Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Legislature / Politics / Woods Beth Harwell: Renegade Republican
Posted by Jeff Woods on Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 1:27 PM
Now, Ken Whitehouse is reporting that Harwell's telling GOP chair Robin Smith not to kick Williams out of the party. Oddly, Harwell apparently thinks the party's legislative agenda might fare better if the most powerful member of the House isn't royally pissed off at every Republican in Tennessee. Williams even speaks highly of Harwell and says she agrees with his ideas on power sharing.
"I've had some conversation with Representative Beth Harwell," Williams told reporters a couple of weeks ago. "... We had conversations right after [he was elected speaker] and I'm not going to get into conversations, but Beth Harwell had the same ideas I had. We discussed, we need a leader who's going to utilize all the members available to us. Isn't it kind of silly to have 99 people but only use 49. Of course, you have to. If you're a Democrat, you have to do it. If you're a Republican, I guess you have to do it. I'm a Republican but I don't have to do it so I'm not going to do it. I'm not here to be the speaker for a long period of time. But I will be the speaker for two years, and we'll do it my way for two years and see how it works."
That made me think: If Harwell had been the GOP nominee for House speaker instead of Mumpower, she probably would have won. Williams would have voted for her and probably a few Democrats would have, too. Now with her help, the Republicans might actually accomplish something this session. She'd better watch her back. If she behaves too sensibly, the party might kick her out for it.
Comments (3)
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Ranting about RINOs commences in 5... 4... 3...
Her district is less wingnut central than just an economically conservative, socially moderate set of suburbs. I get the feeling she's not one of those people for whom no position is too far to the right. She's a safe GOP seat, but would be to her disadvantage to join the lemmings in their race over the cliff.
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Let's see Jeff, a week ago you threw sarcastic darts at the ethics committee for refusing to hear Kelsey's ethics complaint against Williams. After the committee unanimously passed Beth Harwell's motion to dismiss the complaint,you wrote:
"All too predictably, yesterday's meeting adds another wrong to this sordid little tale. A legislative ethics committee run by Republican and Democratic leaders once again showed itself to be mainly interested in covering the collective ass."
This week, you describe Harwell as a "reasonable, adult-like leader" and praise her for leading "the move to dismiss the complaint against Speaker Kent Williams."
What fun it must be to churn out smartass comments in a daily blog... we miss you at Brandon's.
