Tennessee’s incoming governor, Bill Haslam, spent much of his campaign time explaining that the state is $1 billion to $1.5 billion “under water” and will face significant fiscal challenges in the next year or two. Though Gov. Phil Bredesen is widely lauded for judiciously trimming state budgets — he cut $1.2 billion from the 2009-10 and the 2010-11 budgets as tax revenue plunged — while keeping the state’s vital services on an even keel, there’s considerable substance to Haslam’s claim.
The chief concern now is that the Obama stimulus and recovery act funds, which funneled $5 billion to Tennessee over three years to moderate the impact of the Great Recession, will dry up this year. That will leave the state scrambling to make ends meet on the badly diminished state tax base.
With such a fiscal problem awaiting the new Legislature, the state’s land-slide Republican throngs there should be studiously boning up on how to squeeze the budget without severely crimping health and social services, K-12 and higher education, law enforcement, resource protection, economic development, transportation, infrastructure and capital projects, and all the other state needs.
But what’s the top issue at the moment for the newly empowered Republicans in the state Legislature, whose margin of power shifted in last week’s elections from a 50-48 majority in the House to a 64-34 advantage? Well, you might have guessed it. It’s a hotly contested fight for the position of House speaker between Beth Harwell, a typically conservative Republican and former state Republican Party chairwoman, and Glen Casada, R-Franklin, a tea party advocate who questions Harwell’s conservative bona fides.
His beef with Harwell is not about how to handle the daunting budget issues. It’s about whether she’s conservative enough (He says she’s a RINO — Republican in Name Only.) and weaker than she should be on gun rights.
These have become the major issues of Tennessee Republicans the last several years, to be sure. But it’s remarkable that Harwell doesn’t meet the new litmus test that Casada and his followers claim is fueling his challenge. Harwell, they say, stood with Gov. Bredesen in the futile veto (it was quickly overturned) of the legislation to allow Tennesseans with gun-carry permits to pack heat in alcohol-serving bars.
That act of sanity was such a no-no in their eyes, never mind that the law enforcement community strongly urged a veto of the reckless bill.
In her own defense, Harwell said she has stood solidly behind every gun-rights issue except that one bill to allow guns in bars. She also claims to be a strong “pro-amendment” advocate, a reference to a proposed amendment to the state Constitution to restrict the state abortion and privacy rights established by the Tennessee Supreme Court.
If the state’s Republican lawmakers now divide over who’s the greatest defender of gun rights, with nary a word over the state’s fiscal direction, we can only shudder for our future — and the lack of wisdom and reason in the people in charge.