Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Maury County Mayor Sheila Butt in studio to discuss the differences between being a state legislator and county mayor.
Leahy: We begin even stronger in studio with us right now, the mayor of Maury County, our good friend, former state legislator, smiling from ear to ear this morning, Sheila Butt. Good morning again, Sheila.
Butt: Good morning. So glad to be here.
Leahy: Isn’t this radio thing fun?
Butt: It is fun in the studio.
Leahy: You have experience as a state legislator in the State House for what, 10 years? How long?
Butt: Eight years.
Leahy: A long time. So you know all the players up there. Tell us a little bit about the difference between the job of being a state representative in the House and being the mayor of one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States, Maury County. You’re the mayor, the chief executive of the county.
Butt: Yes.
Leahy: But you have a 22-member county commission that you work with as well.
Butt: Yes. Which is a lot like herding cats. (Leahy chuckles) Twenty-two county commissioners. And so you decide after you are elected mayor whether you want to have a vote on the county commission or whether you don’t. Whether you want to chair the county commission or whether you don’t.
You get to make that decision after you become mayor. I chose not to be a voting member of the county commission, not to be chair simply because of the Tennessee Sunshine Laws so that I will be able to meet with four or five commissioners and talk about something because I don’t have a vote on that.
And then a lot of things I have to send to them just for information and for discovery purposes. But I chose that because I feel like you have more influence and more interaction with 22 people when you can meet with three or four separately and talk about things and another three and four. So that’s why I decided to do that.
Leahy: I’ve learned something this morning. I did not know that you had that option as a county mayor.
Butt: Yes.
Leahy: It makes sense because there are certain duties and responsibilities if you’re a voting member and if you’re the chair. Do you attend the meetings?
Butt: Oh, always, yes. They’re delighted that the mayor attends the meetings as well as each of the committee meetings because if you do not know what’s going on in that committee meeting, you’re going to have a hard time speaking on anything that comes up because you don’t know what happened in the committee meeting.
Leahy: So you attend the meetings as a non-voting member. I think if I were a member of the county commission and I knew that the mayor who has chosen not to have a vote, but who shows up at the meetings, to me, I see that as a sign of respect to the county commission.
Butt: I hope they see it that way. I do. I do have veto power. I can veto whatever they do, but then it can be overridden by a two-thirds vote.
Leahy: That’s the magic number, because as you well know if you talk about executive powers here in the state of Tennessee, the governor has veto power, but it can be overridden by a simple majority, 50 percent plus one in each House.
Butt: Yes.
Leahy: That means when an executive has veto power, and it requires two-thirds of the vote of the underlying legislature, that gives the executive a little bit more power.
Butt: It does. And then I also have the power to break a tie. 11 and 11. Then the mayor would break the tie.
Leahy: How many meetings have they had since you’ve been elected and started serving on September 1st of last year?
Butt: Every month we have one county commission meeting, the large meeting. But all of the committees meet at different times during the month.
Leahy: And so you attend those meetings.
Butt: I do attend those meetings. I probably missed two since I have been elected, simply because to me, knowledge is power. And when you know what went on in those meetings, and the people who talked about the zoning and the people who talked about the budget, and the people who talked about the sheriff’s department, when you know what’s going on, you can have much better input on the outcome.
Leahy: I’ve been to a couple of county commission meetings in Williamson County, and I admire the patience of those in attendance. They got to go along, don’t they?
Butt: I watched and I won’t name the county, but I watched a county commission meeting that I’m close to in the county, and I knew what was happening, and during that county commission meeting, there weren’t three county commissioners who actually knew the whole story.
Leahy: Yes. And so the county commissioners, and I am sure under your leadership, Maury County is paying attention.
Butt: I suspect they are. (Chuckles)
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Sheila Butt” by Sheila Butt. Background Photo “Maury County Courthouse” by Chris Light. CC BY-SA 4.0.
