Anti-Income Tax Amendment
I stayed up until the early morning hours reviewing my response to every possible opposing argument and arrived at the meeting of Senators at 8:30 a.m. Out of nowhere I was told that emails had gone out the night before to Senators from their local newspapers opposing the anti-income tax resolution and that a vote on the resolution could fail and would have to be delayed. I saw five years of hard work slip through my fingers in a 60-second discussion.
The anti-income tax resolution was a constitutional amendment to permanently ban an income tax in Tennessee. To save the state money in a difficult fiscal year, I directed that the amendment be published on the Secretary of State website. Previous constitutional amendments had been printed in small type on the back pages of the six largest newspapers in the state for a cost of $20,000. The same constitutional amendments were always front page news stories at no cost to the state, but the $20,000 giveaway to a special interest group was guarded tightly by the newspaper lobby. Reluctantly, I agreed to postpone a vote on the amendment from Thursday to the following Monday, in part due to absent Senators as well.
After spending the weekend learning every detail of the legal issues surrounding the publication of constitutional amendments, I prepared for a knock-down, drag-out fight Monday night. On the way to Nashville I received a phone call from a fellow Senator. The issue was resolved. No explanation. Very little discussion. The board lit up later that night for the vote. 25-7. For the first time in the history of Tennessee, a constitutional amendment to permanently ban an income tax had passed the Senate. Just eight years before, an income tax had fallen only five votes short of passing the House and probably being enacted by the Senate, and now the Senate had decided in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote to take that option off the table forever.
This remarkable feat never would have been possible if I were still serving in the House. Months later, the House Budget Subcommittee would refuse to even consider the amendment for a vote, even though a majority of House members supported the amendment. There remains work to be done next year, but serving in the Senate this year has been a true joy. I want to thank each and every one of you who helped allow me to serve as your state Senator.
Equal Opportunity Scholarships
The other huge success this year was passing the Equal Opportunity Scholarship pilot program through the Senate Education Committee for the first time ever. The bill, formerly known as the Parental Choice Scholarship Act, would allow low-income children zoned to attend failing schools to receive an equal opportunity scholarship to use at the public, private, or charter schools of their choice. The scholarships would equal the amount of the local and state expenditures on each student, or up to $10,400 per year in Memphis City Schools. The pilot program would be limited to three Memphis City Schools: the elementary, middle, and high schools on the failing schools list the longest.
During the special session on education, as a temporary member of the Education Committee, I was able to pass the bill out of the committee by a vote of 7 to 5. Out of deference to members who wanted to study the issue further, I did not press the bill for a vote in the full Senate during the special session. Unfortunately, the bill did not pass the Education Committee again during the regular session, but I will work hard to see that it passes the full Senate next year. I learned much at a nationwide conference on equal opportunity scholarships in Washington, D.C. in May and am picking up local supporters every week.
The special session on education from January 12 – 25 did produce a bill that made two positive reforms in Tennessee education policy. First, student performance will now count for 50% of a public school teacher’s evaluation. Second, the thirteen worst schools in the state will now comprise an alternative school district that the state can contract out to a nonprofit entity to operate. These changes, along with the extremely helpful charter school expansion legislation from last year, helped Tennessee obtain a $500 million federal Race to the Top grant in March.
Cutting Spending
"I was pretty well off though before I became a senator. I never had an Escalade note. I never had to buy gas. I never had to pay to get my truck washed or car insurance. And I had a big fat check every Friday.”
With those words, Sen. Ophelia Ford (D – Memphis) made famous my bill to curtail legislators’ flying to and from session in Nashville on taxpayer dollars. The bill limited reimbursement for airfare to the mileage allowance granted to each legislator for driving. I thought it was a common sense idea to save up to $20,000 a year and show that legislators were willing to take the lead in cutting spending during a tough budget year. Ultimately, the rest of the Senate agreed and passed the bill 29-2. But not before Sen. Ford had aired her comments in opposition. Sadly, the House failed to pass the bill out of the State and Local Committee.
Opposing federal stimulus legislation
Another bill I introduced would have saved the state $4.5 million per year. The bill ended spending increases that were made to receive federal stimulus dollars that ran out after one year. We cannot let the federal government entice the state to increase spending indefinitely when the federal government will foot the bill for only one year. After passing the Commerce Committee 5-2, the bill failed in a House subcommittee and then languished 5-5 on a party-line vote in the Finance Committee after one Republican had stepped out of the room. While the legislature did not see fit to cut back on these expanded unemployment insurance expenditures this year, I am hopeful that legislators will change their minds next year, now that federal stimulus spending is less popular. I led the charge against federal stimulus dollars back in 2009 when it wasn’t popular to do so, and I will continue to oppose federal stimulus legislation now that it has proven not to work.
