BusinessTN

Tennessee is blessed with a pro-business legislature. Generally speaking, lawmakers keep taxes low and regulation minimal, at least by national standards. That’s not to say there aren’t elected leaders working to undermine that status. This month,Business Tennessee looks at the current crop of 132 state lawmakers to label those who best protect, along with those who most harm, Tennessee’s reputation for having a business-friendly environment.

As litmus for determining the selections, Business Tennessee sticks to legislative stances on issues like workers compensation and tort reform, those clearly identified as good or bad for business. We steer clear of gauging lawmakers on so-called intramural issues pitting one sector of the business community against another, a hallmark of most business legislation. Nor do we base our decisions on issues like corporate incentives or the income tax—issues businesspeople debate with equal fervor as being beneficial or detrimental to the economy. Lastly, Business Tennessee heavily weights a lawmaker’s actual ability to affect positively or deleteriously the state’s business climate—eschewing for the most part fringe players whose legislative efforts, however rhetorically grand or egregious, never get off the ground.

For many years, the Nashville Banner printed an annual ranking of Tennessee’s best and worst lawmakers, a list compiled through ballots distributed to lawmakers, lobbyists, reporters and others on Capitol Hill. Though in a more selective manner, Business Tennessee also turned to the lawmakers, lobbyists, business leaders, political pundits, party activists, legislative staffers and reporters who know the Hill best to get their confidential impressions and testimonies. Combined with our own view of the Hill, these are the lawmakers deemed assets and liabilities from a business perspective on Capitol Hill.

ASSETS

Rep. Randy Rinks (D-Savannah)
A former mayor of Savannah and owner of a lumber supply business, Randy Rinks is the model of the pro-business Democrat in Tennessee. The Blue Dog Rinks is also arguably the most effective lawmaker on Capitol Hill, more nimble than any other member of Democratic leadership at working both sides of the political aisle.

While by no means a rubber stamp for business, Rinks clearly understands that free enterprise drives the truck in Tennessee, particularly given its tax structure. He championed the retail sector’s push for the streamlined sales tax bill in 2003. He has worked to allow small businesses to save the cost of hiring an attorney and represent themselves in General Sessions Court. During the 2004 session, Rinks cajoled fellow Democratic lawmakers, uneasy about voting against labor and trial lawyers in an election year, to pass workers comp reform. Like an on-the-spot campaign manager, the witty, crafty Rinks converted colleagues one-by-one with individual pitches on how the vote could actually serve as positive fodder for their re-election efforts.

As House Majority Caucus chairman, and a member of most consequential House committees, Rinks is omnipresent in every issue facing state government. A consummate behind-the-scenes legislator, Rinks is House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh’s key whip, a master of gathering the votes needed to pass bills, or to keep legislation from derailing.

Since Naifeh narrowly survived the 2002 elections, Rinks’ eye has clearly been on becoming the next speaker of the House. The candidate by far best equipped to assemble the votes needed to assume the post, Rinks is the odds-on favorite to fill any unexpected void.

Rep. Charles Curtiss (D-Sparta)
When the income tax proposal was finally pronounced dead, ruling Democrats in the House needed a consensus-driven lawmaker free of the polarizing tax rhetoric that had split the House to set about garnering a cross-section of support for a penny sales tax increase. They gravitated to Curtiss, a plain-spoken lawmaker with a distinctive country accent who initiated his plea for support by saying “Nobody is real proud of this bill,” before sifting through hours of objections to get it passed. It’s evidence that while the General Assembly has grown increasingly politicized, Curtiss is one of the few lawmakers able to effectively work both sides of the aisle.

The former White County executive is vice chairman of the House Commerce Committee and also chairs the Utilities & Banking Subcommittee, a place business entities always get a fair hearing. Curtiss sponsored the mandated Health Benefits Review Act of 2004, requiring the state to study the impact future state mandates on health insurance plans will have on small business. Additionally, Curtiss co-chairs the Joint Fiscal Review Committee, a government-spending watchdog that is perhaps the most useful tool in all of state government. All sole-source contracts exceeding $100,000 go before the committee. Hearings there have become increasingly scarce as department officials have determined they would rather go the extra yard to make a bid competitive than to have a pound of flesh exacted by Curtiss and his committee. The committee has saved the state untold sums of money.

