(C) Tennessee Lookout
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Stockard on the Stump: Lee Administration takes turn toward silence – Tennessee Lookout [1]
['More From Author', 'December', 'Sam Stockard']
Date: 2023-12-15
Journalists are generally fun-loving folk. We like to talk, tell stories and make wisecracks. We can’t take ourselves too seriously or we’ll turn into the politicians we cover.
We don’t understand, either, when people refuse to reciprocate.
Take Gov. Bill Lee’s administration, please, take Lee’s administration.
It seems each time he appoints a replacement commissioner, the newby is worse than the oldie — or at least more tight-lipped.
The first time we saw Health Commissioner Ralph Alvarado, for example, the Kentucky transplant came in right when the state decided it would no longer take federal funds used by local agencies to deal with HIV. After an introduction by Alvarado this year to the Senate Health Committee, reporters were excited to see what he thought about the disappearing HIV money. But when he left the Senate hearing room, he was surrounded by handlers shouting things such as, “No questions! No questions, Andy!” referring to Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Andy Sher, who, of course, refused to shut up and asked questions anyway. None of them were answered.
A similar thing happened when Alvarado attended the recent Senate Republican Caucus meeting. A Tennessee Lookout reporter tried to talk to Alvarado as he left the room to chat about the state’s agreement with Ballad Health that gives it a monopoly on medical care in northeast Tennessee.
Alvarado, though, darn near sprinted down the hall of the Tennessee Library & Archives building to get away. Troopers and others standing there speculated that he had to use the restroom. The reporter, who didn’t see him go into the john, speculated that he simply wimped out.
And that brings us to our latest adventure.
Lee brought in Frank Strada from Arizona nearly a year ago to prop up the state’s prison system, which received a terrible audit four years ago under former Commissioner Derrick Schofield and, apparently, limped by with Commissioner Tony Parker at the helm. Parker should have been brought in to answer many of the questions Strada had to deal with this week before the Government Operations Committee after a Comptroller’s audit found 10 major problems with the prison system.
Republicans treated Strada with kid gloves while Democrats hammered him because of major shortcomings in prisons statewide, especially those run by CoreCivic, the state’s private “partner” in crime.
Despite 146% turnover for correctional officers at CoreCivic prisons and 30% vacancy rate at state-run prisons, and worse for CoreCivic, Strada said they are trying to do better and slid out of there like he was greased with hot bear oil. CoreCivic also had a serious problem with rape investigations.
Two reporters waited outside the House hearing room to talk to Strada because we’ve never really had an introduction and that’s what we do. We ask questions, regardless of what lawmakers say.
We were told he didn’t want to field any questions. But that doesn’t mean we can’t ask, so as he started to walk down the hall, a Lookout reporter followed and asked how he could justify continuing to contract with CoreCivic considering all of its problems. The company has already paid $20 million in liquidated damages for a host of problems.
Laying of hands: Members of Gov. Bill Lee’s cabinet don’t like the media. They are unaccountable, act as if reporters are intruding on their precious time and don’t mind trying to physically intimidate reporters.
Out of nowhere, one of Strada’s goons swooped in from the periphery and threw an elbow, trying to dislodge the reporter from the commissioner’s entourage of overpaid Correction suits. It didn’t work, though, and the reporter continued to ask questions. Strada eventually coughed up a couple of answers. (Fortunately for everyone involved the reporter didn’t flash back to 1985, because cheap shots on the basketball court have been known to cause retaliation.)
Things would have been simpler if he’d simply taken a couple of minutes to stop and chat. But nooo, that’s not how some of Lee’s people work these days.
They don’t like the media. They’re unaccountable, and they act as if reporters are intruding on their precious time. They don’t realize they work for the public, and their people will try to get all touchy-feely if they think they can intimidate someone.
I’m told yet another member of the Capitol press corps ran into a similar situation at the governor’s recent unveiling for private school vouchers at the State Museum when he tried to talk to a high-ranking lawmaker.
This isn’t confined to Republican commissioners, either. A Lookout reporter ran into difficulty trying to interview a Democrat on the House floor after session early this year. That incident was too weird to explain.
With those incidents in mind, the Lookout’s Capitol senior reporter is resolving to enter the 2024 session with a refreshed outlook: Do nothing different and ask the toughest questions possible.
The exodus is here
Republican Rep. Sam Whitson of District 65 in Franklin announced Thursday he will not seek re-election after he wraps up his fourth term this year.
Whitson joins a parade of lawmakers leaving – or considering leaving – the House amid increasing tumult. Republican Rep. Curtis Johnson of Clarksville is stepping away, and Republican Rep. Dale Carr of East Tennessee is rumored to be escaping the House at the end of the 113th General Assembly. Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville is vacating her seat to run for U.S. Senate.
