Clear the Smoke out of the Rooms

State Sen. Rosalind Kurita has released a more detailed explanation for her vote against "Democrat" John Wilder in favor of the Republican Ron Ramsey for Speaker of the Senate. Autoegocrat of the Pesky Fly has all the goods, but here are a few excerpts:

This past week I have been asked many times why I voted for a new Lt. Governor. How could I vote for someone who is not a member of my own political party?

The answer is very straightforward: I voted my conscience.

The most basic tenet of democracy is that the majority rules. In the Tennessee state Senate, Republicans have held the numerical majority for three years. Yet, we were in a "peculiar" situation where the minority continued to keep the majority in the form of the Lt. Governor. That is not our democracy.

It was time for a change in the structure. The dedication to keeping a status quo was preventing our state from putting real energy and bi-partisan effort into solving problems and moving Tennessee forward.

True enough. I've heard people this past week say that Kurita cost us the majority in the Senate, but the truth is we lost that three years ago. What we had was a system designed by John Wilder, for the benefit of John Wilder, so that he could maintain control by working deals with a few Republicans. This system had been in place long before the Republicans won the majority of the Senate, and this system kept the Senate Democratic Caucus from having true vision and values.

Kurita seems to think that now this good ol' boy system of favors for votes can finally be put to rest, and that voters will be voting on the ability of that legislator to promote a vision, not simply promote themselves. Whether its Education, Health Care, or Open Government; the truth is the Senate Democrats haven't been leading sufficiently, largely because they were too busy worrying about how to maintain their power without having been given it by the voters.

Nationally, Democrats benefited from being in the minority because it forced our party to hone a message that resulted in the tremendous gains of 2006. I believe we can now use this time to communicate a new message to Tennesseans that will emphasize people over party and benefit our state as a whole.

Every member of the Senate is tired of being 49th in so many areas. I intend to work with my fellow Democrats and Republicans as well as the new Lt. Governor to create legislation that moves our state forward.

The era of the smoke-filled back room is over and we are now free to have a healthy public policy debate that can only benefit the citizens of this great state.

An era is over, that much we know. The question now is what era will replace it? Will it be an era of Republican domination, with Democrats fighting for scraps from the Republican leaders? Or will it be an era where the Democrats band together to fix the problems of our state, and take those solutions to the people for them to decide who is better to lead this State? I am confident that if Democrats stop worrying about power, and start worrying about how best we can fix our state problems, the Democrats will regain a majority in the Senate in order to do so.