April 3, 2018
TFA Questions Whether Beth Harwell Should Resign
- Her "Selective" Outrage Is Growing Old
NASHVILLE, TN: The Tennessee Firearms Association, Tennessee’s “no-compromise” 2nd Amendment Advocacy Group, asked Tennessee’s conservatives whether it is time to call upon Beth Harwell, Tennessee’s House Speaker, to resign or at least publicly apologize for her transgressions as a public steward.
“TFA supports holding elected lawmakers accountable for their oaths of office, stewardship and leadership on matters of constitutional significance and public policy. Speaker Beth Harwell appears to use her power and office not solely as a responsible steward of the public’s interests in furtherance of the principles on which a constitutional republic is based but it appears that same office is used by her as a tool to protect and strengthen the centralization of power under the oligarchy of current Establishment leadership in the Tennessee Legislature.” said John Harris, TFA Executive Director.
Beth Harwell is the very dictionary definition of a career politician with now more than 30 years of status as a member of the Tennessee Legislature. Harwell was first elected to the Tennessee Legislature in 1988 when the Republicans were the minority caucus and Legislative control was concentrated in the hands of a small number of powerful Democrats. While some could conclude that the priorities shifted slightly when the Republicans gained majority control in 2010, the antics and shenanigans of leadership that existed under the Democrats appear to have been a comfortable cloak for Beth Harwell when she was crowned as “Queen” in what some might still question as a power play from the newly elected Bill Haslam.
Harris has long expressed concerns over Harwell’s leadership in the House. “The role of leadership in a legislature operating as a part of a constitutional republic should be to make sure that the system works efficiently and fairly without disenfranchising voters or unduly centralizing power. Leadership should not be used to decide unilaterally which bills will or will not be considered, debated or amended by the entire legislative body as intended in a republic. When substantive matters are flushed out of the system by leadership’s use of the committee system or with heavy handed antics, the voters are the ones who are harmed.” noted Harris.
Legislative observers could easily note that Speaker Harwell, as did her mentor Jimmy Naifeh, has demonstrated a tendency to use her powers to control the material substance of the legislative process and not just its efficiency. Those who have watched the Legislature over the last twenty years, and particularly the last eight years under Speaker Harwell could cite instance after instance where Harwell and her appointed loyal committee leaders have worked to preserve and extend infringements on the rights recognized and protected by the 2nd Amendment. They have used secret meetings, unrecorded voice votes in committees that often have 6 or fewer legislators, ghost voting, procedural antics and the refusal to let opponents use the Rules to ask that important legislation be revived and brought to the full legislative body. Her tenure as Speaker is one marked by manipulation of the system rather than transparency and public disclosure.
“Anyone who has been paying the slightest attention has watched Harwell try to evade responsibility for ‘ghost voting’, declaring that she was not aware of such a practice occurring in the House for decades.” Harris continued, “It is not believable that she did not know this was going on within feet of her as a member under Naifeh’s reign or right in front of her as she presided over the House as Speaker implementing some of his own tactics. But the same can be said of the secret pre-meetings of committees to orchestrate which bills will or will not pass, the stunts with how bills are amended in the back halls or during “dinners” and then sprung at the last minute when citizen advocates or legislative opponents have no opportunity to review or effectively resistant, and the “woodshedding” of conservative legislators who have tried to bring public trust and accountability back to the legislature.”
Recent events also demonstrate how Speaker Harwell has used her office and has “weaponized” the Legislature’s ethics system in matters involving some House members who have refused to submit to her substantive demands on legislation or have challenged her authority, suggest that the Speaker uses not only shenanigans in the committee system but a figurative “task master’s whip” to intimidate legislators who do not submit to her demands.
For example, her actions to orchestrate the ‘crucifixion’ of Jeremy Durham without due process, her treatment of several legislators who tried to challenge her for speaker, and her recent efforts to deprive voters in District 71 of the right to decide whether they wanted to return their sitting Representative to the House show her “selective” use of power as a weapon particularly when similar allegations or facts have existed in the darkness with respect to her loyal minions and even staff who have allegedly done the same or worse in the past. Perhaps these other alleged transgressions are the marionette strings that she may have found useful sometimes used to ensure the “loyalty” of others.
Those who aspire to power and who are given power in a constitutional republic have the duty to act as a servant and a steward in matters of procedure and operational fairness to make sure that that system of governance functions as intended. Being selected as a leader in a constitutional republic precludes seizing power as an oligarch or acting with retribution toward other elected peers.
When a public steward holds also a position of leadership and then abuses the power, it is appropriate, as the Founding Fathers taught to call for their resignation or repentance. Sadly, in most instances, those holding such power are both unrepentant and unremorseful.
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