I'd be interested to know more about how Fineran was elected speaker in 1996. Was it all Republicans plus enought conservative and moderates to put him over the top? I posted about that idea happening on the federal level and couldn't think of a precedent for it on a state level, maybe this was it.
Finneran was running against the then-Democratic Majority Leader Richard Voke. He lost at the Democratic caucus, but managed to get pledges from all 35 Republicans as well as 56 out of 121 Democrats. There's a good description here:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02EED71339F934A35757C0A960958260t's a Tough Time for the Democratic Party in Massachusetts
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By SARA RIMER
Published: April 7, 1996
These are trying times for state Democratic legislators in Massachusetts. For starters, the Governor, William F. Weld, is a Republican. But last week things got a whole lot worse.
Charles F. Flaherty, the popular and powerful Democratic Speaker of the overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts House, pleaded guilty to a Federal tax evasion charge involving a 13-year-old tax return, and announced that he would step down at the end of June.
Then, with Mr. Flaherty's top two lieutenants fighting to succeed him, one of them, Thomas M. Finneran, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, did the unspeakable: He announced that he had the support of a coalition that included 34 Republicans.
Joan Menard, a state representative for 18 years, is the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party. "It's like letting the Democrats go to the Republican national convention to choose a Republican candidate for President," she said, referring to Mr. Finneran's surprise move. "It's not done. Everyone was hysterical when we found out. We had no clue."
Kind of sounds like some of the Republicans in TN?
Interestingly the Republicans are now down to 16 seats. Had they still had 35 the outcome this time might have been different. It definitely would have been in 2004, when Rogers would have easily won.