Monday, February 9, 2009
Legislature / Politics / Woods GOP Boss Robin Smith Kicks Out House Speaker Kent Williams
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:11 AM
Williams responded by accusing Smith of running a "narrow-minded" party, and House Democratic leader Gary Odom invited Williams to strip Republicans of committee chairmanships. Smith's full statement, etc. After the jump, the Q&A with Smith, and the statements from Williams and Odom.
Q: Were there any members of the executive committee who did not want to do this?
Smith: I'm not going to allow the vote to be passed out specifically. Out of 66 members, 81 percent supported the bylaws resolution.
Q: How do you anticipate this affecting the mood of the session?
Smith: I think on the Republican side there's a sense of relief. I think that there have been individuals who really want to move forward and want to address the budget but when you're dealing with an individual who on the one hand promises to be bipartisan and remain a Republican in his heart and yet he's withholding information about terribly critical policy issues, it's very disingenuous and I think there's an absolute desire to move on and let a moment of resolution come.
Q: What does it do to the former Republican majority?
Smith: To think that we had a majority with Kent Williams is really intellectually dishonest. I will say for the record, the activity that you've just witnessed is not based solely on the actual vote on Jan. 13th. Mr. Williams has had 28 days to show how he was going to lead as a Republican majority leader. What he has instead demonstrated is the fact that he's not going to be a Republican majority leader. He's going to allow, as the Tennessean and your article yesterday said Theo, that Jimmy Naifeh is going to be a very strong powerful individual behind Mr. Kent Williams.
Theo Emery: My article didn't say that.
Smith: The article yesterday did say that it was Jimmy Naifeh who talked all of his fellow members into voting for him. And it did talk about how he was going to continue to have power throughout his coming days.
Q: Are you suggesting that if he appointed 13 committee chairmen, if he had paid staff people equally, if he had done some of these other things, he would still be a Republican?
Smith: You got it. ... He had an opportunity to prove to this Republican Party and his colleagues that he was indeed worthy of the title of leader of the Republican Party in the House. But instead, what he did show was a very shortsighted move to make himself more important. He's invoked himself a $70,000 salary increase. He's got a private driver. All of these things do not speak toward the hard work that was shown in November and all of last year. The bottom line is ... this gentleman could have run as speaker of the House in November or as speaker pro tem. And he did not offer himself up as a candidate. Instead, he agreed to bargain away his vote and become the nominee of the Democrat Party.
I'll be candid with you, on January the 14th after I'd received 19 of the 30 written challenges and we had our first teleconference, there was a resolution written by committee members already that would have in effect kicked him out of the party on January the 14th. And on that call it was encouraged and I completely agreed to slow the deliberations and give Mr. Williams an opportunity to prove himself, and prove himself he did. We can see that his interest is not in being a Republican leader but in being a leader that pursues his own self-interest. I've used this quote before. First we make choices and then our choices make us. Kent Williams' choices were made during the last 28 days.
Q: In his appointing these 13 committee chairmen, you have seven Republicans who you say got in through his use of scurrilous methods. What should they do? Should they quit their committee chairmanships? Wouldn't the right thing be for them to resign them?
Smith: Again, we are only speaking to the actions that involve the two votes. That's where our bylaws stop. We're not going to overreach and this is not a statement about what committee should do. ... We're not calling on any other action except that which is called for in our bylaws. ...
Q: Steve McDaniel is actually working in cahoots with this traitor, this Judas? Why don't you kick him out of the party?
Smith: Steve McDaniel is deputy speaker. He has a reason to work and to try to work with Kent Williams. Matter of fact, there are a lot of Republicans who are trying to work with Kent Williams to understand what information is available through the budget process, to know what kind of bills are going to be allowed. ... To say that Steve McDaniel is wrong for trying to work with him, that's not an accurate statement. It's kind of like extracting teeth out of a bird right now. We're not able to get information out of this man. We learned last week that Kent Williams was joined by Jimmy Naifeh at breakfast with the governor, functioning in no other role than as speaker emeritus.
Q: Most lawmakers and politicians everywhere talk about the need for bipartisanship and getting things done. Are you at all concerned about looking like crybabies here?
Smith: Not at all. This is just really a matter of an individual making his own decision and choice. There are no crybabies. This is not a situation that has been contrived.
Williams statement: Robin Smith has determined that I am not a Robin Smith Republican---that is a Republican in her mold. I have hoped for some time that my party would work to build a bigger tent, a more inclusive tent. My hopes may have been in vain. The tent Robin Smith wants is a small tent. A narrow-minded tent. A tent with no room for alternative ideas.
No matter what type tent she wants for the State Republican Party it is clearly not the tent of the Carter County Republican Party. I remain a Carter County Republican with the same principles that brought me to the General Assembly in the 2006 elections.
