According to a legislator who contacted The Examiner yesterday on the condition of anonymity, many members of the Tennessee General Assembly have expressed extreme concern over allegations that the wording of amendments to the forthcoming Tennessee budget were altered without their knowledge. "Many members have let leadership know of their anger over this situation," our source said "and some were threatening to demand answers in a more public way, and nearly all who were angry demanded to know who was responsible for making the changes after the wording which would have negated Campfield's amendment was initially removed and then mysteriously re-inserted." Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) sponsored an amendment to the State budget which passed both Houses that was intended to deny Planned Parenthood, the world's largest practitioner of abortion, State funding in the coming fiscal year.

 

The source who approached The Examiner was not Senator Campfield (we say that lest some readers assume so), but was very familiar with the situation surrounding Amendment-gate. "It has to be understood that the majority of the members who initiated this change in wording didn't do so because they disagreed with the intent of what Stacey was trying to do, but they honestly thought this was a change they had to make, and that somehow it could be done without the wide knowledge and consent of both Houses of the Legislature," stated the source, "it is being circulated by some folks that this was in the House version, but that is not correct."

 

According to our confidential source, legislative leaders have finally let the cat out of the bag to some of the unknowing members as to who was responsible and who knew about the unspoken changes affecting the Campfield amendment. If the report of our source is true, the people primarily responsible for the reinsertion of the amendment-negating wording into the budget were Senate Finance, Ways, and Means Committee Chairman Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge), the Secretary of that Committee, Senator Bo Watson (R-Hixson), who also Chairs the Senate Government Operations Committee, and their fellow Finance Committee Member Senator Doug Overbey (R-Maryville). While our source says the initiators of the change were on the Senate side, there were at least two members of the House who are said to have been aware of what was going on. "[House Finance Committee Chairman] Charles Sargent (R-Franklin) and [House Deputy Speaker] Steve McDaniel (R-Parker's Crossroads) knew what was happening," said the source. 

 

If our legislative source's report is credible, this information raises two additional and critical questions: If Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville) didn't know about the reinsertion of the negation language into the budget which scuttled the Campfield amendment, why will his office not publicly disclose who was responsible in order to keep confidence in legislative transparency, since it is clear that he now knows who did it? Secondly, when did House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) come to know who was responsible for the amendment flap, how long has she known about it, and why does her office seem so eager to run away from this issue?

 

"What is most disturbing is that this has affected the confidence of many of the members of the Legislature in the system of trust we have at the Capitol," said our source, "and that could have been avoided if the right people would just come out publicly with everything they know."



 

NOTE (6/1/2011, 11:40am): Since this story ran this morning, this writer has received a number of "tips" regarding this story, most of which (but not all) came from legislators and requested anonymity. One piece of information, however, that did come from a legislative source that we can consider reliable was regarding the two named parties who knew about the flap over the amendment in the House. The party which gave us this "new" information said "it would be accurate to say that [House Finance Committee Chairman] Charles Sargent (R-Franklin) and [House Deputy Speaker] Steve McDaniel (R-Parker's Crossroads) knew that something was afoot in the Senate with regard to the Campfield Amendment, but it isn't accurate to say that they knew what was happening, only that there was something going on with the Senate version of the bill." If this is more accurate, that means that McDaniel and Sargent were not themselves complicit in any change made which may have had an effect on the Campfield amendment.