NASHVILLE – Republican Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey on Friday named Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, as the next speaker pro tempore, one of the chamber’s top positions.
Watson, 50, will replace Sen. Jamie Woodson, R-Knoxville, who announced this week she will resign from the Senate when the current legislative session ends July 1 to take a job with SCORE, the State Collaborative on Reforming Education. The group was founded by former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee.
“It is rare that you find someone who works as hard for the people of Tennessee as Bo Watson,” Ramsey said in a news release. “His tireless work on issues of government reform has been an inspiration to all of us striving to make state government as small, efficient and transparent as possible.”
Watson, first elected to the Senate in 2006, said Ramsey sounded him out earlier this week after Woodson said she would be leaving.
“He approached me and said, ‘I know you’re currently chairman of the Government Operations Committee and there’s other stuff you’re doing, but I would like for you to do this,'” Watson said. “Of course, when the speaker asks me to do something, I will be doing it.”