No-new-taxes, No-pork Budget
For the first time in my six-year legislative career, I voted in favor of the budget. I voted for the appropriations bill because it contained no new taxes and no fish farm fantasyland. The fish farm fantasyland was a $16 million fish hatchery that the Speaker of the House had proposed to build in his district. The project would have employed only 22 people and would have required state funding each year to operate. The Speaker envisioned it would attract 80,000 visitors a year. Why anyone would pay money to visit a fish farm in northeast Tennessee is beyond me. There are plenty of catfish farms in the mid-South that you can visit for free every day of the year.
More significantly, the 2010-2011 budget represented the first time that the new Republican-controlled Senate was able to defeat all of Governor Bredesen’s proposed tax increases. As Lieutenant Governor and Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey says, "It matters who governs."
Health Care Choice Act
The Health Care Choice Act lowers healthcare costs by allowing Tennesseans to purchase health insurance across state lines. This bill proved my most favored among the constituents who responded to my 2010 constituent survey. Unfortunately, it proved wildly unpopular among certain healthcare industry lobbyists and the Department of Commerce & Insurance. The department ultimately defeated the bill by arguing nonsensically that it would cost the state money, even though I had drafted the bill explicitly to charge fees to pay for any increased costs.
Every bill filed receives a “fiscal note” that is supposed to approximate the annual cost to the state if the bill were passed. If a bill costs money, it not only must pass by a majority vote in the House and the Senate, but it also must be funded in the appropriations bill that is passed by both chambers. Inventing a cost to the state for the “fiscal note” is a common tool used by bureaucrats to kill policies that they disagree with. Unfortunately, this tactic proved successful for this bill; however, I will continue to pursue policies which oppose the government-run healthcare that was imposed this year by the federal government. That legislation alone will cost Tennessee over a billion dollars in the years to come.
Crooks with Guns
The legislature took a step in the right direction this year by passing a bill to require robbers who use weapons to serve 70% of their sentences instead of only 30%. Unfortunately, the increased incarceration was paid for by allowing certain nonviolent property offenders to be released from prison. While I co-sponsored this legislation and believe that it will help keep people safer in their homes, the ultimate answer is to fully fund “Crooks with Guns” bills and to keep all criminals in jail for their full sentences. That’s why I also introduced a bill this year that I hope to pursue in the future to abolish parole.
International Drivers Licenses
Sellers of so-called international drivers licenses were preying on one of our most vulnerable populations by selling legally worthless identification cards to unknowing victims for hundreds of dollars each. After reading an article about the fraudulent practice in the Commercial Appeal, I joined with Rep. Jeanne Richardson (D – Memphis) to introduce legislation to stop it. The bipartisan bill passed the Senate 31-0 and the House 97-0.
Birth by Stillbirth
Prior to this year, mothers and families who experienced the pain of stillbirth received only one official document from the state: a death certificate. Thanks to the tireless work of one of my constituents, grieving mothers will now also receive a “birth by stillbirth” certificate to acknowledge the birth that took place. The legislation that I introduced also expanded the definition of stillbirth to include a child of 350 grams and 20 weeks of gestation.
Infant Mortality Roundtable
The infant mortality rate in Shelby County is worse than that of some South American nations. Therefore, I view one of my most significant actions this legislative year to have occurred in June after the end of our annual session. I organized an Infant Mortality Roundtable Discussion in Memphis with Rep. John DeBerry (D – Memphis) to try to develop legislation for next year with the hope of eventually cutting our infant death rate in half. Virtually every stakeholder in the county met with several of us legislators to discuss the causes of infant mortality, the proposed solutions, and the cost effectiveness of such solutions. The largest contributor to the problem seems to be lack of prenatal care. The good news is that prenatal care is already fully funded through Medicaid; therefore, such solutions as mobile or neighborhood prenatal clinics may be able to help save lives at a minimal cost. This plague on our community is a grave one, and I hope to continue to work next year to solve it.
In Conclusion
I want to thank you again for the honor to serve you in the state Senate. A more civil level of discourse exists in the Senate than in the House, and as a result, it was quite a successful year. I passed more pieces of legislation in one year in the Senate (thirteen) than in my five years in the House combined.
When Christopher Columbus set sail in 1492, he carried the flag of Queen Isabella of Castille, which contained the motto, “Ne plus Ultra,” meaning “nothing beyond” because Spain was the nation farthest west in the known world. After Columbus had returned, the queen had the flag changed to read, “Plus Ultra” or “more beyond.”
I was truly blessed to be able to live out my dream job in the state Senate this year. I am grateful to the Lord and to you for providing me such a wondrous opportunity to serve. Having said that, I also believe that there is more opportunity beyond.
