Tents and other “living quarters” would not be allowed on public spaces, under a bill advancing at the Capitol aimed at the Occupy Nashville protest – whose members have been camped on War Memorial Plaza for four months.

Members of that group say the bill would limit free speech and criminalize homelessness. On Wednesday it moved out of a subcommittee to the House Judiciary Committee.

The bill, HB2638, aims to prevent “people from living on publicly-owned property not designated for residential use and prohibits people using publicly-owned property from posing a health hazard or threat to the safety and welfare of others.”

“It is not a bill that will make the protest on the plaza end. It is not a bill that denies First Amendment rights to any individual,” said Rep. Eric Watson, R-Cleveland, the sponsor of the bill. “What this bill does, though, it restores the entire public’s right to utilize all the public property around the state, not just a single group.”

Occupy Nashville released an open letter to Gov. Bill Haslam, the General Assembly and the Highway Patrol in response to this bill’s filing.

The bill was amended Wednesday morning to provide the state with the right to prevent people from camping on public grounds where camping is not permitted.

The new amendment, which is named the “Equal Access to Public Property Act of 2012,” is based on a 1984 federal law, supported by a U.S. Supreme Court decision, that gives the states the right to do this, Watson said.

Additionally, the amendment would change a violation of the no-camping law from a Class C to a Class B misdemeanor, raising the fine from $50 to $500. However, the amendment doesn’t allow for incarceration as a form of punishment.

“This seems to me to be sweeping legislation that could be used to silence dissent and punish our unhoused brothers and sisters for their poverty,” said Bill Howell, a member of Occupy Nashville and the progressive group Tennesseans for Fair Taxation at the subcommittee meeting. “What we see on the plaza every day is the direct result of bad public policy, both state and federal, that has served to further enrich the rich and impoverish the poor.”

Howell said people participating in the round-the-clock protest could catch cold if tents were banned.

The Occupy movement claims the bill is unconstitutional.

“The $500 fine is an infringement of free speech because it would have a negative effect on 24-hour vigils,” said Jane Steinfels Hussain, a group spokeswoman.

Last fall, when the Occupy movement was evicted from Legislative Plaza, Gov. Bill Haslam said that the reasoning behind the new policy was public safety, not to prevent free speech.

A few weeks later Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey said that although he believes in freedom of speech, the Occupy movement had overstepped its bounds.

Tennessee’s most powerful elected leaders want to amend the state Constitution to validate the current and, to some at least, controversial method of appointing high-level state judges.

But some majority-party legislators aren’t so sure that’s a good idea — or that it’ll fly with voters.

Flanked by House Speaker Beth Harwell and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, Gov. Bill Haslam announced Wednesday he’ll press lawmakers to pass a resolution asking voters to approve language to the state Constitution enshrining Tennessee’s present selection practice for judges on the Tennessee Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and Court of Criminal Appeals.

“I believe the current process has worked well during my time in office, and I’ve been pleased with both the quality of candidates and the process for choosing them,” said Tennessee’s Republican governor. “The judiciary is the third and equal branch of government, and we are here to make this recommendation because we believe it is important for our Constitution to clearly reflect the reality of how we select judges in Tennessee.”

If the measure is approved this year — and again in the next legislative session by a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and the Senate — voters would see the constitutional-amendment question on the 2014 general election ballot.

Currently, judges are appointed by the governor, whose choices for the bench are limited to a slate of candidates provided by a selection commission. Those judges, who serve eight-year terms, are subject to yes/no “retention” elections as their first term expires.

But even though that system has been formally ruled constitutional, and is strongly supported among the state’s legal establishment, many lawmakers have trouble getting over the nagging feeling that it really doesn’t gel with the clear wording of the Tennessee Constitution, which states, “The judges of the Supreme Court shall be elected by the qualified voters of the State.” The state government’s foundational document also declares, “The judges of the Circuit and Chancery Courts, and of other inferior Courts, shall be elected by the qualified voters of the district or circuit to which they are to be assigned.”

“Our current method of choosing judges is a very good system, but it is not constitutional,” Ramsey said Wednesday.

Speaker Harwell said she, too, supports the so-called “Tennessee Plan,” but has “serious concerns about the constitutionality of the plan at present.”

“I also respect the previous decisions of the courts, which have determined otherwise,” added Harwell, a Nashville Republican. “As the governor stated today, clarity is certainly needed.”

Rep. Glen Casada, a Republican from Franklin and a leading proponent in the Legislature of voters choosing who sits on the Supreme Court and appellate courts, was among lawmakers to express reservations Wednesday about what Haslam and the two speakers are proposing.

Casada said it seems to him elementary and unambiguous that the Constitution requires competitive judicial elections, and not merely an up-or-down vote on a judge well after he or she has been deciding cases.

Casada said he’ll be pushing a direct-election bill for judges this session. He said he’s not opposed to the idea of Tennessee voters getting their say on the current plan in the 2014 election, as proposed by Haslam, Harwell and Ramsey, but believes the electorate ought first to get an opportunity to see what a statewide judicial election would look like.

“We need to go ahead and put it into the code that the judges are elected by the people in a contested election, like the Constitution currently says they should be,” said Casada, who chairs the House Health and Human Resources Committee. If Tennesseans don’t like what they see after that, then they could adopt the plan proposed by Harwell, Ramsey and Haslam, he said.

