Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey fails to defund pre-k and MTSU bonds
Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey’s budget proposal to defund pre-k education and construction bonds for MTSU failed to get support of more level-headed lawmakers on Capitol Hill, after Rutherford County rank-and-file Democrats applied the heat over the past week.
In a last minute effort to cut funding to Tennessee’s educational priorities, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey and Senators Bill Ketron (R-13) and Jim Tracy (R-16) crashed a press conference yesterday and cried out against providing recurring funds to pre-k education. The budget that finally passed rejected their efforts in favor of the common-sense plan promoted by Democrats.
In the House, Rep. Donna Rowland (R-34) went out of her way to make sure her voice vote against MTSU funding was reflected in the official record. Duly noted.
Another defeat to the budget plan promoted by Republicans Ramsey, Ketron and Tracy came when the House approved a compromise budget that included bonds for MTSU’s approved Education Building. Senators Ketron and Tracy had made a back-door deal with Lt. Gov. Ramsey to scuttle the funding, but Democrats raised enough hell through emails and phone calls that Republicans caved.
None of this would have been possible without you standing up for the priorities that matter to your family and Rutherford County. Because Democrats took a stand for the priorities of working families, the Republican plan to cut funding to pre-k education and construction bonds for MTSU and other state universities failed miserably.
Despite their defeated budget proposals to defund education priorities of working families, Senators Ketron and Tracy will welcome Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey to Rutherford County in the coming months to gleefully take credit for the Democratic investments in education. You can count on us making sure the voters are reminded of the truth.
Last night, the House voted 73 - 20 to postpone fair and accurate elections in the state of Tennessee until 2012. Republican Representatives Joe Carr (R-48) and Donna Rowland (R-34) both voted for the delay. Rep. Kent Coleman (D-49) voted against the delay.
The Senate will now consider Sen. Bill Ketron’s (R-13) version of the bill. SB 872 will delay the implementation of the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (TVCA) which passed the House and the Senate and was signed into law by Gov. Phil Bredesen. The TVCA requires all counties to switch to optical scanned paper ballots instead of using electronic voting machines.
Sen. Ketron and fellow Republicans have expressed concerns over the cost of implementing the new law they passed despite the fact that it will be paid for by $25 million in federal funds from the Help America Vote Act.
A coalition of civic groups denounced voting machine legislation passed last night by the full House of Representatives. Gathering to Save Our Democracy, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters of Tennessee, along with VerifiedVoting.org, Voter Action, and Voters Unite.org called for the Senate to reject HB 614. A companion bill, Senate Bill 872, also awaits floor action in the Senate. HB 614 would delay the implementation of paper records verified by the voter from the 2010 general election to the 2012 general election. It would also replace a hand counted audit of computer vote tallies with an “audit” that would involve using the counties’ inventory of ballot scanners. These scanners would nearly always have the same software, and come from the same voting machine company, as the scanners used to tally initial results.
Sen. Ketron has failed to provide a rational arguement for his focus on delaying the implemention of fair and accurate elections in Tennessee, but his actions fall in line with a pattern of promoting bad government. Sen. Ketron was also successful during this session in yanking the teeth out of the independent Ethics Commission responsibile for investigating corruption on Capitol Hill.
Senators Bill Ketron (R-13) and Jim Tracy (R-16) ran to the media to take credit for funding a needed building project at MTSU, but behind closed doors they’ve pledged allegiance to the Republican Party to defund it.
The Rutherford County Republicans have pledged to pull the plug on construction jobs at MTSU and the on site progress for a new education building for the state’s largest university.
According to David Gregory, vice chancellor for administration and facilities with the Tennessee Board of Regents, the $29.8 million project was funded in the 2007-2008 budget year as a Board of Regents capital outlay project, with a funding structure consisting of $17.3 million in cash and $12.5 million or in bonds.
Of that, $1.7 million has already been allocated in design fees and programming fees to the new building near Cummings Hall and the new roundabout on the MTSU campus. In addition, another $260,000 plus in construction management and site utility construction has been obligated.
Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey and Senators Ketron and Tracy are united in their opposition to improvements in education, health care and jobs. All three Republicans have opposed federal stimulus funds in all three areas, oppose recurring funds for pre-k education and now want to make major cuts in promised funds to MTSU.
Friday, the Senate Finance Committee passed Republican revisions to the governor’s budget plan eliminating the authorization of bonds for several higher education construction projects, including the MTSU project.
Some hope that will be changed on Tuesday, when the full Senate takes up the budget.
“I would say to you, we don’t build those buildings now, we will be unable to build them for some years to come because of the state finances,” said Democratic Sen. Jim Kyle.
