Deal Struck [Tennessee gets sales tax increase

NASHVILLE - The Senate and House both voted on Wednesday to raise $933 million in new state revenue, mostly through a penny-per-dollar increase in the state sales tax.

The action cleared the way for enactment of a full year's state budget with enough new money to cover an anticipated deficit and still leave funds to give state employees and teachers a pay raise.

Legislators expected to complete action on the budget bill, which spends the anticipated new revenue from the tax increase package, late Wednesday night. The bill gives state employees a 3 percent pay raise while teachers and higher education employees will receive a 2 percent pay raise. The raises would occur Jan. 1.

When the governor signs the budget bill - sometime today, according to plans - the partial shutdown of state government that began at midnight Sunday will end.

The floor votes came within hours of House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh and Gov. Don Sundquist abandoning their long-running efforts to win legislative approval for tax reform based on a state income tax.

The bill passed the House with the bare minimum 50 yes votes necessary - Naifeh casting the deciding vote. Forty-one House members voted no.

Thirty-one Republicans and 19 Democrats voted yes; 32 Democrats and nine Republicans voted no.

In the Senate, the measure passed by a solid 22-11 majority. A dozen Democrats voted yes with 10 Republicans. Voting no were six Democratic senators and five Republicans.

"In this state right now, the income tax, or tax reform bill, does not have the votes. We cannot pass it," said Naifeh in a morning House floor speech. "It's really time to move on. We need to get back together on common ground."

The previous evening, Naifeh had been accused by some legislators of reneging on a promise to either put the income tax to a once-and-for-all vote or declare it dead. He said Wednesday there was no such blanket commitment, but he did want to announce the proposal could not pass.

Sundquist, who once threatened to veto any bill raising the sales tax, backed the idea shortly afterwards.

"You have to deal with reality. We're facing a shutdown Friday night. We can't tolerate that. We have virtually no alternatives," the governor said, adding the prediction that in the future "the missionary work we have done will lead to real tax reform."

Twelve representatives who voted last month for Naifeh's income tax proposal wound up voting for raising the sales tax under the Wednesday night bill sponsored by Sen. Jerry Cooper, D-McMinnville, and Rep. Charles Curtiss, D-Sparta. Indeed, both the sponsors have supported an income tax.

"I hate the sales tax. But you've got to do what you've got to do," said Sen. Roscoe Dixon, D-Memphis, who joined the Senate's two other members of the Legislative Black Caucus in supporting the bill.

In the Senate, 12 Democrats and 10 Republicans voted for the bill while five Republicans and six Democrats voted no. Only two East Tennessee senators - Sens. Gene Elsea, R-Spring City, and Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge - opposed it.

Critics declared that the bill will push the state's sales tax rates, when combined with those of local governments, to one of the highest levels in the nation.

People with low income levels are hit the hardest by the levy, they said, and the higher rate will send more Tennesseans across state borders or to the Internet for shopping.

Rep. Ken Givens, D-Rogersville, said the penny-per-dollar increase translates into a 17 percent increase in the sales tax and predicted political opponents will quickly point that out. The bill also amounts to the largest tax increase in Tennessee history.

The present state sales tax rate is 6 percent and the bill will raise that to 7 percent - except on grocery food. On food items, the rate will remain at 6 percent. Local governments can add up to 2.75 percent in sales tax, putting the combined maximum level at 8.75 per cent now and 9.75 percent under the bill.

In Knox County, the local rate is 2.25 percent and the combined rate 8.25 percent. The bill will raise that to 9.25 percent.

The sales tax increase, which takes effect July 15, would produce an estimated $600 million.

About $200 million of the remaining new revenue would come increased taxes on business. These include an increase in the excise tax rate from 6 percent to 6.5 percent, a 50 percent increase in local business taxes with the state keeping the money and a "decoupling" of state business taxes from federal business taxes. The latter move avoids a loss of about $50 million that would occur if state law continues to track federal law, particularly on rules dealing with depreciation.

