Month: December 2012

• Sens.Jim Kyle (l), Reginald Tate

It would seem to be painful enough for Tennessee Democrats that their party now holds only 7 seats in the 33-member state Senate — a fact leading to jokes that the Democrats could caucus in one of the Capitol’s now largely unused phone booths.

But that tiny remnant of a once dominant party proved large enough to indulge a little fratricidal bloodletting when it came time in Nashville on Wednesday to elect officers for the forthcoming 2013 legislative session.

Senator Reginald Tate of Memphis launched a challenge to Jim Kyle, also of Memphis, the party’s longtime leader in the Senate and a onetime possibility to become Speaker before the recent drastic shrinkage of Democratic fortunes in Tennessee.

The vote was 4-3 in favor of Kyle, who acknowledged later on that he was “disappointed” — either by the narrowness of the margin or by the mere fact of the challenge, which may have been the result of residual bitterness among some of the surviving Democrats stemming from the 2012 primary race between Kyle and fellow Democratic incumbent Beverly Marrero.

Kyle would also voice a suspicion that Tate might have been encouraged to run against him by Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey, the Republican Speaker of the Senate, with whom Tate has enjoyed cordial relations. More than most Democrats, Tate has proved willing to accept Republican initiatives — particularly on some of the school issues Democrats have tried to mount a resistance to in the last two sessions.

The vote was taken by secret ballot; so how the balloting went was subject to some guess work later on. Tate himself seemed fairly sure, though, of who the swing vote for Kyle was. At the Cannon Center in Memphis on Thursday night, where he made a brief appearance at the Memphis Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Tate was asked about his narrow loss.

“Yeah, it was Ophelia Ford,” he said, with a shake of the head sidewise.

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• Sate Senator Brian Kelsey conferring with Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris during the 2012 legislative session

The municipal-school issue, subject of this past week’s Mays ruling on the unconstitutionality of 2012 legislation enabling new districts in Shelby County may not be the only piece of Tennessee education-related legislation destined for the courtroom.

A state judge in Louisiana has just struck down a voucher system in that state whereby public funds were allocated for private institutions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2012/11/30/la-judge-bobby-jindal-school-voucher-program-unconstitutional/?wprss=rss_politics

Critics of voucher programs maintain that they subvert public school education and divert needed funding from established school networks.

Tennessee is right up on the cutting edge of this issue, with a long-pending voucher bill from Germantown state Senator Brian Kelsey certain to get serious consideration in the forthcoming 2013 session of the General Assembly. A “task force” convened by Governor Bill Haslam has reportedly already conferred its approval of the voucher process as a component of Haslam’s educational reform agenda.

The major question remaining would seem to be how soon and just what would be in the bill. Here’s an item from this week’s Tennessee Journal on the shape of things to come from Ron Ramsey, the state’s lieutenant governor and speaker of the state Senate, and the most influential state official other than Haslam himself..

Vouchers. Ramsey did say that in appointing the Education Committee, he plans to make sure there are sufficient votes for an “opportunity scholarship,” or voucher, program.

Sen. Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), who attended an education conference in Washington this week, is expected to sponsor a voucher bill. A task force on the issue submitted its report Thursday to Gov. Bill Haslam, who may offer legislation.

The task force agreed any voucher bill should target low-income students. It found consensus in some areas but in others simply laid out a range of options.