Author: Larry Daughtrey

The Tennessee General Assembly is sleepwalking its way through its worst ethical crisis in almost two decades. Average citizens haven’t been so engaged — and outraged — with a legislative issue since the great income tax debate.

The case of state senator John Ford, the prickly master of bravado from Memphis who has flouted his disregard for convention for three decades, has brought ethics to the front burner. Ford appears to have taken a quarter-million dollars from a company profiting from TennCare for some sort of vague “consulting” work. He has spent campaign money on a wedding. He doesn’t live among those he was elected to represent. In trouble, he seems to have turned where legislators often go for help: the lobbyists. According to at least two, he was soliciting money for a legal defense fund. If true, that is a brazen violation of what meager laws there are on the subject.

If Ford is taken to task on any of this, it probably won’t be the work of the General Assembly. Getting the legislature to acknowledge it has lost public confidence and needs to set reasonable standards of public behavior is akin to finding a silver bullet for TennCare. Efforts to pass serious ethics legislation in Tennessee have been a 30-year study in inertia.

The Senate Ethics Committee has the Ford case under consideration. The committee’s first instinct was to slap Ford’s hand for a “technical omission” for failing to list “consulting” on a disclosure form. Only after a weekend of listening to constituents howl did the committee do a 180-degree reversal and agree to look deeper into Ford’s dealings.

The disclosure forms lawmakers must file are a perfect example of what’s wrong with the system. Ford could probably have avoided his troubles by simply listing “consulting” as one of his occupations, and no one would have asked whether it involved helping companies get state business. A legislator can list “banking” as his occupation. That could mean serving on a bank’s board of directors. It could also mean taking $100 bills to the cashier in exchange for smaller denominations. Almost on a daily basis, senators and representatives sponsor bills having a direct impact on their professions and livelihoods without any declaration of conflict of interest.

One of the chief sources of shady financial dealings at the Capitol involves campaign money flowing from special interests, accounting for at least 60 percent of all re-election efforts. Until last year, a citizen had to go through an intimidating process of showing identification at a Nashville office to look at a campaign filing — and be warned that the candidate would get a postcard identifying the curious citizen.

Now the forms are available on the Internet, but there’s one critical ingredient missing: Contributors don’t have to list an occupation. That makes it virtually impossible to trace all the special-interest ties. It’s pure accident when violations of campaign financing laws come to light. The regulator watchdog overseeing such matters has no power to initiate an investigation or any staff to pursue one.

It’s clear the legislature won’t, and maybe can’t, police its own ranks. The relationships are too chummy, and the practices too embedded. It may be time for Tennessee to consider a truly independent citizens’ commission to set and enforce ethical standards, a commission with some real power and the ability, staff, and funding to pursue serious investigations. Other states have used that system with success. n

Larry Daughtrey is a columnist for the Nashville Tennessean, where a version of this essay first appeared.

The first of the breed was named Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a Roman patrician who twice left his farm 2,500 years ago to serve as defender and dictator of the empire until his work was done. Then he gave up power and went home, which is why his name is still remembered today.

The American model was George Washington. After his second term as president, he could have claimed the office for life or set himself up as a monarch. That’s what most people wanted. Historians agree his greatest moment came when he quit.

One of the quirks of American politics is that those who voluntarily shrug off power at their peak achieve their greatest popularity when they are out of the spotlight. A well-timed exit tells people that a politician values something beyond the power and prestige of office. The modern push for term limits doesn’t have the same impact; retirement is not voluntary.

Tennessee has a rich history of examples. The latest was state Sen. Robert Rochelle of Lebanon, who announced recently that he’s leaving after 20 years in the Senate.

Rochelle’s decision, like those before him, must be complex. Rochelle can dominate the Senate with his oratory and intellect, but he crashed against the rocks in his effort to pass a progressive income tax. Rochelle is not a warm and fuzzy politician; he has many enemies and can be ruthless against them.

The whispers are that polls showed Rochelle trailing badly against Rep. Mae Beavers of Mt. Juliet in this year’s election. However, given the leanings of the district and his skills as a campaigner, it’s hard to believe that Rochelle wouldn’t have won or at least come very close.

Rochelle has been the point man on the most complex issues before the legislature in the past two decades, including telecommunications and ethics. With the income tax dormant, there wasn’t a clear challenge in sight to occupy his energy. The other whisper that doesn’t ring true is that he was cowed by the threats and harshness of those who tried to demonize him over the income tax. That isn’t Rochelle.

Sen. Fred Thompson is another current example. He could have won another term this year, probably without setting foot in the state. But he said his heart wasn’t in it. He still hasn’t fully explained his decision, but there may be a clue in former Sen. Howard Baker, a man Thompson has idolized all his adult life.

