Yesterday, Rep. Kent Coleman sponsored a simple resolution in the Tennessee House to recognize Bart Gordon’s 26 years of service to the State of Tennessee. 37 Republicans refused to sign it. The Nashville Post and WPLN have the story:
Such a resolution is routinely “co-sponsored” by all the members of the House and Senate so that all their names appear on the framed document for the Congressman’s wall.
But this time most of the names on Gordon’s “thank you” will be Democrats. Coleman was asked by Republicans not to add them as co-sponsors.
“I think with the maybe increased partisanship that exists in government today. It was probably a better idea to allow people to sign on to the resolution and not make that type of motion and cause a political disturbance.”
Only thirteen of the 50 Republicans in the state House signed on to the resolution honoring Gordon’s services.
UPDATE: Donna Rowland (R-Murfreesboro) was among those refusing to recognize Gordon, even though she represents his home city and county of Rutherford.
NOT AWARE HE VOTED FOR INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The Daily News Journal’s weekly columnist Sam Stockard asked Bill Ketron why he voted for Race To The Federal Trough along with every other Republican legislator from Rutherford County. Here is what Ketron said:
Asked if he knows what the international benchmarks are, state Sen. Bill Ketron said, “I do not. We were told they would come from the U.S. Department of Education. The thing was on a fast track,” Ketron said. “We barely had time to read through it. It’s voluminous.”
Yet Ketron and fellow Republicans, Sen. Jim Tracy, of Shelbyville, Rep. Donna Rowland of Murfreesboro, Rep. Joe Carr of Lascassas and Rep. Pat Marsh of Shelbyville, members of the Rutherford County delegation, voted for it. Only state Rep. Kent Coleman, a Murfreesboro Democrat, voted against it.
So Republican Senator Bill Ketron admits that he voted for a massive overhaul of Tennessee’s education system without knowing much of what it actually accomplished. He also admits that as a “conservative” Republican, he thinks its just great to beg for half a billion dollars in stimulus cash with strings attached - strings that could bind our teachers to international standards. Sounds like something Tennessee’s Tea Party crowd would really oppose, but they are deathly silent on the matter because the legislation was backed by their republican overlords Ron Ramsey and Glen Casada. Just more evidence that the Tea Party crowd are willing to ignore their own stated beliefs if republicans tell them to, just like they did when they gave George W. Bush free reign to plunge our nation into huge war debts and pass unfunded federal mandates like No Child Left Behind.
ANSWERS EMPHATICALLY THAT TENNESSEE DEMOCRATS’ PRIORITY IS EDUCATION AND WHAT WE STAND FOR
Rep. Kent Coleman (D-Murfreesboro) answered hard questions put to him by the Daily News Journal in Sunday’s edition. While other lawmakers are tiptoeing around education issues being handled in an upcoming Special Session of the General Assembly, Coleman clearly and precisely expressed his opinions on the matter of federal Race To The Top funding and teacher tenure, even when they differed from those of our Democratic governor. He also did the best job in recent memory of calling out Republicans for voting against education funding and then claiming the credit when Democrats got it done, and stating precisely why the Democratic Party of Tennessee is the only party in the state that has proper education of our children as its top priority:
Coleman: I do believe the Democratic Party has the strongest commitment to public education between the two parties. And I’ll give you an example. A few years ago, Gov. Bredesen put forth a proposal to raise about $250 million for school systems through a tobacco tax, and it raised (about) $20 million recurring money for Rutherford County and (Murfreesboro) city school systems. I was the only person in that commission meeting last week that voted to raise that money. But I sat there and listened to the members of the opposing party. I know one of them said something to the effect of a BEP reduction would be the last thing they would vote to do to our county, and I’m having to sit there and think, ‘You didn’t vote to raise the $20 million for Rutherford County,’ and all these commissioners, I don’t any of them realized that. So, someone’s got to communicate to the public education system that the Democratic Party has always had a strong conviction to the belief of equal education, public education, desegregation, and a lot of those of those issues haven’t been popular in the past, but they remain the strongest basis or the reason the Democratic Party exists in Tennessee, because education is our main expenditure at the state level.
The state legislature may be out of session but according to local media reports Rep. Joe Carr (R-48) has been spending a lot of summer days at the Capitol claiming per diems, a day’s pay for showing up. Rep. Carr was at the top of the list when it came to which Republican requested the most per diems after the session was already over.
It’s gotten so bad that Republican House Speaker Kent Williams issued a letter to all Representatives asking them to follow some basic guidelines to cut per diem requests. You can read the letter here.
Rep. Carr must not have gotten the memo because he kept requesting money all summer when he thought no one would be watching. Rep. Carr didn’t think twice about pushing his own bill in the last session demanding Gov. Bredesen not accept federal stimulus funds for extended jobless benefits for his district’s growing unemployed. Now that Rep. Carr needs a stimulus of his own, he’s off to collect his directly from the tax payers.
