Naifeh – The last bit
I posted this while guest blogging at No Silence Here but want a copy in my database. So, here’s the reprint:
Cheating to win
This story, which went largely unreported in local media but was popular among Tennessee bloggers, is one from the vault. There was a bill making its way through Tennessee that would allow citizens with handgun carry permits to carry their handguns into establishments that serve alcohol so long as they weren’t drinking. The merits of the bill aside, it actually had support in the legislature. But House Speaker Naifeh broke the rules of the house to avoid a floor vote.
Rep. Campfield, Tennessee’s first blogging legislator, broke the story. And it spread like wildfire around Tennessee blogs. Bill Hobbs covered it extensively as did Blake and I.
The press virtually ignored Naifeh subverting house rules to get what he wanted. Bill Hobbs correctly noted that Tom Humphrey of the KNS never once mentioned Naifeh’s deliberate failure to follow the rules in his coverage of the event.
Additionally, Espo provided extensive coverage of the biased non-reporting of the incident:
The Speaker said this during the House session on 28APR. You can watch it here. He said multiple times that this was his opinion on what happened, and Rep. Todd rose to counter the Speaker’s statement. The article makes no reference to this as an opinion and certainly doesn’t recognize Rep. Todd’s statement. Rep. Cochran of Elizabethton’s account of what actually happened in the subcommittee is here.
and
What isn’t proper is allowing a committee to kill a bill like HB2225 which has 63 sponsors (enough to pass on the House floor) because the House Democrats are opposed to it.
Unless you were reading blogs, you probably had no idea this was going on. The local press either ignored it or supported Naifeh while failing to deliver the entire story.
Law and sausage. Media and sausage.
Yesterday, Rep. Campfield reports that the bill is back but not all of its 63 co-sponsors supported it in a house vote:
It came to a vote. 66 votes were needed to bring it to the house floor, but only 54 voted yes. 36 members voted no, and 8 didn’t vote. Curious is that there were 63 sponsors and co-sponsors of this bill. It now appears obvious that some members signed on as co-sponsors banking on the standard operating procedure that it would be killed in committee and never come to a vote.
It looks like those “sponsors” were put to the test. When the rubber actually meets the pavement, how did they vote?
