For the final part of the session, moderator John Becker opened up the floor for questions. There was more discussion about the stimulus package, some discussion about a state income tax, an interesting debate about judicial selection, and the final topic was open meetings and records.

Q: Many argue that the stimulus package has a lot in it that has nothing to do with job creation and actual stimulus. If and when the state gets stimulus money, where does that money need to go to help versus just pork barrel type spending?

Rep. Tindell: He's been watching it and trying to understand it and it's a moving target. They are not passing a true stimulus package. Part of it is, but most of it is a tax cut because that was a political campaign promise that may or may not stimulate the economy. Much of the money will help us in the state because it will keep us from laying people off and cutting services and shifting the burden to local governments. That's the positive impact. But in terms of true stimulus and investing in infrastructure and things that will be productive over a long period of time, most of the money is not that. He guesses that less than 30% of it is actual stimulus. There's a lot of spending there that may have a beneficial impact but I wouldn't call it stimulus.

Q: Do we have any idea how much the state would get?

Rep. Tindell: $3.8 billion is one estimate over two years. That's a lot of money, almost $2 billion per year. The question we have to ask is, what do we do when that's over? As Sen. McNally said, we don't want to dig a hole that we can't get out of in the third year.

Q: What would you advocate doing with the money?

Rep. Tendell: If we get the money we should spend it. That's the purpose. They're going to tell us how to spend it. For example, we're going to get $600 million dollars to build roads and bridges. We're going to get money for transportation and other infrastructure projects. But a tremendous amount of the money is earmarked for health care, education, and general government money. The education and general government funding may help us protect the locals and to protect our own state employees and prevent layoffs. He doesn't think that's exactly stimulative, but it might be good for the economy.

Sen. Burchett: The projects have to be shovel ready. Something like environmental things can take five years. We only have one project here that meets that criteria in this area, and it's a railroad bridge. His approach would be to look at it on a regional level, such as the [Dumplin Creek] project up on 409. We're going to have to spend the money on something, and that project would stimulate the economy because tourist dollars are huge for sales taxes.

Q: Who decides which shovel-ready projects get funding?

Sen. Burchett: The TPO (Transportation Planning Organization). Mayor Haslam is the chair of the regional TPO this year, so it looks good for East Tennessee.

Rep. Tindell: Across the state we are going to fix dozens and dozens of bridges and we are going to re-pave the interstate. Then there's going to be other infrastructure projects beyond that and but he hasn't heard the specifics on those or who would administer those funds.

Rep. Dunn: If it goes as planned, using federal dollars to fix those roads frees up state dollars. For example the final stage of the Emory Road project that has been needed so long, this will free up state dollars to finish that project.

Q: The stimulus packaged passed the House without a single Republican vote. Most of you here are Republicans, would you have voted for it? Republicans voted against it on principle, but it sounds like you could put the money to good use back here at home.

Rep. Haynes: I would have voted against it because of some of the garbage that has been thrown into the bill. One of the things we have to be careful about is that if we get new dollars that we don't grow government. It's nice to put money into projects that already exist and be able to repair our bridges, but if we go build new highways everywhere that's one more road the state is now charged with maintaining and our long term cost can grow.

Q: Could you be a little more specific about what some of that garbage is that is in the bill?

Rep. Haynes: Some of it they look pretty foolish on, and they came back and backed down on it, and I would start with the $350 million for STD research, and it's not that that's not an important issue but when you are trying to stimulate the economy that's not the best way. Next I would point to birth control, that was a lot of money, and those are two of the biggest ones that you've certainly heard the most about. When a bill's that big -- down in Nashville sometimes we've got five page bills that members don't read -- and I can tell you that in the U.S. Congress you've got an eight hundred page bill to read and it's probably longer than that. [Ed. Note: HR1 is approx. 175 pages.]

Q: You mentioned tourist dollars, do you have ideas for things that would bring in new money that we don't have to keep putting money into like infrastructure projects that will have to be maintained years out, that will pull more tourist dollars here than in Music City or Gatlinburg?

Sen. Burchett: That's a never ending battle. It's constant. If you build a road you have to repair it. Yeah, you employ some people to do it, but it's never ending. There is nothing you can put your money into one time and never have to go back, nothing I've ever heard of.