We’ll take a closer look at Rep. Carr’s summer per diem requests later, but first, let’s look at how much our county’s delegation is costing us.
What the list of our county delegation’s per diem requests for the entire session factually shows the voters of our county is a record of spending on the part of the Republican delegation. Rep. Donna Rowland (R-34) doesn’t look that bad on the surface, but then she’s got a lot of making up to do for being deemed the most expensive Republican in the entire House for filing resolutions honoring everything from campaign contributors to her new boyfriend.
The list below does not include per diem requests made after the session, which ought to put Rep. Carr over the top.
Newly appointed Republican Election Commission Chairman Tom Walker is at the center of a federal lawsuit filed in District Court that could cost Rutherford County tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The suit filed in District Court against Walker and seven other Tennessee Republicans claims the defendants violated the United States Constitution by politicizing the selection of the County Election Administrator. Walker and several other Republicans gained control of county election commissions when their party got control of the House and Senate.
At the request of Rep. Kent Coleman (D-49), State Attorney General Bob Cooper issued an opinion in April warning election commissioners that politicizing the hiring and firing of County Election Administrators would violate the United States Constitution.
Attorney General Cooper recently issued another opinion stating counties will have to foot the bill for defending the unlawful acts in court. That means Tom Walker’s partisan antics could cost Rutherford County tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend.
Of course Election Commissioner Walker could have saved the county from having to defend his actions by simply upholding the law, but this is just the latest example of Walker’s disregard for the law and his open willingness to make the tax payers of Rutherford County pay for it.
Last month, Walker literally told local media that he didn’t care what the laws of Tennessee say when he attempted to defy the state’s open meetings law not once, but twice. It took the county attorney valuable time to educate him into compliance. Fellow Republican Election Commissioner Doris Jones supported Chairman Walker’s attempt to break the law saying to local media “we’ve got some crazy laws in this country.”
Read how Tennessee Republicans are preparing for the 2010 election:
Hello fellow Democrats. I’m pleased to inform you that this year’s session of the Tennessee Legislature has finally come to an end. It was a long and arduous one for our own Curt Cobb and Kent Coleman, who had to wade through 142 gun bills and several booze bills sponsored by our republican Senator Bill Ketron and Rep. Joe Carr . At last, republicans proposed a budget that killed recruitment dollars for a private solar power plant that would bring 30,000 jobs to Tennessee , put Pre-K education on the chopping block , gutted the Ethics Commission , repealed the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act , stripped funding for MTSU’s Education Building , halted badly needed road and bridge projects, and even refused to erect statues for Tennessee’s Nobel Peace Prize recipients! Senate Minority Leader Jim Kyle (D - Memphis) likened it to cuttin’ and runnin’ and Governor Bredesen called it “stupid” . Our republican Senators Jim Tracy and Bill Ketron quickly voted for this “stupid” budget, and refused to help MTSU and its Education Building project. Luckily, Democrats in the House were able to fix most of this disastrous budget and forced Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey (R-Bristol) to surrender . We won this round.
But, we weren’t able to save the Ethics Commission, even though Rep. Kent Coleman tried his best to stand up for ethics in government. We also have to live with guns in bars, and paper-verified voting was postponed for another year even though we’re sitting on $34 million to implement it! Bottom line - we need more Democrats in the Tennessee Legislature. This website offers ways to get involved, contribute to the effort, stay updated on the issues, and stay connected. Your continued help and involvement is appreciated.
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.
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.
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:
House Republicans failed to defeat Rep. Kent Coleman’s (D-49) amendment to a booze bill in the House yesterday.
Rep. Coleman’s amendment allows voters to decide if they want liquor stills built in their communities. A Republican led attempt to defeat this amendment failed Wednesday just as it did the week before.
As written, Rep. Joe Carr’s (R-48) booze bill would have forced any county whose voters approved liquor stores to also allow liquor stills whether they want them or not. Rep. Coleman’s amendment takes that decision away from lawmakers in the back pocket of liquor lobbyists and puts it back in the hands of the voters.
Rep. Carr attempted to kill Rep. Coleman’s amendment on May 14 on behalf of liquor lobbyists but failed to get support from House members. Republicans returned Wednesday with a second attempt to kill Rep. Coleman’s amendment by forcing counties to accept liquor stills whether they want them or not. The Republican effort was withdrawn yesterday after a considerable outcry from House members who wanted their voters to make these decisions for themselves. Several of Rep. Carr’s own Republican colleagues had filed amendments to exclude their counties from his booze bill.