MTSU was founded 98 years ago as a teachers college. University officials hope to mark the 100th anniversary by opening a building devoted to education teachers.
Senators Ketron and Tracy have spent months pushing a Republican agenda focused on abortion, guns and booze. When it comes time for leadership on issues that matter to working families of Rutherford County, they both choose cuts in education, health care and jobs instead of the hard work it takes to improve the quality of our lives.
Senators Bill Ketron (R-13) and Jim Tracy (R-16) joined Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey yesterday in crashing a press conference by advocates for pre-K education. Advocates had gathered for a press conference on Capitol Hill to stand up to Republican proposals to cut pre-k funding.
Democrats want funding for pre-k education to be a part of the general budget as recurring funds year after year. Senators Ketron, Tracy and other state Republicans want those funds to remain in non-recurring funds that are voted on by the legislature.
Placing pre-k funding on the annual chopping block is just one of the Republican budget proposals Gov. Bredesen recently called “stupid.” The Republican proposal to keep pre-k funding on the chopping block year after year is part a general state Republican Party agenda of defunding the priorities of working families.
Tennessee ranks in the top half of states that focus on pre-k education. If Tennessee Republicans get their way, Tennessee could find itself knocked off yet another good list of states focused on education.
Tennessee’s Pre-K program met nine out of 10 quality standards benchmarks in the report, The State of Preschool 2008. The state increased enrollment of 4-year-olds to 21 percent, and the $4,465 in per-child state spending earned the state a 13th place ranking on resources.
“Quality Pre-K classrooms are one of the best investments we can make in the education of children in Tennessee,” Governor Bredesen said. “Even in difficult budget times we have been able to maintain our support for these classes and, as this report shows, it’s paying off.”
A legislative aid for Tennessee Republican Senate Caucus Chair Sen. Diane Black (R-18) has been caught sending a racist email to fellow Republicans. It is another example of Tennessee Republicans dangerously fanning the flames of racism over the past year.
Republican Legislative Aid Sherri Goforth admitted yesterday to sending a photo montage of U.S. Presidents from her state-owned computer and email account with President Barack Obama depicted as a pair of floating eyes in darkness. Sen. Black told the media that a written reprimand is all she and other TN GOP leaders intend to do about the email. Goforth is a 20 year state employee and makes close to $50,000 a year.
Goforth made matters worse yesterday by suggesting she was more sorry about being exposed as a racist than she was at her poor judgment and character.
“I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button,” Goforth told NIT. “I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”
“I am calling on Sen. Black to reject this racist smear and fire this staffer who, on state government time, on state government computers, using a state government email account, launched this bigoted attack on our president,” Forrester said. “Keeping her on the staff would send the message that this type of behavior is condoned by the House Republican Caucus.”
The new leadership of the Tennessee Republican Party has refused to comment on the story hoping this latest incident of racism will disappear. Sen. Bill Ketron (R-13) and Sen. Jim Tracy (R-16) haven’t said a word about their party boss’s decision to keep Goforth employed on the tax payer’s dime.
Since Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey’s backroom budget includes so many firings of state employees, we think he could save at least one working family’s breadwinner from a pink slip by firing this racist staffer. Will Ramsey, Black and the Republican leadership show that kind of integrity? Stay tuned…
Sen. Bill Ketron (R-13) and Sen. Jim Tracy (R-16) have made a partisan pledge to Republican leadership not to fund any bonds for a badly needed building project at Middle Tennessee State University. The closed-door pledge is part of a Republican budget plan that makes major cuts in education, jobs and health care.
Rutherford County’s Republican delegation has wasted months on abortion, guns and booze bills, but threw together a last minute budget proposal that abandons the priorities of working families and those seeking to better themselves through education.
“The Science Building at MTSU has been on the list to be funded for a number of years,” Tracy added. “The time has come for the state to make a commitment to MTSU and its students. I am optimistic that we can get funding this year for this important project.”
Though Ketron and Tracy are quick to take credit for MTSU building projects they never lifted a finger for (no MTSU building projects have begun during their 2 terms) and claim they are working to fund our hometown university, Ketron and Tracy can’t even figure out where the money is.
State Rep. Jim Tracy, R-Shelbyville, said Wednesday that money for the project was appropriated two years ago. “I don’t know if they have used that anywhere else,” he said.
Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, expressed similar concerns.
“Where did (the money) go? Who authorized them to take the money?” he said.
Ketron and Tracy talk a good game, but now its time to put up or shut up. Will Ketron and Tracy vote to fund MTSU’s Education Building and the jobs it creates? Will they take a stand and fight for MTSU?
