Speaker Williams’s actions of sexual harassment were bad enough to begin with. Denying that the events ever occurred, in effect calling Rep. Lynn a liar, is like spitting in the face of his victim,” said Rep. Kelsey from his law office in Memphis.
Rep. Kelsey continued, “Speaker Williams issued a false statement with the intent to deceive the public. This type of dishonesty to the people of Tennessee is totally unacceptable from the leader of the House of Representatives.”
Rep. Kelsey has been a leader on issues of ethics throughout his four-year tenure in the House of Representatives. He was the first member of the General Assembly to call for public hearings on whether indicted legislators should keep their seats in the wake of the Tennessee Waltz scandal, and he introduced thirty-three amendments to strengthen the ethics bill in the special session on ethics in 2006. He has been a vocal proponent of closing the loophole in the lobbyist gift ban for legislative receptions.
See the full text of the ethics complaint at this link
SEE ALSO: Clint Brewer
New Speaker Confronted With Sexual Harassment Charges
Posted on January 20, 2009 at 2:43 pmAllegations of sexual harassment dating from 2007 reemerge. Go to the main site for more.
REACTS:
Say Uncle
Woods
Vandy Right
Silence
Sean Braisted
Hurtt
Humphrey
Sher
WPLN
Schrade
Arrowood
Locker
Sher II
Honor Among Thieves
Posted on January 19, 2009 at 1:47 pmTim Chavez didn’t appreciate a front page treatment of the new state house speaker he believes was designed to rehabilitate the speaker’s image:
The apologist story Sunday focused on how the puppet speaker had been mistreated by his fellow Republicans.
What it did not mention was one important thing that is paramount in the lives of every Tennessean, except those at the Statehouse who are Democrats and those who lead the newspaper.
Honor.
When you sign a piece of paper pledging support, then four hours before a vote, you give your word eye to eye that you’ll abide that pledge, then you are bound by honor.
But the puppet speaker broke that value most important to every Tennessean. The newspaper has never honored that value, either, during my tenure there and after.
Yet its Sunday front page tried to provide a sense of honor to a man who did not deserve it, and a newspaper that lost it long ago.
The Weakest Link
Posted on at 8:18 amLt. Governor Ron Ramsey says everyone knew who it was:
Ramsey said Williams “sold his soul.” According to Ramsey, “We all knew who the weak link was. We all knew who was for sale, who would go to the highest bidder. That was Kent Williams, of course. … But at the same time, he was literally telling everyone … ‘I’m voting for Jason Mumpower, no question about it.’ ”
More Ramsey: “I’m going to have to work with this man, I guess. I’m going to make sure Jason’s in the room with me so I have a witness to what he tells me. … We can see the trend lines in the state of Tennessee, and I think we’ll pick two or three more seats in the state House next time. He will be a one-time wonder in my opinion, and it’s going to be difficult to work with him. You don’t put a title in front of your name and suddenly you have trust. I would have had more respect for him if he had voted for Jimmy Naifeh, I honestly would. There’s going to come a day when the Democrats wish they had never done this. I firmly believe this.”
Bless His Heart
Posted on at 7:58 amDavid Oatney is praying for Speaker Kent Williams:
Regardless of what the final decision is on Kent Williams’ Republican status, there is one thing that I will do for Williams-I will pray for him. I believe that there is hope for every soul, even someone who has done something so cold as to betray his leaders and the party which brought him to the House with its label and support. Representative Williams says that he needs no sermons. I doubt that I am the only one who think he needs a reminder of the Commandment concerning the bearing of false witness.
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You’re Not The Boss Of Me
Posted on at 7:56 amSpeaker Kent Williams cites some more reasons why he jettisoned the wishes of his party and allowed the Democrats to install him as speaker:
Williams, a Carter County native, bristled when a letter arrived days before the legislature convened Tuesday.
The letter from Rep. Debra Maggart, R-Hendersonville, a party whip, reminded members of the consequences of voting against the party’s nominees for speaker. She enclosed provisions of state GOP by-laws that allow the party chairman to strip the party label from a legislator who doesn’t vote for the caucus’s nominees for speaker.
