• House Rules Routinely Suspended ... Except to Adopt SJR 127
  
  

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House Rules Routinely Suspended ... Except to Adopt SJR 127  

(It's not too late to sign the petition at www.LifePetition.org to show your support for SJR 127).

It was the political equivalent of the Alamo in Tennessee's House of Representatives.  

Last Thursday, Rep.  Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville) dropped a procedural bomb on the state House and Speaker Jimmy Naifeh (D-Covington) in an effort to bring Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 127 to the House floor for a straight up or down vote on the merits.  SJR 127 is the proposed state constitutional amendment that would reverse our State Supreme Court's 2000 decision finding a right to abortion in Tennessee's constitution.  It would allow the people to once again make their constitution neutral on the issue of abortion.

Here is what happened...

And here is why SJR 127 cannot get to the ballot for the people to vote on even though two-thirds of the state Senate, for a fourth time, approved the Resolution and 55% of the Representatives cast votes Thursday in support of it (three additional members who support it had been excused).  The state House of Representatives is not only not representative of the will of the majority of Tennesseans it is not even representative of a majority of our Representatives.

Early in Thursday's session, Democratic Leader, Gary Odom (Nashville) stood and moved to suspend the rules to allow a Resolution to be heard that would set the House's calendar for the coming week.  In order for the House to have a schedule for the next week and the public to have notice of that schedule, it was necessary that the Resolution (calendaring Resolution) pass.  It was then that Rep. Dunn dropped the proverbial bomb and the drama began to unfold. (Click on the following links to view a video of the proceedings:  Part 1 and Part 2).

Rep. Dunn's intent, when he stood, was to make a motion to amend Rep. Odom's motion.  He wanted to include a suspension of the Rules to allow SJR 127 to also be brought to the floor along with the calendaring Resolution. Here is the exchange on the floor:

Holding in writing the motion he was about to make,  Rep. Bill Dunn said, "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I would like to amend that motion to include a suspension of the necessary rules in order to bring Senate Joint Resolution 127..."  

As soon as the words "SJR 127" came out of his mouth, before he could finish his sentence, the Speaker said:  "That's out of order."

Rep. Dunn tried to inject, "Mr. Speaker..."

Again, before Rep. Dunn could finish his sentence, Speaker Naifeh said:  "That's out of order."   And then into the sound system you could hear Speaker  Naifeh say to the House clerk in control of the microphones, "Cut him off."

Then, without taking another breath, the Speaker continued, "We're dealing with Senate Joint Resolution 1074" and, without further discussion, with two strokes of the gavel the rules were suspended and the Resolution was passed. 

The speaker then immediately recognized Rep. Odom to make another motion to suspend the rules yet again to bring up another Resolution (are you getting the impression yet that rules are suspended for other important things, but just not for SJR 127?), leaving Rep. Dunn no opportunity to ask why he was ruled out of order or to challenge the ruling of the chair.

After another Representative was recognize, the Speaker recognized Rep. Dunn who finally got to ask why he was ruled out of order.  The Speaker said tersely, "I ruled it out of order," without stating any grounds or reasons other than I am Speaker and I said so.

Rep. Dunn then said, "Well I'd like to challenge that because I've been here 14 years and ..."

And, once again, before Rep. Dunn could finish his sentence, the Speaker said "I'll take it under consideration."

There was a long, pregnant silence in the Chamber as the two men stared at each other. Then Rep. Dunn said, "I think we need to act on this today," knowing that the Speaker taking it "under consideration" meant "go away."

But when Rep. Dunn said we need to act today, Speaker Naifeh knew he had a "situation" on his hands.  He stopped the proceedings and called the party leaders to the Speaker's podium. The battle to be heard on SJR 127 was on.

When the private leadership discussions concluded, the Speaker announced that his ruling had been challenged.  So, the House had to vote on whether to sustain the Speaker's ruling or reject it.  By a vote of 47 to 46, the Speaker's ruling was rejected.  I doubt there is anyone that can remember a day when a ruling of Speaker Naifeh was ever challenged, let alone the challenge sustained.

With their Speaker being overruled (which did require Democratic support since the Republicans do not have a majority), Rep. Odom asked for a recess in order for the Democratic Caucus to meet, no doubt to marshall the forces against Rep. Dunn to make sure he didn't succeed.

When session resumed, by a vote of 51 to 43, Rep. Dunn's amendment was adopted.

With the ruling overturned and Rep. Dunn's amendment adopted, SJR 127 was now in a posture where, with the vote of 2/3 (or 66) of the members, the Resolution could come to the floor for an up or down vote.  Sensing the tide was turning and Representatives were going to have to tell their constituents that they either did or did not vote to bring the Resolution to the floor, there came a flurry of other motions in an effort to kill the motion. There was even a motion to adjourn by Representative Pinion (D-Union City).

But each attempt to keep there from being a straight up or down vote on the amended motion failed, by narrow majorities.  What was sad, though, was to see some Representatives who had pledged, either in writing or by phone to their constituents, to vote to bring SJR 127 to the floor actually vote in favor of every attempt to keep the amended motion from being voted on.  When every attempt to keep the amended motion from being voted on had finally been defeated, the vote to bring it to the floor was 55 to 40. Fifty five percent of the vote would normally carry the day in a representative body.  But not so on this day. Because of votes of six Representatives in a House Subcommittee, 55% of the vote was not enough.  A two-thirds vote was needed in order for these 55 Representatives to even get to vote on SJR 127.

While it was sad to see some pledged supporters of the Resolution vote in favor of every motion to kill Rep. Dunn's efforts, it was surprising  to see some of those same people then vote among the 55.  While their final support is appreciated, you have to wonder if they weren't hoping that the people back home would only look at the final vote.  Perhaps they hoped that voters back home would not pay attention to the fact they had voted to keep themselves from having to cast that final vote.   

In the days ahead, we will try to think of every excuse a supporter of SJR 127 could give you for why he or she voted for the various motions to kill the effort and give you a reasoned response to that excuse.   You will be able to find it, along with a You Tube clip of the debate (Part 1 and Part 2) we've described at our website, www.FACTn.org and at www.LifePetition.org.

Rep. Dunn is to be commended for his extraordinary effort by a very creative means to get SJR 127 to the floor for an up or down vote.  A lesser person without Rep. Dunn's commitment to this cause could have been intimidated by the powerful forces that control the House.  All Republicans, but for one, voted in support of Rep. Dunn on every motion designed to thwart his effort and they, too, should be commended. 

And a special commendation should be accorded to the Democratic Representatives who also voted in support of Rep. Dunn's effort every time. They are, alphabetically, Eddie Bass, Curt Cobb, Charles Curtiss, Nathan Vaughn and John Mark Windle.  They showed that their convictions on the issue of life were more important than the partisan overtones that  had surrounded this Resolution and more important than gaining the approval  of fellow party members who opposed the effort.

Now, after November, perhaps we can see pro-life Democrats and Republicans can come together and find a pro-life Speaker candidate from whichever party has the majority that they can all support.  It's time that the House of Representatives actually be representative of a majority of its members.

Finally, if you have not done so yet, please sign our online petition.  You can add your name to the list of nearly 3,000 Tennesseans who have now done so in a show of support for SJR 127 in just the last two weeks.  

Please consider forwarding a link to those in your contact list.  We have some great information about the current status of abortion laws in Tennessee and several Video clips.

David Fowler

Click the link below to sign the petition:
http://votervoice.net/target.aspx?id=factn:24146550