NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Republican state Rep. Brian Kelsey acknowledged on Thursday that he offered to tone down attacks against new House Speaker Kent Williams in exchange for a committee chairmanship.
Kelsey's acknowledgment came after The Associated Press reported earlier in the day that he made the offer in a text message sent to a Williams aide the same day that a two-year-old allegation of sexual harassment against the speaker came to light.
In his statement, Kelsey said he told the aide to, "Tell Kent I'm willing to talk about reconciliation if he's willing to talk about chairman of the full committee."
On Wednesday, Kelsey had denied to the AP that he had sent any text message.
A day after sending the text, Kelsey filed an ethics complaint seeking to have Williams removed as speaker based on the allegations that the Elizabethton Republican had made another lawmaker feel sexually harassed with a comment and tight embrace. The House Ethics Committee this week declined to hear the complaint.
Kelsey didn't get a committee chairmanship, but Williams did appoint him as chairman of a subcommittee.
In his statement Thursday, Kelsey said, "I filed the ethics complaint knowing full well that I was virtually ensuring that I would not be named chairman of a full committee and thinking that I would probably lose vice chairman of the Judiciary Committee, a position that Speaker Williams had offered me the previous week.
"Nonetheless, I still thought it was the right thing to do to file the complaint."
House Minority Leader Gary Odom, a Nashville Democrat, says Kelsey's offer amounts to "extortion," and called for the Germantown Republican to resign.
"Any member who attempts to obtain a political appointment through extortion has committed a very serious ethics violation and is unworthy of holding office," Odom said.
Williams confirmed that he had received a text message from Kelsey that he described as "bothersome," but the speaker declined to go into specifics about what it said.
"I turned it over to my staff and told them to do what they felt we needed to do with it, because I'm not sure what the avenues are," Williams said.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Turner said he thought the text message was in poor taste.
"I thought it was out of line what he did," the Old Hickory lawmaker said. "I thought it had some serious connotations."
Williams infuriated Kelsey and other House Republicans earlier this month when he banded together with all 49 of the chamber's Democrats to eke out a one-vote victory in the speaker's election over the Republican nominee, Rep. Jason Mumpower of Bristol.
Mumpower said Thursday he was in and out of the committee selection meeting, but said he doesn't recall seeing the text message.
Kelsey is a longtime opponent of Williams who traveled to Carter County to campaign against his re-election last year.
Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, said she complained to Mumpower in 2007 about Williams' behavior toward her but did not file a formal complaint because he had apologized to her.
The week after Williams' surprise election as speaker, Mumpower released a memo about Lynn's allegations to a blogger who had filed a records request.
Williams denied he had ever been accused of — or reprimanded — for sexual harassment.
But Kelsey said Williams' apology in 2007 was the equivalent of admitting he sexually harassed Lynn. When the bipartisan House Ethics Committee voted unanimously Wednesday not to proceed with the complaint because it doesn't have the authority to hear such a case, Kelsey called the decision "absurd."
"Clearly, this committee came in here with the idea that they were going to cover up this whole issue, and not even investigate these issues," he told reporters after the hearing.
If I were going to extort a chairmanship out of someone, I certainly wouldn't file an ethics complaint against him BEFORE he appointed the chairmen.
Extortion is trying to punish the one member of the House who is trying to enforce ethics complaints. That's an all-new low from the Democratic Leader, who's being paid by the Tennessee Optemetric Association while he votes on bills that affect the group. I know I am putting a target on my back when I stand up for ethics, and I will continue to do so.
The Democratic Leadership is so unethical they not only dismissed my claim of lying and sexual harassment that they knew was true, but they’re now trying to browbeat the one person in this state that’s standing up for ethics. First they blamed the victim of the sexual harassment for its becoming public, and now they are trying to punish the whistleblower for filing the complaint. It's not going to work. I've always stood up for ethics in this state, and I always will.
(Rep. Kelsey has been a leader on ethics legislation since entering the legislature in 2004. In 2005 he was the first legislator to call for public hearings on allowing the Tennessee Waltz perpetrators to keep their legislative seats. He filed 33 amendments in an effort to strengthen the 2006 ethics bill. He has pushed for legislation to end legislative receptions in which lawmakers are wined and dined by lobbyists. He blew the whistle on lawmakers violating the smoking ban in the capitol. He filed an ethics complaint against Speaker Pro Tem DeBerry for admitting taking $200 cash from a lobbyist and FBI agent while on a gambling trip and claiming there was nothing wrong with her actions. He most recently filed an ethics complaint against Speaker Kent Williams for releasing a statement with the intent to deceive the public about comments he had made to Rep. Lynn about seeing her naked.)
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The first day Representative Williams was elected speaker, we had a public disagreement on the House floor in which he asked me whether I had a problem with his being speaker, and I answered in the affirmative. After reflecting upon the occurrence over the weekend, I decided to make a peace offering. I realized that, my personal feelings aside, we would both have to work together over the next two years for the good of the people of Tennessee. I sent his assistant a text message saying, “Tell Kent I’m willing to talk about reconciliation if he’s willing to talk about chairman of the full committee.” I sent the message at 9:50 a.m. on January 20th to offer reconciliation and to request my preference regarding committee assignments—the discussions for which were just beginning among the leaders. I had never turned in a committee preference form to Representative Naifeh or Representative Williams, as had other members, because I did not expect either of them to be elected Speaker. Committee assignment discussions began the morning of the 20th and lasted throughout the day of the 20th and 21st.
The afternoon of January 20th I read the new Speaker’s public statement in which he, in essence, called Rep. Lynn and others liars by denying that he had ever told her he would give a week’s pay to see her naked and by denying he was ever reprimanded by Leader Mumpower for doing so. When I read the statement, I was outraged that he would intentionally make such a false statement to the public, and I began to draft an ethics complaint that evening, which I filed early the next afternoon on January 21st.
I filed the ethics complaint knowing full well that I was virtually ensuring that I would not be named chairman of a full committee and thinking that I would probably lose Vice Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, a position that Speaker Williams had offered me the previous week. Nonetheless, I still thought it was the right thing to do to file the complaint, so I did so. I, along with all other members, did not receive word of my committee assignments until the evening of the 21st after I had already filed the ethics complaint against the Speaker. At least one change was made to those preliminary assignments, and the official appointments were made the 22nd.
The AP asked me whether I had sent a text message offering to withdraw my ethics complaint in return for a committee chairmanship. I said, "No" because the text message was sent before there was even reason to file a complaint. Speaker Williams had not yet released his statement making Rep. Lynn, the sexual harassment victim, like like a liar.
Who is going to file a complaint against Kelsey for making an offer to cover up what he later disclosed. talk about ethics -- where are yours Mr. Kelsey??
Bless his heart, li'l ol' Brian Kelsey got up mighty early to get "the last word" by pre-emptively posting a long double-post here at 4:20 a.m.
But after his purty words blow away, the truth remains:
On Wednesday, January 28, Brian Kelsey officially told an AP reporter that he had NOT sent ANY text message to Speaker Kent Williams.
Then on Thursday, January 29, the AP discovered that Brian Kelsey HAD sent a text to Speaker Williams.
And what does Brian do after he gets caught? He starts back-peddlin' like crazy, spinnin' out an inky cloud of words like some weird unethical octopus.
Sorta like Blagojevich without the bleeps.
And speakin' of "THE LAST WORD," check out the psychologically revealin' last word of the oddly-worded final sentence that Brian Kelsey nervously posted above:
"Speaker Williams had not yet released his statement making Rep. Lynn, the sexual harassment victim, like like a liar."
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