Monday, January 12, 2009
Politics / Woods House Dems Hold Secret Meeting
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 1:31 PM
Gary Odom has taken his first official action as House Democratic leader: He's barring reporters from a House caucus meeting happening now across from the Capitol. What a breath of fresh air! As far as anyone can remember, it's the first time that the House Democratic Caucus has held a closed meeting.
House Democratic flack Addison Pate stood in the way of reporters as they tried to enter the meeting, saying lawmakers have worked themselves up into a tizzy over this week's leadership elections and can't bear the thought of speaking in the presence of reporters. Pate said:
It's a closed meeting. We're not dealing with legislation and all the stuff that directly impacts the people of Tennessee. This is just a political meeting among members. It's sensitive business and as you guys can imagine everyone is on pins and needles right now when it comes to what's going on with the speaker's race and the constitutional officers, with everything that's going on. And ultimately, some of our members wanted to be able to talk freely and they feel sometimes they clam up with the press directly in their face, so this is a closed meeting. Everything is just ratcheted up right now, so they're a little tense.
Republicans are about to hold a caucus to pick their nominees for the constitutional offices. Word is that the meeting will be open to the press. It would have been hard to close it and boast at the same time about the wonderful new open process the Republicans are instituting to pick their nominees. We think the balloting, though, is going to be secret. You can only ask for so much transparency all at once, after all. Baby steps.
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