The bill also doubles the "professional privileges tax" levied on some licensed professionals from $200 to $400 per year, boosts cigarette taxes by seven cents per pack, increases taxes on alcohol by 10 percent and levies new taxes on coin-operated amusement devices and vending machines.

There is also an increase in the "single item cap" for sales taxes. Currently, the full state sales tax rate applies to the entire amount of a major purchase but the local sales tax rate of up to 2.75 percent applies only to the first $1,600. The bill raises the cap to $3,200 with the state keeping the revenue from the increase.

An array amendments were offered in both the House and Senate, but none succeeded.

State Rep. Gary Odom, D-Nashville, offered an amendment funding a 3 percent state employee pay raise by transferring $133 million from motor vehicle registration fees now going to the state Department of Transportation for road construction. It was tabled, or killed, on a 62-26 vote.

In the Senate, Sen. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, proposed to raise the increase in tobacco taxes from seven cents per pack to 14 cents per pack and use the resulting revenue to eliminate the professional privilege tax increase. That was on the losing end of a 23-9 vote.

Sen. Tommy Haun, R-Greeneville, came within a single vote of winning approval of an amendment that would have repealed the penny-per-dollar sales tax increase on June 30, 2005. He noted that would be about one year before the next governor seeks re-election.

House Finance Committee Chairman Matt Kisber, D-Jackson, said the budget bill amounts to "status quo" for state government operations, even with the pay raises for teachers and state employees. Since the raises do not take effect until January, they do not even cover inflation for the fiscal year, he said.

Lord knows I tried.

Ya'll might find this mighty interesting. Something to print out along with a list of the pork items.

Sen Person Hobbs has started the ball rolling on looking into the CAFR the Liberterians have had it anyalized besides what is available here TNCAFR

According to the CAFR there should be $4.74 BILLION at their beck and call. Yet they chose MORE taxation for MORE PORK BARREL spending. Pleaseget a list of the PORK and publish it. Until it sees the light of day and Van starts exposing it we won't stop the run away spending and raping of our wallets.

WHERE IS THE MONEY?

Dear Friends:

Recently, I began searching for answers to accounting practices that affect the use of surplus funds. Apparently, many state departments and agencies are taking surpluses at the end of a budget cycle and transferring them on paper into asset accounts. This appears to be a standard practice and once the funds are placed in asset accounts they become investments and do not appear as taxpayer dollars in the budget for the next fiscal year. This is a legal accounting practice; however, I believe any and all surplus funds belong to you, the taxpayers of Tennessee. Surpluses should be returned to the General Fund so they can be used as revenue or rebated to you. They should, at the very least, be applied to budget shortfalls before we ask the citizens of Tennessee to pay more taxes to fund state government.

I have written two letters to our Finance Commissioner, Warren Neel, asking for specific information regarding surplus funds in accounts labeled "Designated Reserves" and "Undesignated Reserves." To date, I have not received satisfactory answers from him. I addressed this matter in a caucus meeting and twice on the floor of the Senate. Each time I asked the members to research the use of these funds. So far, my colleagues have not responded.

I inquired and received a response from John Morgan, our State Comptroller. However, it is vague and claims it will take additional time for his staff to provide answers to my inquiry.

If there is truth to the information I have received regarding the departments and agencies hoarding taxpayer funds to cushion their own excessive spending, I want a thorough, independent audit of our accounting practices with the complete report published for every citizen to read. The lack of responses and specific answers regarding reserve funds causes me a great deal of concern and emphasizes the immediate need to question accounting practices being used by the State of Tennessee.

Now, I am asking you for your help in this matter. Please contact your Senators and State Representatives and ask them to demand answers to the use of surplus and reserve funds that are in reality your money!

I have no idea how much money should be available from these account overages to apply toward funding our State. However, I do know that this money belongs to the taxpayers of Tennessee. If there is any amount at all in any reserve funds anywhere, the right thing to do is to use it wisely as you have entrusted us to do.

