Month: January 2016

Categories
Memphis Gaydar News

Cherry Does Bowie

The monthly Cherry party, billed as a place for “freaks, queers, Burlesque dancers, and everyone else,” will pay homage to the late David Bowie with its “Bowie Burlesque” show on Saturday, January 30th at Earnestine & Hazel’s.

Requiemma, Will Ryder, Lady Doo Moi, and Kitty Wompas will perform their “interpretations of Bowie’s genius,” according to Cherry host/singer/comedian Julie Wheeler.

The Cherry party is typically in the 5 Spot behind Earnestine & Hazel’s, but the show may be moved to the front room of the bar due to a scheduling conflict with a dance party.

Doors open at 8:30 p.m. and the shows are scheduled for 9:30 and 11 p.m. General admission is $10, and VIP (saved seat, signed Cherry poster) is $20.

Categories
Intermission Impossible Theater

Turn it Up: American Idiot Doesn’t Get It

When Johnny met Whatsername

People who are bored are also boring. The junkie life is a study in redundancy. And it’s impossible to muster sympathy for a couch potato stoner dodging life’s responsibilities.These are hurdles any production of American Idiot has to overcome. Playhouse on the Square’s production of the Green Day musical fails to clear any of them, though it might get some extra lift if somebody would just TURN UP THE BAND!

Director Gary John La Rosa likes to tell stories and he’s good at it, usually. La Rosa felt like many of American Idiot‘s words — and subsequently much of the musical’s story — had been lost in Broadway’s noisy sensory assault. To correct for this he placed the band behind the scenery, and pushed it to the back of the theater, effectively turning punk-inspired guitar buzz that should be the real star of this project, into a supporting player in the drama. It’s a good theory, and an enormous miscalculation.

Turn up the band.

Whether it’s Green Day or Lady Gaga, or something great that only you and your five closest friends know, so much of how we experience pop music is contextual. Radio hits and cult classics serve as a markers for who we are, who we were, and who we wanted to be way back when we wore our hair like whatever. Sure, the rock era has produced its share of top drawer wordsmiths, and Green Day’s Billy Joe Armstrong may even be one of them. But when it comes right down to the creation of meaning, a popular song’s verses aren’t nearly as important as the hook. How else does one explain the creepy “Every Breath You Take,” as a prom theme? Or Ronald Reagan pairing an optimistic motto like “Morning in America,” with Springsteen’s ”Born in the USA?” And what about that deeply meaningful song you fell in love with in high school and have sung wrong ever since? The idea I’m trying (and probably failing) to express is at the heart of what went wrong at POTS. American Idiot isn’t a show where you need to hear all the words, but you absolutely do need to feel all the feels. With the band turned down and pushed into the background, I just wasn’t feeling any of it it.

Turn up the band.

Turn it Up: American Idiot Doesn’t Get It


American Idiot isn’t a musical in any traditional sense. It’s more of a  an angry, youthful screed responding to 20th-Century excess and 21st-Century wars — a collage of sights and sounds that remind us of just how fractured and confusing life could be at the turn of the century. The story — if you can really call it that — revolves around three young bros from the burbs striking out on their own and making life choices that turn out badly. Plot points related to addiction, a failing marriage, and combat are prosaically grafted to a generous heap of mostly catchy songs from Green Day’s similarly titled concept album. The record was released in September 2004, as Republicans held their national convention in New York. It was a noisy and contentions time. 24-Hour cable news was expanding. Talk radio was at its zenith, The Daily Show was entering its prime and internet blogs were proliferating and bending toward the mainstream. All this red and blue fracturing and image saturation is alluded to in POTS’s Idiot, but the dots don’t connect.

Mark Guirguis’ set reminds me of the windows in rundown industrial blocks just off the L-line in Brooklyn about five minutes before gentrification hit. But without the flavor. John Horan’s lights spend too much time in our eyes. Caleb Blackwell’s costumes look like he may have consulted with my mother on the finer details of punk fashion. The only thing this misfire production really has going for it is a fearless cast that can sing its ass off. And does just that.

Turn up the band.