Q: But if you had your 'druthers and they said this is your money, you decide how to spend this, is there something you think is the best investment for the return?

Sen. Burchett: You're right. It is my money. You need to remember that. Eventually the bill's going to come due. I'm afraid of any federal dollars. That's how we got into TennCare, it was a great plan, the federal government is going to help us out, No Child Left Behind, it's just on and on. And I worry about Pre-K, it's a voluntary program that's going to become mandatory eventually. How is that going to affect our local economy? Here comes a lot of federal money that is going to put a lot of people in the child care business out of business. And I'd rather have a synagogue over here or a church down the road performing that service than I would some of these government institutions. So I'm very leery of federal money because of the strings. The devil's in the details. And Ryan's absolutely correct. You've got a five page bill, that's tough to read, but they've got an eight hundred page bill. If you remember NAFTA, when it first came out it was three sheets of paper, and when it was finished it stacked taller than a six foot man.

Rep. Dunn: I'm leery of federal government money, too. What can we do to stimulate? Too often we look to government programs. Tennessee's going to do well because this is a low tax state. There is a benefit to not having an income tax. When someone like Volkswagen looks here, those executives are going to look at what's going to be my tax rate. You can be a low tax state and use the money you have wisely and you can draw in people. Maybe not tourists but it will bring in the businesses and people who are saying I can start a business and not be penalized. If you see the states that are really suffering now, like California, one of the highest taxed states, you can make the argument that taxation hurts those states. That's why we're seeing a lot of industry moving South where they have lower taxes. It's government saying let's not ruin what we have and try to not raise taxes during this time and as the economy recovers more businesses will emerge here in Tennessee and that will take care of the state.

Rep. Tindell: This is an opportunity if we indeed get the money and we have enough funds to do some things. Think of all of our science labs in our high schools and the technology programs the Rep. Brooks talked about that are the key to our future. Who's going to rebuild the technology centers in our high schools to bring in the new technology? This is a chance to come up with the one-time money that we may never get again to actually do something that's going to last for a generation. We could say the same thing on the business side. We built the Spallation Neutron Source project in Oak Ridge, and that was very good for our economy. It comes with one-time money for a project you would never get without the seed money to get it started. We need to look for projects on the education side and on the business side that are going to turbocharge our economy going forward. If we have some flexibility with these funds I would like to get some of the smartest people in the state together to decide which of these kinds of priorities would do us the most good.

Rep. Brooks: Replace, repair, projects that will save us in the long run, like energy efficiency. The more of that you do, you don't guarantee increased expenditures down the road.

Q: I have never gotten a straightforward answer to this. With the country and Tennessee in a huge deficit mode, how does cutting taxes help us? Shouldn't we be raising taxes?

Rep. Tindell: That's up to Congress and that's not our decision, but the package is designed to please a lot of masters and I'm not sure that's the most stimulative part of the package, but is a part of the package that's moving forward.

Q: Wouldn't we be better served with a state income tax?

Rep. Burchett: It's unconstitutional, but I don't think any more taxes are going to help our economy. Let me tell you about a state income tax, ma'am. You've got a lot of wealthy multi-millionaires fishing for a state income tax and you've got to ask yourself why. And I'll tell you why, because you want a straightforward answer. In this state, technically we do have a state income tax called the Hall Income Tax. We've got a lot of wealthy folks who switch all their money to dividend income and interest earning income, whereas the poor folks don't have that ability to do it and they skip the whole tax process and just do the federal route. The bulk of a state income tax is made up of people making $80 thousand dollars and less. You cannot tax yourself into prosperity. I'm one of the few legislators sitting up here who would benefit from a state income tax, because my limited income ability is evident. I just don't think taxing working folks will stimulate the economy and it would probably cripple our economy.

Rep. Dunn: One thing I learned during the income tax battle, the question was always what are you going to cut and if you're not going to cut what tax are you going to raise. The third approach is, let's look at policy. We've touched many times on education, and this is an opportunity to look hard at policy and using dollars wisely. Flawed policy is very expensive, and leads to more taxes.

