Stockard on the Stump: Senate finance chief takes Tennessee ‘DOGE’ talk with grain of salt

Tennessee’s chief numbers cruncher is downplaying Gov.-elect Marsha Blackburn’s plan to take a DOGE-style cleaver to “skinny up” the state budget.

Blackburn boasted about her plan after barely beating Democrat Jerri Green in the gubernatorial race and again in her first press conference with Gov. Bill Lee.

But Sen. Bo Watson, chairman of the Senate finance committee, said this week every new governor takes a hard look at the state’s finances and spending, regardless of whether it’s a “top-to-bottom review” done by former Gov. Bill Haslam or a “DOGE” deal, the Department of Government Efficiency used by President Donald Trump in his second term with the help of Elon Musk, some of which ran into constitutional problems.

“I think once she learns about how we do our budget that she’s gonna find that we run pretty lean anyway,” Watson said this week. 

Watson acknowledged there are always ways to improve but said he didn’t know anything about the possibility that Blackburn could hire an outside firm to go through the state’s spending plan.

Blackburn, though, is likely to bring in a consulting company to pore over the $58.3 billion budget, because there’s nothing like spending money to save money. 

As Watson said, it wouldn’t be anything new.

Lee’s administration hired McKinsey & Co. with a $9 million no-bid contract during his first term in office to find ways to streamline the budget, as he fought press efforts to find out exactly what was in the report. The governor followed that up with a contract totaling $3.7 million with McKinsey to handle the state’s COVID-19 response, even though the Attorney General’s Office was investigating the company’s role in consulting with opioid manufacturers on drug sales.

Lawmakers questioned multiple no-bid contracts that slipped by McKinsey as well as the deal it received to pore over the budget in search of waste.

Blackburn, who is nothing if not repetitive, plans to put Tennessee on a “government lessening plan.” The governor-elect said she believes the state has been “well-led,” but that “periodically it’s good to get inside the numbers” and study items such as unfilled positions, ineffective programs and state contracting through a “deeper dive.” 

During her time in the state Senate in the early 2000s, as lawmakers were going through the income tax battle, she said she recommended a 5% across-the-board cut annually to make sure the state wasn’t getting lax with programs.

“The legislators are excited about doing this, and I’m excited about working with them on it,” she said.

The question is: How long will the honeymoon last if she and her advisors try to ram things down their throats?

I pledge allegiance …

Republican Senate Speaker nominee Jack Johnson says his heart lies with the Senate, not with Blackburn, even though they’re close friends and have the same political consultant, Ward Baker.

Johnson, who narrowly warded off Sen. Paul Bailey in the speaker’s race this week, might have been handicapped by his close relationship with Blackburn and Baker. Senators don’t want the political consultant telling them what to do all the time.

In addition to that albatross, Johnson was handcuffed by top-down management within the caucus, a bad case of rank-and-file senators sitting on the sidelines waiting for marching orders until the last second. 

In addition to promising better communications with the full Senate, Johnson is trying to allay concerns that Blackburn and Baker will dictate Senate moves.

“Our loyalty is to the state Senate, regardless of who the governor is, regardless of who any other officeholder is,” Johnson said. “So we’re accountable to our members, and we’re gonna advocate for the positions and policies that our members support.”

He predicted they would be aligned on most issues but would work out disagreements between the Governor’s Office and the House. Of course, things always start out happy and peppy and bursting with love, but then they crumble when one side starts dictating to others who love power as much as they do.

To the victor …

The Blackburn camp wasted no time this week in showing how things will be done. The governor-elect appointed a cadre of her campaign and Baker Group Strategies people to the new transition team and inaugural committee, the latter of which will be raising enough money to float a battleship because we all know that some folks like to drink and dance all night, which is tough in tuxedo rental shoes.

None other than Baker, who likes to keep things within the family, will chair Blackburn’s inauguration executive leadership team, accompanied by Amy Pass, Blackburn’s campaign fundraiser, Melina Settles, a Blackburn finance director, Anna Katherine White, communications for Baker Group Strategies, and Mary Morgan Ketchel, Blackburn’s daughter.

Co-chairs are Daphene and Scott Andrew from the Tri-Cities, Anita and Tom Decosimo (member of the state’s Transportation Modernization Board, which approved a toll lane project and bid), Stephanie and lobbyist John Ingram of Nashville and Anne and Mike Keeney of Memphis.

Former Nashville auto dealer magnate Lee Beaman and his wife, Julie, will serve on Blackburn’s transition team, which is also loaded with her campaign group and Baker people. Blackburn’s campaign manager, Abbi Sigler, will be a senior adviser.

A mild prediction is that these folks will follow the natural evolution by becoming gubernatorial staffers once Blackburn takes office, then moving into the lobbying world where they can make real money. 

Everybody does it, and it’s not illegal.

Outgoing Lt. Gov. Randy McNally’s daughter, Maggie McNally Kimball, received a Blackburn appointment to an advisory committee for the Department of Children’s Service to be chaired by former Sen. Jim Henry, an ally of Lee and Haslam.

McNally denied making phone calls Tuesday morning to lobby for Johnson as Senate speaker in a vote that was exceedingly close by all accounts (the caucus refused to give the tally). 

But there’s absolutely no doubt that Blackburn was pulling for Johnson to win. (He still has to claim the full Senate vote but has a 27-6 supermajority). Otherwise, she and Baker would be dealing with Bailey, and they didn’t want that.

Reaching to the middle?

Creating an advisory group to delve into the Department of Children’s Services’ persistent problems with housing kids in state custody doesn’t seem a very Blackburnian thing to do. She didn’t campaign on it and didn’t bring it up after her win.

Considering she bested Green by only 2.5 percentage points and failed to capture a majority, maybe Blackburn is ready to govern as a moderate.

Besides talking about workforce housing and child safety, Blackburn is encouraging people to participate in a University of Tennessee Extension Service, forestry service and state Department of Agriculture to collect white oak acorns and plant them as part of an effort to replenish forests.

It’s a noble effort. But one must ask: Don’t oaks drop acorns to perpetuate themselves? And will anyone be around to see if they grow?

But if you’re looking for nuts, we have a pretty good idea where to find some without venturing into the woods.

“For the maples want more sunlight / And the oaks ignore their pleas” * 

* “The Trees,” Rush