Don’t fret, good reader, the Tennessee Lookout is back in the House.
Whereas mugs of our two reporters were not included in a list of media to be allowed on the House floor at the start of this session of the 113th General Assembly, by the time I got over a bad cold this week and went Thursday to start covering the Legislature, the world returned to order.
Not only did I go into the House chamber and sit in my customary seat, I made it through the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance training with my sanity intact, or as intact as it is these days.
The question is whether I want to spend an inordinate number of hours over the next three to four months sitting in the House chamber listening to lawmakers drone on about meaningless and insignificant bills. Maybe a trip to the Senate will be fruitful since the welcome seems a little warmer.
Of course, some of the House bills will be important, mainly the budget and those undercutting public schools. But too many of these matters turn out to be legislating for the sake of legislating, a theory I’ve held for about 35 years.
Things aren’t status quo, though, for people trying to sit in the House balconies.
Speaker Cameron Sexton pulled a ticket program out of thin air this week and introduced a policy giving lawmakers one ticket each for every House session to hand out to the public. That means Republicans will be able to give out 75 tickets and Democrats 24, all for the west balcony. The east side of the gallery, we’re now told, will remain open to the general public.
This was a surprise to Republicans and Democrats, and nobody can turn up a written policy, so Speaker Sexton seems to be playing it by ear.
House Minority Leader Karen Camper says Sexton told her Monday he was considering some sort of ticket admission policy, and the next day, bam, it took effect. They’re not exactly Willy Wonka’s golden tickets to good fortune, but they will get you into the balcony, a destination of tourism groups nationwide.
Sexton defends his policy, saying reps have groups of people who visit and they want to make sure they have seats, even if they’re 10 minutes late.
The Crossville Republican further argues that lawmakers can share tickets — in a bipartisan fashion — and he notes Congress also has a ticketing system. It’s one of the only times we can recall a recent state lawmaker saying they want to copy Congress, which lives in even more dysfunction than our folks.
Asked whether the policy favors Republicans, since they have 75 of 99 members, Sexton says, “Is that not the fairest way to do it?”
He contends Democrats can ask Republicans for tickets if they need them, which in some cases could be comparable to asking Gov. Bill Lee to commute a death sentence.
“Up here members should have the same access to allow their constituents to be here as well as people who want to come in general public,” Sexton says.
What it really boils down to, of course, is that Sexton has been roundly harassed by jeering, cheering and finger clicking in the last year, especially as the House expelled Reps. Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson for leading a rally against gun violence in the wake of the Covenant School mass shooting. The duo received committee appointments Thursday, but not maybe the ones they want.
Camper calls the tickets a “distraction,” saying access to the chamber has never been a problem, whether for a mayor, county executive or member of the general public.
“To create a policy out of … nowhere to address what issues he believes is true is just unreal to me,” Camper says.
The new ticket system for members of the public is likely an outgrowth of House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s frustration with harassment by jeering, cheering and finger clicking protestors who were galled at the expulsions of Reps. Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones for leading a gun violence protest.
Democratic Rep. Vincent Dixie of Nashville is asking Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti for a legal opinion on the ticket policy that limits the west side to media, legislative staff and VIP guests. He notes many people were frustrated when they were turned away from the balconies this week.
And that leads us to even more restrictions. Five minutes to present a bill, an hour for a big bill split 30 minutes each for Republicans and Dems, no debating parliamentary procedure, etc. In a comforting move, the final decision on scheduling critical bills for 60 minutes of debate lies with — you guess it: the speaker (in consultation with caucus leaders.)
No talking on the dance floor
Rep. Kevin Vaughan issued a heartrending apology to colleagues Thursday for speaking for only 38 minutes and 58 seconds during the 2023 session. That’s total time, as opposed to Tulsa Time.
“I’m sorry you have not been getting your daily dose of wit and wisdom,” Vaughan told fellow lawmakers. “I hope this is being logged in so I can continue to rise in the power rankings.”
The Collierville Republican said he would let House members know about the “hardware” (trophy) eventually coming back to the “district of champions” in West Tenn.
With that, the speaking list is likely to be the running joke (already getting weary) for the 2024 session after Republican Rep. Jason Zachary introduced two versions Wednesday to show Democrats are not getting shut out, as they proclaim, but in fact do most of the speaking on the House floor.
The lists, which we aren’t even certain are true, show Rep. Pearson, of Memphis, leading the league in total talk time with 3 hours 52 minutes, Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons at 2 hours 27 minutes, Rep. Jones, of Nashville, coming in at 2 hours 25 minutes, followed by House Majority Leader William Lamberth of Portland at 2 hours 6 minutes, Rep. G.A. Hardaway of Memphis at 1 hour 31 minutes and Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville at 1 hour 30 minutes and so forth and so on.