It’s not Rock-and-Roll unless it upsets the parents, and to the show’s credit, people of parenting age got up and left when Alexis Grace (Whatsername) and Nathan McHenry (Johnny) stripped down for the big sex scene. Like all the little birdies being flipped, it’s an easy way to stir the pot, but it gets the job done. I knew how the bolting couples felt though. I too became embarrassed and wanted to leave the theater on a few occasions when an actor who’s clearly not a very skilled guitar player plunked and plodded his way through music he never should have been asked to play in the first place.

Turn up the band.

I’m inclined to go on, but I’ll end before this turns into a tantrum. And with a reminder that most of these complaints might be neutralized by concert level decibels.

Turn up the band.

It’s a great fucking band.

Categories
News News Blog

UPDATE: DA Weirich Says She’ll Fight Supreme Court Censure

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Justin Fox Burks

Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich.

UPDATE:

Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich says that neither she nor her team did anything wrong in the Noura Jackson trial. The censure recommendation from the Supreme Court’s Board of Professional Responsibility, she said, comes down to a difference of legal opinions and she says she’ll fight it.

Here’s her response to the censure recommendation:

“The trial judge and the Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that my statement was not reversible error, while the state Supreme Court ruled the opposite way. A difference of judicial opinions is not uncommon with legal issues,” Weirich said in a statement. “Nothing done by the prosecution in this trial should warrant disciplinary action.

This complaint was not initiated by an attorney or by any of the judges who reviewed the case, but by a friend of the convicted killer. This complaint sets a bad precedent for prosecutors, defense lawyers, and even for trial judges. That’s why I have chosen to fight this complaint – because it is the right thing to do.”

ORIGINAL POST:

The Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility has recommended a public censure for Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich as she “is guilty of acts and omissions” in standards of practicing law during the murder trial of Noura Jackson, according to a petition filed with the board on Monday.

The board is the disciplinary arm of the Tennessee Supreme Court and it oversees attorneys in Tennessee and punishes them if they break ethical rules that govern the profession.

The board opened an investigative file on Weirich in 2014 based on her actions in the Jackson murder trial, according to the petition. Weirich was notified of the complaint in August 2014.

The board recommended the censure on Wednesday, Dec. 30. On Tuesday, Jan. 19, Weirich demanded her right to a formal hearing on the matter.

The petition pointed specifically to Weirich’s closing argument in the Jackson case, in which she “stated in a loud tone of voice: ‘Just tell us where you were! That’s all we’re asking, Noura!'” Jackson had exercised her right to remain silent at the trial and did not testify.

“It is a well-settled principle that a prosecutor may not comment upon a defendant’s exercise of the Fifth Amendment right not to testify,” reads the petition.

Weirich’s outburst broke a rule of professional conduct, the petition said. Further, “Ms. Weirich has substantial experience in the practice of law which justifies an increase in the degree of discipline.”

The original complaint on Weirich came from William Shelton, a Germantown friend of Jackson’s, in August 2014. In it, Shelton said:

“As the [Tennessee] Supreme Court concluded, Weirich violated two of Noura Jackson’s constitutional rights. Now [Noura] publicly disagrees with the court’s ruling. If not swiftly and strongly disciplined, why should we not expect more constitutional violations from her [Weirich] and/or her office? To protect the people, what will the board do and when will the board do it?”

Shelton’s letter refers to two violations. One is the outburst in Weirich’s closing argument. The other he is referring to is a violation of a law governing evidence in court cases informally called Brady laws.

Brady rules state prosecutors must give defense attorneys any evidence that could help a defendant in a court case. A key witness statement in the Jackson case was not delivered to her attorneys during the trial.

Jef Fiebelman, an attorney with Burch, Porter, and Johnson hired by Weirich in the disciplinary matter, disputes Shelton’s claim. Fiebelman said while there was a Brady violation in the Jackson case, the Supreme Court ruled that it was not broken intentionally by Weirich or her team.

Weirich’s assistant failed to give her the information, he said. In a 2014 letter to the TBPR, Fiebleman said that the court ruled the witness statement at issue in the Jackson case was not known to Weirich until after the trial was over.