Sincerely,

Curtis Person, Jr. State Senator

800-449-8366 ext 12419

http://216.111.31.12/details.asp?PRID=98

The 10 percent solution

By Frank Cagle

July 3, 2002 -- The bad news? The General Assembly has passed a package of tax increases that total almost $1 billion to cover a gaping hole in the state budget.

The good news? For some people, it's because it came after Speaker Jimmy Naifeh conceded that he could not pass an income tax and would let it go.

What does it mean?

With the local sales tax added the rate can go to 9.75, actually. Since one of the revenue measues that almost passed bumped the local rate to the max and the state would have kept the money watch for lots of county governments to jump to the max in order to make sure they keep that revenue in the future.

State Rep. Frank Buck's alternate tax plan that was essentially a challenge to Naifeh's speakership stays in committee and dies. The only question is whether Buck's ambitions to be speaker dies with it or if he weakened Naifeh enough to knock him off his chair before next year's session. That will depend on who survives fall elections. (See previous post: It's about more than taxes now.)

But Naifeh angered anti-income tax legislators for his doggedness and he angered pro-income tax legislators for hanging them out to dry on his income tax vote that failed.

Other losers?

Gubernatorial candidate Phil Bredesen, who was AWOL during the debate because the lukewarm comments he made angered his base. Naifeh and pro-income tax Democrats were livid at his Me Too when Van Hilleary attacked the income tax.

House legislators who voted for the income tax and Senators that let it be known that they were an income tax vote will be hurt. Republican state Sen. Bill Clabough of Blount County and Democrat Rep. Bobby Sands (running for the senate) come to mind as representative.

Doctors and lawyers and other professionals will pay an additional $200 per year for their license. (Considerably less than an income tax would have cost them.)

Vending machine revenue is taxed and local business taxes go up 50 percent. Taxes will go up on cigarettes, beer and liquor.

Winners?

Van Hilleary was tireless on the income tax issue. He wrote letters to legislators, made calls and had staff monitoring the situation. He continuously called on Gov. Don Sundquist and Naifeh to listen to the people and move on. He owns the anti-income tax issue.

Steve Gill and Phil Valentine, Nashville talk show hosts that led protests at the Capitol and kept Middle Tennessee on edge throughout the session. But talk show hosts throughout the state kept the flame hot and provided a forum for debate.

Nashville's Channel 5 (WTVF) and its cable channel 50 carrying the proceedings live were Must See TV in Middle Tennessee.

The roadbuilders. Throughout the debate, the tax plans, the shutdowns, the screaming and the scheming no one ever seriously suggested taking any money out of the road fund or cutting the Transportation budget.

Sen. Doug Jackson, the senate sponsor of the Buck bill, will get credit for forcing the compromise. His and Buck's bill got 47 votes in the House, more than Naifeh's income tax bill, and sent a message that was the direction legislators were willing to go.

For those who think that this is a regular occurence a little history you may not read anywhere else. They increased the sales tax to cover a deficit. That has not been our history. The last sales tax increase was in 1992 and it was to put new money into education with the Better Education Program under Gov. Ned McWherter. The sales tax increase before that was for Gov. Lamar Alexander's Better Schools Program and to build new prisons.

In neither of these cases was the sales tax increased because the state lacked the revenue to meet current budget needs.

From the LP party.

There has been much talk about the work Alicia Mattson did for us on the CAFR so I am attaching her report to me. Deryl is the one who was formally asked to do the job and Alicia, who Deryl said was one of his best and brightest students, did the actual work.

Notice what she says is there, not there, and unexplained. It shows that there must be at least ONE more set of books.

BE CAREFUL when you cite these numbers and be sure to use her cautions. World Net Daily did not and even got some of the numbers wrong, even though they got it in writing, but if you give out the results, you need to be able to back up what you say.

