Text of state Sen. John Wilder’s retirement announcement
NASHVILLE — Sen. John Wilder, the eccentric and once-powerful West Tennessee Democrat whose 36-year reign as Senate speaker and lieutenant broke state records, announced today he would not seek reelection.
“I’ve decided not to run for reelection,” the Mason Democrat told colleagues. “I feel that the time I’ve spent serving has been worth the difference it’s made.”
Sen. Wilder, known as an indecisive politician, later joked: “Now if I don’t change my mind, that is what I’m going to do.”
Sen. Wilder, 86, was first elected speaker in 1971 and served until 2007 when he was defeated by Republican Ron Ramsey.
A fiscally conservative banker and planter, whose family owns vast stretches of cotton fields in Fayette County outside Memphis, Sen. Wilder was first elected to the Senate in 1959, serving a two-year term. He returned in 1966 and by 1971 assumed the speakership, which carries the title of lieutenant governor.
He held that position for nearly four decades after that, cracking down on rivals and holding sway first with the support of Democrats. In 1986, Senate Democratic Caucus members beat him in his caucus bid for reelection, and in January 2007 he cobbled together a winning coalition of pro-business Democrats and Republicans.
“If my life has made any difference it’s because I was a soil conservation district supervisor and president of the National Association of Soil Conservation District and state senator,” Sen. Wilder told colleagues.
He noted that “I wanted to be governor so bad in 1975 that I could die,” but his wife, Marcelle, wouldn’t let him run because she didn’t want him hosting wine parties in the governor’s residence.
Sen. Wilder urged his colleagues to vote their convictions.
“I never told anybody how to vote,” he said. “Don’t let anybody vote you.”
Long-time friend Sen. Douglas Henry, D-Nashville, called Sen. Wilder “quite remarkable.”
“John Wilder kept his feet on the ground,” Sen. Henry said. “He didn’t get buffaloed by anybody.”
See tomorrow’s Chattanooga Times Free Press for complete coverage.
Andy Sher is a Nashville-based staff writer covering Tennessee state government and politics for the Times Free Press. A Washington correspondent from 1999-2005 for the Times Free Press, Andy previously headed up state Capitol coverage for The Chattanooga Times, worked as a state Capitol reporter for The Nashville Banner and was a contributor to The Tennessee Journal, among other publications. Andy worked for 17 years at The Chattanooga Times covering police, health care, county government, ...
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