State Rep. Joe McCord will leave House

In a bombshell announcement via a press release last night, Tennessee State Representative Joe McCord (R-Maryville), one of the infamous "Naifeh Republicans" who consistently voted for controversial former Democratic House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh (D-Covington) has announced that he will not seek re-election to the Tennessee House of Representatives:

"After much consideration, I am announcing today that I will not seek re-election to the 8th House District in the 107th Tennessee General Assembly.

"Before I go any further, I would like to thank two groups of people, my family and the people of Blount and Sevier County for allowing me to serve for the past 12 years. My wife Jules, my daughter Morgan and my son Clay have been very understanding and supportive as well as my extended family. Sacrifices have been made by all over the years and we have been successful as a group. When I was first elected, my daughter was 3 and my son was just born. Today Morgan is 15 and Clay will be 12. It has been a fast paced and exciting 12 years.

"I truly enjoy and thrive on the process by which we govern, working with such a variety of people and issues make it fun to go to work, but, as my role has increased over the years, so has the amount of dedication to meet that role. With a fixed amount of time we constantly juggle the role of family, work and governing. All of those roles have increased in demand over the years and I cannot continue to do them all the justice they deserve, so I must prioritize.

The Knoxville News-Sentinel posted the story by way of Capitol reporter Tom Humphrey at 9:00pm Wednesday. I received a phone call from a source on the Hill informing me of the news at around 8:40pm.

Such a move by someone considered the poster-boy for political flexibility by some will inevitably give rise to speculation that Joe McCord may have been about to face stiff primary opposition in a year when there may be stiff political consequences for many of those members of the General Assembly who are seen to have been friendly to the previous regime-and it is terribly hard to make the case that Joe McCord was not a part of Jimmy Naifeh's gang of merry men. However, it is equally difficult to say that Joe McCord has spent his entire career in State politics engaging in the business of self-interest. The evidence strongly suggests that McCord's chief concern was the business of Blount and Sevier Counties, but that he somehow managed to operate under the strong delusion that Jimmy Naifeh actually cared for his heavily-Republican district and not merely about maintaining his power base.

In the press release, McCord did not rule out the possibility of an eventual return to public life, so we are left to deduce that either McCord was calculating some opposition in the primary that we could not foresee, or Joe McCord really believes that 12 years in the Legislature is enough for now. McCord has a still-young family and I would imagine that he would prefer to be closer to home as his daughter approaches college-age. As the State's political climate becomes increasingly Republican, McCord's brand of "give-to-the-Democrats-to-get-what-we-want" politics may prove less useful in the years ahead as he would be called on to move an increasingly conservative agenda.

Joe McCord may have come to believe that his time in State political life has passed-at least for now.