Three Senators Called To Testify

WREG.com
January 23, 2006


(Memphis) - By the end of the week Ophelia Ford may no longer be senator. And a couple days before a federal hearing to determine whether the state senate can vote to remove her from her senate seat comes more contraversy. "One big objection I have is that it disenfranchises roughly 173 thousand people that I represent," Republican Senator Curtis Person Jr. says.

Three senators from west tennessee have been called to testify about the reasoning behind a vote in a senate committee last week. That vote was 17-14 vote in favor of voiding the election that put Ophelia Ford in office. Senators Curtis Person and Mark Norris say if they attend the hearing, not only could they miss a vote on Ford's fate, it would be a violation of their constitutional rights. "Members of the senate shall not be questioned in any other form on what they say in debate in the senate or any committee that relates to the senate," Person says.

This all comes on the heels of Governor Phil Bredesen's first public comments about the senate vote, something he says should have never happened. "I think we should do what we've always historically done which is seek someone to fully investigate whatever the allegations or whatever the problems are," Bredesen says.

But republicans continue to contend it is a matter for the senate to decide and waiting on a state investigation isn't fair to the voters. "We are all anxious to see the outcome of the tbi investigations by all estimates its going to take a long time, district 29 deserves a senator to be seated," Shelby County Republican Chairman Bill Giannini says.

Senator Person says he is optomistic the state attorney general will work hard over the next two days to make sure they don't have to attend the hearing.