Graciousness is not a quality of aggrieved Republican legislators; payback is their stock in trade. Like their pachyderm symbol, they never forget. And in the partisan street fight that Tennessee politics has become, they’re the ones with brass knuckles and switchblades.
Witness three current measures – two resolutions and a bill – that would prohibit or restrict the return of a member expelled from the General Assembly.
They might as well have the names attached of the two members who inspired them: Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, booted last year for literally and figuratively amplifying calls for gun sanity in the wake of a fatal school shooting.
Both of whom were then reappointed. And reelected.
So it seems reasonable to suspect that a bill to prohibit someone from running for two offices at once might have been aimed at the third – unexpelled – member of the so-called Tennessee Three: Rep. Gloria Johnson.
Like the Justins, she is as fondly viewed by Republican leaders as the proverbial excrement in the spiced party drink, if you catch my drift.
Since announcing her candidacy as a Democrat to run against the Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Johnson has also decided to simultaneously run for reelection to her House seat. She certainly sees the bill as directed at her.
“I know that some of my Republican colleagues feel threatened by this, because I stand up to their bullying,” she explains. “That is why they have been working on a bill this week to prevent a state official from running for two offices.
“But let me say this: I will not be silenced, and I will never be intimidated. The people of District 90, as well as the people of Tennessee, have the right to decide who represents them, and I’m committed to earning their votes in November.”
The Senate version of the bill came up in the State and Local Government Committee last week. I watched video of the proceedings, to see whether anyone would say the quiet part out loud.
No one did. But Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Democrat, did note that “typically, we don’t try to regulate what’s going on right in the middle of a campaign.” Then he tried to turn the table on Republicans a bit.
Blackburn, Yarbro noted, has at least been mentioned as a possible vice-presidential pick. If so, would the bill prevent her from also running for reelection to the Senate?
Well, maybe, said Mark Goins, the state elections coordinator. Then again, he added, maybe not, since votes for president and vice president are actually cast for electors pledged to those candidates. I look forward to seeing those competing possibilities play out, should the bill become law and our senior senator find herself mooted as running mate.
Blackburn on the Republican presidential ticket, by the way, is a prospect I find only slightly more likely than Johnson actually defeating her. The chances of which I rate as roughly zero, probably lower.
If Johnson is indeed the intended target of the legislation, the Senate sponsor, Richard Briggs, at least came armed with a plausible cover story. State law now allows someone to hold more than one office at a time, he noted, something his bill would also prevent.
As things are, “We could have someone on a ballot that runs for county commission, city commission, school board – city school board, county school board and maybe other offices,” he said.
“And the question is, in a democracy, how many offices should one person hold?”
Hear, hear. I don’t think anyone should be on, for example, both a county commission and a city council. And in a situation such as Johnson’s, should she win both elections (ha!), she would have to give up one, presumably state representative. Which would then create a need for a special election to fill the abandoned seat, with the attendant costs.
Sen. Adam Lowe described the situation from the perspective of voters. When marking a ballot for someone running for county mayor, say, “There should be a healthy assumption that you want to be the county mayor,” he said.
The people of District 90 can’t have that healthy assumption about Johnson. She’d rather be elected U.S. senator. Running for reelection to the House is just a way to hedge her bet, an option that shouldn’t be available.
So maybe Briggs’s bill would do the right thing, for the wrong reason.
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.