KNOX May 1.Indd
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
SPORTS POLITICS For love of Simple goal: the game Total control ere will be no Stanley Cup Legislative supermajorities Free! run for Ice Bears players. aren’t enough for new state Please But that’s not why they play. GOP chairman Ryan Haynes. P3 P19 take one. AP May 1 – 7, 2015 Vol. 41 | Issue 18 KNOXVILLE EDITION www.TNLedger.com/Knoxville The power of information. LedgerDAVIDSON • WILLIAMSON • SUMNER • CHEATHAM • RUTHERFORD WILSON ROBERTSON • MAURY • DICKSON • MONTGOMERY • KNOX • ANDERSON •BLOUNT •SEVIER | FORMERLY WESTVIEW SINCE 1978 Will Republicans ever be truly happy? The pain of getting almost everything Stories by Sam Stockard begin on page 2 More inside: Crossword.................................................6 Find Public Notices Worldly Investor .....................................3 Newsmakers ..........................................17 inside & online: News Briefs ..............................................4 Public Notices ....................... 7–16, 21–34 www.TNLedger.com Community Calendar ............................4 Behind the Wheel .................................35 Page 2 www.TNLedger.com/Knoxville MAY 1 – 7, 2015 Republicans can’t have it all? Why not? Why aren’t Tennessee Republicans happier? debate over Common Core – a plan that has been proven to work for schools With the GOP so dominate in the Tennessee General Assembly and losses but has the lingering odor of Obama. so rare – on the Hill or in elections – the party’s lawmakers should be jubilant Nothing’s worth a primary ght: Party members didn’t have the stomach with this year’s session. But it’s never enough. to back a tuition equality bill, even when some with right-of-right credentials Here are a handful of reasons that the supermajority isn’t super happy. embraced it. ere are still too many well-organized groups that can wreck ey want it all: e new chairman of the state GOP wants all “99 a career over just one ‘o -agenda’ vote. All that’s needed is funding and a members of the House and 33 members in the Senate’’ to be Republicans. candidate willing to out-conservative the incumbent conservative. Obama: Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey says only a new president – a Republican Don’t be weak on guns: Legislators voted in guns-in-parks but were president – can “ x’’ the state’s health care issues. It’s a sit-tight, wait-it-out ridiculed for not allowing guns in the State Capital. policy, a game the party can play as Obama’s term winds down. Don’t be weak on the Bible: Was making the Bible the state’s o cial book Hillary who? Ramsey and others say they are certain Hillary Clinton respectful or disrespectful? Is parading the conservative colors worth the cost of won’t be elected president, nor will any other Democrat. It’s a situation they the legal challenge Republican Attorney General Herb Slatery said couldn’t be can’t control, which is irritating. Her presidency has already been declared won. In the end, quiet defeat. “continued failed leadership,” says Ryan Haynes, the new state GOP chair. Haslam doesn’t get it: e governor, who caved on guns-in-parks, gets no Shut up and get on board: Party members knocked heads over education, respect on Insure Tennessee. So much for the united front Republicans want including school vouchers and conservatives vs. ultra conservatives in the in order to bring their collective world view to Tennessee voters. one of the key decisions of the session. Ultimately, the legislation adds a Kill switch: Anything anyone can Haslam tried to sell the plan by saying recommendation committee to the Tennessee hospitals would help fund it governor’s process in which standards can link to Obama is doomed and no new taxes would be needed to help be tweaked before going through a review, By Sam Stockard | Correspondent 280,000 people draw coverage. Casada then back to the state Board of Education doesn’t even agree with that gure, for the nal say. If it has a hint of Obama, the Tennessee It fell in special session and, despite saying 25 states that set up a marketplace “We aren’t going to General Assembly is likely to shoot it singing, praying and Bible distribution by underestimated how many people would use the current process down. pro-Insure Tennessee forces, died again in enroll. and just re-implement With the National Ri e Association the Senate Commerce Committee. House “ ere’s going to be more than 400,000 Common Core,” visiting and guns dominating much of members never debated the matter, much if not 450,000 people on the expansion. says Sen. Mike Bell, a this year’s talk, Gov. Bill Haslam’s main less voted on it. at, in turn, would cost on year three Riceville Republican, initiative, Insure Tennessee, fell to the Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey hints