NASHVILLE - Gov. Bill Haslam says he can't comment on a TBI probe of state lawmakers who acknowledge pressuring a state board that suspended licenses of three nurses accused of overprescribing painkillers.
But he did condemn the idea of public officials using their power to carry out a "personal agenda."
"The great thing about democracy [is] when people do things that voters don't like, they can change those representatives," Haslam told reporters Wednesday. "And I also don't like it when people use their leverage to accomplish maybe a personal agenda."
His comments came after officials said the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is looking into whether Rep. Tony Shipley, R-Kingsport, Rep. Dale Ford, R-Jonesborough, and state Health Department officials committed wrongdoing in their dealings with the state Board of Nursing.
"I think we should let that play out before we jump to any conclusions about if there's a good-government principle involved there," Haslam said.
The two lawmakers have told reporters that they used their positions to make the nursing board reconsider suspensions handed out to Bobby Reynolds II, David Stout Jr. and Tina Killebrew.
The suspensions came out of a TBI probe into fatal overdoses at the now-closed Appalachian Medical Center in Johnson City.
Shipley this year initially held up a bill that reauthorized the nursing board. In May, he told the Kingsport Times News it was his effort to right what he considered an injustice committed by the board against the three nurses.
Shipley, who went to church with one of the nurses, has said the board did not initially hear testimony that helped exonerate them.
The newspaper quoted Shipley on Wednesday as saying, "The story should be 'legislator does job,' you know, as opposed to suggesting that there was anything inappropriate."
Ford, who had a bill giving lawmakers greater say over disciplinary actions by boards, has acknowledged his sister worked as a lab tech at the clinic and that his wife had been a patient there. But Ford, who later dropped his legislation, said his motivation wasn't personal.
Later Wednesday, House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, was reluctant to discuss the matter with reporters.
"I don't know the particulars of it," she said. "I've made a point not to know the particulars of it. If they've done something that is wrong or inappropriate or unethical, they should receive punishment for it. But I don't know that they have."