Jimmy Naifeh served as the Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1991 to 2009, serving longer in that position than anyone else in Tennessee history.
10 Facts About Jimmy Naifeh
1.
2.
Jimmy Naifeh's family was in the grocery business and has hosted an annual Naifeh Family Coon Supper since 1945.
3.
Jimmy Naifeh was first elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1974, and was Speaker from 1991 to 2009.
4.
Jimmy Naifeh represents House District 81, which includes most of Tipton County and all of Haywood County.
5.
From 1995 to 2008, Jimmy Naifeh was married to Betty Anderson, considered by many Tennessee political observers to be the most influential lobbyist in the state.
6.
Jimmy Naifeh's reply was that she had no undue influence over him in any area of legislation and that she had been in that profession for many years before the personal relationship between them began, so it is hardly as if she entered the field once she married the Speaker as a way of offering access to him.
7.
Jimmy Naifeh is considered a master of parliamentary procedure and tactics, which is very important in that the Speaker of the House in Tennessee generally personally presides over all sessions of the chamber.
8.
Jimmy Naifeh is regarded as being very partisan, particularly by his Republican opponents, who have long made him a "target" for defeat.
9.
Jimmy Naifeh, who was chairing the House for the last time, helped to engineer Williams' election by instructing the House clerk to depart from the normal practice of conducting a roll call of the members in alphabetical order, instead calling first on the Democrats, then on the Republicans.
10.
On March 8,2012; Jimmy Naifeh announced he would not run for a 20th term in November.