How long will it be until the GOP takes of control of virtually every state legislature in the South, including Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama?
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In the Tennessee Senate, a Historic Shift of PowerBy THEO EMERY
Published: January 27, 2007NASHVILLE, Jan. 26 — Over the last year, members of the Tennessee legislature have witnessed a number of updates. Plasma televisions that broadcast legislative sessions now line corridors in Legislative Plaza, where many lawmakers have their offices. Smoking has been banned from the building although the two activities it used to cloud, lobbying and political arm-twisting, remain.
But a sign of perhaps the most significant change can be found outside Room 1, the office of the Senate speaker, where the nameplate on the wall has been replaced for the first time in 36 years.
Earlier this month, senators voted out John S. Wilder, an 85-year-old Democrat who had been speaker since 1971, choosing instead Ronald L. Ramsey, the first Republican to lead the body since Reconstruction. In Tennessee, the powerful Senate speaker is also lieutenant governor, and next in line for the governorship.
Back-room politicking and shifting loyalties played a role in the ouster of Mr. Wilder, who comes from a wealthy West Tennessee cotton family and who flew his own plane to the capital. Until he was voted out, he was the nation’s longest serving state legislative leader, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The change reflects a reality in the South: rising Republican strength in state politics, said Prof. Merle Black of Emory University, a co-author of “The Rise of Southern Republicans.”
Since Barry Goldwater’s campaign for the presidency in 1964, the South has reliably voted Republican in presidential races, except for 1976 and to a lesser degree in 1992, but Democrats maintained power in state and local elections.
“It’s really only been in the 1980s and accelerating in the 1990s, that white voters in the South have identified themselves more as Republicans than as Democrats,” Professor Black said, adding, “Mr. Wilder represents the persistence of Democratic strength in states like Tennessee.”
