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by Frank Cagle

Defeat of Wilder and Naifeh would shake Legislature

There are elections on Nov. 2 that will have a direct impact on your future; they are almost as important as the governor’s race in 2002, but you don’t get to vote.

The elections feature a House and a Senate race in West Tennessee, in which the leaders of both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly are in the fight of their political lives. The stakes are enormous, the impact is huge, and press coverage has been sporadic, though it has picked up of late.

Democratic Lt. Gov. John Wilder is 83, and he has been in the General Assembly since 1966. He is the longest-serving leader of a legislative body in the nation. For many years now, people have silently thanked God for a string of governor’s in excellent health. Democratic House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh has been in office since 1974, and if he is re-elected will be the longest serving speaker in Tennessee history.

Naifeh is, in many ways, the most powerful political figure in Tennessee. The Speaker of the House is a powerful position anyway, and Naifeh has used the office and his iron control of the Democratic caucus to make it even more powerful. He and his allies pick the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, the State Comptroller. They control the state Election Commission, the state Building Commission, the Registry of Election Finance and a myriad of other appointments to boards and commissions. They control most of the staff of the House that drafts bills, keeps records and manages the place. They determine who has an office where. They assign personnel. A governor cannot put a legislative program in place without support from the speaker’s office. The lobbyists, some 500 of them, are the extra-legal staff of the legislature and if the speaker calls on them to support him, they do it.

The speaker has the power to appoint committee chairs, subcommittee chairs and to make committee assignments. Subcommittee chairs in the House can kill any bill the speaker doesn’t like. The speaker decides which subcommittee gets which bill.

Should Naifeh lose, the Democrats will probably still control the House, but the apple cart will be upset for awhile, and there is no member likely able to step in and exert the kind of control that Naifeh exerts, at least for a term or two.

Wilder has used a coalition of Republicans and Democrats to retain his post, even though the Democrats tried to oust him years ago. The Republicans are rolling the dice in trying to defeat him. They need two seats to get control. If they defeat Wilder, who governs with Republican help, and do not capture another seat, the Republicans are worse off than before. A Democrat majority without Wilder may band together and shut Republicans out. But Republicans think they can pick up at least two seats and take control of the Senate. If they do you can expect to see Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, from the Tri-Cities.

There are few people who will come out publicly and predict Wilder’s or Naifeh’s defeat. Privately, insiders will go so far as to say that Wilder may lose but they think Naifeh will hang on by his fingernails. The irony is that both Wilder and Naifeh represent Haywood County in addition to their home counties. Haywood County may determine the fate of both speakers. The Memphis suburbs, heavily Republican, have expanded out into both Wilder’s and Naifeh’s districts. Haywood, which has a substantial African-American vote, has been a reliable source of Democrat votes for both men.

But Wilder, known for his sometimes bizarre comments, has offended African-Americans and is in trouble in Haywood. And Naifeh’s opponent is an African-American doctor named Jesse Cannon who is from Haywood County.

Naifeh lost his home county of Tipton in the last election, due to the influx of Republican voters over the years. He had to have Haywood to win. Cannon doesn’t have to win Haywood, but if he siphons off a good block of votes there, he wins. At least one poll shows Cannon getting 40 percent in Haywood County and ahead in Tipton County.

Wilder and Naifeh have huge sums of money to spend, and they may pull it out. Gov. Phil Bredesen has gotten involved and is campaigning for both men. It is difficult to believe that voters would turn out legislators in leadership positions. Wilder and Naifeh point to all the pork they’ve delivered over the years. But voters seem to be less impressed with government spending these days.

You will recall that no one believed that voters in Washington state would turn out Speaker of the House Tom Foley in 1994. Foley became the first sitting speaker of the U.S. House to ever lose re-election.

The prediction here? Wilder and Naifeh both go down.

Frank Cagle is a political analyst and the host of Sound Off on WIVK FM107.7, WNOX AM990, FM99.1 and FM99.3 each Sunday 8-9:30 a.m. The program is pre-empted this week by Sports Soundoff, coverage of the Vols versus Ole Miss football game.

October 21, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 43 © 2004 Metro Pulse