Yours in Liberty,

Richard

When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then, indeed, their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the State, and calls for an exercise of the power of dissolution. Thomas Jefferson

Richard & Deryl,

Well, I've done all I know to do with the CAFR's. To really do this right, we need a CPA with government audit experience who knows the answer to my unresolved questions. But since we don't have that, and since our legislature is going to do something quickly, I decided to go ahead and write up what I've got. There are some fairly condemning figures available, so maybe we can just use those.

I've attached an Excel spreadsheet with various sections explained below.

THE BURIEN APPROACH

From reading Walter Burien's web page and noting the magnitude of what he reports finding in other states, it's easy to get excited about the prospect of finding a jackpot our government is hiding from us. I'm basically looking for something that I'm not sure even exists. What are the chances that if other states have huge piles of off-budget investments that our state somehow is the one state that doesn't do it? Slim to none, I'd say. But if the state of Tennessee has off-budget funds they've built up over the years from excess tax revenue, I have so far been unable to take the info in the CAFR's and prove it.

Mr. Burien also suggests comparing total state assets controlled to annual gross receipts to demonstrate that the govt has gotten rich from over taxation. On the combined balance sheet from the 2000 CAFR, it reports that the state controls $43.1 billion in assets. When compared to an annual budget of around $18 billion, that sounds outrageous at first, but then to be fair we must subtract a few things from that number. Subtract the $24.3 billion necessary to fund the pension plan which OUGHT to have lots of investments. Subtract $308 million in land, $3.9 billion in completed structures and improvements, $1.4 billion of machinery and equipment and $162 million of construction in-progress. That leaves the state with about $13 billion of liquid assets and notes due from other funds, not all of which came from taxes...some came from college tuition, donations for particular uses, etc. The CAFRman approach basically takes that $13 billion and isolates how much of it is leftover tax revenue.

THE CAFRMAN APPROACH

The CAFRman's approach basically works on the following theory: The state budget process gives each fund a certain amount of money to use each year. They have one year to use that money. If they have money left over in the fund at the end of the year, it is excess that they did not need in that year's budget. So if we identify all the funds that get their revenues from taxes and then go through the balance sheets of those funds and total up the liquid assets in those funds, the result is the amount of potential surplus tax money the govt has left over from the budgeted but un-spent funds.

That's the theory. Sounds good. Are there any holes in the theory? I don't know. The question of timing of revenue collections & expenditures comes up. Is some of that money tax revenue already collected that is being saved for next year's budget? Note 1C on p.21 of the 2000 CAFR says, "All of the governmental funds are accounted for on the modified accrual basis of accounting. Under this basis, revenues are recognized when ....they become both measurable and available to finance expenditures of the current period." That sounds to me like revenues that are for next budget year are not reported on the current CAFR because they are not available to finance expenditures of the current period....which would lend support to the theory that money left on the balance sheet at the end of the budget year is, indeed, surplus and it cannot be explained away by claiming that it is designated for something particular next year.

I applied this theory to all four fiscal years that we have, 1997 - 2000. Section 1 of the spreadsheet lists the balance sheet items that I designated as liquid assets/investments. Note that section 1 includes all governmental funds, including the pension fund, and not just the ones that are funded by taxes. Section 2 whittles the Section 1 totals down to the excess tax money sitting in the bank. Section 2 lists each fund itemized in the CAFR. If the fund's revenues come from taxpayer wallets, there is an "x" in the column titled "Incl.", and the balance sheet items listed in section 1 are totaled for each year for that fund.

The bottom line: At the end of FY2000, the state govt was sitting on $2.598 billion of unspent taxpayer funds, $2.572 billion in FY1999, $2.108 billion in FY1998, and $2.313 billion in FY1997.