it could about $200 million a year. We just don’t who sponsored the wayside in special and regular sessions. take two more years before anything akin have it. We’d have to raise taxes or cut Senate version of the Republican legislators couldn’t stomach to Insure Tennessee passes the Legislature services,” Casada says. bill. Obamacare and barely debated the – after Obama leaves o ce. e governor promised ideas for opting Bell New standards are to measure. “We’re going to have a new president, out if Insure Tennessee cost more than be set by 2017. State lawmakers “rebranded” Common and I hope we have a Republican anticipated. ose didn’t wash, either. But Spivey says this measure gives teachers, Core, a set of education standards some president in 2016, and I think most of then, again, there wasn’t much time for a principals and schools leaders comfort to people started calling “ObamaCore,” those (Republican) presidential candidates real discussion. set schedules and move forward. even though it was born are saying that if they get elected, then Tennessee standards No doubt about it, teachers have been we’ll get the money back in block from a national governors’ Even with control of the Legislature, pulled from their comfort zone the last grants,” Ramsey says in a wrap-up press initiative accompanied by Republicans don’t agree on everything. few years. Most of it, though, had less to conference. federal dollars legislators Some are clearly more conservative than do with standards and more to do with “Several billion dollars that we send to gladly took from President others, and as the session started, they over-testing, teacher evaluations tied to Washington, D.C., will be sent back to Obama’s Race to the Top. were at odds on whether to revamp test scores, more classroom observation LEGISLATIVE us and then we get to decide a plan for Likewise, the Legislature Common Core or replace it. and paperwork, rules for obtaining and WINNERS everyone who’s on TennCare, not just AND narrowly turned back Haslam favored e orts to improve keeping tenure and e orts to undermine LOSERS those up to 133 percent.” a plan to give students Common Core and set up a website the Tennessee Education Association. Lawmakers gave the governor the task page 20 without legal immigration on which teachers, parents and others Tuition stumbling block remains of nding a plan to bring A ordable status the opportunity to could go to make suggestions. But many In-state tuition remains just out of Care Act funds back to Tennessee. He pay in-state tuition, which is about a third lawmakers – and the conservative group reach for thousands of students who did so with Insure Tennessee, a market- of out-of-state tuition. Americans for Prosperity – felt Common moved here years ago when their parents based plan designed to help low-income Legislation to remove the nancial Core had become a four-letter word. migrated to the United States under the residents get health-care insurance, paying hurdle fell one vote short of 50 needed Legislators such radar of federal authorities. small premiums or setting up health in the House with some lawmakers as Rep. Billy Spivey Students hoping to avoid the higher savings plans. saying Tennessee would be agreeing “worked tirelessly” for cost of out-of-state tuition thought they’d But facing Republican supermajorities with Obama’s executive order on illegal nine weeks “to repeal gotten momentum to pass a “tuition in the House and Senate, most of whom immigration if the General Assembly and replace Common equality” bill this rode to o ce on red waves after Obama passed it. Core in Tennessee session when one of took o ce, Haslam couldn’t come close Insure Tennessee with Tennessee unique the Legislature’s most to getting Insure Tennessee to the House Haslam started the year with high standards written by hardcore conservatives, and Senate oors for a full vote. hopes for Insure Tennessee, rounding up Tennesseans,” says Rep. Rick Womick, He was hamstrung by a limited amount Republican sponsors Spivey House Speaker Beth sided with them in of time to sell the plan to the public and in Sen. Doug Overbey Harwell, who lauded the achievement in a a House Education Republican legislators, since he didn’t and House Majority late-session press conference. Committee vote. receive approval for a federal waiver of the Leader Rep. Gerald Calling Common Core a “political “Your choice is to A ordable Care Act McCormick. But the quagmire” nationwide, Spivey, a Womick let them go to school until December. measure barely saw Lewisburg Republican, said the bill didn’t at the discounted rate Skepticism didn’t daylight, even though “betray” other e orts to change education or they won’t go to school,” Womick told help either. it was designed to in Tennessee with student testing and House members before the nal vote.