NASHVILLE – The relationship between Tennessee Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bo Watson, R-Hixson, and his wife, lobbyist Nicole Osborne Watson, is under scrutiny after the chairman’s yes vote on the state’s $52.8 billion budget bill last month.
The budget includes a $500 million appropriation requested by Gov. Bill Lee and sought by the Tennessee Titans for the football team’s new projected $1.9 billion to $2.2 billion domed football stadium.
Osborne Watson works for the Nashville law firm Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, which was retained to lobby the bill in support of the provision. The Titans’ lobbying effort was under the name Tennessee Football Inc. She formerly worked at Chattanooga-headquartered Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel.
Watson said in a Chattanooga Times Free Press phone interview that the relationship was disclosed even before the couple married in 2018 and that he and Osborne Watson have a firm policy of not discussing legislation.
The chairman said he was opposed to Lee’s budget request for the stadium, and the budget bill emerged from his panel last month without the half-billion-dollar provision.