Baker comes from a long line of political figures, but his course was always set by the model of Cincinnatus. He was an enormously powerful figure in Washington, serving as the Republican leader of the Senate. He could probably still be a Tennessee senator if he wanted.

In 1980, Baker was two years into his third term and running for president. He was only 55. One day in a speech at Brown University in Rhode Island, he got pretty wound up in his rhetoric and said something to the effect that whatever happened in the presidential race, this was his last hurrah in elective politics.

Later, on his campaign airplane, I asked Baker if it was a slip of the tongue or if he meant what he said. He meant it, he said coolly. The story hit the front page, but most Tennesseans simply didn’t believe it. Baker has gone on to serve as White House chief of staff, a major law firm rainmaker, and now ambassador to Japan.

Politicians on the Cincinnatus model usually don’t return to elective politics, but sometimes, they do. Bill Purcell was a fast-rising young star in the General Assembly, serving as majority leader. He was being touted as a future House speaker or governor. He astounded and baffled Capitol Hill in 1996 when he quit and went to work at a Vanderbilt think tank. In 1999, of course, he returned to politics and won an upset victory as mayor of Nashville.

Politics (and particularly the current legislature) is full of people who should quit but don’t. Maybe that’s why we place high value on people who shouldn’t quit but do.

Larry Daughtrey is a columnist for the Nashville Tennessean, where this column appeared in slightly different form.

Suddenly the hottest buzzword amid the four-year gridlock on Capitol Hill is “ConCon.”

The term is political shorthand for a constitutional convention, a body to rewrite all or part of a document that has stood pretty much unchanged for over two centuries. And it is a document that has been praised, from Thomas Jefferson on down, as a model of good democracy.

The state Senate, which sometimes debates for hours the time for adjournment, is all set this week to fast-track bills setting up the machinery for a constitutional convention. Almost all the candidates for governor traipsing around on the fringes of the action have given their blessing.

Tennessee hasn’t had such a convention in 25 years. On the surface, it sounds like political utopia. Voters get to approve the subject matter then elect the delegates. Then the voters get to decide on whether to accept the convention’s recommendations.

There are always arguments that the prestige of the convention will attract some of the state’s finest minds as candidates. Since the convention is a one-time thing, the idealists say, there won’t be a lot of partisan bickering, delegates won’t be shaking down lobbyists for money to run for reelection, and good government will prevail.

It doesn’t work that way. The conventions we saw in the 20th century were dominated by, successively, local government pleaders, rural power brokers who didn’t like the idea of one-man/one-vote, the Farm Bureau, and the banking lobby.

There are two kinds of constitutional convention — a limited convention, theoretically confined to specific areas of the constitution (although delegates often stray into other areas), and an unlimited version, which would be the first since 1870. The latter kind would open up the whole constitution, including a bill of rights that is in many ways superior to the federal language. It’s amazing, but the ultraconservative Senate is talking seriously about an unlimited convention.

Why the sudden interest in the constitution? It provides political cover and an excuse to avoid doing anything about the state’s financial situation for another couple of election cycles. It would keep incumbent legislators from having to confront the dreaded income tax.

Income tax opponents have found a convenient alibi over the last four years in the constitution. They say they can’t vote for an income tax because it is unconstitutional, based on a 1932 Tennessee Supreme Court ruling.

There is a legal disagreement about the subject. The last four attorneys general have said the tax would be constitutional if drafted correctly. The traditional way to settle such disputes is to pass a bill and let the courts decide. Every session, the legislature passes bills of dubious constitutionality without blinking an eye or making an excuse.

Income-tax opponents, of course, hope that a convention and a pliable electorate goaded by the talk-show hosts would ban an income tax forever, whatever the needs of future generations.

Sen. Bob Rochelle, the leading income-tax advocate, fears that a convention would be dominated by special interests, which would write into the constitution some of the tax loopholes that protect them now. That, he says, would perpetuate a system where working families bear a tax burden the wealthy can avoid.

“A convention is a cop-out,” says Randy Nichols, one of the Democratic candidates for governor not enamored of the idea. “We don’t have time for a convention. Sometimes people in leadership positions just have to step up and lead.”

Nichols is right, but the legislature may not see it that way. A lot of lawmakers would just as soon get out of the frying pan without getting their hide singed and let the horn-honkers terrorize somebody else on Capitol Hill.

“Let the people decide,” they declaim. Well, the people have decided in the form of legislative elections every two years. The problem is legislators who won’t decide.

Larry Daughtrey writes for the Nashville Tennessean, where this column, in slightly different form, first appeared.

As the three-year stalemate on Tennessee tax reform continues to drag along, legislators have discussed and discarded almost every conceivable tax available for state revenue.

In addition to the hot-button income tax, there continues to be talk of a major tax on automobiles, a return to a state property tax abandoned to local governments in 1947, higher sin taxes, and elimination of all exemptions to the sales tax.

