State Rep. Jason Mumpower, R-Bristol, majority leader of the Tennessee House of Representatives, said here Monday that an education reform bill being considered for this year may link tenure for teachers to student performance on tests.

Mumpower told a packed meeting of the Greene County Republican Party that the only issue he has seen in 14 years in the legislature that has generated more controversy than red-light traffic cameras and speed control cameras is opposition to approving a state income tax.

(Mumpower also said later that he does not see any chance that an income tax will come up again, and noted that he would not support such a bill.)

"People feel there's a limit to how much they ought to be watched," Mumpower said. He predicted that red-light cameras, which have become widely-used and controversial across the state, "will be a serious issue" in the legislature when it reconvenes.

He said red-light cameras, and the electronically-generated traffic tickets that they produce, make people angry.

"People are angry now," Mumpower said, noting that he had heard that anger expressed earlier when candidates spoke about lost freedoms.

"We in Tennessee and in this part of the country are perhaps more angry than some others are," he said, "about (freedoms) we see being taken away from us."

Some go so far, he said, as to say, "Throw the bums out, from the courthouse to the White House."

When that kind of talk surfaces, he said, "Don't let them throw the baby out with the bathwater. (State Rep.) David Hawk is serving Greene County very well, and needs to be re-elected," Mumpower said.

He spoke well of Hawk, who serves Greeneville, the eastern and northern sections of Greene County, and Unicoi County, and also of state Sen. Steve Southerland, R-1st, of Morristown.

"Focus that anger," Mumpower said. He went on to say that, "Yet another state representative in a part of Greene County needs to go, and there's somebody here that wants to make that happen."

This was a reference to Jeremy Faison, the chairman of the Cocke County Republican Party, who had announced minutes earlier that he would be a candidate for the 11th District House of Representatives seat.

That seat is held by state Rep. Eddie Yokley, D- Greene County. Faison did not mention Yokley by name.

Mumpower said the legislature will begin a week from next Monday with a special informational session on education.

He said Rep. Hawk will have a central role in that discussion because of Hawk's membership on the Education Committee.

Mumpower said there is a movement to require that new teachers "demonstrate performance in student achievement before they are able to achieve tenure."

New teachers are often granted tenure, he said, after they have been with a school system for a specified period of time, and once a teacher has tenure, it becomes very difficult to remove them.