The biggest question here: Does this mean that: a) the state has $2.598 + $2.572 + $2.108 + $2.313 billion = $9.591 billion in surplus tax money from the past four years? Should each year's total be considered as excess from that year's budget only? If this is the case, where does that money go so that we don't show $9.591 sitting there in FY2000? Does it get transferred to an off-budget fund? The ending fund balance from one fiscal year matches the beginning balances of the next fiscal year, so if this is the case, the surplus would have to be scraped off into another fund via some inter-fund transfer lumped in with so much other stuff that I can't identify it.

b) the $2.598 billion left at the end of FY2000 is an accumulated total of surplus revenues from all past years? If so, then we have to ask why there was a decrease from FY1997 to FY1998. The funds are not permitted to spend more than they are budgeted, so it seems at first that a drop in the accumulated total would not be possible. But the budget is based on revenue projections. If the 1998 revenues fell short of projections, yet they spent the 1998 budgeted amount, that could explain that drop.

Without boring you with the details, I tried to look for other figures that would help me pick between options a) and b) above, and I think that option b) is the more likely scenario. I think that there is more work that could be done with this data to make a more educated guess. While I do have much more free time than Deryl at the moment, I don't have enough to get that done right now.

Either way, over time we've built up at least $2.598 billion of un-spent tax revenue while the state is crying that it can't meet next year's projected shortfall of $800 million AFTER Sundquist's massive billion dollar spending increase. That's just not true. We have that much left over from prior years.

Anybody that has sold any product/service to government institutions knows that they spend like crazy at the end of the budget year trying to burn all the money they have left over. They buy things they didn't NEED during the year. They buy things that are luxuries to be bought with money left over at the end. Even after luxury-item spending sprees, there is still $2.598 billion in un-spent taxpayer money sitting there, if the CAFRman theory is sound.

STATE REVENUES

I cannot find the state's gross receipts in the CAFR's. The income reported in the CAFR's is only the income that was used for operation of the funds listed in the CAFR's. I do not know what other funds exist, and I don't know what publication would list them. I did call the Joint Finance Ways & Means Committee and request that they send me something showing gross receipts from all sources. What they sent me was not even as inclusive as the info in the CAFR, so that was of no help. This info has got to be publicly available if we just know where to look, but I don't.

BUDGET NUMBERS

I was also unsuccessful in tracking down copies of the budgets for fiscal years 1997-2000. A very helpful woman somewhere in the state offices told me that I should be able to find them at the Tennessee Tech library because it is a designated depository library, to which they send copies of such things each year. The problem was that TTU only has copies through the 1990 budget, and they don't know where the more recent ones are. I wanted to compare budgeted numbers to actual numbers. But the CAFR's did at least have portions of this information available. Section 3 of the spreadsheet shows a limited comparison of budget vs. actual. It includes only the General Fund and Special Revenue Funds, but that represents $17.3 billion of the FY2000 budget. Add your own interesting conclusions to mine:

1) Tax revenues are generally under-estimated in the budget process. So what our legislature did last year to balance the budget by adjusting the estimates is not sneaky and irresponsible....it's more accurate. I'll be interested to add FY2001 to this chart and see how it compares.

2) Actual expenditures have been 12-13% less than budgeted expenditures each of the four years. Sounds like there's room for budget cutting!!

GROWTH OF GOVERNMENT

We have a spending problem. Duh! We all know that. Perhaps the best thing we can do with the CAFR's right now is to demonstrate the reckless growth of the state budget as compared to per capita income growth. That is what section 4 of the spreadsheet shows from the economic and statistic data in the CAFR's. In the 12-fiscal-year period from 1988 to 1999, per capita personal income grew by 73%. In the same time frame, the states budget revenues grew 131%, and the expenditures grew by 161%. Yes, budget revenues grew at nearly double the rate of your income growth, and the state expenditures grew at MORE than double the rate of your income growth.

I found something interesting on Phil Valentine's budget analysis (http://members.home.net/philvalentine/TennesseeBudgetAnalysis2001-2002.html). I didn't know this, but maybe you do already. In 1977 the state constitution was amended to limit the growth of the state budget to the economic growth of the state, as measured by personal income levels. So how do the numbers in the previous paragraph exist if there's a law again' it? There's an escape-clause that allows them to exceed that limit if they pass a bill that specifically states the amount by which they will exceed the limit that year. Well, duh! What's the point of the law in the first place if it's so easy to by-pass? Maybe the TNLP should spearhead an effort to remove that exception so that the state budget growth is truly limited.