TAKE ACTION: Use the form below and ask both Senators Tracy and Ketron to break their pledge with Republicans and fund MTSU’s Education Building.
Gov. Phil Bredesen used one word to describe the budget plan cobbled together at the last minute by state Republican lawmakers: “Stupid.”
State Republicans propose major cuts in education, health care, and jobs after wasting several months on abortion, guns and booze legislation and ignoring the priorities of working families.
The GOP proposal would remove funding for the state to acquire land for a West Tennessee megasite that would be used to attract large manufacturers and more jobs to the state.
It would also scuttle Bredesen’s plan to spend $62 million in federal stimulus money to build a solar generation plant at the site near Brownsville and establish a solar research institute at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
“Some of these cuts are personal. The House spent two months talking about abortion this year, and now we’ve got a budget cut to eliminate the infant mortality money. That borders on being hypocritical as to what you believe in, whether you are pro-family or pro-life. It’s a study on infant mortality. It’s a study on how to keep these babies alive. I’ve got zip codes in my hometown with infant mortality rates of Third World countries. We’ve got to figure out how to stop that and we don’t need to wait until we’ve got a budget surplus to do it.”
Check back later for more focus on the role Rutherford County’s Republican delegation is playing in the state party’s proposed cuts in education, health care and jobs.
Today was a very sad day for America with news of another fatal act of domestic terrorism within two weeks. This time the targets were visitors to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. According to several news reports, the terror suspect was driven by a noted anti-Semitic, right-wing ideology.
Last week, another right-wing domestic terrorist driven by a fanatic ideology entered the church of abortion Dr. George Tiller and shot him dead. Shortly after Dr. Tiller’s murder, a local conservative leader explained how murder of abortion doctors is justified in the mind of anti-abortionists.
Shortly after today’s domestic terrorist incident FOX News anchor Shepard Smith took a moment to ponder the level of hate expressed by FOX News’s more extremist viewers. Watch this video for a glimpse into their current state of mind.
In April, Department of Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano was attacked on right-wing radio by conservatives for issuing the following warning on the potential for violence from right-wing hate groups. It is now clear DHS was right to warn law enforcement.
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
From time to time, extremists on both ends of the political spectrum can come to define a movement’s beliefs and hopes for our country’s future. It is our great hope that hatred and the resulting domestic terrorism from right-wing extremists is an aberration and a distortion of the values and beliefs of American conservatives. Our country has plenty of shared enemies and even more shared beliefs and values, and none are greater than our shared love for our country.
Please pray for the family of the victim of today’s senseless act of domestic terrorism, and pray for our country.
Rep. Donna Rowland (R-34) tried to exclude Rutherford County from a bipartisan bill that would create statewide building construction safety standards and promote energy efficiency savings for working families.
Several rural counties in Tennessee have no home construction safety standards for one-family and two-family dwellings. The bill would protect residents from builders who place families at risk to maximize their own profits.
Rep. Rowland said establishing basic safety and energy efficiency standards in Rutherford County to protect the lives of homeowners and save them money on energy costs would present an unnecessary burden on home builders. After hearing Rep. Rowland’s argument today on behalf of her major donors, Rep. Rowland’s House constituents voted against her amendment, and it failed.
Beginning July 1, 2010, this amendment applies the statewide building construction safety standards established by the state fire marshal to one-family and two-family dwellings, unless the local government has adopted the International Residential Code for such dwellings. Under present law, one-family and two-family dwellings are exempt from the statewide standards. The full text of this amendment establishes a process for appointment of deputy building inspectors to conduct safety standards compliance inspections of one-family and two-family dwellings.
Also, beginning July 1, 2010, this amendment requires that the statewide building construction safety standards must include energy efficiency standards. This amendment prohibits the state fire marshal from including in the standards a mandatory requirement that one-family and two-family dwellings have sprinklers; provided, however, that local governments will be authorized to adopt more stringent standards for such dwellings.
With a one seat advantage in the state house, Tennessee’s Republican Party has empowered radical voices who spent the entire legislative session focused on abortion, guns and booze while the priorities of working families were ignored.
This is the real agenda of the Tennessee GOP, and if given more power in 2010, Republicans will redraw district lines and ensure their radical agenda has a regional foothold in American politics for years to come.
When the census is complete in 2011, the Tennessee General Assembly is charged with drawing new lines on congressional and state legislative districts.
With the state’s Republican Party taken over by “right-wing zealots,” Mr. Forrester said, the Democratic Party has developed a strategy to regain the House.
The House now has a one-member Republican advantage.
“We know we have enough money,” Mr. Forrester said. “We don’t know if we have enough boots on the ground.”
He said the party plans to target eight to 12 state Senate and House seats, while also making sure every state House and Senate seat up for election and held by a Republican has a Democratic challenger.