“In short, while the Supreme Court found a Brady violation, it did not disturb the trial court’s finding that the violation was unintentional and it stated throughout the opinion that the violation resulted from the inaction of Ms. Weirich’s assistant,” Feibelman said in the letter.

Actions from the board can range from disbarment, suspension, and censure, which is a sort of public reprimand that carries no real consequences from the board.

Thomas Henderson, a top attorney in Weirich’s office, was censured by the board in 2013 for withholding evidence in a capital murder case.

At the time, he and his boss, Weirich, said Henderson simply forgot about the piece of evidence, that not disclosing it correctly was a “human error,” and that his crime amounted to a clerical mistake.

The punishment the board handed down to Henderson was a “public rebuke and a warning to the attorney, but does not affect the attorney’s ability to practice law.” Henderson also had to pay the court costs that lead to the censure, which totaled $1,745.07. He pleaded guilty to the error, endured the public punishment, had to pay a fine, and the matter is closed.

Follow the Weirich story here on the Flyer News Blog as it develops.

—-
A new version of the story corrects the name of Weirich’s attorney, Jef Feibelman. The previous version listed her attorney as Preston Shipp who is, in fact, an attorney for the TBPR.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Weekend Roundup 51: John Nemeth, Nots, Alex da Ponte

CREDIT: Aubrey Edwards

Aubrey Edwards

John Nemeth plays Lafayette’s Music Room this Friday.

Happy Friday and welcome to the 51st edition of my Weekend Roundup. Local bands rule the weekend this time around, a long with a few touring acts like Choke Chains, Death Panels, and Urban Pioneer. Let’s get it on. 

Friday, January 29th
Loveland Duren, 6:30 p.m. at Lafayette’s Music Room. 

Weekend Roundup 51: John Nemeth, Nots, Alex da Ponte

Lisa Mac, 8 p.m. at Studio 688, donations suggested. 

Aaron Lee Tasjan, Woody Pines, 9 p.m. at the Hi-Tone, $10. 

The Sheiks and Duma, 10 p.m. at the Lamplighter, free.

Weekend Roundup 51: John Nemeth, Nots, Alex da Ponte (2)

John Nemeth, 10 p.m. at the Lafayette’s Music Room. 

Saturday, January 30th.
The Lonely Biscuits, Sleepwlkrs, Crockett (solo set), 8 p.m. at the Hi-Tone, $5.

Urban Pioneers, Sold Under Sin 9 p.m. at The Hi-Tone  $7-10.

Weekend Roundup 51: John Nemeth, Nots, Alex da Ponte (3)

Choke Chains, Manateees, Bloody Show, Time, 9 p.m. at Murphy’s, $5.

Weekend Roundup 51: John Nemeth, Nots, Alex da Ponte (4)

Jesse WInchester, 10 p.m. at Bar DKDC, $5.

Death Panels, Zuul, Naan Violence, Nots, 10 p.m. at the Lamplighter, free. 

Weekend Roundup 51: John Nemeth, Nots, Alex da Ponte (5)

Sunday, January 31st
Alex Da Ponte, 7 p.m. at the Young Avenue Deli.

Weekend Roundup 51: John Nemeth, Nots, Alex da Ponte (6)

Birthday Bash feat. Bored Lord, Minivan Markus, The Sidewayz & more, 8 p.m. at  the Hi-Tone, $3.

Marcella and her Lovers, 9 p.m. at Lafayette’s Music Room. 

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies 103, Bucks 83: Next Day Haiku

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

Larry Kuzniewski

Last night, the Grizzlies beat the Milwaukee Bucks at FedExForum, and it was not a close game. The first half was mostly just ugly, with neither team shooting particularly well, but in the second half, the Grizzlies came out and started moving the ball—helped by some good lineup decisions, which I don’t often praise Dave Joerger for making—and showed flashes of really good offense with a two point guard lineup (which is a lot more fun with Mike Conley and Mario Chalmers than it was with Conley and Nick Calathes or Beno Udrih).

Bottom line is this: the Bucks aren’t very good. They’ve regressed from last year, and they were also missing three rotation players last night.

