TennWatch/Volitics

Tyrant Naifeh's Behavior

TN House Speaker Jimmie Naifeh continues to ignore the rules in order to obstruct legislation that he doesn't want to see the light of day and ram through bills that are his pets. But his latest actions goes beyond the pale.

In a Chattanoogan article, Rep. Chris Clem explains what our elected officials did on their final day in session. First, they passed a bill that "dramatically increased the retirement benefits of legislators".

As the day wore on it became clear that the Democrats would not adjourn until this bill passed. Sen. David Fowler tried several times to adjourn without passing the bill. He came close. But, in the end, the Democrat leadership of both chambers were able to pass this dramatic increase in legislative pensions.

It must be noted that Republicans now control the Senate. Don't you wish that the results of all votes were published on the web?

Chris calls the second piece of legislation the "Incumbent Protection Bill" — it dramatically increases the number of votes required for a write-in candidate in a primary to get put on the ballot in the general election. But Naifeh wanted it:

I attempted to call for "the Rule." "The Rule" simply requires all members to sit in their chair and not push the vote botton for anyone else. In other words, only members sitting in their chair should vote while under "the Rule."

I realized that 10 members were not in the chamber. Six of them had gone home and were no longer in Nashville. Democrat Speaker Jimmy Naifeh refused to recognize me and allow me to call for "the Rule." Republicans then objected to calling for a vote. We raised the required five hands. Naifeh claimed he saw no hands. He then allowed the vote.

In order to pass there must be 50 votes. The bill received 58 votes. Ten of the members who voted for the Incumbent Protection Bill were not even in the chamber when someone voted for them. Six of the 10 were not even in Nashville. Ironically, if I had been allowed to call for "the Rule" then the Incumbent Protection Bill would have fallen two votes short of passage.

It is expected that Naifeh refuses to recognize hands raised by legislators of the opposite party — he has done it too many times before to expect any different. Even Rep. Stacey Campfield commented on this:

Chris Clem tried to get the speaker to recognize him and put us under the rule. Several hands were in the air, but similar to the conceal carry bill last year the speaker said "I only see three hands" (5 are needed but we probably had 15 or more) and pushed the vote on the bill.

But it is absolutely astounding that legislators can vote for others not in the room.

No wonders TN Dems blocked meaningful ethics reform this year.

Bill Hobbs observes:

Naifeh is a blight on the people of Tennessee.

Hat tip to David Waldrip, who emails:

This is embarrassing to anyone with a sense of truth, justice, and fair play. Believe me, I am embarrassed tonight for our state, as will be many of you. With this kind of behaviour going on in the open, I have to think that the end of the reign of the abusive Democrats is somewhere on the horizon.

We have an opportunity to change this with primary elections on Aug. 3 and general elections on Nov. 7th, and it is going to take effort by each one of us. Effort to spread the word to our friends and educate enough voters in key districts to make a difference.

Of course, since more people voted in the last American Idol contest than voted in the Presidential election of 2004, we may just continue to get what we deserve. I thought we deserved better. The foks lying in the National cemeteries sure thought so.

I couldn't have put it better.

Technorati Tags: Jimmie Naifeh, Tennessee Politics, Democrat Culture of Corruption.

Shep — Again

Democrat Shep Wilbun was once the Juvenile Court Clerk, as well as Memphis city councilman, Shelby County commissioner, and candidate for Memphis mayor. I've heard stories of favoritism and shady dealings and even a federal indictment for sexual assault.

Slippery Shep has never been convicted.

I heard him speak at a Shelby County Libertarian meeting and found him to be thoughtful, highly intelligent, educated and eloquent. If I didn't know some of his history, I might have been sucked in.

Shep won the Democrat primary for Juvenile Court Clerk, so he will be facing incumbent Steve Stamson this fall. Hopefully the voters will remember that Stamson cleaned up the Clerk's office and saved the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Another Stamson

Debbie Stamson, wife of Juvenile Court Clerk Steve Stamson, has worked in the county Clerk's office for twenty-something years. So when the incumbent decided to step down, Debbie figured she was a logical replacement.

So did County Commissioner Marilyn Loeffel.

I supported Debbie (another sign in my yard) and she came through tonight, taking the primary 55% to 45%.

Commisioner Bunker

The primary for County Commissioner District 4 Position 2 was another of my hot buttons today.

Tom Moss was running and had the threat of name recognition. Unfortunately, that name recognition was because Tom "the Tax Man" Moss voted to tax the citizens of Shelby County in order to build a basketball stadium and attract the Grizzlies to town. (That's the same Grizzlies that recently set an NBA record for losing 12 straight playoff games.)

Jim Bomprezzi has some minor name recognition as a past mayor of Lakeland. I have yet to find a resident of Lakeland that has fond memories of Bomprezzi's reign.

Unknown Wyatt Bunker stepped up and challenged these two veteran politicans. Wyatt is a dynamic young man that earned my support the first time I talked to him. The latest storm blew away my Bunker yard sign, but there'll be a replacement soon because he took the race.

Dems Elect Closet Republican

My favorite primary race that took place today was County Commissioner District 2 Position 1 — for the Democrats.

J.W. Gibson took the Democrat primary with 41%, fending off Walter Bailey (33%) and D. Harris (26%).

Gibson is a self-made man, coming up from nothing, joining the Navy, using the GI bill to get a college education and eventually becoming quite successful. For example, his company prints the tickets for the Tennessee Lottery, even though his company was nothing but a business plan when he won the contract. Why? Because he has connections, heads a minority-owned business — and writes a hell of a business plan.

