2006 Session Preview January 06, 2006

An hour before the regular session was to begin, the legislature will begin it's 2006 year in special session to deal with ethics reform. Mainly, the topic of conversation will be the nearly 100 page piece of legislation known as the Comprehensive Governmental Ethics Reform Act of 2006. This act was the product of a Joint Legislative Ethics Committee formed by the legislature to consider the recommendations of the Governor's ethics review committee and prepare a first draft of an ethics reform bill to jump start legislative discussion on the issue in the special session. Governor Phil Bredesen will address the special session at noon, an hour into the session.

At the beginning of the week it was reported that Republican House Leader Bill Dunn is not happy with the bill and plans to introduce other measures to strengthen the bill produced by the Legislative Committee. That could push ethics reform into a partisan debate. The two parties are at odds with each other primarly over several Republican proposed provisions that would strengthen conflict of interest provisions of the law, extensions limiting legislators from conducting other state business, and banning outright cash campaign contributions.

Another point of contention is a Democrat backed proposal to establish a total contribution limit that covers PACs, party donations, and individual contributions. This provision is self-admitedly focused on John Gregory, a pharmaceutical company CEO, that has given thousands of dollars to Republican causes and PACs and who a Democratic spokesman recently called the "sugar daddy of the Tennessee Republican Party." Republicans compromised and allowed an individual limit to be set at $25,000, although Senate Republican Leader Ron Ramsey says this is much too low and he will fight in the special session to increase this comprehensive personal limit.

Republican Sen. Mae Beavers said she will propose strengthening conflict of interest requirements in the first draft bill:

There are too many built-in loopholes in current laws and in proposed legislation...The Ethics Bill passed last year does not solve many of the tougher problems regarding conflict of interests in the legislature...My bill to ban conflict of interest votes would not require a member to remove himself or herself from discussion or debate about a bill. But it would require legislators to abstain from voting on matters that directly benefit them. This gets to the heart of a real problem on Capitol Hill.

Beavers attempts are likely to fail in the House where Democrats enjoy a majority, however. Earlier, on the Joint Committee, Democrats blocked a provision proposed by Republican Leader Bill Dunn that would have required legislators with more than a 10% interest to abstain from voting on bills affecting that company. Democrats also blocked Republican proposals to ban cash contributions, which Republican legislators maintain are impossible to track. Democrats argue that banning cash contributions will limit minorities and lower income families from participating in the political donation process.

A Nashville City Paper article points out another area of contention which is sure to come up in the special session regarding what votes and committee meeting recordings and transcripts are available online. Democrats generally contend that it is already current practice to post votes online, but Republicans point out that nothing other than a procedural vote to adopt the rules of the Legislature at the beginning of each session requires votes to be posted online and even then subcommittee votes are not posted online.

Another Republican provision that attempts to limit state legislators from doing other business with the state may be targeted specifically at Rep. Kim McMillan, who also represents some state regulatory boards as an attorney. The current conflict of interest requirements exempt attorneys from the limitation of legislators from conducting other state business.

Of course another key issue that will be discussed is whether or not to seat Ophelia Ford in the State Senate. Ford beat Republican opponent Terry Roland in a Senate District 29 special election by the slim-margin of 13 votes. Since then, it has been revealed that at least two dead voters names were used to cast illegal votes in that election. Roland contends that the fraud is even more wide-spread and the number of illegal votes counted in the race is more than the 13-vote disparity. The Senate will decide whether to seat Ford or Roland or could even void the election and call for a new election.

As soon as the legislature finishes business on ethics reform, it will be free to consider other business. Some of the key legislative issues this year will be: TennCare, which continues to be a key issues following the Governor's withdrawl of many TennCare recepients; worker compensation, where the powerful trial lawyer lobby is trying to undo some of the Governor's reform measures; and medical malpractice reform, pushed primarly by Republican Sen. Ramsey and Rep. Jason Mumpower.