(Mr. Valentine also makes some good points specific budget items like: budgeting money to bring a professional basketball team to Memphis in the midst of a budget crisis, how utterly out-of-control TennCare is when there are 151 TennCare recipients for every 100 poor people in the state, etc. He also says that his contacts in the state govt say that Mr. Sundquist will next push for a universal lunch program in Tennessee schools!!!)

BUDGET GROWTH PROJECTIONS

Here's an interesting tidbit I figured up one night when I couldn't sleep. Figures from Mr. Burien's web site state that 41.4% of the statistically average taxpayer's personal income ends up being taken by some state or federal govt agency in taxes. Section 4 of the spreadsheet says that in FY1999, the state of Tennessee took 10.4% of your personal income, suggesting that the federal govt took about 31%.

Let's assume (because I don't have comparable historical figures for the federal govt) that the federal govt's take will stay constant at 31% from now until eternity (yeah, right!). From FY1988-FY1999, Tennessee taxpayer personal income grew 5.2227% per year, state revenues grew at 8.11487% per year, and state expenditures grew at 8.95837% per year. If those trends continue unchanged, how long will it be before the government wants every bit of your money? In 2015, Tennessee state expenditures would exceed 15% of Tennessee personal income. It breaks 20% in 2028, 30% in 2045, 40% in 2057, 50% in 2066, 60% in 2074, 69% in 2080. So even if the federal govt does not increase it's cut (yeah, right), by 2080 your grandchildren or great grandchildren will owe every penny of their income in taxes: 31% to the federal govt and 69% to the state of Tennessee.

SUMMARY

So that's all I have to offer at the moment. Let me know if you have any further thoughts on what I can do here. Either tonight or tomorrow, I'll write up a letter-to-the-editor, and I'll pass it on so other LP members in the state can borrow from it if they wish to.

Alicia

How they voted

House vote

The House approved a measure 50-41 to raise the state sales tax from 6% to 7% and increase other taxes. Voting yes were 31 Republicans and 19 Democrats. Voting no were 9 Republicans and 32 Democrats.

REPUBLICANS VOTING YES

William Baird (Jacksboro)
H.E. Bittle (Knoxville)
Jim Boyer (Corryton)
Dewayne Bunch (Cleveland)
Steven Buttry (Knoxville)
Chris Clem (Lookout Mountain)
David Davis (Johnson City)
Ronnie Davis (Newport)
Stancil Ford (Talbott) pro IT
Steve Godsey (Blountville)
Jamie Hagood (Knoxville)
Tre' Hargett (Bartlett)
Beth Harwell (Nashville)
Russell Johnson (Loudon)
Joe McCord (Maryville)
Steve McDaniel (Parkers Crossroads)
Bob McKee (Athens)
Richard Montgomery (Seymour)
Jason Mumpower (Bristol)
Chris Newton (Cleveland) pro-IT
Doug Overbey (Maryville)
Bob Patton (Johnson City)
Bubba Pleasant (Arlington) I'll remember your vote come Nov
Dennis Roach (Rutledge)
Charles Sargent (Franklin)
Larry Scroggs (Germantown)
Jack Sharp (East Ridge)
Paul Stanley (Germantown)
Raymond Walker (Crossville)
Zane Whitson (Unicoi)pro IT
Bobby Wood (Harrison)

REPUBLICANS VOTING NO

Mae Beavers (Mt. Juliet)
Diane Black (Hendersonville)
Glen Casada (College Grove)
Bill Dunn (Knoxville)
Mark Goins (LaFollette)
Joe Kent (Memphis)he would have voted for IT if he didn't have a REAL REAGAN CONSERVATIVE OPPONENT IN CHUCK BATES
Donna Rowland (Murfreesboro)
Curry Todd (Collierville)
Jim Vincent (Soddy-Daisy)

