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Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

11/26/2002

Buck Up
The Tennessean praises Frank Buck in an editorial we can agree with. We like Frank Buck too.

The degree of control [House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh] exercises over the House has the tendency to choke off honest debate and consensus building.

Bills deemed unpopular by the leadership are shuffled off to committees where they disappear. Important decisions are made behind closed doors. Committee votes are taken by voice vote, denying the public the ability to track their local legislators. Public records are kept off the Internet where they would be available to all.

Buck's ill-received remarks on Saturday were not a case of a young upstart trying to grab his 15 minutes of fame. This is a highly principled lawmaker who is amazingly void of personal ambition. He's also a 30-year veteran of the legislature who has been known to mumble under his breath that he doesn't need the aggravation of continued service. Yet the state needs him, and whether they know it or not, so do his fellow House Democrats. For the sake of state government, we hope they were listening.

I doubt Naifeh was.

The paper says Naifeh's love for Tennessee can't be questioned. I don't question it. I just think Jimmy Naifeh loves power more.

Incidentally, you don't think all that back-room smoke-filled-room dealing that is the hallmark of Naifeh's leadership style has any effect on the public's level of mistrust in their government, do you?