Vance Dennis, a Republican who serves as secretary of the House Judiciary Committee, said he’s skeptical at this time that the proposal to amend the Constitution will win the two-thirds legislative majorities necessary to ever even get on the ballot.

Dennis, an attorney from Savannah, isn’t a supporter of direct judicial elections. But he said it is clear the system used now is constitutionally suspect in the minds of many.

“Legally, the current plan has been found to be constitutional by the Supreme Court. Lots of folks disagree with that; lots of folks believe that the way that was done was not entirely appropriate,” said Dennis. “It is the law of the land, so what we are doing is legal. But it really doesn’t meet my definition of what an election is.”

Government Operations Committee Chairman Mike Bell, R-Riceville, another supporter of giving voters a greater direct voice in choosing judges, said he harbors “serious doubts” a majority of Tennesseans can be convinced the existing system is the best option available.

Nevertheless, Bell, who has also sponsored a direction-election bill, said he’s willing to stand down and let the governor and speakers pursue their chosen course.

Lt. Gov. Ramsey acknowledged during Wednesday’s press conference that there’s an apparent preference within the GOP “of electing everything, so to speak.” He said, however, that he, Harwell and the governor will embark upon a “sales process” to bring doubtful voters and politicians around.

“To have someone spend multimillion dollars to get elected statewide probably won’t get to where we want to be, anyway,” said Ramsey.

Ramsey said he wants to see “conservative judges who interpret the law and not make the law” assigned to the Supreme Court and appellate courts. So long as Tennessee has “a governor who  appoints people who think that way,” the current system is best for achieving that aim, he said.

Asked to speculate on what would happen if voters ultimately reject the proposed constitutional amendment, Gov. Haslam said he “would still be of the opinion that doing it the way we do now is the best system.”

Gov. Bill Haslam told reporters Wednesday that he doesn’t think bills dealing with sexual orientation are the best use of lawmakers’ time this session.

Haslam was asked specifically about whether he sees a connection between bills such as one to ban teaching about homosexuality in lower grades and two teen suicides in as many months by Middle Tennessee students who were reportedly bullied for being gay.

“Obviously, that’s not the environment we want to set in Tennessee,” he said. “In terms of legislation, I think there’s better things for us to focus on this year.”

The governor’s comments came hours before Dennis Shepard - the father of Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming student who was beaten to death in 1998 because of his sexual orientation - held a press conference, in conjunction with the Tennessee Equality Project, to express concerns about a number of bills, which critics have called “anti-gay.” He also called for the state to enact a hate-crimes law similar to existing federal legislation.

Shepard is in town for a Metro Human Relations Commission forum on hate-crime prevention to be held beginning at 9 a.m. Thursday, at Tennessee State University’s Avon Campus Auditorium.

Since the legislative session began two weeks ago, a number of controversial bills pertaining to homosexuality have cropped up.

The so-called “Don’t Say ‘Gay’” bill returned again and currently rests in the House Education Subcommittee, after passing in the Senate last year.

Last week, Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, withdrew a bill to regulate which public restrooms and changing rooms a transgender person could use. The bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Richard Floyd, told his hometown paper, the Chattanooga Times Free Press, he’d likely react violently “if I was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there.”

“I don’t care if he thinks he’s a woman and tries on clothes with them in there,” Floyd told the newspaper. “I’d just try to stomp a mudhole in him and then stomp him dry.”

Last year, the governor signed legislation that overturned anti-discrimination ordinances in Nashville and elsewhere.

While Haslam said the bill was aimed at protecting business from government intrusion, it had the effect of undoing protections for gays, lesbians and transgendered people, like the ones passed by the Metro Council.

The topic of much conversation Wednesday was the bill known to critics as the “Right-to-Bully.”

The original version of the bill, sponsored by Rep. Vance Dennis, R-Savannah, and Sen. Jim Tracy, R-Shelbyville, was filed last year but never came to a vote in either chamber. Talking to reporters Wednesday, Family Action Council of Tennessee president David Fowler said the bill’s language had been reworked and that a new version would be filed Thursday. Fowler is a former GOP state senator from Signal Mountain.

Fowler acknowledged the bill’s original language was “apparently not sufficient to communicate what we were trying to do.” The initial bill had drawn national criticism for language that critics said would protect bullying, as long as it was done on religious or political grounds.

Fowler said the bill’s aim is actually to reduce bullying in public schools — but without infringing on the rights of students to engage in free speech and religious expression.

“We have to appreciate that the same First Amendment that is disregarded today to suppress speech you don’t like, is the principle that tomorrow may be used to suppress your speech,” he said. “So, we have to appreciate the First Amendment cuts both ways.”

As for the new version of the bill, Fowler said it would try to define situations that called for action by school administrators.

“Specifically, if a student reports harm to themselves or their property, or the threat of harm to themselves or their property, that in itself should be enough to demand that the administrator investigate that situation, take action, and in our bill what is done would need to be reported to others who can monitor the situation,” he said.

Haslam spokesman Dave Smith said the governor’s office hadn’t reviewed the bill in detail, but that Haslam has expressed concerns about the legislation.

If the state were to implement mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients — an idea Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey is pushing — it would be a higher standard than the state demands for most of its own workers.

“I still want to make sure we’re drug testing practically everyone getting any kind of government benefits,” Ramsey told reporters last week.

