Bo Watson

NASHVILLE — Freshman Rep. Richard Floyd, R-Chattanooga, recalls how, as a new House member last year, he took a seat on one of his committees and waited for colleagues to start debating and making laws.

Committee leaders, however, first had to address a technical issue: “They said, ‘Rep. Floyd, we don’t think you’re on this committee,’” the Chattanoogan said, chuckling as he noted how he had inadvertently entered the wrong committee room.

Despite the initial hiccup, Rep. Floyd said he not only quickly figured out where he needed to be but a great deal more over the two-year course of the 105th General Assembly.

He was hardly alone. Half of the eight-member Hamilton County legislative delegation were freshmen, learning their way through the sometimes confusing and arcane procedures, traditions, personalities, controversies and politics of Tennessee’s Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers finished their annual session May 21 and the freshmen recently reflected on their experiences.

For Sen. Andy Berke, D-Chattanooga, the 2008 session was his first, having been elected only last year in a special election. He saw one of his more ambitious legislative proposals stall, including a bill requiring 90 percent of state education funding to go into classrooms.

“Anytime you seek to make large changes, you’re going to see resistance from people,” Sen. Berke said. “And so you have to spend time educating people and pushing your plan.”

Weeks after his arrival in Nashville, Sen. Berke found himself on “NBC Nightly News,” Fox News and quoted in several national publications because of Georgia lawmakers’ efforts to move Georgia’s state line a mile north into Tennessee. The intent was to gain access to the water in Nickajack Lake, which is in Sen. Berke’s district.

“I was in the (media) ‘feeding frenzy’ and that was certainly an unusual situation to find yourself in your first weeks of your first session,” said Sen. Berke, who shepherded through the Senate a resolution rejecting Georgia’s call for a boundary commission to revisit the long-disputed border.

Several other lawmakers outside Hamilton County were newcomers as well.

Rep. Kevin Brooks, R-Cleveland, said he was happy to get a nonbinding resolution through urging the state build its next veterans home in Bradley County. He said the Fiscal Review Committee staff, which estimates costs of legislation, stuck the resolution with a $19 million fiscal note and it appeared the resolution might die. A fiscal note is an estimate of a bill’s or resolution’s ultimate cost to the state.

Noting that it was a “bad budget year to ask for anything,” Rep. Brooks said, “We had to show our math homework and work with the (House) speaker, work with the chairman of Finance.”

The fiscal note was reduced, but the project will have to await a time when the state’s revenue picture improves, Rep. Brooks said.

For Rep. Jim Cobb, R-Spring City, who represents Rhea County and part of Hamilton, Nashville was an eye-opener, particularly the power of lobbyists and special interests.

“The lobbyists certainly have a lot of influence on the design of a bill and many of the bills are not thoughts that actually originated in the brain of the legislator,” Rep. Cobb said.

As a case in point, he cited AT&T’s ultimately successful two-year push for legislation allowing the telecommunications giant to jump-start its entry into providing cablelike services statewide.

“I think the AT&T bill, which was otherwise known as the lobbyist full-employment bill, I don’t know of any legislator who understood ... that bill,” Rep. Cobb said.

While serving his first term in the Senate, Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, was not a newcomer to the legislature, having served one House term. But the newly elected Republican Senate speaker, Sen. Ron Ramsey of Blountville, appointed Sen. Watson to the powerful Finance Committee, which decides tax and spending legislation.

“It’s a very challenging committee,” Sen. Watson said. “You get to vote on all significant votes on all significant pieces of legislation and some of those votes are very difficult.”

That was especially so this year when plummeting revenues forced Gov. Phil Bredesen to slash $468 million from his proposed 2008-09 budget, Sen. Watson said.

The senator said he was especially pleased by the impact he and Sen. Dewayne Bunch, R-Cleveland, enjoyed in amending a bill legalizing and regulating “mixed martial arts.” The two lawmakers, both former high school wrestlers, proposed that most of the money earned by a newly created mixed martial arts commission go toward scholarships for NCAA Division I college wrestling programs.

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has the only such mixed martial arts program in the state.

“We fought tooth and nail on that to keep that amendment on there,” Sen. Watson said. “We came up with a compromise which I think, at the end of the day, I’m happy with.”

Sen. Bunch, a former House member who is a Senate freshman, said the wrestling issue was “important to me personally.”

“I really hope that it helps our kids,” he said, noting that many mixed martial arts participants come out of wrestling.

Sen. Steve Roller, D-McMinnville, said he was pleased to pass a Bredesen administration bill that overhauled state insurance requirements to provide new protections for consumers.

“I like to call it the insured’s bill of rights or equal protection for insurance,” Sen. Roller said.