UPDATE: felons removed from Clinton's TN steering committee

By JENNIFER BROOKS Staff Writer - THE TENNESSEAN

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has revised its list of Tennessee supporters on its statewide steering committee to remove the names of two convicted felons.

The original list of more than 100 committee members had included former state House Majority Leader Tommy Burnett and West Tennessee Democratic Party activist Gladys Crain. Both are familiar names, with familiar rap sheets, in Tennessee political circles. Both have been politically active for decades, both before and after their convictions.

"These individuals were mistakenly included on the list we released and are not members of our steering committee," Clinton spokesman Isaac Baker said Monday, in response to a phone call from a reporter asking why two felons were on the list. "We are proud of our support from every corner of Tennessee and will continue working hard for every vote."

Burnett, a legislator-turned-lobbyist from Fentress County, has been jailed twice.

First imprisoned in 1984 for failure to file an income tax return, Burnett easily won re-election to an eighth term from his jail cell. A few years later, he was caught up in Operation Rocky Top, a federal corruption probe, and went back to jail for another year on federal conspiracy and illegal gambling charges. He now has a successful career as a lobbyist.

Crain says she was 'told'

Crain, an octogenarian West Tennessee political power broker, said the Clinton campaign called her and informed her that she would be on the steering committee.

"They didn't ask me, they told me," said Crain, who said she had no idea what her duties would have involved.

But as someone who worked on both of Bill Clinton's presidential campaigns, she said she was delighted to support a Clinton again. She served as Lauderdale County chairwoman of Phil Bredesen's campaign for governor 2002 and worked on John Edwards' presidential campaign in 2004.

"I like clean politics. I don't like dirty politics and I think this election is going to see a lot of it," she said.

Crain was convicted in 1981 on federal charges related to a scheme to rig bids on a state highway construction project.

This is not the first campaign this year to forgo background checks ? or basic Google searches ? on its volunteers. One of Fred Thompson's top advisers stepped down in November, after it was revealed that he had a criminal record that included multiple felony counts of bookmaking, drug trafficking and conspiracy, as well as trouble with the Internal Revenue Service and Tennessee tax collectors.