Meanwhile, no state agencies participate in a program promoted to businesses by the Tennessee Department of Labor as effective in keeping workplaces safe and productivity up.

The “Drug Free Workplace Program,” in which businesses get a 5 percent break on worker’s compensation premiums in exchange for testing workers, enlists businesses and local governments to test all workers prior to employment, as well as employees involved in workplace accidents.

In general, though, most of the state’s 46,000 employees don’t have to provide urine samples as a condition of accepting a job, according to state labor department spokesman Jeff Hentschel.

Normally, only those state employees with safety-sensitive jobs are required to submit to drug tests. In the agency that runs the prison system, all employees are tested, but in a handful of other departments — such as Commerce and Insurance, Agriculture, and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities — only workers who handle heavy machinery or perform potentially dangerous work tasks are tested, according to several agency spokespeople contacted by TNReport.

Ramsey could support requiring state employees to undergo testing, a spokesman said. Based on legislative research from last year that estimated the tests cost at least $8 a pop, a bill for such a measure could easily top $360,000 to test each of the state’s 46,000 employees, although that doesn’t account for costs like supplies, training, retesting and staffing. A proposal last year to drug test welfare recipients yielded a $2.3 million price tag the first year.

When asked by reporters, Ramsey said he’d also be in support of drug testing lawmakers and would probably back requiring business executives whose companies are receiving government handouts to submit to a test.

“Fine with me. I’ll have to check into that,” Ramsey said. “I’m fine with that. I’m fine with legislators being drug tested because I know that we’ll get criticised if we target one segment of society like that.

“But you’re right. If they’re getting state money, federal money, why shouldn’t they be? I don’t know how you define who the executives are.”

A plan by Knoxville Republicans Sen. Stacey Campfield and Rep. Bill Dunn requiring welfare recipients to submit to drug tests stalled last year, but Ramsey is breathing new life into the concept, although he hasn’t backed specific legislation, yet. Similar programs around the country have faced legal challenges.

Gov. Bill Haslam and House Speaker Beth Harwell say they want to see the bottom line before they weigh in.

“What’s the cost, and who’s going to pay for it? So until you answer those, I think it’d be too early for me to say that,” Haslam told TNReport Monday when asked whether he supports drug testing any level of government beneficiaries. “It’s awful early. Let’s ask some of those questions. If it’s fair for folks receiving benefits, is it also fair for state employees, and what kind of cost you’re talking about?”

Alex Harris contributed to this report. 

State Rep. Tony Shipley said he plans to push for a House committee to subpoena the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s files in the recently concluded inquiry into legislative actions by Shipley and Rep. Dale Ford.

Shipley and Ford were subjects of a TBI probe into whether they had exerted improper influence over a state nursing board that had disciplined three nurses from their East Tennessee area. This week Davidson County District Attorney General Torry Johnson announced that he had found no evidence of any crime and would not pursue charges against the two lawmakers.

Shipley, R-Kingsport, said he would use the House Government Operations Committee, on which he serves as secretary, to seek the files. He would need the support of a majority of the members, and Shipley said he would try to enlist one of them to introduce the matter.

But lawyers for the committee cast doubt on the likelihood of getting the records. Legislative subpoenas are rare, they said, and with TBI pushback the matter could end up in court before any documents were released.

TBI files are among the most secretive documents in Tennessee.

They are exempt from the state’s Open Records Act, a fact which has drawn renewed attention of late, especially with regards to the TBI’s investigation of Richard Baumgartner, a disgraced and disbarred Knox County Criminal Court judge who was abusing drugs and engaging in other illegal activity while presiding over cases.

In the wake of TBI revelations that Knox County court employees and other judges, as well as prosecutors in the Knox County District Attorney General’s Office, may have witnessed Judge Baumgartner engaging in ethically suspect or illegal behavior and did nothing about it, the Knoxville News Sentinel editorialized in favor of the public gaining access to TBI files once an investigation is wrapped up.

“Lawmakers should show courage…and side with the public and its right to know about closed police investigations by eliminating TBI’s exemption from the Public Records Act,” the News Sentinel editors wrote last month.

However,  state law already gives committees from either chamber of the General Assembly the power to subpoena all government records. According to state law, “investigative records of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation shall be open to inspection by elected members of the general assembly if such inspection is directed by a duly adopted resolution of either house or of a standing or joint committee of either house.”

Once a committee obtained the files, Shipley said it would be his intention to make them open to the public.

“There’s nothing I do here that’s not completely aboveboard or open to the public,” Shipley said. “If I bring it to committee, at that point, I don’t have to call for anything. (It’s) wide open.”

Ford, R-Jonesborough, said he doesn’t care who sees the file, either.

“If you didn’t do anything wrong, why should you care if everything’s made public,” he said. “I couldn’t care less. But it better be the truth, I can tell you that.”

Shipley has turned his ire on Johnson, who said the lawmakers used “particularly heavy-handed” political pressure.

“I’m a huge supporter of the TBI. I’m a huge supporter of district attorneys. I’m a complete law and order kind of guy,” Shipley said. “But even in those organizations you can have jerks that get in there and mess with the constitution because they think they can. And they can’t.”

The TBI launched the investigation last June to determine if the two legislators and employees of the state’s Health Department had committed any crimes, including official misconduct and false reporting, and whether the lawmakers had improperly pressured the Nursing Board to reconsider its decision to discipline three nurse practitioners.

