Governor Phil Bredesen and Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey both say one senator’s decision yesterday to leave the Republican Caucus won’t affect most issues.
Now that East Tennessee Senator Mike Williams is an independent, the two parties hold an equal number of seats in the state’s upper house. But the governor suggests not much has changed.
“I really believe, that if this comes down to, you have to have one more Democratic vote than Republican vote I will have failed in trying to structure something that broadly appeals to Republicans and Democrats. I think everything major that I’ve done so far, we’ve gotten good broad bipartisan support for, and I’m going to try to continue to do that.”
The state’s senior Republican, Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, says he thinks Williams will continue to vote just as he always has.
“Actually, honestly, I’m serious when I say that nothing has changed from what it was before. Everybody has the same ideology, the election for the speaker is over, and I will be speaker until January of 2009, and we’ll just get into the election cycle and see what happens. I feel confident we’ll keep our majority through that election cycle.”
Ramsey says the committee assignments he made when Republicans were in the majority will continue unchanged. He says partisan politics has its place, but the matter of a new Republican majority has been overblown.
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