Posted on 01/07/2008 3:02:20 PM PST by SmithL
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — State Sen. Ophelia Ford’s attorney has told the Senate speaker that she apparently won't be able to attend legislative sessions “for at least a few more weeks" and won’t attend Tuesday’s opening of the 2008 session.
Citing “privacy concerns,” Memphis lawyer David Cocke’s letter did not disclose the nature of Ford’s illness. But her Memphis colleague, Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle, said today that she needs to allow her physician to explain her prolonged absence.
(Excerpt) Read more at commercialappeal.com ...
Senate District 29 that she represents covers a broad swath of northwestern Shelby County, including Downtown Memphis and most of Millington.
After missing several weeks of the 2007 session, Ophelia Ford told reporters that she had severe anemia but refused to allow her doctors to release any information about her. She was hospitalized at least twice last year.
Kyle said other legislators have missed long periods of the annual legislative sessions before, but they have always made it clear why they were absent. For example, former Senate Republican leader Ben Atchley of Knoxville underwent heart bypass surgery and Rep. John Mark Windle, D-Livingston, missed most of the 2005 legislative session while serving on active duty in Iraq as a Tennessee National Guardsman.
“To me, Sen. Ford needs to tell us why she’s not here. She needs to have her doctor tell us why she’s not here. She has an obligation under the (Senate) rules to say why she should be excused.
“I respect the fact that she’s not here. I know she would be here if she thought she could. She just needs to explain to everybody why she’s not,” Kyle said. “She hasn’t come forward to talk about it and she has not allowed her lawyer to talk about it.”
Cocke, who represented Ford during her 2006 battle to retain the Senate seat, wrote Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, a letter dated Jan. 4 and released Monday, saying she asked him to write on her behalf.
“Senator Ford has been in the hospital for over a month and it appears that she will continue to be in the hospital for at least a few more weeks. She has asked me to ask you to excuse her from her attendance at the opening of the Tennessee Senate session on Wednesday (it actually opens today),” Cocke wrote.
Without an excuse approved by the speaker, lawmakers are not paid for the days they miss.
“I have talked with her physician and he is unable to give you a definite time as to when Senator Ford will be able to return to her duties," Cocke wrote. "Nevertheless, I will make every effort to give you another report regarding her status in about three weeks.”
Cocke said in the letter that Ford authorized him to tell Ramsey that she “believes that it would be appropriate for her committee assignments to be reassigned to other senators in the interim as long as those assignments are open to her when she returns.”
He added: “I am afraid that I may not be able to answer any additional questions that you might have because of privacy concerns, but you should feel free to make a request and I will see what I can do about getting those questions answered.”
Cocke did not return a reporter’s telephone calls Monday.
A telephone call to Ford’s Memphis home Monday was answered by a telephone company recording that said the number had been “temporarily disconnected; no additional information is available.”
Telephone calls to her legislative office in Nashville were also unanswered and unreturned. A woman at the Ford Funeral Home in Memphis where the senator works said she is still hospitalized but would not say where.
That’s OK...
I’’ll be there....
We wont miss her...
Ford, 57, missed much of the 2007 legislative session after winning a federal court fight the previous year to retain her Senate seat following irregularities
I CALL BS! She won the earlier special election (to replace her brother), but the number of dead voters was larger than her margin of victory. So, the State Senate expelled her. She then won the regular election in November.
Yes the “irregularities” were comprised of proven voter fraud...
Boozer? Anybody know what hospital she is in? If any?
Maybe Teddy will counsel her about her illness.
Just think how much better this country would be if we could get all politicians to stay at home.
Must be “low on blood” again.
You’d think all those dead people she represents would be pissed off about the lack of representation in the state senate.
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