The nurses had been accused of over-prescribing medication at the Appalachian Medical Center in Johnson City, which has since been closed. Shipley and Ford through legislation attempted to shake up the nursing board and its oversight, and raised the specter of doing away with the board altogether. Ford had family ties to an employee and patient at the center.

The board eventually reversed its action against the nurses, though a TBI investigation into their actions remains open.

On Monday, Johnson announced that the state would not prosecute the two legislators. In a statement, he called the case one of “political hardball, but not political corruption.”

Shipley characterized the district attorney’s actions and criticism as a breach of the separation of powers, and the handling of the nurses’ case an “abortion of justice.”

“It is completely inappropriate for them to have stuck their hands into the legislative box,” Shipley said. “The DA made a statement: No criminality found. He should have stopped right there.

“His next comment was totally inappropriate: ‘Heavy-handed politics.’ Well, what was heavy-handed was the TBI’s DA-directed investigation that was blown from Mountain City to Memphis. That was heavy-handed.”

Shipley said he may initiate a legislative probe into where the allegations came from and whether charges could be filed against the individuals responsible for them.

He said the charges of official misconduct should have been seen as baseless from the beginning, because the three criteria for such a charge were impossible in his case. He said there couldn’t have been money or sex exchanged for a vote, because no vote was taken, and that no one’s employment could have been threatened, because he doesn’t have the power to fire anyone on the Nursing Board.

Gov. Bill Haslam recently announced he wants a review of Tennessee’s 22 state boards and commissions. In a statement outlining his 2012 legislative agenda released this week, Haslam expressed his desire to “eliminate duplicative functions and provide more accountability and oversight of these agencies.”

Republicans cleaned a lot of bills off their plate in their first year controlling the General Assembly and the governor’s office, but they built up a pile of bills they were saving for later.

Lawmakers say they plan to get down to business right away after returning to Nashville Jan. 10 in hopes of adjourning in late April to begin campaign season. But until then, they’ll have a roughly $30 billion budget to haggle over, new bills to debate and old ones to decide whether they’re worth passing before the election.

Guns on Campus, In Employee Parking Lots

Lawmakers talked about but never passed a number of gun bills proposed last year, including letting handgun carry permit holders lock their weapons inside their car while at work, HB2021, which made it to the House floor but never came up for a vote. Another bill, HB2016, would let college faculty and staff carry guns on campus, although that measure never made it out of committee. Legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle say they expect to see those issues introduced but probably sidelined this year. “Being an election year, I don’t see leadership letting that come to the surface,” said Sen. Bill Ketron, the Senate Republican Caucus Chairman from Murfreesboro.

Drug-Testing Unemployed, Welfare Recipients 

There’s a movement afoot to drug-test Tennesseans collecting public assistance. Two versions of the proposal were introduced early last year, SB48 and SB652, that would have focused on people collecting welfare. Both bills were immediately shelved in 2011, but Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey is breathing new life into the idea with an eye on people collecting unemployment benefits and worker’s compensation. “I don’t think, again, that we need to be supporting that lifestyle with government money. I’m very much for that and I think you’ll see that passed this session.”

Income Tax Ban

This bill may have been left behind last Spring, but it’s expected to pass come 2012. The Senate OK’d a resolution, SJR221, asking voters to clearly ban an income tax by rewriting a portion of the Constitution. The legislation was held back in the House on the last few days of session. Lawmakers expect it will be one of the first they take up come January, but tax reform advocates plan to continue fighting for an income tax in exchange for lower food taxes. Debate over this bill is far from over — it would need a two-thirds vote in the 2013-14 General Assembly to get on the ballot.

Illegal Immigration

Republican lawmakers rallied to copycat Arizona’s illegal immigration bill and require drivers license exams be taken in English, but those bills never moved. In the midst of debate, another immigration bill filed that session fell just under the radar. HB1379 would require that governments check for proof of citizenship before issuing entitlements like TennCare, food stamps or unemployment benefits. GOP leaders say they’ll pick up this one and run with it and probably leave the others behind. “We’ve always wanted to ensure Tennessee wasn’t a magnet for illegal aliens,” said Rep. Debra Maggart, House Republican Caucus Chairwoman.

Picking Judges

Lawmakers kicked around the idea of changing how judges are selected, contending the current practice of the governor selecting judges who are later subject to retention elections is not in line with the state Constitution. “I think almost everyone agrees that’s a bad idea. I just don’t think everyone’s agreed on what is a good idea, yet,” said House GOP Leader Gerald McCormick. Democrats generally side with the Supreme Court, which has upheld the current system. One bill that remains from last year, SJR183, would ask voters to constitutionalize merit-based appointments. Other proposals have since popped up, like SJR475 which would require changing the Constitution to require the Senate OK the governor’s appointees.