More than half of the House spoke for fewer than 16 minutes, which is quite an accomplishment considering politicians love to hear their own voices. Even Lamberth acknowledges he can get a bit “chatty” on the floor.
The fact they had staff or interns, though, go back and add up the amount of time lawmakers spoke is worrisome at best and problematic at worst.
The numbers are likely skewed, too, because even though Pearson and Jones are prone to filibuster and oratory, they were each given a lengthy amount of time to defend themselves against accusers during the expulsion hearing, roughly 30 minutes, plus defense, which probably led to about 45 minutes. When you’re defending your elected seat, you don’t worry about time.
Only Zachary is concerned about losing time.
Then again, Republicans don’t have to spend much time defending their bills against Democrats’ criticism, because they hold a supermajority and the votes to pass just about anything. Often their response to tough criticism is “thank you for your comments. I renew my motion.”
While Democrats’ most critical bills rarely see the light of day, only the most horrible pieces of Republican legislation go down in flames when they fail to receive a motion or second in committee meetings. And they have to be really, really bad, worse than a second-grade knock, knock joke and some of the comments in this column.
What federal funds?
Senators who delved into the eternal question of taking federal education funds ($1.8 billion this year) released a report this week saying it might not be a great idea to give up nearly 20% of the state’s K-12 budget.
“Frankly there are fewer federal strings than I anticipated,” Sen. Jon Lundberg, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, was quoted as saying in a Chalkbeat article.
Speaker Sexton, though, says the House has about four or five matters it wants to present in its own report, which will be coming out soon and has all of us living in a mystical ketchup commercial of anticipation.
“We’re gonna have actionable items that we want to look at that we uncovered during the committee hearings,” Sexton says.
The matter will likely be steered through Government Operations and House Education committees, but more information is needed, he says.
Cracking down
Majority Leader Lamberth is sponsoring a spate of bills designed to toughen criminal penalties.
House Bill 1663 would make child rape convicts eligible for the death penalty and increase the penalty for child rape to 40-60 years of prison time from 25-40 years.
“The death penalty is reserved for the worst of the very worst in our society, and there is no other crime more depraved, more sadistic or horrifying than the murder or rape of a child,” Lamberth says in a statement.
Problem is the state of Tennessee can’t seem to execute the people already on Death Row. Our education system is so bad that nobody can mix the chemicals and follow the rules to put a person to sleep legally. Gov. Lee, thus, had to put executions on hold.
But seriously, Lamberth is pushing another measure requiring defendants found incompetent to stand trial to be committed to a treatment facility and be entered in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a database of people prohibited from buying or owning firearms.
Lamberth filed HB1640 last year after Belmont University freshman Jillian Ludwig was shot to death by Shaquille Taylor, who had been released on an aggravated assault charge after three court-appointed physicians testified he was incompetent to stand trial.
Still in the pulpit
Earlier in the week, Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin, held a panel dubbed “Faith and State,” with Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, Gov. Bill Lee’s senior advisor John DeBerry and David Young, a senior minister at North Boulevard Church of Christ in Murfreesboro.
At least eight Republican state senators also showed up for the relatively tame event, whose primary purpose seemed to be to help boost Haile’s religious bona-fides as he faces a tough primary challenge to his political right from a member of the Sumner County Constitutional Republicans.
The only fireworks from the event came from DeBerry, who used the time to lament the state’s intrusion into the church during the coronavirus pandemic, among other gripes.
Haile asked what lawmakers should do when the state and church conflict on an issue, which triggered DeBerry to rant about politicians who don’t stand their ground on religious beliefs and allow their positions to change or “evolve” while in office.
“Well, voters didn’t elect you to evolve,” said DeBerry, “they elected you to represent them.”
These statements from DeBerry are interesting, considering how his political career ended. During his time in the state House, he was a Democrat, but in 2020, the party kicked him off the primary ballot because his conservative views on abortion and school vouchers didn’t match his voters.
But don’t worry, those school voucher views provided him a soft landing with a $200,000 job in the governor’s administration shortly after his time in the state House.
A parting shot
As we enter the final year of this grand gathering, here is a little bit of wisdom dispensed by someone who has been around a few years longer than I. In describing the difference between the Legislature’s two chambers, this wise person points to the House chamber and says, “Frat house.” He then points to the Senate chamber and says, “Country club.”
“And the sign said ‘long-haired freaky people need not apply.’”
* (Signs, Five Man Electrical Band)
Tennessee Lookout Reporter Adam Friedman contributed to this Stump.
Sam Stockard is a veteran Tennessee reporter and editor, having written for the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, where he served as lead editor when the paper won an award for being the state’s best Sunday newspaper two years in a row. He has led the Capitol Hill bureau for The Daily Memphian. His awards include Best Single Editorial from the Tennessee Press Association.
This article in this post was originally published on Tennessee Lookout and parts of it are included here under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0
