Humphrey: What is it about those campaign attack ads?

Knoxville News Sentinel ^ | 7/30/6 | Tom Humphrey

[SmithL]

This summer's Republican U.S. Senate race just may have established a Tennessee political precedent or two that will be followed in lower-level campaigns to come.

In races for the state Legislature, for example, every incumbent who voted for the state budget can henceforth be attacked for voting to raise his or her own pay under the precedent established by Bob Corker's innovative attack advertising.

Corker aired television commercials declaring that his primary opponents, former U.S. Reps. Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary, voted to raise their own pay. The claim is based, the campaign said, on Dec. 15, 2000, votes cast for one of those mammoth omnibus spending bills patched together in a last-minute compromise.

In the 1,100 or so pages, there is nothing that raises congressional pay. That happens automatically under the congressional way of doing things, unless Congress passes a provision that specifically says there will be no pay raise in a given year.

Since there was no anti-pay raise provision in the omnibus bill, the Corker campaign reasoned that those voting for the bill voted to raise their own pay. Hence the attack ad, surprising the hapless Hilleary and blindsiding Bryant who, in fact, might be more fairly accused of being grandstanding opponents to congressional pay raises - voting against them at every opportunity.

Our own Tennessee General Assembly decided in 2004 to imitate Congress by slipping an automatic pay raise into state statutes, based on the pay raises given state employees. The law takes effect this November and will raise the base annual legislator salary from $16,500 to $18,100.

Incidentally, back in 2004 there was a suggestion - not adopted - that state legislators set their pay at 25 percent of what members of Congress make. Congress members now have a base of $165,200. Their automatic pay raise has been in place since 1989.

Alas, Tennessee legislators will thus never catch up to 25 percent of congressional pay and will have to continue running for Congress - three are doing so this year - to collect a six-figure salary from taxpayers.

Also, alas, the precedent is now set to allow trashing of every legislator every year by challengers - even those who voted against the 2004 bill that actually put the automatic pay raise in place.

So, in each campaign a legislator will find himself on the receiving end of an ad that goes something like this, using a fictional name:

"It wasn't enough for Sen. Burr Timchett to take thousands of dollars in special-interest money. He has voted to raise his own pay to record levels again and again. His pay comes from your tax dollars, you know. Fortunately, voters have a choice: Timchett, a politician who raised taxes, raised his pay and knows lobbyists, or Nice Frankly, a brilliant, ethical businessman who loves children."

The situation could change the dynamics of the legislative process. Today, legislators willing to vote no on the state budget are few and far between - a situation that has prevailed back to the days when Corker was finance commissioner, drafting state budgets.

This is because there are so many politically popular things in budgets - new roads, sales tax holidays, funding for child health care, etc. Thus, a no vote can be quickly translated by a challenger into the negative. Sen. Burr Timchett, for example, could be attacked for voting against child health care and increased prison time for violent criminals.

Now we have an offsetting fear of being attacked for raising one's own pay. This has always been regarded as a big political no-no in Legislatorland, which is why the base pay sat unchanged at $16,500 for almost two decades.

Enactment of a state budget, which is really the only duty our state Constitution requires of the state Legislature, may now become more difficult. Perhaps that's not the message Corker intended to approve, but it may well be the one received.

That 2000 vote on the omnibus bill in Washington was approved by lopsided margins because of all the politically popular stuff included - tax cuts and funding for good causes, including many in Tennessee.

Most any reasonable Tennessee legislator, even a fictional Sen. Cork Bobber, would probably have voted for it. At least until the new precedent was set.

[PeteB570]

Its only an attack add if the other guy does it.

If your guy does the same thing its just artful bending of the "truth".

:-)