The funeral of Anna Belle Clement O'Brien is at 12:00 Noon EDT/11:00am CDT in Crossville today. She died Monday after suffering a fall in her Cumberland County home, leaving behind a rich political legacy that members in both parties will remember for years to come.
She was the sister to former Governor Frank Clement, and he admits that he used to tell his sister when they were younger in Dickson, Tennessee that one day he was going to run for governor, and when he did he wanted her to drop everything and come work for him. Frank did run for Governor, and when he did win, Anna Belle did go work for her brother, but it was through this experience that she learned that she had a future in politics and that it didn't have to be limited to making coffee and phone calls and running errands for the men on Capitol Hill.
The Clements have become one of Tennessee's most iconic political families, even if they aren't as powerful as they used to be (Anna Belle's nephew, former U.S. Rep. Bob Clement, lost the Nashville/Davidson County Mayor's race last year to his more liberal fellow Democrat Karl Dean, announcing with his defeat that he was retiring from active politics), and Miss Anna Belle-as both her admirers and detractors came to call her-was a big reason why.
After she and her husband, former State Senator Charles O'Brien, moved to Crossville after Senator O'Brien was appointed to the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals (later to the Tennessee Supreme Court), Anna Belle Clement O'Brien ran for the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1974. Two years later, she would run for the State Senate and be elected-and would make history. She wasn't the first woman to serve in the Senate, but was the first to rise to any serious position of leadership. Anna Belle Clement O'Brien might be considered more socially conservative on some issues than many of her Democratic counterparts of the day, but she lived through the Great Depression as a child, and her New Deal politics reflected those of the Tennessee Democratic Party of the '40's, 50's, and 60's-the time when Anna Belle Clement O'Brien had her political coming of age.
Clement O'Brien was the first woman ever to serve as Chairman of a Tennessee Senate Committee, she would chair both the Senate Education and Transportation Committees during her tenure. In 1982, she ran for Governor, but lost the Democratic Primary to then-Knoxville Mayor Randy Tyree. Tyree was handily defeated by incumbent Lamar Alexander in that year's General Election.
Anna Belle Clement O'Brien would also eventually become the Chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, and is sometimes remembered as a Senator who could be a fierce and fighting partisan on the Senate floor, and then sit down to dinner the same night with the very people she had just had a rancorous debate with. Her ability to compromise is reflected partly in Tennessee's much-improved laws protecting people with disabilities, part of a deal she helped broker with former House Republican Leader Jim Henry, who spent much of his career advocating for people with disabilities.
Anna Belle Clement O'Brien made her mark on Tennessee politics and is still remembered by men and women serving to this day. She was 86 years old.
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