Month: January 2011

Three declared candidates for the chairmanship of the Tennessee Democratic Party took turns in Nashville Monday night answering questions about the party’s future and what they might be able to do about it.

The exchange between Wade Munday, Chip Forrester, and Matt Kuhn was monitored by a statewide audience of sorts, though, thanks to a glitch in transmission, to both see it and hear it required a simultaneous telephone and online hook-up — a circumstance that often made following the conversation awkward.

Compounding the difficulty was the poor sound quality of the conference-call hookup, which was exacerbated by nonstop pings as people came and went on the electronic-audience end.

Given all that, coupled with the elaborate Alphonse-and-Gaston courtesy which the three rivals showed each other (an occasional zinger coming in between the lines) and the political vagueness of much of what was said it was no easy thing sorting out the responses.

Forrester’s position was unique, in that he is the current chairman, seeking a second two-year term. Indeed, the need for continuity in following through with initiatives already begun was a note he struck more than once in his answers to questions relayed by the event’s two emcees.

Munday, the party’s former communications director, emphasized the need to create a party “infrastructure” and stressed his past experience as a fundraiser.

Kuhn, a past Shelby Country Democratic chairman and the only non-Nashvillian among the three, lobbied for a “40 under 40” initiative, whereby the party should actively recruit a new generation of candidates. In general, though he disclaimed a need to “look backwards” and cast blame, he was paradoxically more blunt than Munday in calling for a break with current policy.

“A family cannot put itself back together with failed past relationships that are putting a strain on the organization,” said Kuhn, who added that he would support Munday for chairman if he himself did not get the nod.

Forrester was equally determined to defend that policy, including what he said had been his success as a fundraiser. In contrast to the other two, who suggested casting a wider net, Forrester emphasized a need to make pragmatic choices in the allocation of the party’s resources to specific candidates and districts.

On the ticklish issue of Democratic candidates who chose in 2010 to dissociate themselves from the party’s national leaders hip, the three displayed contrasting attitudes. Kuhn stressed that different circumstances — such as urban vs. rural — dictated different approaches, and he called for the emergence of “pro-business” candidates. Munday called for a blanket support of candidates nominated in Democratic primaries, and Forrester emphasized the need for candidates to work within the established party structure.

A striking feature of the discourse was the acknowledgement by all three candidates that Tennessee Democrats were now a “minority party” and had to deal forthrightly with that fact. All three agreed that the party should maintain a critical stance in regard to the Republicans as the party in power.

It was difficult to say which candidate might have gained the most traction. All have been campaigning vigorously in the several corners of the state. As he did two years during his successful run for the chairmanship, Forrester claims numerous commitments from the members of the state executive committee, who will meet in January in Nashville to make a decision. Munday seems to have made some impact at the grass roots level, and Kuhn boasted outright Monday night about the support he has from the likes of retiring 8th District congressman John Tanner, his former boss, and former party chairman Doug Horne of Knoxville, among others.

• JB
• SCS chairman Pickler with board members on Monday

Bill Giannini and David Pickler may still be suspicious characters in the eyes of school-consolidation proponents, a fact which both readily acknowledge, even as both continue to see themselves as being wholly aboveboard.

Shelby County Election Commission chairman Giannini indicated fairly firmly Monday that the commission, at its scheduled Wednesday meeting, would set February 15 as the date for a referendum on the surrender of the Memphis City Schools charter.

Only three things could change that, Giannini said — a rescinding by the MCS Board of its December 20 vote to call for the referendum; a judicial intervention of some sort; or some action by state Election Coordinator Mark Goins to stop or postpone the referendum.

The MCS Board apparently won’t be acting, despite the swearing-in Monday of new member Sara Lewis, who opposes he referendum; there has been no suggestion of court activity; and Giannini has had no word yet from Goins, although he has presented a number of questions to the Election Coordinator for a response.

Perhaps the most controversial of those questions concerned the issue of whether Shelby County voters outside the Memphis city limits should be allowed to take part in the referendum.

Pickler, the Shelby County Schools Board chairman whose call for special-school-district legislation for SCS precipitated the current crisis, continues to insist that “the 30 percent” of county residents outside Memphis should have a voice in the referendum.

Asked at a press conference Monday why outer-countians, who don’t vote for MCS Board members, should be able to vote on the surrender of the city school carter, Pickler said residents of the outer county paid county taxes that were distributed to city schools (an ironic variation on Memphis residents’ contention some years ago that they should have a vote on selecting county school board members because their tax money also goes to county schools).

Besides, Pickler said, it was understood that the surrender of the charter would be “equivalent to consolidation,” and that fact entitled all county residents to vote.

Reminded of criticism at a December 15 “summit” meeting of local officials that he had not specified a specific reason for pursuing special-school-district status for SCS, Pickler said it was the threat of action like that which the MCS board has now taken which prompted his urgency. “We had no other recourse” for preserving the de facto independence of SCS, he said.

Asked if that answer might be circular in the sense that it left unstated the reason for desiring independence, Pickler cited SCS’s relatively high level of academic achievement. He added, “We don’t mind saying that we have achieved results as a district that are worth preserving.”

Many of the reservations about merger of the two school systems stated earlier by himself and SCS superintendent John Aitken had to do with the confusions and disruptions that short-order consolidation might incur. Pickler noted that, unlike MCS, SCS had not been moved to establish charter or optional schools, suggesting that “our standards” were high enough system-wide so as not to require them.

Pickler was candid when asked after Monday’s press conference about possible loopholes in a “compact” various officials, including Memphis Mayor A C Wharton and Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell, are still pursuing as a means of averting a showdown between the two school districts.

Yes, Pickler acknowledged, it was possible — even likely — that, regardless of any go-slow understanding reached between MCS and SCS and between members of the Shelby County delegation, the forthcoming General Assembly would pass legislation striking down a prohibition against creating new school districts. The Tennessee School Boards Association will be seeking to get such a bill passed, which could be introduced by a legislator from elsewhere in the state.

And, though a “private act” affecting Shelby County specifically would be a next step in creating a new special school district for the county, someone from outside the county could introduce that bill also, Pickler conceded. “It’s happened before,” he said, remembering a bill once introduced on another county’s behalf by Memphis state Senator John Ford.