Democrat’s Job Bills

Although they’re outnumbered, Democrats plan to take another stab at passing a stack of jobs bills that never got out of committee last year, such as calling for a small business tax holiday and giving tax credits to new entreprenuers. “We’re going to try again,” said House Democrat Leader Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley. “None of the jobs bills passed and none of them got out of committee but we’re going to have another go at it.” The same goes for Senate Democrats, said the chamber’s Democratic vice chairman, Andy Berke. “That’s really where we should begin 2012 in the legislature rather than most of the issues that have been named as priorities so far”

Wine in Supermarkets

This perennial bill doesn’t fall into any of the caucus’ priority lists but has become a staple piece of legislation to expect every year. SB316 seeks to allow certain retail food stores to sell wine instead of just beer. It would also let liquor stores sell items like cork screws and mixers. Last session, the bill never got out of committee. Advocates for wine in grocery stores say their new strategy is to convince the Legislature to let locals decide if they want wine in grocery stores through voter referendums, although legislative leaders say they haven’t heard any serious talk that the bill has momentum to pass this time around.

Newsletter from the Tennessee Firearms Association; Dec. 27, 2011: 

For years, Republican leadership in the State of Tennessee has touted the Republican party in general as the best friend of Tennessee firearms owners, hunters, collectors, and dealers.  That pattern may have been genuine for some who fall under the Republican umbrella but it certainly cannot be rejected at this point that for others it was nothing more than an empty campaign slogan to obtain votes at a time when Democratic leadership was highlighted by Jimmy Naifeh and his vendetta with the NRA and thus Tennessee’s firearms owners.

Despite these and other often repeated assurances to Tennessee’s conservatives, constitutionalists and advocates of individual freedoms, very little has materialized as reality once the Republicans gained total control of the Governor’s office, Senate and House in 2011.  Compared with the benefits and attention paid to “big business” such as AT&T and Amazon, Tennessee’s rank and file citizen voters have been left wondering what happened to the promises that they were made on issues like smaller government, tax reductions, illegal immigration reform (prosecution), opposition to an ever expanding federal government, resistence to federalized mandates, and removal of the infringements on 2nd Amendment rights.

On the eve of the 2012 session, we see public announcements from the House leadership that Speaker Beth Harwell (who has never had an acceptable voting record on firearms issues) has assembled is the word that the House does not plan to spend time working on 2nd Amendment issues.  This was easily predicted knowing that Beth Harwell was speaker and in light of the 2011 legislative session.

Channel 4 News in Nashville reports:

http://www.wsmv.com/story/16374305/lawmakers-prepare-to-tackle-controversial-issues

NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) -

Lawmakers won’t waste any time before tackling some controversial issues when they come back to town next month.

When they come back in a matter of weeks, one of the first things they’ll take up could be one of the most controversial.

They will unveil the lines they’ve drawn for legislative and congressional districts.

“We’ll be prepared and ready to move the first week in session,” said House Speaker Rep. Beth Harwell, R-Nashville.

Every year the only thing lawmakers have to do is balance a budget, so obviously that will be a priority.

Following the governor’s formation of a task force on vouchers, lawmakers plan to slow down on that issue.

While the Senate wants to pursue a bill to allow carry permit holders to leave their guns in their workplace parking lots, House leaders said guns won’t be a priority.

“I think our focus will not be on gun issues, it will be on economic development and jobs, job creation,” said Rep. Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga.

So what can you expect?

Expect to see some changes to the unemployment system and worker compensation.

Lawmakers also favor drug testing those who receive state benefits as long as it’s financially feasible.

“We want to make sure that the people that benefit from the state are living up to their part of the deal,” said Harwell. “We have to weigh the cost factor there. How costly will it be to drug test the recipients.”

Perhaps state lawmakers’ biggest goal doesn’t have anything to do with legislation at all. They are hoping to get out of session early, targeting the end of April.

Last week, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, floated the idea of a special session on health care reform.

Harwell said no one wants a special session. She understands it’s difficult to vote on a health care program when an election or Supreme Court ruling could change everything.

House Republicans can learn, and perhaps already have, that it was a mistake from the perspective of constitutionalists and conservatives to select Beth Harwell as speaker and to allow her unchecked discretion in the appointment of substantially all leadership positions in the House.  As to the other caucus leadership seats which are filled by vote of the caucus, some of the rank and file may now be better aware as to whether those seats were filled with the best conservatives for the tasks.

Now certainly, there are big issues of government which require attention other than firearms issues.  These include the budget, the 10th Amendment sovereignty of the state, illegal immigration, political corruption, fair and logical redistricting for similar communities, a cost-effective education system, and other functions which are properly the venue of state government.

But does this mean that constitutionally recognized and protected rights deserve no attention?  Does this mean that promises to repeal infringements can be placed at most on a back burner?  Does this mean that pet projects and “big business” demands (greased with financial support and perks) should take a priority?

When the primary mission is partisan politics, the constitution, the role of government and the rights of the citizen take a second seat to re-election and making decisions based primarily on the political perception thereof for campaign enhancements.

If Tennessee’s firearms owners and other conservative groups want to see a government that functions with priority on constitutional and conservative standards as the litmus test of proposed legislation rather than “how can this be used against a Republican in the next election” then perhaps Tennesseans need to elect and demand leadership who can put those priorities of stewardship first.

As Knox County prosecutors gird themselves for a potential onslaught of appeals in convictions they obtained before a disgraced and now disbarred criminal court judge, political fallout at the state level is just beginning.

State lawmakers who chair the House and Senate judiciary committees say the saga of Judge Richard Baumgartner’s ignominious descent into drug addiction, criminality and professional impropriety will almost certainly strengthen calls for sweeping judicial ethics reform in Tennessee.

“Surely the people that worked around him knew that he was on drugs,” said Senate Judiciary Chairwoman Mae Beavers. “So what’s their obligation to report it? We’ve really got to look at our system and what’s going on.”

