Donald K. Sundquist
Donald Kenneth Sundquist (born March 15, 1936) was Governor of Tennessee from 1995 to 2003.
Don Sundquist was born in Illinois and attended Augustana College. In his early career, he sold class rings for the Jostens Corp. Moving to Memphis, Tennessee, he became very active in the Republican Party. He first attracted political attention when became chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party. In 1982 he ran for the Republican nomination for the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee's Seventh Congressional District. He succeeded in winning the nomination in August, 1982, and then defeated Bob Clement, son of a former Tennessee governor, in the November, 1982 general election.
Sundquist established a very conservative voting record as a Congressman, and was a darling of conservative-oriented groups such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the American Conservative Union. He was regarded as a rising star by the Tennessee Republican Party, and served six two-year House terms. When popular Tennessee governor Ned McWherter was prevented from seeking a third term in 1994 by term limits, Sundquist seemed like the logical choice for the GOP nomination, which he won with ease in August, 1994. Sundquist then won the general election in November, 1994 over Nashville mayor Phil Bredesen by a margin that surprised many pundits, and was inaugurated the forty-seventh governor of Tennessee in January, 1995.
Sundquist's first term was rather unremarkable, and he attracted no serious opposition within his party for renomination in 1998. His Democratic opponent, Nashville attorney and entrepreneur John Jay Hooker, was regarded at this stage in his career as a perennial candidate and gadfly rather than a serious contender, and Sundquist won re-election with approximately 70% of the vote.
Immediately upon his reinauguration, Sundquist set out to raise more revenue for the state, which had traditionally been one of the lowest-tax jurisdictions in the U.S.. His tax reform plan included a state income tax, previously regarded as political suicide in Tennessee. He quickly offended most of his grassroots base, and his popularlity plummented. Only certain elements in the business community supported him from the Republican Party, and many Tennessee Democrats, especially conservative rural ones, had no interest in either alienating their constiuents or helping a Republican. The income tax issue dominated Sundquist's second term, but was never passed. Sundquist became very isolated politically, with many of his Democratic supporters doing so only because they wished to see the income tax implemented in a way in which the Republicans could be blamed for it, and his original conservative supporters mostly became avowed opponents, some participating in street demonstrations against him. Many leading figures in his own party publicly disavowed him.
Sundquist, like McWherter before him, was prevented by term limits in the Tennessee state constitution from seeking re-election in 2002, but unlike McWherter it is highly unlikely that he could have even received the nomination of his own party, let alone been re-elected, had it been legally possible for him to have attempted to have done so. In retirement, rumor and innuendo have continued to swirl about him, which became more intense with the conviction of a fomer mid-level member of his administration in May, 2004 for illegally routing a "no-bid" contract to a close personal friend of his.