Whitson, a retired Army colonel who beat embattled Jeremy Durham in 2016, sponsored the Katie Beckett waiver to provide funds to care for fragile children and passed an ethics and campaign finance reform bill designed to rein in some of the Legislature’s financial hijinks. More in that vein could be coming.
Whitson and Democratic Rep. Darren Jernigan of Old Hickory, who also is serving his last year after taking a legislative liaison job with Metro Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, tried to push a red flag bill of sorts in this year’s special session on public safety but couldn’t get the governor to bite, even though it would have been similar to a measure Lee floated at the end of the regular session to prevent tragedies such as The Covenant School mass shooting.
Whitson says he never intended to stay in the General Assembly for more than eight or 10 years. But that’s not the only reason he’s leaving.
“It’s a lot more contentious” than when he entered seven years ago, he says. “I’m not looking forward to next session, the disruptions that could possibly happen. I want people to be lawmakers, not activists, and work with us and see what we can accomplish. But it seems like we’re getting more and more away from that. Eight years has been a good run.”
Whitson adds that he wants his grandchildren to remember him as a “career soldier, not a career politician.”
Nice parting shot.
We’re on the road to nowhere
The Department of Transportation is set to unveil its “choice lane” or “toll lane” road projects Monday morning. This is worse than a ketchup commercial because the anticipation is killing me.
Oddly enough, TDOT management told the state Comptroller’s auditors it isn’t planning a lane all the way to Murfreesboro from Nashville, by far the worst corridor in the state, only some separate projects along the way.
This leaves the lingering question. If you can’t do that, why bother? That drive is horrible, horrible!
I just can’t say enough bad things about a toll road. – Sen. Frank Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains
After 30 years in Murfreesboro, I was forced to move because it was taking an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes — one way — to drive to Nashville to cover our beloved governor and Legislature. That’s at least 15 hours on the road over five days.
I decided if I was going to die on the interstate, it would be I-65, so I loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly, Hendersonville that is, country stars and lakes, which is half the distance and has some alternative routes.
The vote for the governor’s $3 billion roads plan was overwhelming in the 2023 regular session. Voting against that amount of road spending would be difficult.
But it has its share of naysayers, such as Republican Sen. Frank Niceley of Strawberry Plains: “I just can’t say enough bad things about a toll road.”
TDOT is defensive about this type of phrasing. They’ll raise hell if anyone calls it a “toll road,” selling it instead as a “choice lane” or “toll lane,” because motorists won’t have to drive on them. Only people who want to cough up about $300 a week. That’s roughly $30, twice a day at rush hour.
Niceley contends the contractors who build these things will be collecting tolls long after the state’s 50-year contracts run out. By that time, reporters who haven’t been born yet will have to cover the caper, that is, if there are any. I’ll be dust and a handful of metal.
Backpedaling for life
Since Lee came out with his private school voucher plan two weeks ago, Democrats have been hammering the idea, saying any money the state has for education should be poured into public schools. Rep. John Ray Clemmons of Nashville, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, has been leading the charge with comments on the X (formerly Twitter).
Republican Rep. Jody Barrett of Dickson responded this week with a bit of precision: “The Mets & Yankees had the highest payrolls in MLB this year. They finished 29 & 19 games out of 1st place in their respective divisions. Please explain exactly how more money is going to equate to better performance in our public schools.”
@JRClemmons The Mets & Yankees had the highest payrolls in MLB this year. They finished 29 & 19 games out of 1st place in their respective divisions. Please explain exactly how more money is going to equate to better performance in our public schools.
https://t.co/BQvZKSxfPT — Jody Barrett – State Representative (TN69) (@Jodyforstaterep) December 12, 2023
The quick answer to the first part of the question is the Mets and Yankees didn’t hit and pitch well enough to win. The answer to the second part of the question is public school funding and Major League baseball have nothing in common. Passing the third-grade reading test doesn’t mean you’ll be able to hit Shohei Ohtani’s breaking ball.
Barrett appears to be reeling — still — from his vote against expelling Rep. Gloria Johnson from the House for participating in a floor rally for gun control after The Covenant School shooting. House Republican leadership thought they had Barrett’s vote wrapped up to get rid of Johnson until their goofball video showed her standing there twiddling her thumbs.
Secretly-recorded audio displayed a GOP caucus in chaos, and Barrett is still trying to rebound from the hurt.
“And you could have it all / my empire of dirt.” NIN.*
(* “Hurt,” by Nine Inch Nails.)
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