Rep. Robin Smith at the Pachyderm Club
Rep. Robin Smith said Monday she is considering a race for House Speaker in light of Rep. Glen Casada's pending departure over ethics issues.
She told members of the Pachyderm Club, "This Hixson girl knows basic math," saying there may be six or seven candidates who have been around a number of years as opposed to a newcomer with fresh ideas and energy.
Rep. Mike Carter of Ooltewah earlier made himself available as a candidate.
Rep. Smith also spoke against conversion of the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant to a union shop. She said, "We don't want to turn out like Michigan or Ohio. She said allowing too much union control had "almost bankrupted cities like Detroit."
She said, "We are vocal in standing for the rights of our workers, but we don't want to explode our entire economy."
Rep. Smith said the reason Volkswagen and other automakers had chosen Tennessee was because of "the merit-based approach, not the union shop."
The speaker said she favors the departure of Majority Leader Casada, but she said his transgressions involved responding to two or three inappropriate text messages in 2016.
She said she serves on the Ethics Committee herself and asked, "How far are we going to go?" on prior sins of legislative members.
Rep. Smith said once there were news reports about Speaker Casada, his chief of staff and a consultant, "I went into the office of my friend Glen Casada, shut the door, and told him, 'You are putting all of us in Nashville in a horrible light. You need to go out there and fight like Hades and disprove the allegations, or resign."
She said one item that came out from the Casada episode was that certain legislative chief of staffs and clerks are way overpaid. She said the House chief of staff gets $199,800 and the Senate chief of staff $201,000. The House clerk receives $160,000 and the Senate clerk $204,000.
Concerning how the 2016 texts came to light, she said it was "the disgruntled guy" - the consultant. She said he had been fired from several different jobs.
She said Democrats "are sitting back and enjoying how Republicans are killing each other" in the Casada matter.
Rep. Smith, who formerly headed the state Republican Party, said she is pushing for ethics reform, including drug testing of House and Senate members. She said she has had a couple of members of the Legislature come to her and say, "You need to rethink that."
Another reform she wants is to find a way to count the number of alcoholic drinks by General Assembly members at state functions. She said there is a liability issue involved.
On state vouchers, she said she had "wanted the whole package." However, she noted that Hamilton County was exempted along with Knox.
She said she is concerned about increasing "social engineering" in the public schools. She said, "The schools are for learning. They can't do everything."
She said parents as well as churches and synagogues "need to step up" to help guide young people. "Teachers can't raise our kids," she said.
In many cases, she said, parents are making things worse. She said, "The children get in trouble, the mama is called, and she comes to school and shows out."
She said, "We need to expect more from our parents. You get what you tolerate."
Rep. Smith said the recent General Assembly made significant strides in education funding, while also raising the state Rainy Day Fund by $225 million to $1.1 billion.
She said she got involved in making Tennessee the last state to approve the Katie Beckett Waiver that provides funding for parents of disfigured or disabled children who do not quality for such sources as TennCare. She said $27 million was set aside for the fund.
She said she did so after being told by the mother of a disfigured and severely disabled child that TennCare officials told her she did not qualify because her husband made a good salary as an engineer. She said someone at TennCare recommended that she file for divorce.
The speaker said the Legislature did away with 15 occupations pay the "privilege tax," leaving just seven. She said legislators "do not want to penalize those who are working."
On the other hand, she said some requirements were added for those who have long been dependent on government handouts.