Message from Nashville, voters aren’t very smart
The General Assembly has two bills under consideration that send a strong message to all Tennessee voters. Voters cannot be trusted to elected the correct representatives.
You might ask who are the correct representatives? In fee offices it would be anyone. Voters aren’t smart enough to elect the best people to run fee offices so they must be appointed by more intelligent people like the County Mayor. That’s just great, let’s give the County Mayor’s incredible power since they are clearly the smartest among us.
For all other offices voters aren’t smart enough to elect people that are not related to school teachers or other county employees. Another intelligence problem with voters?
The message from Nashville is that voters just aren’t very smart.
I have an idea, let’s send Nashville a message. Pick up the phone and call your Tennessee legislators and tell them something about intelligence. Vote for either of these bills and it is an insult to the voters of Tennessee and their will be a price to pay come next election.
With all of the really stupid things that happen in Nashville is takes some unmitigated gall to tell voters how they should vote. This bill is the brain child of Senator Bill Ketron and Rep. Tom DuBois. Senators Tim Burchett and Jamie Woodson and Randy McNally have all signed on but “don’t remember” signing the bill. Perhaps voters need to be thinking about the intelligence of Senators that sign a bill like this and then don’t member doing so in the next election.
Update: I missed something in today’s Knoxville News Sentinel Editorial. The proposed bill from Shelby County by Rep. Ulysses Jones and Sen. Jim Kyle, both Memphis Democrats, also would require the County Sheriff to be appointed. This could be a prelude to Metro Government in Knox County.
March 5th, 2007 at 11:47 am
This is an extremely idiotic bill, put forward by elected officials, giving credence to the notion that voters aren’t that smart 🙂
March 5th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Are we reading the same news article? According to your links, the KNS article refers to commissioners, or other office holders, who have conflicts of interests because they work for the agencies they also oversee and govern.
I didn’t see anything about appointing office holders instead of electing them. You have a link to one bill, and it’s about people holding office in legislative bodies whose legislation directly governs their employers.
Where’s the other bill? Where is anything about appointing rather than electing office holders that you allude to?
I knew that County Commisioners in Knox Co. had relatives in Knox Co. government before the Jan. 31 fiasco. What I didn’t know was how bad it is. And it’s plenty bad. That needs to be stopped.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Good catch Rob. The missing link is here. It is today’s editorial in the News Sentinel.
In fact it is worse than just the fees offices. By appointing the Sheriff it could be a prelude to Metro Government. Some will loudly applaud that but the majority of people will not. At least not the majority of people that live in Knox County and not in Knoxville proper.
March 5th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I agree with you on Metro govt. Jan 31 was bad enough, but if you imagine it with a Metro govt., well….
I agree with not appointing officials. Even as a school teacher, I’ve always felt that superintendents should be elected. It’s arrogant for officials to say that the public won’t pick someone professional enough to lead the schools.
Sure, elections are political (that’s always the argument), but if you’re appointed by a board, like the school board, it’s still political, only your constituency is nine people, and accountability is zero.