Not one, but three Tennessee governors past and present will be visiting UT to give a lecture on civility.
Governors Bill Haslam, Phil Bredesen and Don Sundquist will have a panel discussion on “Balancing Civility & Free Expression … For Effective Governance” at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday in the Baker Center’s Toyota Auditorium. The discussion will be the third and final part of the “Balancing Civility & Free Expression” initiative, which has seen two other presentations on civility across the state.
The Tennessee Bar Association has been the primary organizer for each event. For Thursday’s panel, TBA was responsible for coordinating with the governors and working with the Baker Center to set up the location.
Nissa Dahlin-Brown, the Baker Center’s associate director, said that the location of the Baker Center was chosen because Senator Howard Baker’s political career was a prime example of civility in politics.
“It made perfect sense to have it here at the Baker Center because of Sen. Baker’s own record and reputation as someone who exemplifies civility in his own work,” Dahlin-Brown said.
Dahlin-Brown said that the Baker Center is prepared for a large crowd to attend the event. She said that they are ready to have sound in the Rotunda and open up additional class space to provide more room in case the Toyota Auditorium is not enough.
The panel of governors will be moderated by Bill Haltom, a Memphis attorney and UT alumnus. Haltom will ask the governors a variety of questions on their opinion on civility in politics, how they dealt with controversy as governors, and what they might have learned from those situations when they didn’t agree with a fellow politician. The governors are also expected to relate their discussion on civility back to Baker’s career.
For Dahlin-Brown and the Baker Center, this discussion will be particularly relevant given the apparent deadlock and bickering in politics seen on the national level. Dahlin-Brown hopes that the governors will be able to show how good governance can only come from civil discussion and debate.
“The way you do come to decisions and good policy is by communicating and discussing with one another,” Dahlin-Brown explained. “The yelling or the ‘I’m-right-you’re-wrong’ attitude does not end up getting any kind of quality policy designed or implemented at all.
“So I think this is a really neat opportunity to see three governors discuss this issue of civility and being able to agree to disagree, and also to compromise and to collaborate and to listen to one another, which is critical.”
Fortunately, it would seem that Tennessee’s political scene has been relatively civil in recent years. Distinguished lecturer Jim Gilchrist, who teaches a class on Tennessee politics, said that at least during Haslam and Bredesen’s terms Tennessee government has been peaceful.
“Tennessee politics generally has been civil,” Gilchrist said. “Both governors Bredesen and Haslam have emphasized that in their State of the State addresses, so in that respect we’ve been fairly calm and civil if you want to put it that way.”
Gilchrist cited a particular example of civility in Tennessee politics when Bredesen called a special session with the Tennessee Legislature to revamp the education system. This was particularly interesting because Bredesen was nearing the end of his final term.
“When you figure when someone right at the end of their term in office — and he was at the end of his term and wasn’t running again — the fact that he could bring the legislature together and approve a major overhaul of the state’s education shows how well they were working together,” Gilchrist recalled.
In terms of Thursday’s panel, Gilchrist is most intrigued by what Haslam will have to say, especially now that Haslam has had three years of experience as governor and now has a GOP supermajority, with Republicans controlling both the Tennessee House and Senate.
Despite the Republican dominance, Gilchrist said that today’s politics in Tennessee have still been relatively calm.
However, he noted that there could be some trouble ahead after several Democrats didn’t receive certain committee appointments that they were expecting.
“There’s already starting to be a little bit of fraying, but it hasn’t spilled over into acid being thrown at each other yet,” he joked.