“As our historic day approaches, it is vital that we all are aware of the Tennesse Republican Party’s position as well as the state chairman’s intentions. Simply put, the state chairman has the authority to remove a House or Senate Caucus member’s name from the Republican primary ballot if that member does not vote for our House or Senate Caucus nominees,” Maggart wrote.
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Okay, That Happened, Now What?
Posted on at 7:44 amThe Voice thinks it’s time everyone puts the shenanigans in the legislature this past week behind us and start concentrating on how to govern:
Serving Tennesseans, educating our children and bringing jobs and economic prosperity to the state are expensive and badly needed imperatives state government faces. It is time to move beyond the horse race of legislative leadership. If Speaker Williams or anyone else fails to deliver, the voters are certainly watching. Keep in mind that 2010 is not that far away.
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Word Pictures
Posted on January 18, 2009 at 12:02 pmRep. Stacey Campfield sums up the state of the General Assembly under Speaker Kent Williams:
Your father and his plan will not decrease partisanship. He will increase it. What he is setting up is a system where no one has any control. It will be bedlam with a mess at the end at best. No real change. What he is doing is Putting a steering wheel in the middle of a car and have two people driving it. It goes along smooth when there are no big issues but when a little kid jumps out in front of the car both drivers will try and pull the car their direction. End result. Dead kid and two drivers arguing over who was at fault.
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Witnessing Williams
Posted on January 17, 2009 at 10:39 pmAshley Dennis rolls camera on the making of Speaker Kent Williams:
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Feel The Burn
Posted on at 2:49 pmOver the past week many have attempted comparaisons between the Kent Williams situation and the 2007 vote by Democrat Rosalind Kurita for Republican Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey. Mick Wright has an interesting take on that comparison:
Instead of Rep. Williams, wouldn’t a much better comparison to Rosalind Kurita be the 49 House Democrats who voted for a Republican as Speaker?
Or is there something about their vote for the Republican victor that is less traitorous than Kurita’s vote?
Why no outrage from the Left this time?
First Person Account Of History
Posted on January 16, 2009 at 1:20 pmIva Russell says she got a heads up about the betrayal of Kent Williams shortly before the vote but refused to believe its veracity:
I came in a little later than planned on Tuesday, missed the GOP legislative breakfast, and ended up sitting in the outer chamber tv lounge next to these darling retired fire chiefs from east tennessee. They said they were there for Rep. Kent Williams which really didn’t mean anything to me at the time except that it assured me we were on the same rooting bench. These guys were a hoot and we spent the morning enjoying conservation and dead-on similiar viewpoints. I will take hard-a$$ firefighters any day of the week to spend time with, especially on a day like Tuesday.
Rep. Williams came by several times to chat with them and I let him have my seat as I went to grab a drink and chat with Judd and a few others as we waited for the noon hour elections. It was like old home week, everyone was there. I met and spent some time with Linda Buckles, TNFRW Area 1 Vice President from Kingsport. What a neat woman. I also had the pleasure to chat politics with Vance Cheek and later the Shipley boys who were there to watch their dad get sworn in.
But back to the Williams saga, I digress. I sat back down with the fire chiefs and Red asked me if I wanted to know what was going to go down in the house elections. You know my answer, but after he told me I laughed real hard. Yea right. Minutes later, the fun began.
RNC Chairman Candidate Gets Involved In The Kent Williams Situation
Posted on at 11:07 amA political action committee led by former Maryland Lt. Governor and RNC chairman candidate Michael Steele wants Speaker Kent Williams proverbial head on a plate for accepting the Democratic nomination for Tennessee house speaker — and the committee is putting its money where its mouth is. A press release from the TNGOP:
The installation by Democrats of Kent Williams as Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives this week despite losing the majority in the 2008 elections has galvanized Republicans not only across Tennessee but also across the country into action.
Today, GOPAC, the national Republican organization dedicated exclusively to electing Republicans to state and local offices, presented a financial contribution to the Tennessee Republican Party as a down payment on the effort to replace Mr. Williams with a representative who represents the people of Carter County honestly and who will not use deception and lies in order to advance his own personal political ambitions.