I own a small business and as reported in the Tennessean on this past Sunday I have a 100% voting record with the National Federation of Independent Businesses. I am a supporter of Second Amendment Rights to bear arms. I am a supporter of SJR 127, the anti-abortion constitutional amendment. I do not want Government involved in all aspects of our citizens' lives.
I believe all members of the General Assembly should be treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve. I believe all legislation should receive a fair hearing. I believe we have a lot of capable and smart people in the House from both parties. In this time of crisis we need to utilize all of this talent and harness everyone who has the desire and ability to be a leader.
Apparently, these are not the traits of a Robin Smith Republican. She has made her decision. So be it. Now let us move past this distraction and get to the real work at hand. This is a challenging time in our history. The people of Tennessee expect and deserve our very best as we move forward to address the major challenges before us.
Balancing the budget while still funding those items that are essential to keeping our state progressing will be a difficult task, but it is one that the General Assembly is up to if we join hands and work toward the common goal of what is best for the people of our state. We have a lot of work to do. We have to put our distractions behind us, join hands and work together. Let's move forward. Together.
Odom's statement: "I find the actions of the State Republican Party's leadership curious at best. Their decision to oust Speaker Kent Williams from the party surrenders not only the Speaker position but also the Republican majority in the House. Apparently when their anointed one failed in his bid to become House Speaker, retaliation became more important than conducting the state's business. It is also important to remember that some of the same players who made this decision were also involved in trying to defeat Speaker Williams in his district's Republican Primary on two different occasions. I look forward to once again inviting Speaker Williams to become a member of our State Democratic Party and I ask that he reconsider the seven Republican Chairmanships which he appointed in January."
Comments (6)
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Purity purges in both parties. Lunatics running the asylums. It looks like neither party wants you if you win an election. The GOP ousts the House speaker. The Democrats oust the governor and congresspeople.
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Robin Smith is a PR nightmare, just like I've heard others say about her. Does she even think about how stupid and hypocritical she sounds? Does she think most of us can't see thru her? Smith says Rep. Williams worked in secrecy to be Speaker, yet she forgets that evidently the Rep. party itself is shrouded in secrecy. Mumpower worked on his take-over for months. He quietly found new employees to replace the staffers already working there who had no clue they would be jobless when he took the helm. Thank God his plan was stopped in it's tracks.
She's lambasting the Speaker for not having the budget items worked out, but the Gov. has already said he wouldn't have that done til next month. It is widely publicized that the legislature has several weeks to work on things.
Rep. Williams didn't have time to do what Mumpower did for months. Mumpower went to Ramsey's podium and practiced banging the gavel and regurgitating the Mumpower and Co. rhetoric that they always serve up in the interests of their major campaign supporters. So, of course Rep. Williams will need a little time-just like anyone else would. It would also be very sensible that he would have lunch with the Gov. and the former Speaker - no matter their party. I have had the privelege of being chairman of an organization and even though I didn't plan to operate the way my predecessor did, I was still adult enough and responsible enough to my organization to learn all I could about the process, parliamentary procedure, and so forth.
What's Smith's beef with the Speaker getting $7o thousand and a driver? Didn't the last Speaker get that same thing? Would it have been ok for Mumpower to have had it, though? She's a joke!
I say to her: No, the truth is, Mrs. Smith, you stood by long enough to let Rep. Williams do what he said he'd do (which was to benefit to the Rep. Party)in appointing the chairmanships and setting the Reps. on a good path - then you stepped in when he was finished and stripped him of the Party's name. If you were such a woman of your values, then why did you not get rid of him within the week? You knew when you got your toes stepped on that day what you were going to do. Did she even sit down to talk with Rep. Williams like a big girl? She didn't. She didn't want the truth staring her in the face.
One other thing: Smith spoke of the staff having equal pay. If she was REALLY worried about many of these people being able to make ends meet, she would not have backed Mumpower, who was planning to give their jobs to many of his friends and others. Talk about disingenuous!
Yes indeed, Mrs. Smith, "first we make our choices, then our choices make us". We already see what your choice has made you. A pathetic excuse for a party leader and an even more pathetic excuse for a true Republican. Your choices and those of your leadership team will also make you losers in 2010 because we Carter Countians will re-elect Kent Williams and you can't do anything about it. You don't run Carter County. We do.
"Q: Were there any members of the executive committee who did not want to do this?
Smith: I'm not going to allow the vote to be passed out specifically. Out of 66 members, 81 percent supported the bylaws resolution."
Either Robin Smith cannot give out a straight answer or do simple math - and likely neither:
Let's see, Smith...81% or .81 of 66 is...hmmmm, if my calculations are right and Smith's figures are "accurate"...53.46 Tennessee Republican Party State Executive Committee members voted against Rep. Kent Williams retaining his Tennessee Republican Party boner fides!
