Knoxville Tennessee Blog

Apparently smoking is bad for your health and for the health of the people around smokers who are susceptible to second hand smoke.

It seems as though some people missed the memo from Surgeon General Richard Carmona who has called for smoking cessation based upon the fact that smoking is estimated to cause about 440,000 people each year in the United States to die via numerous types of cancers, emphysema and other diseases.

There are currently 34 states with some form of smoking ban, Tennessee is not included in that list. I decided to do some research to figure out why the state of Tennessee seems to be behind the curve (nearly 2/3 of the U.S.) on this particular issue.

The Knoxville Sentinel credits Jimmy Naifeh (pictured above) for the lack of legislation. I thought it was quite interesting that some of the readers of that story believe that banning smoking in public places is “right-wing propaganda”. Does that mean California is promoting right-wing propaganda? The issue is not a liberal vs conservative or a more government vs less government issue as much as it is an issue of health.

Why is Jimmy Naifeh still the Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives? But an even more important question: Where are the checks and balances? Consider this quote from the above article.

The Speaker of the House is second in line to succession to the governorship after the Speaker of the Senate; this has never occurred. Since 1973, all Speakers have been from a single Democratic faction in West Tennessee; this has become a source of some resentment. The Speaker, under House rules, has the right to appoint all committees and their chairs and assign proposed legislation to committees, giving the Speaker tremendous power to push legislation through or conversely, to block it.