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Despite challenges, Williams satisfied with role as House speaker

By John Thompson
Elizabethton Bureau Chief
jthompson@johnsoncitypress.com

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ELIZABETHTON — The past seven months have been filled with amazing accomplishments, rejection, cheers and sadness for Kent Williams.

His meteoric rise from second-term representative to speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives was national news. It was a time when he transformed the centuries-old organization of the legislative chamber by allowing both major parties to share power.

At the same time he faced challenges no other speaker had ever faced, resulting in his being kicked out of the Republican Party. Despite the challenges, he led the House to one of its most productive sessions in history.

In addition to all of this, he stood by his mother’s side as she suffered a major heart attack and just a short time later suffered with the death of his father.

“I think we had a good session,” Williams said. He was satisfied his system of sharing power between the two parties worked well, even though the Republican chairmen and subcommittee chairmen had never had any leadership experience in the House.

“We may have gotten off to kind of a rocky start and some of the subcommittee chairs may have had some problems but I think we came on strong at the end,” Williams said.

“I think it got better every day. I was pleased so many of my Republican colleagues told me they approved of my method of selecting the best leaders from both parties to get the job done.

“Some newspaper reporters spoke of gridlock in the subcommittees, but I think the results speak differently. I am told by my staff that we passed more legislation than any time in the history of the state. I wouldn’t call that gridlock, but, I am not sure passing so much legislation is a good thing.”

He said the House passed 715 bills, while the Senate passed 717.

“I guess if we had gridlock in the House, there must have been gridlock in the Senate too.”

Williams is proud many parts of the conservative and Republican agenda that had been bottled up in committees for years finally were passed under his watch.

He knows some of the bills have been controversial, but he attributes part of that to biased reporting by the liberal media. He said the so-called Guns in Bars bill was the most obvious example. He said the bill actually allows guns to be carried into restaurants that generate less than half their income from alcohol sales.

Although Williams is a restaurant owner, he said the bill does not affect him because his establishment, Dino’s, does not serve alcohol. But he said he knows many of his patrons legally carry concealed weapons and he has no problem with their carrying weapons into Dino’s.

The successful conclusion of the legislative year was a sharp contrast to the day he was elected speaker. As the last member to vote in alphabetical order by party, he knew 49 Republicans had voted for Jason Mumpower and 49 Democrats, realizing they could not elect one of their own, had cast their votes for then-Republican Williams.

When Williams sided with the Democrats, the Republicans angrily exploded. Years of effort to finally get a member of the Republican leadership in the speaker’s chair had backfired. Williams was booed by many in his own party and some were eager for revenge.

The revenge came in two strokes, Republican Brian Kelsey filed an ethics complaint against Williams in an alleged sexual harassment incident involving Rep. Susan Lynn. The complaint went nowhere.

The second stroke came from then-state Republican Chairwoman Robin Smith, who led a successful effort to kick Williams out of the party.

While these attacks were being made, Williams continued to lead the House through a difficult year in which the national economic downturn caused Gov. Phil Bredesen to present a budget which had been slashed by more than $1.3 billion.

Williams said he approved of most of the governor’s cuts, but worked to reverse a few areas including the coordinated school health program and mental health.

“We need to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves,” Williams said. His efforts led to $5 million being restored to the school health program and $7 million more for mental health.

Even with such an austere year, Williams said he believed the state should be working to rebuild and repair its infrastructure, especially the state’s aging bridges. Williams supports a Tennessee Department of Transportation effort that will refurbish or replace 93 percent of the bridges.

“If interest rates stay low and construction bids keep coming in low we have to continue with our projects,” Williams said Once a project is stopped, it is hard to get it going again. I have been told it could cost $20 million just to restart the projects.”

Williams said state must be ready when the recession ends. By not standing still like some of Tennessee’s neighboring states, he believes Tennessee will have a head start when the national economy recovers.

Despite all the important state business, Williams was forced to miss several days because of family health problems.

In February his mother, June, suffered a heart attack just days after Williams was ousted from the Republican Party. Williams spent several days with her and his ailing father, Roby, before returning to Nashville.

In April his 92-year-old father, a World War II veteran with the 101st Airborne Division, died after a long illness.

Williams said he was from a close family that pulled together during the difficult times.

Looking back over the ups and downs of the last half year, Williams denied being under a lot of stress.

“Stress is when you are in your early 20s, with three kids and just being told you were being laid off, wondering where your next paycheck was coming from.”

Although Williams had experienced such a terrible moment early in his career, he said his experiences in the restaurant business had prepared him for his new role.

“I was over 400 employees in Miami and I knew them all by name. My experience there was a big help.”