Q: I like to look at the judicial selection process, where are we, where are we going?

Sen. McNally: Where we are is that the Judicial Selection Commission is about to be sunsetted. The options would be to renew it as is and I don't think that will happen. It could be that we change the way people are appointed, and that's a middle ground. The other option would be to follow what the Constitution says and elect them. I don't know how you get into problems in this day and time having elected judges. Maybe you wouldn't want to necessarily have them run on a partisan ticket, and that would solve any problems with a popular election. It's difficult to predict where it will end up but I think it's not going to remain as it is.

Q: How do all of you feel about this? What is your preference?

Sen. McNally: I could support popular election, particularly if it's run on a non-partisan basis.

Sen. Burchett: Put me down on Sen. McNally's side.

Rep. Tindell: We've done it both ways in Tennessee and I think both ways would work. The risk of popular election as we look at some other states is that it is extremely expensive in today's media market to raise money, to ask our future judges to raise that much money. That's the reason we went to the system we have now and we should think long and hard if we want every judge going out to raise a million dollars every time they want to get on the ballot. I'm flexible, but I see the possible pitfalls.

Rep. Dunn: The constitution clearly says elected, so if you are going to do it a different way somebody needs to be bringing forth a resolution to change the constitution to set this up. Former Rep. Frank Buck got up and gave an impassioned speech for keeping the way we're doing it, and he makes a lot of good points but I went back and talked to him about it and asked if the constitution allow him to do that and he finally had to admit no it doesn't. Sometimes the constitution is vague, but in this case it clearly says judges are elected by the people. So if we're going to change that we need to change the constitution.

Rep. Brooks. I agree. And elections should be non-partisan.

Q: But isn't a non-partisan election unrealistic? Isn't everyone going to know which way they lean?

Rep. Brooks: It has worked pretty good here, with the Knoxville Mayor's election.

Q: If it's unconstitutional, why has it been done the way it's been done?

Sen. Overbey: Because it's not unconstitutional. (Sen. Burchett: Who has ruled on it?) Our State Supreme Court has ruled on it. And you can laugh at that if you want to but that's what our Supreme Court does, all the time almost every day, to judge the constitutionality. That is their role. I wouldn't be so jaundiced to say they they are disregarding the constitution to rule that way. You get folks like Gary Wade and Karen Lee and Mickey Barker, who recently retired, I want to give the court the same respect they are entitled to that they are properly interpreting the constitution as they do in other areas.

Q: Rep. Haynes?

Rep. Haynes: I am for elected non-partisan but I would not be opposed to study a change to the constitution. I would like to see what we could do and I would be open to examining it.

Q: So Sen. Overbey, you support the way it is now?

Rep. Overbey: I guess I am the odd man out in this room, but I generally support the Tennessee Plan of merit selection and merit retention. If you've never talked to former Chief Justice Mickey Barker, a Republican from Chattanooga who was a circuit court judge and a criminal court judge and Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme court, if you've never talked to him about this issue you owe it to yourself and your readers and viewers to do so. And members of the legislature who have never consulted Justice Barker about this need to do so as well. He can talk to you about the constitutional issues, but he can also talk to you about how through history from the founding of Tennessee there have been different ways to elect members of the Tennessee Supreme Court. It hasn't always been one way.

The other thing is he's very persuasive when he talks about how we have two political branches of government, the executive branch and the legislative branch, but the framers intended for the third branch, the judicial branch, not to be political, to put politics aside. Because when you bring a case to be argued in the court, whether it's a lower court or an appellate court, politics should not enter into the decision making of that case. Cases should be decided on the facts and the law and not politics. You can't completely take politics out of it and I am not so naive to believe that, but the Tennessee Plan goes a long way toward doing that. People across the state don't know who these appellate court judges are, and it should be non-political. Running non-partisan does not make it non-political. Different factions are still going to pour a lot of money into those races, and I for one don't think a Supreme Court judge ought to be out there trying to raise one million or two million dollars to run a statewide race. I also don't think it's a good use of money. I think we've been served well, and certainly East Tennessee has done well. We have two members on the Supreme Court, a Sevier Countian on the criminal appeals court, a Blount Countian on criminal appeals.