Sen. Bill Ketron (R-13), the Senate bill’s author, stated on WPLN today that he would support the bill and its amendments, but we’ll see about that once the bill goes to committee. If the amendment is stripped by liquor lobbyists, voters could bring lawsuits against the state for retroactively changing what their votes on liquor store referendums meant for their communities.
Another amendment Republicans might try to strip from the bill in committee is an amendment by Rep. Curt Cobb (D-62) that would protect churches. Rep. Cobb’s amendment requires liquor stills to abide by liquor store zoning rules that prevent them from selling liquor next to churches. The amendment is opposed by liquor lobbyists who want the right to sell liquor anywhere they want.
Liquor lobbyists who support Rep. Joe Carr’s (R-48) booze bill were angered yesterday by a proposed amendment that would protect churches.
Rep. Curt Cobb (D-62) filed an amendment yesterday to force distilleries who sell liquor to abide by local ordinances that define how close to churches liquor can be sold. Local zoning laws approved by voters across the state prevent liquor and porn stores from locating near churches. As written, Rep. Carr’s booze bill would allow licensed liquor stills to locate wherever county manufacturing zoning allows.
Several conservative Republican representatives, including Rep. Maggart (R-45) and Rep. Lynn (R-57), filed amendments to exclude their counties from Rep. Carr’s booze bill because the bill doesn’t protect churches or the will of voters. Carr’s conservative colleagues felt they were protecting the values of their communities from a poorly written bill.
Rep. Joe Carr’s (R-48) booze bill ran into more problems hours ago in the Tennessee legislature. Rep. Carr had to delay his bill until next Wednesday after several amendments to protect voters caused what one of his colleagues described on the House floor as “pandemonium.”
Rep. Carr’s booze bill as written denies voters the right to decide if they want liquor distilleries in their county. The bill would retroactively make a vote for liquor stores a vote to also allow the liquor industry to manufacture “intoxicating liquors” in the county without the explicit approval of voters.
Rep. Kent Coleman (D-49) amended Rep. Carr’s booze bill granting the right for voters to make these decisions themselves through a local referendum. Rep. Carr tried and failed to kill Rep. Coleman’s amendment. It was the only amendment Rep. Carr targeted.
Several of Rep. Carr’s own Republican colleagues, including Rep. Maggart (R-45), Rep. Lynn (R-57) and Rep. Floyd (R-27), filed amendments to exclude their counties from the consequences of Rep. Carr’s sloppy booze bill. Rep. Curt Cobb (D-62) filed an amendment that would prevent distilleries from selling their liquor near churches, a move that angered the liquor lobbyists who support the bill.
This was the third time Rep. Carr delayed his bill due to confusion in the House. Rep. Curry Todd (R-95) complained to the House Speaker that the bill was taking up too much valuable time on an already crowded legislative calendar. Rep. Carr spent nearly 45 minutes of the House’s time today defending his booze bill. Rep. Jason Mumpower (R-3) stood by Rep. Carr’s side advising him through the entire fiasco.
Rep. Carr’s booze bill comes to the House floor for a vote yet again next Wednesday.
The editorial praises Rep. Kent Coleman (D-49) for killing the House’s nursing home bill that would have placed a capped value of an abused loved one’s life over the nursing home’s bottom line.
Legislation placing damage caps on nursing home lawsuits should be dead for the session after it failed in a House panel.
State Rep. Kent Coleman, D-Murfreesboro, was one of three legislators who voted against the bill in the civil practice and procedures subcommittee, effectively killing it for the year with a 3-3 deadlock.
Coleman should be commended for taking a stand against the bill, which has been dubbed the “Kill Old People Cheap Act.”
Sponsored by Rep. Jon Lundberg, R-Bristol, and Sen. Jim Tracy, R-Shelbyville, who represents much of Rutherford County, the bill sets a $300,000 cap on punitive damages, losses that are hard to assess such as pain, suffering and mental anguish.
Tracy’s bill has been awaiting a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. He should take it off notice and tell the nursing home industry to go back and rework the legislation.
Our families deserve justice. They don’t deserve lobbyists telling a court how much our parents’ lives are worth when nursing homes are found to be at fault for their neglect and abuse. Rep. Coleman took a principled stand for our families when he killed that bill, and now it’s time for Sen. Jim Tracy to do the same.
Yesterday, Rep. Kent Coleman sponsored a simple resolution in the Tennessee House to recognize Bart Gordon’s 26 years of service to the State of Tennessee. 37 Republicans refused to sign it. The Nashville Post and WPLN have the story:
ANSWERS EMPHATICALLY THAT TENNESSEE DEMOCRATS’ PRIORITY IS EDUCATION AND WHAT WE STAND FOR
Last night, the House voted 73 - 20 to postpone fair and accurate elections in the state of Tennessee until 2012. Republican Representatives 
