Mumpower Denied Speaker of Tenn. House

Many were caught by surprise Tuesday when Tennessee House Majority Leader Jason Mumpower, a Republican from Bristol, lost his bid to be the next speaker of the state’s House of Representatives.

The fact that the winner, Rep. Kent Williams, is a fellow Republican from Northeast Tennessee who got the job by courting House Democrats only heightened the shock.

“I’m obviously very disappointed that Jason Mumpower was betrayed and lied to by Kent Williams,” said Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, the state senator from Blountville who represents Johnson and Sullivan counties. “In politics, you have to trust people at their word and you don’t expect them to lie to you.”

As expected, Ramsey coasted Tuesday to his second term as the state’s lieutenant governor and speaker of the Senate, following a 19-14 vote along party lines.

But the surprising turn of events came when House Minority Leader Gary Odom, a Democrat from the 55th District in Nashville, nominated Williams of Carter County to be speaker of the House instead of Jimmy Naifeh, a Democrat who has held the office for the past 18 years.

Williams got 50 votes in his bid to be speaker, his own and those of all 49 House Democrats. Mumpower got 49 votes after he voted for himself and won the support of every other House Republican except Williams.

After the election, Mumpower said he was sorry he did not win but vowed to do his best representing Sullivan and Johnson counties in the state House.

“At the end of the day, we’ve just got to get down to work,” Mumpower said Tuesday evening when asked about his loss.

He added that it’s his job as House majority leader to represent and speak for the entire Republican Caucus.

He said he did not want to comment further because he would “not let my personal feelings get in the way of my ability” to do the job.

Republicans landed their first majority in the 99-member House of Representatives since 1968 after their party gained four seats during the Nov. 4 election.

In light of this new majority, House Republicans, including Williams, signed a pact later that month to make one of their own the next speaker.

The speaker presides over the House when it is in session. He or she also appoints people to chair the body’s committees and is next in line to succeed the governor after the lieutenant governor.

House Republicans then picked Mumpower to be their caucus leader on Dec. 1. The person who holds this office automatically becomes the party’s official candidate to be speaker of the House, according to its bylaws.

But everything changed when Odom nominated Williams to be speaker rather than Naifeh. This decision and its eventual outcome led Ramsey and many other Republicans to accuse Williams of violating the oath he took in November.

Republican Caucus Chairman Glen Casada, of Franklin, was more visibly emotional about the results of the vote.

“Crushed,” he said. “We’re crushed, because we were deceived. We were led to believe one thing, and the opposite happened.”

Ironically, Ramsey went through a similar situation in 2007, when he was picked to be the state’s lieutenant governor. Former state Sen. Rosalind Kurita, D-22, crossed party lines and joined all 17 Senate Republicans in supporting Ramsey’s bid to be lieutenant governor.  With this support, Ramsey beat former Lt. Gov. Jim Wilder, D-26, by three votes. In turn, he picked Kurita to be speaker pro tempore of the Senate.

As for Williams, House Republicans have vowed to challenge his credentials as a “bona fide” member of the GOP. If their efforts are successful, Tennessee Republican Party spokesman Bill Hobbs said the party will insist that Williams no longer be referred to in media accounts or state government Web sites as a Republican.

If Williams is stripped of his party status, Hobbs said he would also be precluded from running as a Republican candidate in the 2010 election.

Williams, though, has said he will not join the Democratic Party if he is removed from the Republican Party and will instead serve out the rest of his term as an independent.

He promised to usher in a new spirit of bipartisanship with his new role and said he would give out committee assignments based on a person’s ability to do the job.

“Today is about change,” Williams said after his election. “It’s time that we work for the people of Tennessee and it’s time that we end the bickering and the in-fighting.”

Williams then supported state Rep. Lois DeBerry, D-91, in her bid to be the speaker pro tempore of the House. DeBerry beat the Republican candidate, Beth Harwell, R-56, in a 50-49 vote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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