Tennessee: GOP lawmakers ready to work with House leader

NASHVILLE — Southeast Tennessee Republican lawmakers remain upset about new Republican House Speaker Kent Williams’ Democratic-engineered ascent to power, but most are expressing a willingness to try to work with him.

“The fact is that we’ve got to cooperate with all 99 members of the Legislature, including Kent Williams, and move the state forward and deal with our budget deficit and deal with other problems,” said Rep. Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga.4

Republicans maintain that Rep. Williams broke his word by not backing Majority Leader Jason Mumpower, R-Bristol, for speaker after the GOP won a 50-49 majority in November. Instead, Rep. Williams joined with the 49 Democrats, and he was elected on a 50-49 vote.

Rep. Williams “didn’t tell us the truth,” Rep. McCormick said.

“I think over time, hopefully, it will mend,” Rep. Williams said last week as he unveiled bipartisan appointments of committee chairmanships and the even splitting of most committees between Republicans and Democrats.

But the new speaker continues to come under a multipronged attack from the state Republican Party and fellow Republican lawmakers.

Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Robin Smith and the party’s 66-member executive committee are considering booting him from the party. Mrs. Smith recently called Rep. Williams “the poster child of betrayal. I guess he just eclipsed Judas for that.”

Nearly 2-year-old charges that Rep. Williams sexually harassed a female lawmaker also resurfaced this week. And one GOP lawmaker filed an ethics complaint seeking to oust the speaker for denying he has ever harassed anyone.

Not all local Republican lawmakers are ready to make peace with the new speaker. Rep. Richard Floyd, R-Chattanooga, who initially called Rep. Williams a Democratic “puppet boy,” still was not mincing any words last week.

“He has set the bar so low, let me tell you something, anybody can step across it,” Rep. Floyd said. “There’s just a trust issue. I really have a problem with it. How do you repair that? I don’t know. I wish I did.”

Rep. Vince Dean, R-East Ridge, cautioned that it is “very important, especially for my colleagues, (that) we respond and handle this situation with dignity because our voters are going to be looking at us to see how we handle this, to see how we govern, to see how we lead, to see how we respond in times of crisis.”

Rep. Williams is “going to be the speaker for the next two years,” said Rep. Eric Watson, R-Cleveland. “We have to understand that ... because he is the speaker, no matter whether members like it or not. We all need to get along.”

Rep. Jim Cobb, R-Spring City, said the Legislature must “move forward as soon as the dust settles, which I hope is sooner rather than later.”

“I don’t agree with the way he voted (for himself),” Rep. Cobb said, “but that’s beside the point. It was constitutional. It was legal. And he won the speakership.”