NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Two Republican candidates for Tennessee constitutional offices have been linked to a proposal for the state to benefit from taking out life insurance policies on unwitting retired state employees.

Treasurer candidate Ira Brody is a partner in a firm that hired comptroller candidate Justin Wilson to lobby lawmakers in 2003 to change state laws to allow for the complicated fiscal arrangement, WTVF-TV in Nashville reported.

Jim Tucker, executive director of the Tennessee State Employees Association, said he considered the proposal distasteful.

"It's benefiting from death," he said. "Without the knowledge and consent of the person, I just think it's just horribly wrong."

Wilson was registered to lobby for Blue Water Capital LLC, which later became Lilac Capital LLC and is now InsCap Insurance Services LLC. Brody is a partner and chief operating officer of InsCap.

Brody said he wasn't employed at the company when the 2003 proposal was made, but WTVF found that InsCap recently made a similar proposal to lawmakers.

Wilson's proposal called for issuing between $1.4 billion and $7 billion in bonds, and then using the money to take out life insurance on older retirees of as much as a half million dollars each. The proceeds would go to the state's pension fund.

Then-Treasurer Steve Adams wrote in an analysis of Wilson's proposal that it was likely to be "received negatively by our retirees and the public."

He also questioned why insurance companies would want to participate.

"Why would a company knowingly issue annuities or life insurance that will most likely result in a loss?" he wrote.

The state's constitutional officers are elected by a joint session of the House and Senate. Republican gains in November's elections gave them the numbers to elect GOP candidates for comptroller, treasurer and secretary of state. Wilson is the only candidate for comptroller. There are 13 other candidates for the other two offices.

A special committee of Republican lawmakers that had interviewed the candidates with the mission of whittling the list down to the best-qualified applicants on Friday decided to punt the entire list to a full joint GOP caucus meeting next week.

"We have determined that there are many qualified individuals that could fill these roles successfully," Senate Republican Caucus Chairwoman Diane Black of Gallatin said in a release.

"Therefore all candidates interviewed will be placed on the ballot," she said.