Curtiss shepherded the bill in 2004 requiring sprinkler systems in nursing homes, a legislative item loaded with emotion that could have produced rancorous debate. With Curtiss as sponsor, the item was handled equitably and without incident.

Sen. Mark Norris (R-Collierville)
Norris advanced a worker’s comp reform bill with 11 co-sponsors long before Gov. Phil Bredesen introduced his legislation. Norris’ bill set the multiplier used to compute permanent partial disability payments at 1.0, the ultimate desire of the business community. When Bredesen’s bill was finally introduced, setting the multiplier at 1.5, labor backers began their push for 2.0. Norris’ early work in framing the true realm for compromise served as leverage in keeping the multiplier down

Norris is also the man out front on proposed tort reform. A recent study placed the annual cost of litigation to small business in America at $88 billion. Liability costs resulting from allegedly frivolous lawsuits ranked second among the biggest problems facing small businesses in a recent business poll. Mississippi’s legislature placed caps on tort claims just this summer. Trial lawyers will no doubt soon be crossing the border into reform-less Tennessee to set up shop.

Norris pushed tort reform uphill but far enough to get a special study committee appointed. Set up by leadership to deal a deathblow to Norris’ efforts, the committee was comprised mostly of outspoken opponents of reform including Sen. Jo Ann Graves, who once quizzed a testifying physician about his personal wealth. By sheer force of his earnestness, though, Norris and his Republican colleagues have achieved some minor concessions, including legislation limiting hospital liability for teaching physicians. Norris also got the state to begin collecting data on tort liability to determine if reform is needed in the future. By no means sweeping reform, it is a far better outcome than the scenario most predicted—namely the burial of Norris’ efforts under Polk’s tomb on the Capitol lawn.

Sen. Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville)
Name the issue, and Ramsey is pro-business. An auctioneer with lofty political ambitions, Ramsey knows being strong for business means business will be strong for him along the course of his upward political climb. As an example, Ramsey sponsored and passed a bill in the Senate banning living wage ordinances in Tennessee cities. This year, Ramsey fought the bill to decouple the depreciation schedules in the state’s excise laws from those in the federal government’s corporate income tax law. The bill disallowed Tennessee businesses the 30% bonus depreciation passed at the federal level to boost job creation. He also sponsored the proposed Regulatory Flexibility Act requiring all state regulatory agencies to consider the effect on business before adopting new regulations.

The Republican leader in the Senate, Ramsey has a ton of power to make his low tax business agenda stick. Unlike in the House where the administration can pass its bills without dealing with the minority party, Gov. Phil Bredesen and his troops must accommodate Ramsey in the bipartisan-controlled Senate in order to get anything done. To his credit, Ramsey has struck a balance between his job, which is to strike a partisan tone, and being reasonable in his approach to doing the state’s business. Ramsey easily could have let partisanship play a bigger role in the fight over workers comp reform in 2004, yet in a session where it seemed every issue was used as a wedge, Ramsey steered the jobs issue out of the partisan stream.

It’s a balanced approach evident in Ramsey’s days in the House while chairing the Environment Committee. Though a staunch advocate for business, Ramsey balanced the needs of all sides amid contentious debates between natural rivals.

Jim Bryson (R-Franklin)
If being a crusader for low taxes and smaller government are the hallmarks of a pro-business legislator, then Bryson is the free market’s shining star on Capitol Hill. Bryson distinguished himself as a freshman in the 103rd General Assembly. His proposal for a Tax- payer Bill Of Rights in Tennessee will likely be etched on his tombstone. Though defeated this year, the highly publicized constitutional amendment aims to reign in state spending by making it more difficult for lawmakers, specifically the majority party, to break the cap on growth in state spending, which is supposed to be limited to personal income growth. Perhaps better than any other lawmaker, Bryson understands if government spending and revenue intake could be brought under control and made to consistently grow at a regulated pace, the inevitable crisis that leads to raising taxes on businesses and individuals could be avoided.