It was more fun to write about this one than watch it—especially since OJ Mayo, who will always have a place in my heart (and in the Ovinton J’Anthony Mayo Lionel Hollins Memorial Doghouse) was hurt.

I used to do this more often, and I had more fun when I did. So here we are. IT’S HAIKU TIME.

#1

Young but flailing Bucks,
A regression to the mean
A deer dream deferred.

#2

The trade deadline comes
Once a year for expirings.
Who will become gone?

#3

M. Carter Williams,
The dread curse of the Sixers:
Is he really good?

Larry Kuzniewski

#4

JaMychal’s minutes—
Have you seen them anywhere?
Ryan Hollins has.

#5

Trades will come and go.
Get a second for Jeff Green
Or, well, anything.

Larry Kuzniewski

#6

Giannis got kicked out
Because he was frustrated
What a pottymouth

#7

Will the Griz make moves?
Can they acquire young talent?
Time is tight, you know.


Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Time for Hillary to Get Real

Hillary Clinton is the Great Underestimator. Eight years ago, she underestimated Barack Obama, and now she has underestimated Bernie Sanders. We know this not only from what happened in 2008 and what is happening now, but from the pitiful confessions of her campaign staff who admit they never saw Sanders coming.

That’s understandable. It’s not so much that Sanders was underestimated; it’s that Clinton is overestimated. I come at this column as a Clinton supporter. I like her personally and have enormous respect for her intelligence. Mostly, though, she’s the classic one-eyed person in the land of the blind.

Who else is there? Pray, not Bernie Sanders. If he played Captain Renault in Casablanca, he would have said, “Break up the big banks” instead of “Round up the usual suspects.” To him, it’s the same thing.

Clinton has her own tic. She has plans. She has a one-point plan and a two-point plan and, most often, a three-point plan. A three-pointer is always best, since it suggests a beginning, a middle, and an end. It mimics the three-act structure of movies and plays that, for some reason, we find so satisfying.

Clinton has a three-act plan regarding the Islamic State that, as I understand it, is about what is already being done. This is the Obama approach in Power Point.

At Sunday night’s debate, Clinton was somewhat less than candid about her foreign policy differences with her former boss. (As secretary of state, she favored a more muscular policy.) But what matters more to her political chances is this business of hiding behind plans. She talks like a chief of staff, which in a sense she was to her husband, and not as the policymaker herself.

The word “plan” pedantically distances her from her audience. It’s a buffer. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about her plans. I sort of already know what they are, anyway. After being first lady, senator from New York, secretary of state, and, going all the way back, the 1969 commencement speaker at Wellesley College, she can’t possibly have any surprises up her sleeve. When it comes to policies and plans, she is a known commodity. The rest of her is encased in an emotional burka.

At the end of the debate, she had a chance to hit one out of the park. She, Sanders, and Martin O’Malley were asked by one of the moderators, NBC’s Lester Holt, whether there was “anything that you really wanted to say tonight that you haven’t gotten a chance to say.” With that, Clinton … bunted.

“Well, Lester, I spent a lot of time last week being outraged by what’s happening in Flint, Michigan, and I think every single American should be outraged. We’ve had a city in the United States of America where the population, which is poor in many ways and majority African American, has been drinking and bathing in lead-contaminated water. And the governor of that state acted as though he didn’t really care.”

She could have gone further. She could have mentioned how some children are already beyond hope. Their IQs have dropped. They are lethargic. They have lead poisoning. An ugly piece of the Third World was brought to Michigan under a governor who had hitherto boasted how his business experience made him better than your ordinary politician.

She should have talked about the kids — the poor kids whose lives have been ruined so that taxes did not have to be raised. But Clinton did not mention the kids. She did not even go to Flint. “So I sent my top campaign aide down there to talk to the mayor of Flint to see what I could do to help,” she said. “I issued a statement about what we needed to do, and then I went on a TV show and I said it was outrageous that the governor hadn’t acted. And within two hours, he had.”

Let’s see: 1) Sent an aide. 2) Issued a statement. 3) Went on TV. Sanders at that point chimed in, adding that he had called on Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to resign.

