TENNESSEE SENATE RACE - 2018
This race, that should have been a slam dunk for Marsha Blackburn (R) from a very red state,
has actually turned into a dead heat. Her opponent is former Governor Phil Bredesen (D).
Phil Bredesen campaigns on the:
"I'm not interested in party labels, I'll just do what's right for Tennessee, like I did as governor."
Then he brags of "during two terms, I balanced the budget."
The Tennessee state constitution requires a balanced state budget, so every governor we have ever had
since the ratification of the second constitution has been able to produce a balanced
budget.
What is telling as to his character -- or lack of character -- is how he did it.
You see, in Tennessee there are four subsets of state employees whose salaries are fixed by law:
- The Highway Patrol;
- The District Attorneys who prosecute in the name of the state,
and their counterparts,
- The District Public Defenders;
- The badge wearing gun carrying arrest authority members of the Tennessee Wildlife Agency.
When I say "fixed in law" I mean literally published, like the military pay charts,
"at xx years of service, you will be paid $yy dollars."
Legislative history and early versions of the law even specified:
In order to attract and keep dedicated, full time professionals, experts in their field, we will
pay these amounts for these years of service.
The pay charts weren't in "the Budget" or in an administrative regulation,
they were passed by both houses of the General Assembly, signed by the then Governor, and
published in the bound green volumes of Tennessee state law.
In exchange for accepting this "guaranteed" pay chart, the attorneys were required to give up all
outside practice of law. And we did. I relinquished the lease on my building, gave up my client
list, paid out my yellow pages and other advertising contracts (while unable to accept any new
clients), wrapped up my private practice of law.
After all, my pay schedule, pitifully low at the beginning, was at least guaranteed, on a scale that
carried forward into 26 steps, topping out at a respectable annual compensation.
And when I was hired, I was assured that this compensation schedule was "fixed in law" and the
only way it could be changed was be for both the Tennessee House and the Tennessee Senate to
renege by passing a new law, and it would take an unscrupulous governor to sign that law.
Well,
Bredesen did it.
Twice.
He proposed a budget of the form “notwithstanding any other provision of law, the step increases
that would otherwise be payable to these groups of state employees will not be paid. They will be
paid the same amount as they were paid last year.
And oh, by the way, the year (later two years) is gone forever, with no provision for a “catch-up”
when finances have improved.”
Were the employees permitted to engage in other work to compensate for the freezing of their pay?
No.
Remember, “we want full time professionals who will work solely for the state.”
They have reneged on their half of the bargain, but they demanded that we comply with all the
restrictions placed upon us when hired.
Integrity and honor is not something you can toss overboard in rough seas, and expect to pull it undamaged from the brine when the storm has passed.
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