Bryson did not let business down a single time from his seat on the Senate Commerce committee. A Vanderbilt MBA and owner of a market research firm, Bryson innately understands the business elements of an issue and never requires much explanation from lobbyists or state officials. Unlike many lawmakers, the conscientious Bryson actually does his homework on proposed legislation and works to reconcile opposing views.

Compared to conservatives in the House, many of whom are so overextended on wedge issues that they can’t get traction on more relevant ones, Bryson is a more consequential lawmaker for several reasons, including the fact that in the bipartisan Senate every vote counts. Even if Bryson is somewhat marginalized because of his conservatism or inexperience, it begs the question—were there no Jim Bryson to bang the drum for lower taxes and restrained spending, how much damage could be wrought on businesses and individuals in Tennessee?

LIABILITIES

Sen. Joe Haynes (D-Goodlettsville)
Haynes proved in 2004 that he is willing to represent trial lawyers and labor to the detriment of other interests on Capitol Hill. In the fight against workers comp reform, those two groups had in Haynes, a trial lawyer himself, the equivalent of a paid lobbyist sitting in a legislative seat. Haynes’ actions on the bill also constitute one of the great double-crosses in the recent history of Tennessee politics.

Gov. Phil Bredesen waited to introduce his workers comp bill until after the election-filing deadline to avoid giving trial lawyers and labor bosses time to find an opponent to run against Haynes, the bill’s sponsor. Haynes hated Bredesen’s bill but agreed to carry it as part of the governor’s plan to diffuse his opponents. Haynes then created artificial obstacles to impede the bill, dogged it for weeks and nearly killed it, an act that would have done immense damage to business in the state. That Haynes never relinquished sponsorship of the bill, as is customary when lawmakers determine they can no longer support a bill as written, serves as convincing evidence that Haynes’ intent from the very beginning was to reserve the ability to kill the bill. Only when it became clear he would not get the governor to budge on key elements of the reform package did Haynes knuckle under and allow the bill to come to a vote. Even then, he held on as sponsor of the bill, fought off the advance of co-sponsors and voted for the final bill, safely joining 27 others to do so in a fait accompli.

That Haynes could burn a bridge with the governor, alienate business interests and soil his legislative reputation in one fell swoop was a stunning thing to do politically, particularly given his experience. He now may be the least trusted man on Capitol Hill.

Ward Crutchfield (D-Chattanooga)
Also a trial lawyer, Crutchfield was adamantly against workers comp reform. No one in favor of reform worked very strenuously to change his mind. On a bill-by-bill basis, business lobbyists on Capitol Hill often don’t even bother to try to talk with Crutch- field. It’s simply a given that he won’t support legislation that openly benefits those who supply jobs to the very people of whom he fancies himself a champion.

Crutchfield sponsored the bill this year to exceed the spending cap constitutionally placed on state government but which is breakable with a simple majority vote. Crutchfield also sponsored the bill to decouple the state’s excise tax depreciation schedule from federal business tax depreciation laws, padding next year’s state budget to the tune of $75 million.

Along with cohorts Jo Ann Graves, Roscoe Dixon and Larry Trail on the Senate Education Committee, Crutch- field helped undercut the effectiveness of the 2002 charter school law in Tennessee. Among numerous other flaws, that law barred for-profit entities from operating charter schools in the state, a sign of real aversion to free market forces and competition.

On many occasions, Crutchfield has uttered the statement that he would vote for any bill that could attract the 50 votes in the House and the 17 in the Senate needed to pass. The comment reveals not just Crutchfield’s uninspired approach to governing but also that, for him at least, nothing is sacred.