I stayed up until the early morning hours reviewing my response to every possible opposing argument and arrived at the meeting of Senators at 8:30 a.m. Out of nowhere I was told that emails had gone out the night before to Senators from their local newspapers opposing the anti-income tax resolution and that a vote on the resolution could fail and would have to be delayed. I saw five years of hard work slip through my fingers in a 60-second discussion.
The anti-income tax resolution was a constitutional amendment to permanently ban an income tax in Tennessee. To save the state money in a difficult fiscal year, I directed that the amendment be published on the Secretary of State website. Previous constitutional amendments had been printed in small type on the back pages of the six largest newspapers in the state for a cost of $20,000. The same constitutional amendments were always front page news stories at no cost to the state, but the $20,000 giveaway to a special interest group was guarded tightly by the newspaper lobby. Reluctantly, I agreed to postpone a vote on the amendment from Thursday to the following Monday, in part due to absent Senators as well.
After spending the weekend learning every detail of the legal issues surrounding the publication of constitutional amendments, I prepared for a knock-down, drag-out fight Monday night. On the way to Nashville I received a phone call from a fellow Senator. The issue was resolved. No explanation. Very little discussion. The board lit up later that night for the vote. 25-7. For the first time in the history of Tennessee, a constitutional amendment to permanently ban an income tax had passed the Senate. Just eight years before, an income tax had fallen only five votes short of passing the House and probably being enacted by the Senate, and now the Senate had decided in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote to take that option off the table forever.
This remarkable feat never would have been possible if I were still serving in the House. Months later, the House Budget Subcommittee would refuse to even consider the amendment for a vote, even though a majority of House members supported the amendment. There remains work to be done next year, but serving in the Senate this year has been a true joy. I want to thank each and every one of you who helped allow me to serve as your state Senator.
Equal Opportunity Scholarships
The other huge success this year was passing the Equal Opportunity Scholarship pilot program through the Senate Education Committee for the first time ever. The bill, formerly known as the Parental Choice Scholarship Act, would allow low-income children zoned to attend failing schools to receive an equal opportunity scholarship to use at the public, private, or charter schools of their choice. The scholarships would equal the amount of the local and state expenditures on each student, or up to $10,400 per year in Memphis City Schools. The pilot program would be limited to three Memphis City Schools: the elementary, middle, and high schools on the failing schools list the longest.
During the special session on education, as a temporary member of the Education Committee, I was able to pass the bill out of the committee by a vote of 7 to 5. Out of deference to members who wanted to study the issue further, I did not press the bill for a vote in the full Senate during the special session. Unfortunately, the bill did not pass the Education Committee again during the regular session, but I will work hard to see that it passes the full Senate next year. I learned much at a nationwide conference on equal opportunity scholarships in Washington, D.C. in May and am picking up local supporters every week.
The special session on education from January 12 – 25 did produce a bill that made two positive reforms in Tennessee education policy. First, student performance will now count for 50% of a public school teacher’s evaluation. Second, the thirteen worst schools in the state will now comprise an alternative school district that the state can contract out to a nonprofit entity to operate. These changes, along with the extremely helpful charter school expansion legislation from last year, helped Tennessee obtain a $500 million federal Race to the Top grant in March.
Cutting Spending
"I was pretty well off though before I became a senator. I never had an Escalade note. I never had to buy gas. I never had to pay to get my truck washed or car insurance. And I had a big fat check every Friday.”
With those words, Sen. Ophelia Ford (D – Memphis) made famous my bill to curtail legislators’ flying to and from session in Nashville on taxpayer dollars. The bill limited reimbursement for airfare to the mileage allowance granted to each legislator for driving. I thought it was a common sense idea to save up to $20,000 a year and show that legislators were willing to take the lead in cutting spending during a tough budget year. Ultimately, the rest of the Senate agreed and passed the bill 29-2. But not before Sen. Ford had aired her comments in opposition. Sadly, the House failed to pass the bill out of the State and Local Committee.
Opposing federal stimulus legislation
Another bill I introduced would have saved the state $4.5 million per year. The bill ended spending increases that were made to receive federal stimulus dollars that ran out after one year. We cannot let the federal government entice the state to increase spending indefinitely when the federal government will foot the bill for only one year. After passing the Commerce Committee 5-2, the bill failed in a House subcommittee and then languished 5-5 on a party-line vote in the Finance Committee after one Republican had stepped out of the room. While the legislature did not see fit to cut back on these expanded unemployment insurance expenditures this year, I am hopeful that legislators will change their minds next year, now that federal stimulus spending is less popular. I led the charge against federal stimulus dollars back in 2009 when it wasn’t popular to do so, and I will continue to oppose federal stimulus legislation now that it has proven not to work.