Added House Judiciary Chairman Eric Watson, “Something’s going to have to be done.”

On Dec. 1, a judge ordered retrials for all four defendants convicted in the kidnapping, rape and torture slayings of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23.

The 2007 crimes were shocking for their extraordinary violence and sexual brutality. The fact that the defendants were black and the victims white sparked racial tensions in the community. Three men and one woman were tried separately before Judge Baumgartner for their roles in the crimes. One of the men convicted in the case was sentenced to die, and the others received prison terms ranging from 53 years to life without parole. A fourth man was convicted in federal court of aiding one of the perpetrators and sentenced to 22 years.

But retrials were ordered for all the state-court convicted defendants after a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe into Judge Baumgartner’s activities revealed that he had, over the course of several years, been illegally buying and abusing prescription painkillers in his chambers. The investigation revealed Judge Baumgartner was likely under the influence of drugs when he presided over the Christian/Newsom trials, and many other cases.

Baumgartner was one of the founders of the Knox County Drug Court program. First appointed to the bench by Gov. Ned McWherter in 1992, Baumgartner presided over the high-profile murder trials of Thomas Dee “Zoo Man” Huskey and Raynella Dossett Leath.

The state’s legal apparatus for detecting and dealing with unethical judges, the Tennessee Court of the Judiciary, took no action against Judge Baumgartner until after he pleaded guilty on March 10 to one count of “official misconduct,” a Class E felony. As part of the plea agreement offered by Al Schmutzer, Jr., a former Cocke County district attorney who served as a special prosecutor, Baumgartner agreed to resign his post as a Knox County Criminal Court judge.

On March 29, Baumgartner was placed on “interim suspension” by the Tennessee Court of the Judiciary.

That the Court of the Judiciary didn’t catch wind earlier of the ongoing judicial meltdown in Tennessee’s third most populace county is further evidence all is not well in the state court system, suggested Beavers. The Court of the Judiciary is scheduled to “sunset” as of July 1, unless the Tennessee General Assembly passes legislation that says otherwise.

In the event that the COJ is disbanded — an increasingly likely outcome, said Beavers — responsibility for investigating and disciplining judges would revert to the Legislature.

Other lawmakers are taking issue with Baumgartner’s ability to keep his taxpayer-funded pension. In spite of laws passed in the wake of the Tennessee Waltz scandal requiring public officials to forfeit that income in the event of an office-related conviction, because Baumgartner was granted judicial diversion there won’t likely be a conviction entered into the record to trigger the pension revocation — provided he stays out of further trouble for the next two years.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Randy McNally said he is drafting legislation requiring government officials to surrender their pensions even if granted diversion for a felony charge, an issue Gov. Bill Haslam said Tuesday is “worthy of discussion.”

McNally is also asking U.S. Attorney William C. Killian to investigate whether there are federal charges that could be brought against Baumgartner - which could also lead to him losing his pension. McNally’s also asking the Tennessee State Comptroller to investigate payments the judge authorized to defense attorneys in the Christian/Newsom murder trials.

News outlets in Knoxville reported last week that anywhere between dozens and thousands of cases that went through Judge Baumgartner’s courtroom in the past several years could be subject to review.

Attorney General Robert Cooper confirmed to TNReport that his office is aiding the Knox County District Attorney’s Office to try to get a handle and read on the magnitude of the legal disaster they’re facing.

The Knoxville News Sentinel reported last week that Judge Baumgartner disposed 3,341 cases in the timeframe in which he is suspected to have been “doctor-shopping” and cavorting with known felons, including a drug dealer convicted in his court.

WBIR-TV in Knoxville reported that the Knox County District Attorney General’s Office believes that “less than 40” retrials are likely.

Special Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood earlier this month ordered the release of 155 pages of TBI interview summaries and transcripts that formed the basis of his decision to order retrials in the Christian/Newsom case.

Those TBI files reveal that many court employees and lawyers, including prosecutors with the District Attorney’s Office and a sitting judge, knew for a long time something was amiss with Judge Baumgartner, but apparently took no steps to have him officially investigated or removed from the bench.

Judge Baumgartner’s administrative assistant, Jennifer Judy, told the TBI it was widely known around the courthouse that Baumgartner was often mentally incapable of presiding over cases.

“Judy stated on some days he was so impaired that his court clerk or the District Attorney’s office would reset matters scheduled for that day,” according to one TBI interview report.

The TBI report further stated:

Judy said sometimes Judge Baumgartner would ‘buck up’ if he thought he was fine and that she had threatened him before that if he went into the courtroom impaired, she was not going in with him and be subjected to the ridicule from others in the court. She stated that she felt that his peers, other lawyers, including the District Attorney’s office, knew what was going on but they did not confront him about his issues because he was ‘the Judge.’

Within the TBI files is also a summary of interviews conducted with Assistant District Attorneys Leland Price and TaKisha Fitzgerald, lead prosecutors in the case against Vanessa Coleman, the female defendant in the Christian/Newsom murders.

