Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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Give Sen. Tim Some Credit

Last week, state Sen. Tim Burchett tried hard to pass a bill he was sponsoring that would have allowed local governments to adopt tobacco ordinances if they choose.

The bill would have corrected a law that this newspaper described a year and a half ago as one of the worst in Tennessee. Incredibly, even if the Knoxville City Council voted unanimously to ban smoking at all restaurants in the city, the law would be illegal because of Tennessee’s “pre-emption” law.

“The people got screwed,” Burchett said after the vote.

Last week’s 6-3 vote in the Senate State and Local Government Committee was infuriating for several reasons. The most disgusting aspect was that the only lobbyists trying to pass it were the ones who represent relatively powerless do-gooder organizations, such as the American Heart Association, the Children’s Hospital Alliance of Tennessee and an anti-smoking group called CHART (none of which can raise much money for legislators, which of course determines the real power of a lobbying organization). Fighting against it were the powerful Farm Bureau, the Tennessee Restaurant Association and the tobacco industry.

And who were the lobbies who sat on the sidelines and did nothing for this bill, which would likely save lives? How about the Tennessee Municipal League, which is supposed to be standing up for local governments? How about the Tennessee Hospital Association, which you would think would like to pass an anti-smoking bill? Worst of all, how about the Tennessee Medical Association? Does this not prove that the TMA couldn’t care less about health, that it exists only to increase compensation for doctors?

Overheard at a Knoxville Watering Hole

An anonymous wag who, upon hearing about the Ingram Group’s hiring of former homeless mission mogul Monroe Free to head its Knoxville operation said: “That is a rescue mission, isn’t it?”

And Speaking of Fisticuffs

Rep. H.E. Bittle told the News Sentinel that his recent absence from the General Assembly was the result of having to take time off to recuperate from injuries inflicted by an unknown assailant who mugged him from behind in a Nashville restaurant two weeks ago. Bittle said he didn’t report the assault, even though he was so seriously injured that he underwent surgery. “I just decided to let it go,” Bittle told the daily paper. Evidently there are others who aren’t letting it go. An email with the subject line “Bittle Attack Provoked and Bittle ‘MIA’ in Nashville” went out over the state email system last weekend from a hotmail account styled “tn gopnews.” The message said Bittle was actually injured in a Printers Alley karaoke bar when he and another GOP lawmaker, Jim Vincent of Soddy Daisy, got into a scuffle. A witness who confirms the incident says a head butt, a “Mike Tyson chomp” and a haymaker from a bouncer were involved.