Tom Humphrey: JLL deal leads GOP lawmakers to distance themselves from Haslam
A group of state legislators plan to file a bill that would knock two years off the state Department of General Services’ legal lifespan because of questions about the handling of a contract for...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Power of speakers could determine fate of wine sales
The great WIGS debate (wine-in-grocery-stores legislation is so old and has had so much media attention it warrants the honor of an acronym designation) is probably going to be settled this session...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Legislators move along bills for the real consideration
Scribblings in a notebook while lost in Legislatorland:
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Democrats feel freedom to act more defiantly
Despite their depleted ranks, Tennessee’s Democratic legislators are showing somewhat more spunk at the outset of this year’s legislative session than in their past performance under the recent years...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Wine drinkers still not crying into their beers
The only serious lobbying wars in the Tennessee Legislature these days are those that pit one business interest against another, and in this year’s clash of titans the liquor stores have emerged...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Honeymoon is over for Haslam and the GOP supermajority
With the passage of Valentine’s Day, it may be appropriate to observe that the honeymoon is over between Gov. Bill Haslam and the Legislature’s Republican supermajority — though bouquets of flowers,...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Legislators who don't vote aren't doing their jobs
There’s a long Legislatorland tradition of “taking a walk” when an uncomfortable voting situation appears, but that seems to have been largely replaced by the increasingly popular practice of sitting...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Medicaid bill provides vehicle for hyperbole
At one point during debate on a bill dealing with Medicaid expansion, state Sen. Doug Overbey declared that a colleague had engaged in “gross hyperbole,” and he was reasonably correct in that...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Lawmakers want to take more power in less time
A seeming inconsistency in the new normal of the Tennessee General Assembly is the urge to assert more legislative power while spending less time and energy in exercising the legislative power.
View ArticleTom Humphrey: National groups have growing say in state politics
The nationalization of state legislatures probably wasn’t even a concept back in 1975 when the National Conference of State Legislatures was formed by folks who reasonably presented the organization as...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Senate goes full steam ahead, but House brakes
Time and again in the 2014 legislative session, the Senate has established itself as the throttle on the Republican supermajority railroad while the House has become the brakes.
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Lobbyists, wine sales produced winners, losers
Some superlative performances in the 2014 session of Tennessee’s 108th General Assembly:
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Certain awards reward dubious accomplishments
More superlative performances from the 2014 session of Tennessee’s 108th General Assembly:
View ArticleTom Humphrey: GOP reaction to Campfield shows lines being drawn
The Republican “11th commandment,” popularized by the late President Ronald Reagan, was flagrantly violated last week by some very prominent Tennessee Republicans, indicating a new height in the state...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: System to pick attorney general puts justices in a 'firestorm'
Tennessee’s unique system for selecting a state attorney general has long been an irritation to some Republican state legislators, and today it may be a central factor in the not-quite-so-unique effort...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: In government, many misdeeds on local levels
The state comptroller’s office reported last week that the mayor of the Tipton County town of Brighton, Jeff Scott, directed two city employees to help build a house for his son.
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Haslam's actions might precede surprise moves
If there’s anything surprising about our governor’s campaign for a second term, it’s that he is able — sometimes — to act as if the script had not already been written with an inevitably...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Political pressure creates danger of judicial bias
Our Tennessee Constitution declares that justices of the state Supreme Court “shall be elected by the qualified voters of the state” and that the “right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.”
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Political contests become battles of multimillionaires
Barring some really unusual circumstances, practical politics dictates that only multimillionaires willing to spend lots of their own money can get elected to statewide office in a contested Tennessee...
View ArticleTom Humphrey: Odd electoral mix makes vote more interesting
Early voting begins Friday in an unusual Tennessee election, featuring the novelty of Supreme Court judges thrown into the mix with intra-party Republican and Democratic contests that are, here and...
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