Price and Fitzgerald were traveling together back to Knoxville from Nashville after a court proceeding in the spring of 2010 when they observed Judge Baumgartner in a vehicle ahead of them. According to the TBI’s interview with Price:

Price stated that the Judge was weaving all over the road and driving very erratic to the point of almost causing an accident. Price stated they tried to call him on his cell phone but he would not answer. He said they contacted Jennifer Judy who then called [Baumgartner] and asked him to pull over at the next exit. Price said he believed that [Baungartner] did comply with the request, but [Price] and [Assistant DA Fitzgerald] did not stop at the exit.

Fitzgerald’s account of the incident along I-40, which occurred near Cookeville, is consistent with what Price told the TBI. “[Fitzgerald] stated that [Baumgartner] was all over the road and was a danger to other drivers,” according to the TBI report, written by Darren B. DeArmond.

The TBI file indicates Judge Baumgartner later summoned the two Knox County DA’s assistants into his office and admitted they’d witnessed him driving while impaired:

[Price] advised that on Monday, April 12, 2010, [Baumgartner] called him and ADA Fitzgerald into his chambers and discussed the events of the previous Friday. [Baumgartner] told them he was having some back problems and had taken some medication and should not have been driving.

Price also told the TBI that during courtroom preparations for jury selection in the Coleman trial, Judge Baumgartner seemed “not right,” possibly mentally impaired or “under the influence,” according to DeArmond’s report.

“[Price] said the Judge’s speech was slurred and he seemed incoherent at times and was having problems putting sentences together,” wrote DeArmond, who conducted his interview with the prosecutors on Feb. 3.

“Price stated that he was aware of times when trials have been reset in Division I Court when Judge Baumgartner was not fit to be on the bench,” the TBI report states.

Nevertheless, the Coleman case went forward with Judge Baumgartner presiding. Coleman was ultimately convicted of helping facilitate the rape, torture and murder of Channon Christian. In July 2010 she was sentenced to 53 years in prison.

No date has been set for her retrial.

Reached by phone on Tuesday, John Gill, special counsel and chief assistant to Knox County District Attorney Randy Nichols, defended prosecutors’ handling of the Judge Baumgartner affair.

“We were aware that he had some health problems, but not that he was abusing drugs or addicted to drugs at all,” Gill told TNReport.

The TBI began investigating Judge Baumgartner in the fall of 2010, after a Knoxville woman reported to local police that her ex-husband had burglarized her home — and that if law enforcement authorities investigated him they’d find he was dealing drugs to a local judge. The incident was reported to the TBI by Jennifer Welch, also a prosecutor with the Knox County District Attorney’s Office.

Chris Craft, who presides over the Court of the Judiciary, told TNReport that the Judge Baumgartner situation was in no way mishandled by the COJ — and that the case in fact ought to demonstrate how important the COJ is to the justice system in Tennessee.

“As far as what we’re doing, we need to keep doing what we’re doing, and we’re doing a good job,” he said.

Craft said that in the case of Judge Baumgartner, the Court of the Judiciary “did everything they were supposed to do.”

“I can think of absolutely nothing we failed to do in this case,” he said.

When the COJ was made aware of the nature of Judge Baumgartner’s behavior — namely, after Baumgartner accepted the plea bargain last March — it acted, said Craft.

Craft would neither confirm nor deny whether the COJ received any complaints against Baumgartner prior to March 10 because that information would only be made public if the COJ filed charges or issued a public reprimand, which it did not.

Craft noted, though, that he’s heard of no one who has come forward publicly and said they filed a complaint against Baumgartner with the COJ that the COJ failed to investigate.

In a letter dated Dec. 6, Senate Finance Committee Chairman McNally requested the COJ release “copies of any complaints filed against Judge Richard Baumgartner since 2007 related to drug or alcohol abuse.” McNally said Monday he’s yet to receive a response.

Judge Craft added that all lawyers — prosecutors, defense attorneys and other judges alike — have an “absolute duty” under the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Rules of Professional Conduct to report judicial misbehavior or misconduct whenever they suspect or witness it.

“At the Court of the Judiciary, we understand that many attorneys are hesitant to file a written complaint on a judge, so we will take anonymous complaints from attorneys over the phone if we need to in order to get enough information to investigate,” Craft wrote in an email to TNReport. “We can then talk to others who observe the judge and courtroom daily to make sure nothing is happening that is impairing the judge’s performance. There may be an entirely innocent reason the judge is acting differently, such as advancing age, back pain, illness or lack of sleep due to a family illness or other issue, but we still need to know, if it is in fact affecting that judge’s performance.”

Baumgartner could not be reached for comment on this article.

In a story that aired on Knoxville station WBIR-TV back in August, the former judge can be seen addressing members of the Knoxville Metropolitan Drug Commission in a taped video presentation. In it Baumgartner touches on some of the circumstances surrounding his admitted addiction to pain pills.

“I kind of wish that people had been tougher on me and said, ‘What’s going on here?’,” Baumgartner said. “Because I think if more people had done that, I might have gotten the message sooner.”

Andrea Zelinski and Mark Engler contributed to this report.

TNReport.com is a nonprofit news organization supported by generous donors like you. Contributions to TNReport.com are tax deductible!

When the Tennessee Legislature debated tort reform earlier this year, with a lot of discussion of how the issue had played out in Mississippi, it was difficult to pin down lawmakers on exactly how to quantify the job creation involved.

But Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was in Nashville Monday, and if there was any doubt about whether tort reform made a difference in his state, Barbour attempted to smack down any debate about it.