But there hasn’t been much open discussion about gambling. There are a lot of factors: the state’s basic conservatism, the buckle on the Bible Belt realities, and a general assumption that the state constitution prohibits all legalized gambling, which it doesn’t.

Times change, and old assumptions may no longer be true. Remember that the modern lottery era started in 1964 in New Hampshire because of that state’s famous anti-tax phobia. Now all but two states, Tennessee and Utah, have some form of legalized gambling. Faced with unpopular tax choices, legislators in other states have taken the gaming route.

Tennessee most likely will join the ranks of gambling states a year from now, when a constitutional amendment authorizing a state lottery is on the ballot. For more than a decade, polls have shown that roughly two-thirds of Tennesseans want a lottery.

Despite some beliefs to the contrary, the lottery won’t have much impact on the state’s budget problems. First, it will produce only about $200 million annually in taxes at a time when Tennessee stares at a billion-dollar budget shortfall. And the money is earmarked for college scholarships.

Given the legislature’s recent record of robbing Peter to pay Paul, it’s possible that lawmakers will raid higher-education funds and rationalize that the lottery tuition money will make up the difference.

The issue of tax reform has now gotten ensnarled with a constitutional convention. Many senators are insisting that an income tax must be followed or preceded by a constitutional convention on the subject, which would give voters a say in the issue.

The lottery referendum next year purports to outlaw casinos, but that could easily be undone with a convention.

There is no real reason why a convention couldn’t be authorized to consider casino gambling at the same time as taxes. It could be posed as an either/or proposition. Or gambling could be placed on the ballot as a separate issue. But it’s intriguing to ponder what Tennesseans would do if given the choice between an income tax and casinos.

Is there enough money involved for legalized gambling to make a dent in the state’s budget problems? You bet.

Casinos paid $3.5 billion in state and local taxes last year. Americans are now spending as much in casinos as they do playing golf or watching cable television. Mississippi casinos paid $320 million in taxes last year, a partial reason why that state has been able to afford a $10,000 jump in teacher salaries.

That is the direct impact. Mississippi casinos also provide 34,000 jobs and a tourism industry where there was none. Perhaps half the players in Mississippi on a given day live in Tennessee.

Then there is the matter of video poker. New technology has made the monitoring and tax collection problems easy to handle. Video poker makes little casinos out of every convenience store and bar, and some experts think it could produce $400 million annually in Tennessee.

No Tennessean is now more than three hours from a casino. Or three clicks of the mouse from a Caribbean gambling den.

The voices calling for a constitutional convention on taxes generally are those who oppose gambling most strongly — conservatives with links to fundamentalist religious groups. They can’t have it both ways.

A constitutional convention on the income tax isn’t necessary, according to many of the state’s top lawyers. Passing taxes should be a legislative responsibility.

The convention is a way to shift the burden away from the General Assembly. If the legislature begins to cede its powers to public referendum in the form of a constitutional convention, it should allow the voters to have the widest possible latitude. And that includes casinos.

Larry Daughtrey is a political writer and columnist for the Nashville Tennessean.

As the three-year stalemate on Tennessee tax reform continues to drag along, legislators have discussed and discarded almost every conceivable tax available for state revenue.

In addition to the hot-button income tax, there continues to be talk of a major tax on automobiles, a return to a state property tax abandoned to local governments in 1947, higher sin taxes, and elimination of all exemptions to the sales tax.

But there hasn’t been much open discussion about gambling. There are a lot of factors: the state’s basic conservatism, the buckle on the Bible Belt realities, and a general assumption that the state constitution prohibits all legalized gambling, which it doesn’t.

Times change, and old assumptions may no longer be true. Remember that the modern lottery era started in 1964 in New Hampshire because of that state’s famous anti-tax phobia. Now all but two states, Tennessee and Utah, have some form of legalized gambling. Faced with unpopular tax choices, legislators in other states have taken the gaming route.

Tennessee most likely will join the ranks of gambling states a year from now, when a constitutional amendment authorizing a state lottery is on the ballot. For more than a decade, polls have shown that roughly two-thirds of Tennesseans want a lottery.

Despite some beliefs to the contrary, the lottery won’t have much impact on the state’s budget problems. First, it will produce only about $200 million annually in taxes at a time when Tennessee stares at a billion-dollar budget shortfall. And the money is earmarked for college scholarships.

Given the legislature’s recent record of robbing Peter to pay Paul, it’s possible that lawmakers will raid higher-education funds and rationalize that the lottery tuition money will make up the difference.

The issue of tax reform has now gotten ensnarled with a constitutional convention. Many senators are insisting that an income tax must be followed or preceded by a constitutional convention on the subject, which would give voters a say in the issue.

The lottery referendum next year purports to outlaw casinos, but that could easily be undone with a convention.