“GOPAC was honored to assist with the election of a Republican majority in the Tennessee House of Representative and looked forward to working with the Republican Caucus nominee for Speaker of the House,” said GOPAC Chairman Michael Steele. “The actions of Mr.. Williams in conspiring with Democrats to make him the Speaker and to elect a Democrat as Speaker Pro Tempore means our work continues for a governing Republican majority in the Tennessee House.
“To kick-off this effort, GOPAC is pleased to be the first contributor to the Tennessee Republican Party’s new project to elect a larger Republican majority and, in turn, the Republican Caucus nominee for Speaker of the House,” Steele said. “We urge citizens across the Volunteer State who want a conservative, common sense majority governing the State House to join us in contributing to the Tennessee Republican Party’s new project.”
“Kent Williams’ betrayal of his party through massive deception and conspiring with the leaders of the opposition, Jimmy Naifeh and Gary Odom, has energized and galvanized countless Tennesseans and Republicans across the nation who have pledged their commitment to electing a principled Republican to the Speaker’s post,” said Bill Hobbs, Communications Director for the Tennessee Republican Party. “The Tennessee Republican Party expresses its appreciation to GOPAC today for the first contribution from a national organization to that effort.
“GOPAC knows the way to defeat the corrupt politics that the Williams-Naifeh-Odom club epitomizes in Tennessee is to defeat Democrats who made this secret deal with Williams, and replace them with Republicans who deal honestly with each other and with the people of our great state,” Hobbs said.
In 2008, thanks to the support of the countless Tennesseans, Republicans won 14 non-incumbent legislative races en route to winning the first Republican majority in the legislature for the first time since the Civil War.
Rather than honor the will of the people in their historic decision to elect him and 49 other Republican candidates to the majority, Williams allowed himself to be installed by Democrats as Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives – despite making numerous promises and public statements of his intention to vote for the Republican Caucus nominee.
Tennesseans have been vocal and active in demonstrating their overwhelming disgust with Rep. Williams’ betrayal.
“It is an honor to stand with great folks and organizations committed to more than political position and power,” commented Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Robin Smith. “We have already begun to recruit and support candidates committed first to principles that serve this great state. We express sincerest thanks to GOPAC and others who are investing in our efforts.”
For The Careerists
Posted on at 10:15 amGary Odom asserts that it was not a naked pursuit of power but a feeling of kinship with legislative employees who might be fired under a Speaker Mumpower which led Kent Williams to accept the deal that made him speaker:
Odom was also aware of another factor in Williams’ psyche that might cause him to risk his party’s rancor. Williams had told Odom that when he was 23 and newly married and starting a family he had found a good job with the Tennessee Department of Transportation. As a Republican, Williams was marked by then Gov. Ray Blanton for removal, not because of job performance but for political reasons.
“I knew as a result of that experience that he had a sick feeling in his stomach for all the career people, researchers and legal professionals, who would be losing their jobs when Jason Mumpower took over as speaker. Some of those people had been in those jobs for over 20 or 30 years.
“I think some of that played into his thinking,” Odom said.
(TFJ: Woodsie)
Two Other Republicans Were Offered The Williams Deal
Posted on at 9:55 amTNGOP chair Robin Smith reports that Democrats came to at least two other Republicans with the offer to be the Democratic nominee for Speaker:
In conversations with members of the Legislature, I have now spoken with at least two other Republican Members of the House who were contacted in addition to Kent Williams to be nominated as Speaker by the Democrats. So, of the three members approached to participate in this deal, only Kent Williams agreed to conspire with the Democrats. This speaks to the character of Williams, but more importantly, to the character of the 49 honorable men and women who serve us so well in the House. I am proud as Chairman to stand with them on principle and the values of the majority of Tennesseans.
Kent Williams Commits To Mumpower For Speaker Seven Days Before The Vote
Posted on at 9:34 amWhile at the same time seems to foreshadow the possibility of his eventual betrayal. From a radio interview:
Questioner: Are you on board with Jason Mumpower as Speaker of the House?
Williams: Yes, I’ve committed to Jason and I still plan to honor that commitment. I can’t foresee anything happening in the next seven days to change my mind but, um, in politics you never know what’s gonna happen.
(via BCM)
SEE ALSO: FOX 17
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