“Toyota told us they would not consider Mississippi unless we got rid of lawsuit abuse, period,” said Barbour, who participated in a National Governors Association regional summit hosted by Gov. Bill Haslam. “They told us we would not be on the list.”

Barbour went on.

“The CEO of Caterpillar wrote the Speaker of the House, the president of the Senate and me a letter,” he said. “We have five Caterpillar plants in Mississippi.

“He wrote and said, ‘Don’t think lawsuit abuse only affects companies when they’re trying to decide where to site a new plant. It also affects companies that are trying to decide which plants to close.’ The fact Caterpillar had a plant in the speaker of the House’s hometown — who happened to be the biggest opponent of tort reform — I thought made it a particularly effective letter.”

Barbour’s conclusion: “We were the worst state in the United States three years in a row in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s lawsuit abuse rating. It was killing us on getting companies to come to our state. That, just very directly right out of the customer’s mouth, is how I know it.”

Toyota Corollas are scheduled to start rolling out of the plant in Blue Springs, Miss., this week.

Barbour joined Haslam, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin at the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel to talk about job creation. All four are Republicans. They engaged in considerable discussion about the potential of small businesses and the need to help them grow. They talked about logistics and the geographic advantages of some states in job recruitment. It was an all-encompassing look from four governors on the front line of the job hunt.

“There’s not a question in my mind that job creation is the number one issue for every state and frankly for America,” said Heineman, chairman of the NGA.

Nashville was the second of four regional summits in Heineman’s initiative. The first was in Hartford, Conn., a few weeks ago, and others are scheduled in 2012 for Seattle and Omaha.

Tort reform was just one part of Haslam’s legislative package in his first year meant to create an environment for job growth. And it was a limited package. Haslam insists the government can only create the right climate for job growth, not legislate its way to new jobs. Democrats in the Legislature challenged that view, offering several jobs bills that basically fell flat in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Tennessee’s new tort law, the “Tennessee Civil Justice Act,” places a cap of $750,000 on non-economic damages in civil cases, although exceptions exist in cases that involve intentional misconduct, destruction of records or activity under the influence of drugs and alcohol. There is a $1 million cap in what are categorized as catastrophic cases. A cap on punitive damages is two times the compensatory damages or $500,000, whichever is greater.

Mississippi adopted tort reform laws in 2003, putting a $500,000 cap on non-economic damages. A study found the average number of lawsuits filed each year involving the predominant insurer in the state went from 318 to 140 after the reforms, and an annual average of 44 lawsuits involving obstetricians and gynecologists plunged to 15.

As lawmakers in Tennessee considered Haslam’s tort reform proposal, one advocacy group, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, now known as the Beacon Center, asserted that 577 jobs a week could result from the measure. Haslam never used that number. But the Legislature passed the bill 21-12 in the Senate and 72-24 in the House.

Fallin weighed in with her own experience.

“We signed a hard cap on non-economic damages in Oklahoma and eliminated joint and several liability,” she said.

“The month before the law went into place, we typically averaged about 50 cases a month being filed in civil and criminal court cases. Once the law was getting ready to go into effect, it went up to over 500 filings that month.”

Barbour said his state had to overcome Chattanooga’s logistical advantages in landing Toyota over the competition, particularly in changes involving available rail lines to serve the plant.

Hours before the Haslam administration announced it would ask District Attorney Torry Johnson to dismiss charges against the Occupy Nashville protesters at War Memorial Plaza, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey expressed a get-tough stand.

“I think they ought to be removed,” Ramsey said. “I do.

“I’ll bet you that if I took a Boy Scout troop up there and camped out over the weekend, they wouldn’t allow them to do it. That’s just my opinion. I think they’ve gone way too far.”

But David Smith, press secretary for Gov. Bill Haslam, said Thursday afternoon that because of the temporary restraining order issued against the state in taking protesters away from the plaza, the state is seeking to drop the charges against those who were arrested.

State troopers arrested 29 protesters the night after curfew rules were put into effect at the site on Oct. 27, and 26 people were arrested the next night. The administration said it made the decision to arrest protesters in the interest of safety and because of unsanitary conditions involving the protesters, many of whom have set up tents at the plaza, which sits downhill from the front steps of the Capitol.

“As part of the effort to resolve issues surrounding the use of War Memorial Plaza, we’re beginning the process of establishing rules for use of the area by all citizens,” Smith said in a statement Thursday.

The administration had declared a curfew would go into effect at the site forbidding people from being there from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. each day, after it began to hear complaints related to the protesters. After the arrests, for two nights in a row, a magistrate refused to put the protesters in jail. U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger issued a temporary restraining order on the arrests, and the state did not contest the order.

With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, the protesters filed suit against the state, claiming an infringement on their First Amendment rights of free speech.

Smith said the process for establishing new rules will involve the pursuit of a “variety of perspectives to honor the plaza as a public space for all to enjoy. We look forward to having ground rules in place to ensure that it is a safe and clean environment.”

Smith said the state will work under the assumption that the temporary restraining order would be extended. He noted, however, that the state is not blocked from enforcing existing laws regarding public safety and health.

Ramsey said Thursday he never talked at all to Haslam about the protesters.

“The allegations that have been there that have gone on, with sexual misconduct, things of that nature, there is a limit to this, and I do think this is a public place, and everybody has their First Amendment rights, but I think they’ve overstepped their bounds, I do,” Ramsey said of the protesters.