CPI buzz for 12-3-14

Tennessee teachers pressure Gov. Haslam to provide 6 percent raises

 Womick says GOP behind attacks on Harwell

Tennessee Spends Millions to Save Emails for Lawsuits

Head of TN Dem Party has heart procedure

Roy Herron, chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party, was treated for a a blocked artery to his heart Monday, according to a statement Herron released Tuesday evening.
The statement said Herron experienced discomfort in his chest and immediately went to a hospital where medical care providers realized the artery was blocked, he said.
Herron said he underwent a heart catheterization, that a stent was inserted into the artery and that now he is pain-free and out of danger.
The former state senator also used his health emergency as an opportunity to express his views about healthcare in Tennessee.
"By the grace of God, I dodged a bullet," he said in the statement. "I am grateful I could go to the emergency room when I first felt something was wrong. I am especially grateful that I am not one of the 320,000 Tennesseans who, because of the indifference of the Tea Party dominated legislature, do not have access to health insurance. I knew I could afford to seek medical care so I did so without delay and avoided a more serious health event." LINK (Subscription)

Tennessee Spends Millions to Save Emails for Lawsuits

Tennessee is spending millions of dollars to save emails that could potentially become evidence in lawsuits.
WPLN-FM reports during recent budget hearings, Department of Children's Services Commissioner
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Jim Henry said his agency is spending $865,000 to save emails. The expense stems from a 14-year-old federal lawsuit over the state's treatment of children in foster care.LINK

Womick says GOP behind attacks on Harwell

The Tea Party candidate for Tennessee House speaker says establishment Republicans, including key advisers to Gov. Bill Haslam, created robocalls and emails attacking House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, in an attempt to undermine his candidacy for speaker.
Rep. Rick Womick, R-Rockvale, said neither he nor his supporters created robocalls that are going out to members of the General Assembly. The calls attack Harwell personally, Womick said. He said he’s spoken with other GOP members who received the calls, but Womick said he’s never heard the call. House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, said his office is receiving “a lot” of the calls.
Womick is quoted in the Nashville Scene accusing Haslam Chief of Staff Mark Cate and Haslam political adviser Tom Ingram of orchestrating the robocalls. Womick told The Tennessean he wasn’t “going to name names” but said he thought it was from people trying to “paint me as mean” and the same people who created the Advance Tennessee Political Action Committee. The PAC used money from donors who support Haslam to go after Tea Party favored Republicans in several primaries this year. LINK (Subscription)

The plight of the Southern Democrat

The 2014 elections seemed like the final reckoning for Southern Democrats, the culmination of a political metamorphosis that began in the Civil Rights era and concluded under the nation's first black President.

Wiped out in governors' races, clobbered in Senate contests, irrelevant in many House districts and boxed out of state legislatures, Democrats in the South today look like a rump party consigned to a lifetime of indignity.

"I can't remember it being any gloomier for Democrats in the South than it is today," said Curtis Wilkie, the longtime journalist and observer of Southern life who lectures at the University of Mississippi. "The party has been demonized by Republicans. It's very bleak. I just don't see anything good for them on the horizon."

Democrats are looking everywhere for solutions to their Southern problem. They hope population changes will make states such as Georgia and North Carolina more hospitable. They want more financial help from the national party. Some are even clinging to the dim hope that Hillary Clinton might help make inroads with white working class voters in Arkansas in 2016.

Success here is crucial for the party. There's virtually no way for Democrats to win back a majority in the Senate -- much less the House -- without finding a way to compete more effectively in the South. But the truth is there are no easy answers for a party so deep in the hole. LINK

Tennessee teachers pressure Gov. Haslam to provide 6 percent raises

The state's largest teachers' union on Tuesday called on Gov. Bill Haslam to provide educators with a 6 percent pay increase next year to start carrying out his pledge to make Tennessee the "fastest improving state" in the nation on teacher pay.

Carolyn Crowder, executive director of the Tennessee Education Association, said in a statement that teachers "are eagerly anticipating" Haslam's budget hearing on Friday with Education Department officials "to see if he will start living up to that promise."

Haslam's original fiscal year 2014-2015 budget, unveiled last winter, provided teachers a 2 percent increase. But the governor was forced to renege after tax collections fell $300 million below projections. LINK

Crockett Policy Institute
http://www.crockettpolicy.org/