On Saturday, Rutherford County Democrats attended the 7th annual Juneteenth celebration at the Bradley Academy Museum and Cultural Center.
Juneteenth is a street festival celebrating the anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the United States. The event was hosted by the alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and the Bradley Academy. Learn more about Juneteenth.
Rutherford County Democrats signed up new Democrats and registered new voters. Check out more future events on our calendar and join us as we work to bring change to Tennessee in 2010.
Todd, who seems to enjoy playing the love-hate relationship game with the Capitol press corps, told the House Finance Budget Subcommittee today that the ethics commission in its current form was the media’s fault, not the result of that pesky Operation Tennessee Waltz bribery scandal.
“If you’re going to conduct something illegal, you’re going to do it anyway, regardless of what kind of ethics you’ve got in place,” Todd told House Speaker Kent Williams, R-Elizabethton, when Williams asked about workload of the current ethics commission.
“I think there was a rush in judgment with regards to some of the media outlets that helped drive that in the state. They probably don’t like what I said, but they don’t like a lot of things I say.”
It’s unfortunate that Tennessee needs such a body to keep an eye on legislators, but the record shows that our state lawmakers are no more honest than the general public — and probably less so. And once they arrive in Nashville, many of them don’t know how to say “no” to smooth-talking, big-spending lobbyists.
Party affiliation makes no difference in this Ethics Commission argument. Democrats and Republicans alike can fall prey to temptations on Capitol Hill, and because the nature of politics and power is corrupting, Tennessee needs to maintain independent checks and balances to ensure lobbyists and legislators are playing by the rules.
U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Murfreesboro, was among the politicians who called for the tornado roundtable discussion, which included Nashville T.V. meteorologists and his fellow House Science and Technology Committee member Lincoln Davis.
The congressman pointed out early in the discussion that the number of tornadoes in Tennessee have increased over the past several years.
“Our state [Tennessee] has led the nation in tornado fatalities over the past 10 years, but we do have the weapon of technology” he stated. “A better understanding of why tornadoes form and better ways to detect them will increase warning times, decrease false alarms, and in turn reduce tornado injuries and deaths.”
A Republican sponsored bill (HB 1204 / SB 1331) that would have allowed the coal industry to pollute Tennessee’s waterways narrowly failed in the state House today 49 - 42. The bill’s House sponsor says he is not sure if he’ll try to refile the bill.
Rep. Joe McCord (R-8) admitted today on the House floor that the bill was written and given to him to sponsor by the coal industry. The bill would have allowed selenium levels from coal production to reach unacceptable levels (7.5 ppm) in Tennessee lakes, rivers and streams. Watch this video to see what selenium waste has done to aquatic life.
Rep. McCord and several of his Republican colleagues repeatedly claimed the bill would bring Tennessee up to the latest EPA standards for selenium levels in U.S. waterways. The EPA, however, never adopted the proposal which Republicans falsely claimed were the latest standards.
Furthermore, the scientist who helped draft the 2004 proposal for the EPA on selenium levels has since reported that his findings were wrong and that the bill as written would in fact kill nearly 80% of fish in Tennessee waterways, one reason the proposal was rejected by the Bush Administration’s EPA in the first place.
Despite these facts, Tennessee Republicans persisted on behalf of the coal industry, including those representing Rutherford County.
The audacity of Tennessee Republicans to pass off junk science and misrepresent the truth in the state legislature as the basis of their support for poisoning Tennessee waterways is embarrassing and immoral.
Tennesseans are called upon to be good stewards of God’s creation and to protect it for generations to come. Tennessee Republicans demonstrated today yet again whose side they are on when it comes to that calling. Tennessee Republicans sided with the interests of the coal industry over protecting our environment and our great state’s cultural heritage of hunting and fishing.
Here is how our state’s delegation voted on the selenium bill:
Family Action Council of Tennessee President David Fowler penned an article yesterday condemning the assassination of Dr. George Tiller but then explained how murdering doctors is justified in the minds of the politically deranged.
Over time, those who grew up with abortion legal and common no longer had a moral sense that it was wrong. And if not wrong, then why would any particular type of abortion, like partial-birth abortion, be wrong? On the other hand, when the law allows something as horrific as partial-birth abortion, some perhaps begin to lose their respect for the law and, taking that disrespect to its final conclusion, it becomes justification for breaking the law, taking the law into one’s own hands–vigilante justice against persons like Dr. Tiller.
Last night, the House voted 73 - 20 to postpone fair and accurate elections in the state of Tennessee until 2012. Republican Representatives 
Rep. Curry Todd (R-95) repeated 
