The Sundquist Legacy
About every other week now, a tiny story appears in the back pages of The Tennessean announcing the appointment of a new commissioner for a state department. Considered the top jobs in state government, commissioners are jumping off the ship of state and heading ashore before more time elapses and the Sundquist administration loses its relevance. As with his TennCare reform proposals last week, Sundquist is playing like he’s still in the game, but the whiff of a lame duck around downtown Nashville is becoming more pronounced.
Gov. Don Sundquist came to Nashville in 1994 with an agenda of low taxes, low regulation, and low services. It was the year of the “Contract With America,” the theoretical musings of Newt Gingrich, and a nationwide Republican sweep. Right off the bat Sundquist pushed through an ambitious welfare reform plan, cooperated in securing the Tennessee Titans, and succeeded in merging some overlapping government functions. Before long, however, he was toast.
Having preached a gospel of taxation as evil, Sundquist did his part to lead a citizenry into believing that it could get something for free. From his days in Congress, to his time as gubernatorial candidate, Sundquist never mentioned that the state might have to spend more to become more. In fact, the message was that the state could continue with its same miserable, declining tax base and get along just fine.
In his reelection campaign against a complete nonthreat of a Democrat in 1998, Sundquist kept up the anti-income tax sloganeering. Why he didn’t begin to host some glimmer of a discussion about the state’s revenue needs is open to conjecture. Then, once elected, he pursued a tax reform strategy in which he proposed a plan, saw it rejected, and then flitted about with several alternative proposals until finally agreeing that he would sign an income tax bill if it landed on his desk.
Through it all, Sundquist often seemed unable to develop a plan that people sensed he believed in. So, at an intellectual level, watching him hop, skip, and jump through so many revenue plans did little to inspire.
As well, Sundquist often seemed to be flying by the seat of his pants from one day to the next, rather than undertaking any long-term strategy of convincing the public about the need for change. One never got the sense that Sundquist was capable of arousing the public, whether by carrot, stick, threat, promise, encouragement, or whatever else politicians use to get people to support their proposals.
Political obituaries always should be written before an officeholder leaves office, and now is the time to write Don Sundquist’s. On the plus side, his administration was virtually scandal-free, accessible, and friendly. On the down side, the state is in worse shape than when he arrived.
A successor will stay busy.
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