There is no real reason why a convention couldn’t be authorized to consider casino gambling at the same time as taxes. It could be posed as an either/or proposition. Or gambling could be placed on the ballot as a separate issue. But it’s intriguing to ponder what Tennesseans would do if given the choice between an income tax and casinos.

Is there enough money involved for legalized gambling to make a dent in the state’s budget problems? You bet.

Casinos paid $3.5 billion in state and local taxes last year. Americans are now spending as much in casinos as they do playing golf or watching cable television. Mississippi casinos paid $320 million in taxes last year, a partial reason why that state has been able to afford a $10,000 jump in teacher salaries.

That is the direct impact. Mississippi casinos also provide 34,000 jobs and a tourism industry where there was none. Perhaps half the players in Mississippi on a given day live in Tennessee.

Then there is the matter of video poker. New technology has made the monitoring and tax collection problems easy to handle. Video poker makes little casinos out of every convenience store and bar, and some experts think it could produce $400 million annually in Tennessee.

No Tennessean is now more than three hours from a casino. Or three clicks of the mouse from a Caribbean gambling den.

The voices calling for a constitutional convention on taxes generally are those who oppose gambling most strongly — conservatives with links to fundamentalist religious groups. They can’t have it both ways.

A constitutional convention on the income tax isn’t necessary, according to many of the state’s top lawyers. Passing taxes should be a legislative responsibility.

The convention is a way to shift the burden away from the General Assembly. If the legislature begins to cede its powers to public referendum in the form of a constitutional convention, it should allow the voters to have the widest possible latitude. And that includes casinos.

Larry Daughtrey is a political writer and columnist for the Nashville Tennessean.

Gridlock. Stalemate. Deadlock. Standoff. Malfunction junction.

That’s where Tennessee’s General Assembly stands today, for the third year in a row unable and unwilling to solve the state’s financial problems. It has an eerily familiar air of “been there, done that.”

This week, a conference committee of 15 representatives and 15 senators will start trying to devise a tax plan that will get majorities of 17 votes in the Senate and 50 in the House. It is a decided understatement to say there is no consensus.

The experience of the last two years suggests that what will emerge is a makeshift, poorly reasoned effort to patch things together for another year, and the state’s welfare be damned. The legislature may raid savings accounts, pull revenue estimates out of thin air, and raise a minor tax or two.

But there are murmurs of change on Capitol Hill, however muted they may be.

Legislative leaders, to their credit, have so far conducted budget discussions in public. With a growing public realization that the state’s problems are real, they have dragged the back-benchers, some of them kicking and screaming, into the budget deliberations.

The glib advocates of budget-cutting have found that it is not as easy as it sounds and that state government is not the mismanaged mess they have assumed. Some of their budget cutting ideas are farcical: limiting the grave digging at state veterans cemeteries, undermining the efforts of public health doctors to treat hepatitis if it is borne by alien residents (and inviting a resumption of desegregation litigation that has already gone on for more than 30 years). Attorney General Paul Summers described it simply: “Stupid.”

Critics have discovered that slashing the supposed budget monster, TennCare, is a difficult and often counterproductive exercise. And the fair-minded ones have to admit that TennCare is a pretty good bargain for the state and its massive public and private health-care infrastructure.

The sales tax, the old reliable standby for half a century when the state needed more money, has lost its luster. A recent poll with some veracity suggests that more than 80 percent of voters oppose more increases.

More than half the state’s counties border other states with lower sales tax rates; as a result, some don’t have a single supermarket. Businesses are seeing the results of taxpayers seeking lower prices not only across state lines but through the Internet.

The atmosphere of the legislature itself has changed during the past three years. A lot of the old camaraderie is gone. Members are frustrated and disillusioned by the annual pressure cooker. As a result, more and more of them are searching for a long-term solution that will not only help the state but the political climate on Capitol Hill.

The only viable long-term solution is tax reform and some variation of the once-dreaded income tax. And it no longer looks as fearsome as it once did. An income tax, of course, is a fundamental change in the state’s taxing policy, and such changes don’t come quickly or easily. The current state tax system simply doesn’t factor in ability to pay as a standard of a fair tax policy.

From another perspective, Tennessee has had a forced income tax for years, masquerading as a sales tax. For working families who spend their income to make ends meet, it amounts to an 8.75 percent tax on their take-home pay.

More and more voters are figuring out the facts of life. A well-drafted income plan would mean less taxes on more than half of all Tennesseans, in the form of no sales taxes on food and a lower overall rate. It would also eliminate the Depression-era Hall Income Tax, which eats up 6 percent of many retirees’ income from savings. In the end, most people vote their pocketbooks.

This may not prove to be the year for tax reform. But it is a lot closer than it was three years ago.

Larry Daughtrey is a columnist for the Nashville Tennessean, where a version of this column first appeared.