Naifeh backs killing of bill revoking benefits

House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh said Thursday he doesn’t believe the Democratic Party’s image was damaged through killing a bill revoking health benefits for convicted lawmakers.

Earlier this week, the House Calendar and Rules Committee effectively killed legislation that would revoke state health insurance benefits for lawmakers convicted of felonies involving their office.

A Democrat, Rep. Charles Curtiss of Sparta, sponsored the bill, which had unanimously passed the Senate.

Curtiss said Rep. Larry Miller (D-Memphis), the chairman of the Calendar and Rules Committee, led the opposition.

Asked twice Thursday what he thought of the House panel’s action, Naifeh said he “supports the committee system” each time.

Naifeh said he did not believe the bill’s demise gave off a bad impression for the Democratic Party’s ethics.

The House Calendar and Rules Committee effectively killed the bill by re-referring the legislation to the House Judiciary Committee, which is closed for the year.

Rep. Randy Rinks (D-Savannah), the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said another objection to the bill was why state lawmakers were singled out and not local elected officials.

“Why do you treat the General Assembly different from maybe a mayor or a local official?” Rinks said.

The bill revoking health insurance for convicted lawmakers was killed nearly three years since the FBI nabbed five now-former state lawmakers for accepting bribes to influence legislation.

One of those former lawmakers, former Sen. John Ford (D-Memphis), entered a federal prison in Louisiana on Monday.

The legislation was killed the day after Ford went to jail.

Naifeh said he wasn’t aware that Ford was going to jail that day.

“I quit reading the paper and watching TV,” Naifeh said.

In explaining his opposition, Miller raised the hypothetical of a convicted lawmaker being afflicted with cancer having to pay 100 percent of their health insurance costs.

“Some people consider that to be somewhat of a death sentence,” Miller said.

Curtiss said earlier this week that some lawmakers “look at health care benefits as a right that we’ve earned serving in this Legislature.

“But I think you forego all rights when you’ve been convicted of a felony,” Curtiss said. “We should be held to a higher standard, but there’s obviously some people down here who don’t think we should be held to a higher standard.”