No-new-taxes, No-pork Budget
For the first time in my six-year legislative career, I voted in favor of the budget. I voted for the appropriations bill because it contained no new taxes and no fish farm fantasyland. The fish farm fantasyland was a $16 million fish hatchery that the Speaker of the House had proposed to build in his district. The project would have employed only 22 people and would have required state funding each year to operate. The Speaker envisioned it would attract 80,000 visitors a year. Why anyone would pay money to visit a fish farm in northeast Tennessee is beyond me. There are plenty of catfish farms in the mid-South that you can visit for free every day of the year.
More significantly, the 2010-2011 budget represented the first time that the new Republican-controlled Senate was able to defeat all of Governor Bredesen’s proposed tax increases. As Lieutenant Governor and Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey says, "It matters who governs."
Health Care Choice Act
The Health Care Choice Act lowers healthcare costs by allowing Tennesseans to purchase health insurance across state lines. This bill proved my most favored among the constituents who responded to my 2010 constituent survey. Unfortunately, it proved wildly unpopular among certain healthcare industry lobbyists and the Department of Commerce & Insurance. The department ultimately defeated the bill by arguing nonsensically that it would cost the state money, even though I had drafted the bill explicitly to charge fees to pay for any increased costs.
Every bill filed receives a “fiscal note” that is supposed to approximate the annual cost to the state if the bill were passed. If a bill costs money, it not only must pass by a majority vote in the House and the Senate, but it also must be funded in the appropriations bill that is passed by both chambers. Inventing a cost to the state for the “fiscal note” is a common tool used by bureaucrats to kill policies that they disagree with. Unfortunately, this tactic proved successful for this bill; however, I will continue to pursue policies which oppose the government-run healthcare that was imposed this year by the federal government. That legislation alone will cost Tennessee over a billion dollars in the years to come.
Crooks with Guns
The legislature took a step in the right direction this year by passing a bill to require robbers who use weapons to serve 70% of their sentences instead of only 30%. Unfortunately, the increased incarceration was paid for by allowing certain nonviolent property offenders to be released from prison. While I co-sponsored this legislation and believe that it will help keep people safer in their homes, the ultimate answer is to fully fund “Crooks with Guns” bills and to keep all criminals in jail for their full sentences. That’s why I also introduced a bill this year that I hope to pursue in the future to abolish parole.
International Drivers Licenses
Sellers of so-called international drivers licenses were preying on one of our most vulnerable populations by selling legally worthless identification cards to unknowing victims for hundreds of dollars each. After reading an article about the fraudulent practice in the Commercial Appeal, I joined with Rep. Jeanne Richardson (D – Memphis) to introduce legislation to stop it. The bipartisan bill passed the Senate 31-0 and the House 97-0.
Birth by Stillbirth
Prior to this year, mothers and families who experienced the pain of stillbirth received only one official document from the state: a death certificate. Thanks to the tireless work of one of my constituents, grieving mothers will now also receive a “birth by stillbirth” certificate to acknowledge the birth that took place. The legislation that I introduced also expanded the definition of stillbirth to include a child of 350 grams and 20 weeks of gestation.
Infant Mortality Roundtable
The infant mortality rate in Shelby County is worse than that of some South American nations. Therefore, I view one of my most significant actions this legislative year to have occurred in June after the end of our annual session. I organized an Infant Mortality Roundtable Discussion in Memphis with Rep. John DeBerry (D – Memphis) to try to develop legislation for next year with the hope of eventually cutting our infant death rate in half. Virtually every stakeholder in the county met with several of us legislators to discuss the causes of infant mortality, the proposed solutions, and the cost effectiveness of such solutions. The largest contributor to the problem seems to be lack of prenatal care. The good news is that prenatal care is already fully funded through Medicaid; therefore, such solutions as mobile or neighborhood prenatal clinics may be able to help save lives at a minimal cost. This plague on our community is a grave one, and I hope to continue to work next year to solve it.
In Conclusion
I want to thank you again for the honor to serve you in the state Senate. A more civil level of discourse exists in the Senate than in the House, and as a result, it was quite a successful year. I passed more pieces of legislation in one year in the Senate (thirteen) than in my five years in the House combined.
When Christopher Columbus set sail in 1492, he carried the flag of Queen Isabella of Castille, which contained the motto, “Ne plus Ultra,” meaning “nothing beyond” because Spain was the nation farthest west in the known world. After Columbus had returned, the queen had the flag changed to read, “Plus Ultra” or “more beyond.”
I was truly blessed to be able to live out my dream job in the state Senate this year. I am grateful to the Lord and to you for providing me such a wondrous opportunity to serve. Having said that, I also believe that there is more opportunity beyond.