Of Coalitions, in Tennessee and Elsewhere

by Karl Kurtz

In a surprise move, Republican Rep. Kent Williams was elected speaker of the 99-member Tennessee House yesterday with votes from 49 Democrats and himself, defeating the Republican leader, Jason Mumpower who was widely expected to garner the 50 votes needed for the top leadership post.  Williams will replace the long-time Democratic Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, who will remain a member of the House but was not renominated after Democrats lost the majority in the chamber in the 2008 election.

According to newspaper reports, the tone of the opening day was angry and sometimes raucous.  Here's an excerpt from TheCityPaper:

It is now official: There is a Republican speaker of the Tennessee State House. But his name is not Jason Mumpower.

The Tennessee House of Representatives officially installed East Tennessee Republican Rep. Kent Williams of Carter County as the Speaker for 106th General Assembly. The path to his victory was a wild one.

Democrats pulled the old switcheroo and put Williams into office to cries of "traitor" from some members of the Republican caucus. Williams had been considered a target for a Democratic vote but had maintained all along that he would vote for a Republican. In the end, he did, voting for himself.

Williams took to the well and said he understood why he was being booed and asked all to hear him out. He acknowledged in his address that he would likely lose his next election, but then said, "Today is the day that ends the reign of a great speaker, Jimmy Naifeh. Today, I realize the disappointment and hurt of a lot members, especially our leader Jason Mumpower."

Tennessee becomes the fourth legislative chamber this year to organize on a coalition basis with votes from both sides of the aisle.  The other three are the Texas House, where Democrats helped to determine the majority Republican speaker, the Louisiana House in which the Democratic majority elected a Republican speaker (after 2007 elections in that state), and the Alaska Senate where the president was elected with votes from both parties.

We don't have official records of bipartisan coalitions at NCSL, but in our collective staff memories we think that two to four chambers with coalition leadership is fairly typical in any given year.  For example, in 2008 there were bipartisan coalition leaders in the Alaska and Tennessee senates and the Louisiana and Pennsylvania houses of representatives--the same number as there are this year.

Jan. 22 update: Add the New Mexico Senate to the list of states with coalition leadership, bringing the total to five.

Comments

[IM Russell]

I was there and it was absolutely insane. The new Speaker has only been in office two years, they went for the weakest link and got it. Brilliant, just not a great thing for Tennesseeans.

[Frank Jackson]

Also note the election of Republican Sen. Bill Ratliff as presiding officer of the Texas Senate (after Lt. Gov. Rick Perry succeded George W. Bush as Governor)was probably accomplished with 15 Democrats and himself versus the 15 other Republicans. I say probably because the election was by secret ballot.

[The Thicket]

Frank is going back in history a bit with his comment about the Texas Senate in 2000, but his point is a good one. When the leadership ballot is secret, we don't always know what is a coalition and what is not.

Also, on a Nashville Post blog that links to this posting, a Tennessee reader commented, "Uh, it’s clear the NCSL doesnt’ understand what went down. It’s not a bipartisan coalition, unless 49 Dems and one turncoat Republican on one side and 49 pissed off Republicans on the other makes it “bipartisan.”"

Because this may be of interest to other readers of The Thicket, I will respond to it here. I am not surprised to receive this comment, and I'm sympathetic to it. I think it's true that there is a qualitative difference between a situation in which a single member of one party joins with all of the members of the other party to organize the chamber (as in the Tennessee House) as compared with a chamber in which substantial numbers of member from both parties join together (as in the Alaska Senate and the Texas House). To a partisan on the losing side, the one-vote defection probably feels more like a palace coup or a stolen election than a "bipartisan coalition."

But an analyst has to define terms. My definition of a coalition is any situation in which votes from both parties are required to elect a leader and organize the chamber. It doesn't matter whether it's one vote (Tennessee) or six votes (Pennsylvania House in 2007) that tip the balance. They're both coalitions according to the definition.