Jerry Cooper (D-Morrison)
By and large, Cooper’s voting record has been favorable toward business. The founder of a furniture and hardwood products company who was named Tennessee’s small business man of the year by the U.S. Small Business Administration in 1983, Cooper is even described by members of the opposing party as a sterling example of a pro-business Democrat in Tennessee. So why does Cooper make the list?

The business community would like to know that there’s a solid, principled, pro-business chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, arguably the committee most important to business interests in the state. But that’s not what Cooper provides in that powerful role. Instead, business interests never really know which way Cooper will go on a particular issue because it’s unclear whether his motivation is more about his interests than what is in the best interests of the state. Nicknamed on the Hill “Gremlin” for his annual end-of-session antics, Cooper’s propensity to let mischief and politics take over makes Capitol Hill a chaotic place when it needs to be a place that goes about the people’s business in an orderly fashion. In short, were Cooper more predictable and less involved in political gamesmanship, he alone could improve the efficiency of Tennessee state government, and in doing so help business, faster than any other 10 lawmakers combined.

Cooper voted against workers comp reform on the key preliminary amendment vote, essentially the true vote on the reform package. Cooper also sponsored the aforementioned decoupling bill that over 90% of Tennessee NFIB members opposed. They are interesting votes given the context that Cooper lives just down the street from the former Carrier plant, which shuttered earlier this year to relocate to Texas, costing his district 1,300 jobs.

Also, Cooper’s ethics have legitimately been called into question. A 2003 investigation by journalist Phil Williams of WTVF NewsChannel 5 in Nashville found that Cooper, facing $800,000 in debt from a sawmill he owned in Warren County, secured a $300,000 appropriation through the state economic development office to build a railroad connection to the land. With the rail spur approved, Cooper was able to solidify a buyer and pay off his mortgage.

Mike Turner (D-Old Hickory)
A firefighter and vice president of the Tennessee AFL-CIO, Turner is labor’s chief ideologue in the House, voting its interests 100% of the time. Business lobbyists in particular spend an inordinate amount of time chasing down and stomping out the plethora of anti-business legislation the persistent Turner dreams up on a daily basis.

Turner pushed the Equal Pay Remedies and Enforcement Act that set up treble penalties against employers found repeatedly to be perpetrating wage disparity between male and female employees. In one of his more bizarre stands against free enterprise, Turner sponsored legislation in the House to ban from performing in Tennessee circuses that use trained elephants in their show. On the House side, it was Turner who proposed the amendment to Gov. Bredesen’s workers comp reform bill to raise the percentage awarded to partially disabled workers upon their return to work to a 2.0 multiplier, that would have effectively ruined reform efforts.

As a member of the ruling Democratic Party in the House, Turner has some political juice, though he parted with much of that power after landing in the doghouse of his liberal House leadership (not his first stay there) for advocating a constitutional amendment to restrict abortions in Tennessee.

W.C. “Bubba” Pleasant (R-Arlington)
Also a firefighter, Pleasant is prone to vote more with labor than with his own party. He is one of only a small handful of Republican lawmakers who routinely gets campaign contributions from the Tennessee AFL-CIO labor committee. A member of the so-called “Naifeh 11,” or Republicans who voted for House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh to remain Speaker in 2002, Pleasant also ended up on the wrong side of the workers comp reform vote. Pleasant was the only Republican member of the House Consumer and Employee Affairs Committee to vote in favor of raising the bill’s multiplier to 2.0.

A subcommittee on employee affairs has created a multi-year bottleneck on legislation in the House that would bar municipalities from passing living wage ordinances. Though a member of that subcommittee, Pleasant hasn’t raised his voice in support of a living wage ban nor has he ever argued to end the bottleneck on the bill. The proposed legislation has already passed the full Senate.

Pleasant’s anti-business votes haven’t grabbed headlines like other legislation he’s passed, including a bill to prohibit pornographic videos in cars if visible to other motorists. Pleasant’s biggest splash, however, occurred when he issued an expletive into his still live microphone on the floor of the State House during the 2004 session. Based on that utterance, The Tennessee Journal recently awarded Pleasant the Howard Stern Award in its annual end of session wrap-up.