Nashville News Blog

House Democrats are outraged and whispering about a possible coup d'état against their leader, Gary Odom, over the unflattering remarks he made to a reporter about Jimmy Naifeh in Memphis last week. "Who's next?" asks one lawmaker, who wouldn't let Pith use his name. "What happens if I cross Gary next? Will it be my turn in the barrel next?"

Rep. Charles Curtiss was willing to go on the record with his criticism of Odom. "It bothers me," he says. "Anytime we're publicly attacking one another, we're scattering instead of gathering. If we have issues with one another, we need to keep it out of the press if we can."

To the Memphis Flyer's Jackson Baker, Odom blamed Naifeh for the Democrats' demise in Tennessee. Stamping out Naifeh was one of Odom's motivations for giving Williams the speaker's gavel, Odom said. Naifeh was killing the Democratic Party, said Odom, who also acknowledged he would have challenged Naifeh for the speakership himself if Democrats hadn't lost the House in November's elections.

"He was the one always pushing the income tax," Odom said, "and that was the single greatest reason for the Democrats' decline in Tennessee over the last few years. It was why Al Gore lost the state in 2000, and it was why we kept losing seats after that, until finally we were in the minority."

Says Curtiss: "It concerns me that this is coming out in the press like it is. There's nothing to be gained by it and everything to be lost. It makes no sense."

Curtiss says Odom is denying that he said what he was quoted as saying. "Right now, we're hoping that Mr. Odom will go back and try to make amends. He claims he was misquoted by the media. It'll be interesting to see if they had one of those puppies out when he made his misquote," Curtiss says, pointing at Pith's nifty little tape recorder.

Some Democrats are so upset they're talking about trying to cast out Odom as leader. But as Kent Whitehouse pointed out yesterday in his own article on the unrest, there's no recall provision in the caucus bylaws, so unseating Odom would take a two-thirds majority vote to change the rules.

"That'd be pretty hard to pull off I think," Curtiss admits. "But there could be a move to unseat him if this continues."

Another Democrat says, "Rest assured my friend. This will be corrected." Pith has asked to speak with Odom but, as usual, he won't talk to us.