What the Hell is happening to my state?
A loss for property rights in Tennessee:
Governor Bredesen on Monday signed into law a measure to extinguish most workplace smoking in Tennessee.
The law will go into effect in July, but the ban will not be enforced until October to give businesses time to comply. The ban would apply to most businesses, including restaurants.
Exclusions include bars or restaurants that prohibit people under 21 years old at all times, businesses employing no more than three workers and retail tobacco stores.
The market has pretty much instituted the same rules and has done a fine job regulating smoking. Where do they allow smoking in Tennessee other than bars? But someone who owns a business should decide what otherwise lawful activities they allow in that business. We don’t need big brother making those decisions.
Additionally, it looks the state can now build toll roads:
A bill to allow the state to build its first modern toll roads passed the state Senate today by a 20-10 vote.
The Tennessee Department of Transportation would be authorized to develop two pilot toll road projects — one road project and one bridge project — under the legislation. The House is scheduled to vote on the bill during its session at 5 p.m. today.
So, in years of record surpluses, our congress monkeys decide to allow the state to build toll roads. And, of course, the increase in cigarette taxes also corresponds to record surpluses. When there’s a shortfall, they need to tax. When there’s a surplus, they need to tax.
To my fellow Tennesseans: vote every one of these morons out.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:32 am
We are stuck with Bredesen for 3 more years.
All the while, he continues to deliberate over the panel of 3 judges/attorneys that the Judicial Selection Committee has given him for the open Supreme Court seat.
He has already maligned the 3 candidates as not being the best qualified slate from which to choose, because it has only one black candidate.
He needs to start focusing on the quality of the candidates and not the color of their skin.
As for the smoking legislation, I think that it is nanny statism, even though I am a nonsmoker.
The free market economy will do a considerably better job discerning where people should smoke than the government.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Toll roads? Hmmmm, seems (someone) mentioned that as the future replacement to gasoline taxes…..
Also, high cigarette taxes fuel terrorism. How? ’cause terrorist funders use the discrepancy between states to smuggle and re-sell cig’s – funneling the profits to Hezbollah and Hamas. The states may be generating more money for themselves, but they are also creating an opportunity for the black market…
These “representatives” are too short sighted and stupid to be called “leaders”.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Smoking ban AND toll roads. Yeah, thanks for making Tennessee such an awesome place to live. /sarcasm
June 12th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Maybe it explains this.
They are saying “Just trust us”.
Yeah right. Trust is earned dipshits. Hiding from the public doesn’t inspire much trust. Call your local congress-critter on the phone and express yourself.
June 12th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Bredesen has nothing to lose now.
Income tax, anyone?
June 12th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Geez, sounds like New Hampshire.
As soon as the Democrats took over here, they almost immediately started pushing a smoking ban(passed) and a seat belt law(barely defeated). I may not be the biggest fan of the Republicans, but it seems that Democrats can’t help themselves in raising taxes and passing nanny laws. It’s what they do.
June 12th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Unc, can you point me to a place that tells who voted which way on what? I tried the .gov site with no luck. I want to vote against every one of these nanny-state bastards.
June 12th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Budd, I have not found that info.
June 12th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
That’s okay. I’ll keep looking & let you know if I do–the buggers don’t much like their actions being visible, do they?
June 12th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
“I want to vote against every one of these nanny-state bastards.”
Unfortunately when you are given only two choices, you only have “two nanny-state bastards” for whom to vote.
June 12th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Cal-nnessee
*runs for cover*
June 12th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I believe this legislation was House Bill 1851 /Senate Bill 1325, The Non-Smoker Protection Act. While I can’t give you a direct page link, I’ll cut and paste the votes.
In the Senate, the votes were as follows (5/31/07):
SB1325 by Tracy
FLOOR VOTE: CONCUR IN HOUSE AMEND# 2
5/31/2007
Ayes………………………………………..29
Noes…………………………………………2
Present and not voting…………………..1
Senators voting aye were: Black, Burchett, Burks, Cooper, Crowe, Crutchfield, Finney L, Ford, Harper, Haynes, Henry, Herron, Jackson, Johnson, Ketron, Kilby, Kurita, Kyle, Marrero, McNally, Norris, Stanley, Tate, Tracy, Watson, Wilder, Williams, Woodson, Mr. Speaker Ramsey — 29.
Senators voting no were: Beavers, Southerland — 2.
Senators present and not voting were: Bunch — 1.
In the House for final passage on the bill were as follows (5/31/07):
SB1325 by Tracy
FLOOR VOTE: AS AMENDED PASSAGE ON THIRD CONSIDERATION
5/31/2007
Ayes………………………………………..84
Noes………………………………………..10
Present and not voting…………………..2
Representatives voting aye were: Armstrong, Baird, Bass, Bibb, Bone, Borchert, Briley, Brooks H, Brown, Buck, Casada, Cobb C, Cobb J, Coleman, Coley, Cooper, Crider, Curtiss, Dean, DeBerry J, DeBerry L, DuBois, Dunn, Eldridge, Favors, Ferguson, Fincher, Fitzhugh, Floyd, Ford, Fraley, Gilmore, Gresham, Hackworth, Hardaway, Harrison, Harwell, Hawk, Hensley, Hood, Johnson C, Johnson P, Jones S, Jones U, Kernell, Lollar, Lundberg, Maddox, Maggart, Matheny, Matlock, McCormick, McDaniel, McDonald, McManus, Miller, Montgomery, Moore, Mumpower, Odom, Overbey, Pitts, Pruitt, Rinks, Roach, Sargent, Shaw, Shepard, Sontany, Swafford, Tidwell, Tindell, Todd, Towns, Turner L, Turner M, Vaughn, Watson, West, Wilder, Williams, Windle, Yokley, Mr. Speaker Naifeh — 84.
Representatives voting no were: Bell, Harmon, Hill, Kelsey, Litz, Lynn, McCord, Niceley, Rowland, Winningham — 10.
Representatives present and not voting were: Campfield, Pinion — 2.
If you want to review it yourself, go to and search in the left column labeled “Legislation” and you can search by terms or by bill number.
Anyway, there ya go.
June 13th, 2007 at 2:00 am
The toll-road feasibility study Tennessee spent $453,000 on last year studied three projects: a bridge between Hendersonville and Nashville, an imaginary project connecting Strawberry Plains to Gatlinburg, and the Orange Route I-475 beltway.
So does this mean the Orange Route and the bridge will be toll roads?
June 13th, 2007 at 9:46 am
There is talk of the Orange Route being a toll road. It took some effort to find a way to make the Orange Route worse, but our .gov managed to do it.
Nice work boys.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:03 am
For those who want to search information themselves by state on how their reps voted, you can go here: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/megavote/
Tennessee does NOT sound good to me. 😛
While I can understand trying to keep people healthy, in private property there should be NO involvement on the government for what the property owner does and doesn’t allow within the walls. People can choose to go in. I’m a non-smoker, and I’ve accepted that when I want to go to karaoke, it’s going to be in a bar that’s likely filled with smokers. I just shower and throw my clothes in the wash when I get home, and get over it. If I end up with lung cancer (god forbid), I’ll probably be pissed, but it was my choice to go into those places, so I can’t blame anyone else.
Would if everyone else could have that kind of common sense and sense of personal responsibility. But noooo…we can’t have that! That would require thinking!
June 19th, 2007 at 9:10 am
[…] far off. Toddlers of today who get a new car for graduation will probably get an h/e car. (Like Uncle’s youngest.) The first link there points to a study in TN about toll roads. That points to the future […]