So yes, I support the Tennessee Plan. I would accept some changes to the way Selection Commission members are appointed. I would look at something different than just sending three names to the governor. The Selection Commission could rate all the applicants and make it real simple, well qualified, qualified, and not qualified, and send all the names to the governor. The problem has been that the commission has played games with who they send to the governor, and you eliminate that by sending all the applicants but rate them. If the governor wants to pick someone well qualified so be it, and if the governor wants to pick someone not qualified let him take his case to the people and when it comes up for retention vote let that be an issue then. I think there are some ways to get around some of the objections folks have raised.

Q: (John Becker) There are some negative stereotypes that lobbyists have undue influence. Would you consider opening your public calendars to the internet? For example, legislators or their staff would keep a record of who they met with each day. The public believes money buys access, and this would give them a way to see who is getting access each day.

Rep. Dunn: I don't know if it would work. Another approach might be that the lobbyists report who they meet with. Just like today, would I have to get everyone's name here, and go home and write down everyone's name and this is what we talked about?

Sen. Burchett: As far as I know our calendars are already on the state computer. But I'd be glad for everybody to know I was at Wright's Cafeteria today talking to some guy about a trade issue today at lunch, then I was at Barnes and Noble meeting with somebody about a road issue, and I met with somebody about their dog getting killed, and that's fine. I think mine would get pretty boring pretty quick.

Rep. Dunn: I know what you're trying to get at, but if I go to my kid's basketball game and somebody sits down and says Bill I want to talk to you about this, I don't want to say wait just a second, let me write this down. And what happens is if you don't do that and someone talks to you and their name doesn't show up in your report, they go to you (the media) and say he's not reporting everybody he's talked to. Lobbyists are getting paid to talk to us and they have to file reports to their clients, so it makes more sense for them to do it.

Q: The public saw what happened on Tuesday, and what happened with county commission, and they wonder about the sunshine laws. What are your thoughts about teh sunshine law not applying to the state legislature?

Rep. Haynes: There isn't any question that there's a double standard here. Something's not right that we as a body put other people under rules that we're not willing to abide by. Everybody up here is for open government, but I would be shocked if I couldn't pick up the phone and talk to Rep. Brooks about an education issue or Rep. Dunn or Tindell on a finance issue. Something seems kind of funny about that, and that law needs to be examined and the media needs to be brought in on those discussions.

Rep. Dunn: We want the rule to be equal, but really you're talking about a different setup. If county commission here goes to 11 members, it only takes 6 to go into collusion to make things happen. If you look at the legislature, for us to pass a bill that affects the people 50 people have to be included in the mix, and 17 in the Senate, and then the Governor has to be in on it. It's very hard to keep a secret, even one on one. So it's a lot harder for us to do than a body that only has ten or eleven on it. Also, because we go to Nashville and spend Monday through Thursday there, we're constantly running in to each other, we share offices with each other, we have assistants with each other. County commission may bump in to each other once a week if at all. So it's a little easier for them to set up a wall, but with us being down there every day it would be very hard to walk around with tape over our mouths and never say anything. Even if we were just talking about a ball game, someone could say I saw Ryan and Bill talking in his office and they're violating the sunshine law. So it's a different way to look at it and it's two different setups.

Rep. Brooks: Just as an observation, the best policy development I've been involved in took a year and a half of discussions. Good policy doesn't just happen in a three hour meeting. We're trying to write policy that affects even the media's business and your access and that discussion has been going on since George Washington was president. The point is that sometimes it takes a long time and it takes a lot of discussion from the standpoint of developing good policy. And even then sometimes you have to come back and fix an unintended consequence. In a body of 99 people you've got to find a consensus among 50, and sometimes that's hard. To create good policy you have to make sure that you have examined all the idiosyncrasies about it and that takes a lot of discussion and you don't do it in a 30 minute meeting or a three hour subcommittee meeting. It doesn't happen. It won't happen.

PREVIOUSLY:

• ETSPJ 106th General Assembly preview

• Part I: Legislative priorities

• Part II: Setting the tone

• Part III: Surprises?