Bryson-led Effort to Kill Cover Tennessee Fails
Governor Phil Bredesen won a major legislative victory today when his popular Cover Tennessee initiative passed the state Senate on a nearly unanimous vote. State Senator Jim Bryson, a potential GOP nominee for governor, suffered a major defeat when his bid to derail the bill to establish a program for affordable insurance for working Tennesseans failed because members of his own party jumped ship. The state House passed its version by a 78-19 vote Wednesday night.
Bryson offered several poison-pill amendments to the bill, the last of which would have made drastic changes to Tennessee’s medical-malpractice law. The amendment failed when two Republican senators, Curtis Person and Mike Williams, voted against it and three Republican senators, Mae Beavers, Rusty Crowe, and Steve Southerland, abstained. Following a hastily called and testy meeting of the Republican Caucus, the full Senate passed Cover Tennessee 30-1, with Beavers as the only negative vote.
“Bryson’s maneuvering was political posturing at its worst. He put his own political interests above the best interests of Tennesseans,” Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Bob Tuke said. “A vote in support of Bryson today was absolutely a vote against affordable health insurance for working people.”
Tuke went on to say that it was particularly unconscionable that Beavers, Bill Ketron, and Don McLeary, three Republicans representing swing districts, supported Bryson’s effort to kill Cover Tennessee—Beavers with her vote against the bill and Ketron and McLeary with their votes for the medical-malpractice amendment.
“These three represent thousands of working people that will be greatly helped by this program, but they think Jim Bryson’s political career is more important,” he said. “I’m sure the voters will remember that this fall.”