Voters that pay attention know that Gibson has been very active in the Republican Party. In fact, had the County Democrat machine had time to respond, they would have thrown him off the Democrat ballot. But Gibson slide in under the wire, put together a well financed campaign (Gibson's big plywood signs were everywhere!) and took the primary.

This is a heavily Democrat district so whoever has a "D" behind their name this fall will be elected. So say hello to Commissioner Gibson, a Republican in Democrat clothing.

Carpenter Spanks Templeton

Another not-my-district-but-darned-interesting race was County Commissioner District 1 Position 3 with Mike Carpenter facing off with Karla Willingham Templeton.

I know Karla socially and find her bright and interesting. On the other hand, she is John Willingham's daughter and supports his payroll tax plan.

But Mike Carpenter seems a little too well financed and too well connected for my tastes.

Again, moot point, because Carpenter buried Karla 72% to 28%.

Ritz over Rude

The Shelby County Commissioner District 1 Position 1 race was one I was following pretty closely, even though I don't live in that district.

Early this year I saw a debate between Mike Ritz and Mike Rude. Rude, a political newcomer, was a project manager for FedEx and absolutely blew Ritz away in the debate.

In the end, however, I think Ritz was better financed and that made the difference. Rude made a point of not taking money that had even a hint of unethical behavior, depending heavily on individual donations.

I hope Mike Rude runs for something in the future.

County Mayor

Looks like John Willingham stuffed upstart Brent Todd (59% to 41%) in the Republican primary for Shelby County Mayor.

I don't know anything about Brent Todd. I know that John Willingham proposed a "payroll tax" as county commissioner. Thus I voted for Todd.

I know — typical ignornat voter.

It is, however, completely moot. Democrat incumbent AC Wharton took 95% in the Democrat primary, and will coast to reelection this fall.

Dead Man Voting

Memphis' local paper, the Commercial Appeal, has done something unusual: real investigative journalism. And it's even relevant: voter fraud in the days before a primary.

Using information available to the public (including the Election Commission), the CA found:

• Voters who died decades ago remain eligible to vote.
• Felons are ineligible to vote, but are hired at taxpayer expense to work the polls and oversee the election process. We're talking everything from sexual assault to burglary, gun violence, prostitution and drugs.
• 20,000 residents who have moved out of Shelby County since 2002, yet remain on Shelby County's voter rolls.
• Nearly 1,700 of those have returned to vote, sometimes years later.
• A total of over 66,000 Shelby County residents have moved since 2002, which means that potentially tens of thousands are no longer residing in the district in which they're registered to vote. This was an issue in Democrat Ophilia Ford's 13 vote "win" over Terry Roland, an election that has since been nullified by the state senate because it was proven dirty.
• 18,000 of the moves were to locations outside of Tennessee, another 2,900 to other counties. Yet the paper identified at least 1,600 incidents in which these names were used to cast votes.

In a follow-up story, the CA reports:

Using the same public records available to county officials, the newspaper identified at least 500 deceased residents still on the rolls -- many shown as active voters.

One of these registered voters died in 1954!.

Moreover, John Harvey has found 575 people on the rolls over 100 years of age — including three people that are 177 years old! (I'd love to know how many of these people voted recently.)

Much of the research done by the CA was accomplished by matching the names of the county's 603,000 registered voters against National Change of Address data maintained by the Postal Service, a practice that is growing among election commissions across the country. Shelby County, of course, does not.

Republican Representative Paul Stanley sponsored a bill that would require an annual statewide NCOA search, but pulled it "because of Democrat opposition to any tinkering with voter rolls." Imagine that.

Yet by law, Tennessee's 95 county election commissions must have an address verification program in place to help keep voting rolls clean. What has Shelby County done?

Last July, the commission passed an address verification program to be done once every two years, but it wouldn't contact all voters, just those who didn't vote or update registration. Those voters are then to be mailed a card that can't be forwarded. If a card returns as undeliverable, the voter is to be deemed inactive -- the first step toward purging.

That's right — Shelby County has initiated a program to purge the voting rolls of all names that haven't been fraudently used. Way to "clean up"!

Note that the CA didn't even begin to address the whole "are you a citizen" issue. I suspect there are hundreds more violations under that rock.

One final thought: Tennessee is increasingly voting Republican (and proudly gave 11 electoral votes to W instead of native son Gore in 2000). Yet because the Tennessee House has a Democrat majority, all 95 county election commissions across the state have a Democrat majority, no matter what the makeup of the county's electorate.

Here in Shelby County, Election Commission Chair Greg Duckett served as state counsel to Senator Gore and worked on the Clinton-Gore transition team. And member Maura Black Sullivan worked for US Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., was President of the Shelby County Democratic Women, and served as Vice Chair and Assistant Treasurer of the local Democratic Party.

Not exactly non-partisan supervisors of our democratic processes.

Ah, well. Life goes on and today is election day in Shelby County as the first primary of the year is being held. As the Commercial Appeal says:

It's Election Day. Get out and vote: If exercising your right isn't reason enough to vote, consider this:

You might just bump into a dearly departed friend or relative casting a ballot.

Technorati Tags: Voting Reform, Crooked Politics, Dead Man Voting, Elections, Memphis+Politics, Shelby County Tennessee, Tennessee Politics.