DEMOCRATS VOTING YES Rob Briley (Nashville)
Frank Buck (Dowelltown)
Ronnie Cole (Dyersburg)
Charles Curtiss (Sparta)
Gene Davidson (Adams)
Dennis Ferguson (Kingston)
George Fraley (Winchester)
Tim Garrett (Goodlettsville)
Jere Hargrove (Cookeville)
John Hood (Murfreesboro)
Sherry Jones (Nashville)
Matt Kisber (Jackson)
Butch Lewis (Manchester)
Speaker Jimmy Naifeh (Covington)
David Shepard (Dickson)
John Tidwell (New Johnsonville)
Mike Turner (Old Hickory)
Ben West (Hermitage)
Les Winningham (Huntsville)

DEMOCRATS VOTING NO

Stratton Bone (Lebanon)pro IT
Kathryn Bowers (Memphis)
Henri Brooks (Memphis)
Tommie Brown (Chattanooga)
Gene Caldwell (Clinton)
Carol Chumney (Memphis)
John DeBerry (Memphis)
Lois DeBerry (Memphis)
Craig Fitzhugh (Ripley)
Joe Fowlkes (Cornersville)
Ken Givens (Rogersville)
Tommy Head (Clarksville)
Ulysses Jones (Memphis)
Mike Kernell (Memphis)
Mark Maddox (Dresden)
Mike McDonald (Portand)
Kim McMillan (Clarksville)
Larry Miller (Memphis)
Gary Odom (Nashville)
Pete Phillips (Shelbyville)
Phillip Pinion (Union City)
Mary Pruitt (Nashville)
Don Ridgeway (Paris)
Randy Rinks (Savannah)
Bobby Sands (Columbia)pro IT
Johnny Shaw (Bolivar)
Harry Tindell (Knoxville)
Joe Towns (Memphis)
Brenda Turner (Chattanooga)
Larry Turner (Memphis)
John White (Lawrenceburg)
John Mark Windle (Livingston)

DEMOCRATS NOT VOTING

Joe Armstrong (Knoxville)
John Arriola (Nashville)
Edith Langster (Nashville)
Paul Phelan (Trenton)

REPUBLICAN NOT VOTING

Ralph Cole (Elizabethton)

DEMOCRATS ABSENT

Barbara Cooper (Memphis)
Shelby Rhinehart (Spencer)Mr Rhinehart is reported brain dead after a stroke

Senate vote

The Senate approved the bill 22-11. Voting yes were 10 Republicans and 12 Democrats. Voting no were five Republicans, six Democrats.

REPUBLICANS VOTING YES

Ben Atchley (Knoxville)
Tim Burchett (Knoxville)
Bobby Carter (Jackson)
Bill Clabough (Maryville)
Rusty Crowe (Johnson City)
David Fowler (Signal Mountain)
Tommy Haun (Greeneville)
Jeff Miller (Cleveland)
Ron Ramsey (Blountville)
Micheal Williams (Maynardville)

DEMOCRATS VOTING YES

Charlotte Burks (Monterey)
Steve Cohen (Memphis)
Jerry Cooper (Morrison)
Ward Crutchfield (Chattanooga)
Roscoe Dixon (Memphis)
John Ford (Memphis)
Jo Ann Graves (Gallatin)
Thelma Harper (Nashville)
Joe Haynes (Goodlettsville)when you vote him out get his liberal wife judge barbara haynes too
Douglas Henry (Nashville)
Larry Trail (Murfreesboro)
Lt. Gov. John Wilder (Mason)

REPUBLICANS VOTING NO

Marsha Blackburn (Brentwood)
Gene Elsea (Spring City) pro-IT
Randy McNally (Oak Ridge)
Mark Norris (Collierville)
Curtis Person (Memphis)

DEMOCRATS VOTING NO

Lincoln Davis (Pall Mall)
Roy Herron (Dresden)
Doug Jackson (Dickson)
Rosalind Kurita (Clarksville)
Jim Kyle (Memphis)
Bob Rochelle (Lebanon)

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