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The following article from the CA indicates that 'pubs outpolled Dems by over 105,000 votes for the house, but still came up short on seats, as I indicated earlier. I had to find the specific article.

From the Commercial Appeal, Memphis

January 18, 2003

GOP shut out as Naifeh fills posts
NASHVILLE (AP) - House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh held with tradition Friday and appointed only Democrats as officers of the House's standing committees, to the disappointment of the chamber's 45 Republican members.

Naifeh filled five vacant chairmanships and ousted one incumbent, former Judiciary Committee chairman Frank Buck, a Democrat who mulled a challenge to Naifeh for the speakership last fall before deciding against it. Naifeh replaced Buck with Rep. Joe Fowlkes (D-Pulaski).

The five vacant chairmanships were an unusually large number, driven by a rash of retirements last spring.

Rep. Tre Hargett, the new House Republican leader, said Republican House candidates got 749,618 votes (53.8%) in November's election, while Democrat candidates polled a cumulative 643,779 (46.2%).

Democrats hold the majority in the Senate and House.

"Those 749,618 people's representatives have been shut out of committee chairmanships once again,'' Hargett said. ''I am confident a new day is coming."

Hargett said it was particularly distressing to see someone like Rep. Bobby Wood (R-Chattanooga), a 26-year House veteran, shut out of a leadership role when five freshman Democrats "who've been here all of three days" were named officers of various committees.

Naifeh said, "The people I've appointed are very capable and will do an outstanding job for the citizens of Tennessee."