HALLELUJAH! God is Great! Now if we only get a Republican speaker.
I keep pinching myself too. Jason is going to be an AWESOME Speaker! Let's just not fall into the trap our federal compadres did...let's remember we are conservatives first!!
It is truly a beautiful day in Tennessee. It almost makes everything else palatable...for now.
I hope that is not a big IF about sticking together.
From David's mouth to God's ears.
I hate to rain on the parade rep because I want Naifeh gone as well but does anyone remember what happened in North Carolina back in '02? A handfull of RINO's formed a coalition with the democrat Speaker after the voters gave the GOP a one vote majority. They shared power for two years but the dems won outright in '04 and have been in power ever since. Hopefully Mr McDaniel and his four or five co horts in the House won't pull something like that in this state.
That's my worry as well, Dan. Naifeh I can't believe is going to just lay down and give up his power. He's a thug, a tyrant, and a bully. He also has near or at 10 weasel RINO members he can call on to support him and that may be his "January Surprise" for Speaker-presumptive Mumpower. The caucus better make absolutely sure ALL 50 members intend on supporting our nominee, and perhaps contacting some Conservative Democrat members as a cushion if Naifeh tries to pull a stunt. As we found out in 2004, just winning a numerical majority in November isn't enough.
A little bit of history... the last time we elected a House Speaker was in January 1969 when we tied the Democrats 49-49 (with 1 Independent) in the 1968 Nixon election during Gov. Buford Ellington's midterm. The GOP held together all 49 of its members, but the Independent, J.P. Kimbrell (a strange old buzzard from West TN who looked like a Civil War vet if you've seen his picture from that year's bluebook) refused to cast a vote for either party. It necessitated Republican leader Bill Jenkins (the future Congressman from the 1st district) to hunt around for Democrat support, and he found it. Black Knoxville Democrat Robert J. Booker, a sophomore member, crossed over to support Jenkins, giving us the 50 votes needed to elect Jenkins (whom was the first, and to date, last GOP House Speaker, since Reconstruction, and the first Republican of any Southern state elected to lead a legislative body since the 1890s).
I expect if Mumpower is successful, TN newspapers (most of whom are notorious for their leftist views and looking the other way at Democrat shenanigans and misconduct) will "demand" Mumpower act in a bipartisan manner in doling out committee chairmanships. Of course, Naifeh NEVER gave even one chair to a Republican (nor was ever asked to by the media). But as we well know, there are different sets of rules the parties are expected to follow.
It is at least nice to know that while the rest of the country was losing its mind and all sense of reason on Election Night in voting for "change", the people of TN voted for REAL change of a positive sort (well, actually, they have been since the 1990s, since Naifeh and his friends have gerrymandered a GOP-voting majority into a minority of seats -- but we finally broke the gerrymander).
To our new GOP majority leaders, let's not squander this opportunity. Let's act courageously and boldly and show Tennessee (and the nation) how it's done right. 
Hey Rep -
Mind if I go with you to Nashville on the first day of Session? I normally go with my State Rep, but I thought maybe I'd like to see the other side of the House Chamber. Let me know! Thanks.
- Matthew
Representative Campfield, I thought you'd be interested in this as well, sir...
Using the Secretary of State's numbers for all the 99 State House races for Tuesday's election, it appears these are the voting percentages for the Democrats/Republicans/Independents candidates:
D - 914,108 - 43.7%
R - 1,134,374 - 54.2%
I - 43,955 - 2.1%
As I mentioned before in a prior post, the Democrats have apparently not won an outright majority or plurality of the vote for the TN House since about 1992, but thanks to their gerrymandering efforts since after 1970 (when we held our previous high of 49 seats from 1969-71), they kept a GOP-voting majority in the minority for all this time. The fact we only won the House by a single seat despite winning 200,000 more votes is testament to their astonishing gerrymandering skills.
Over the years, I've noted lots of rotten borough districts where Dems win by the narrowest of margins or small numbers of votes (this year, one Democrat, Jeanne Richardson in Shelby/Memphis's 89th received just over 10,000 votes, while nearby in the same county, Larry Turner in the 85th received 22k, the highest vote total for any Dem in the state) while Republicans often win much larger amounts (indeed, there were 10 winning candidates who received more than Turner did (5 of whom were at or above 22k, that being those who won in the 20th, 21st, 34th, 57th, 99th districts) and 5 received above 31,000, with Williamson County's Glen Casada in the 63rd getting almost 38,000 votes and Charles Sargent in the adjacent 61st getting 33,500).
At first, I thought perhaps a lot of Dems didn't contest a lot of seats this year as opposed to the GOP which might account for such a wide winning margin, but we were roughly evenly matched. They fielded 67 candidates, we fielded 68. But it's hard to ignore the fact that for a Republican in TN, you need 16,682 votes as an average to win a seat, while a Democrat only needs 13,643 to win. The new GOP majority shouldn't wait for 2012 to redistrict, they should do so for the 2010 election and aggressively reconfigure the seats to correct this injustice. When Virginia Republicans, who had been similarly disenfranchised even after a majority preferred them to lead the legislature, broke through the gerrymander in the late '90s, they were able to draw 2/3rds of the House for themselves. There's no reason why TN Republicans can't conceivably draw a similar number (if not higher). 70 seats out of 99 is not out of the question, and should be a major goal.
oh man will they be gunning for the rep next time. hahahaha
Cowboy,
I've been off in Arizona pulling border security and construction. It's nice to see Tennesseans have the courage to clean our state government.
Thanks to you guys for taking care of the homefires while other Tennesseans are away. My family and I looks forward to the day we can come home to Tennessee! (The novelty of saguaro cactus, bark scorpions, gawdawful heat and blowing dirt lasts only so long for this native Tennesseean!)
Jim Boyd
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