Clinton’s shortcomings as a candidate amount to a national crisis. As things now stand, the Republican nominee could be either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. If she can’t handle Sanders, she probably can’t handle either of them. She needs to get a different three-point plan: 1) Say what’s on your mind. 2) Get angry. 3) Never say the word “plan” again.

Richard Cohen writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.

Categories
News The Fly-By

TVA Makes Plans to Permanently Close a Local Coal Ash Pond

CREDIT: Tennessee Valley Authority

In August 2014, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) board voted to retire its Memphis coal plant by December 2018 and replace it with a 1,000-megawatt natural gas plant. That process is underway, and now TVA is focusing on closing one of the two ash ponds on the coal plant’s site.

The West Ash Impoundment, a retired coal ash pond near the Allen Fossil Plant in Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park, was the disposal site for waste products from the plant until 1978. It was replaced by the newer East Ash Impoundment. The West Ash pond has only received small amounts of combustion coal residuals (CCR) since then, typically when the East Ash pond was being worked on.

Tennessee Valley Authority

Map of the Allen Fossil Plant and its ash impoundments

“CCR is a result from the coal-burning process. You can have bottom ash from the bottom of the boiler. You can have fly ash, which goes into the air and is collected,” said Amy Henry, the manager of TVA’s National Environmental Policy Act program. “Some of the processes use water to push [the CCR] out through a pipe into an impoundment, and that’s why [the impoundments are] wet.”

Active ash impoundments, like the East Ash pond, are wet, but since the West Ash pond has been out of use for a while, it doesn’t look like a pond at all. The pond has been filled in with dirt, but TVA wants to permanently close the pond, either by covering the area with an impervious cap or by trucking the CCR material off-site to the South Shelby Landfill.

Those are the two options TVA is considering in the ash pond closure’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). While both were studied in the EIS, the report recommends the permanent cover option over the option to truck material off-site. The public is invited to comment on that report through February 24th. Later in the year, the TVA board will vote on one of the two options.

One of the reasons the EIS recommends what they’re calling “closure in place” over “closure by removal” is the potential for a traffic accident as trucks haul the coal ash from the industrial park to the landfill.

“With closure by removal, we would predict a higher risk of impacts in the traffic system, potentially accidents if there were more trucks on the road,” Henry said. “We’d have to take a look at the impacts on the community and where these routes would be going.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that CCR is nonhazardous, but the Sierra Club’s Tennessee conservation program coordinator Scott Banbury has a different stance.

“The EPA says it’s not hazardous, but we disagree because within this material are toxic heavy metals, and that can have a huge impact on aquatic communities,” Banbury said.

Banbury believes leaving the coal ash where it is could have more potential negative impact than moving it out. The ash ponds are currently unlined, meaning there’s nothing separating the waste from the ground underneath.

And even though the closure-in-place option would include a cap over the top, Banbury fears the ash could still seep out into the groundwater underneath and eventually make its way to into nearby McKellar Lake. Although signs are posted to discourage fishing in that lake, Banbury said many people still fish there to feed their families.

“The groundwater comes up from the river and gets the bottom of the ash pond wet below the water table,” Banbury said. “They’re saying they’re going to cap this thing so that rainfall can’t fall on top of it and leach through the ash pond, but that’s irrelevant because the groundwater comes up through the containment anyway.”

By contrast, the South Shelby Landfill is lined, so if the TVA were to truck the material out of the pond and into the landfill, it’d be moved to a lined containment. But Banbury said the landfill isn’t ideal either.

“Our preferred alternative is for them to remove it from this unlined pond and construct a new one with a liner underneath it,” Banbury said.

Categories
News News Blog

Tremaine Wilbourn Indicted for Memphis Police Officer Death

Tremaine Wilbourn

Tremaine Wilbourn, the man arrested for the shooting death of Memphis Police officer Sean Bolton, was indicted on a first-degree murder charge and other charges Thursday, according to Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich.

Wilbourn is accused of killing Bolton last August during a traffic stop. Bolton was shot as he approached the parked car Wilbourn was sitting in. That car had been parked on Summerlane Avenue in Parkway Village when Bolton pulled over to check on the car. Police believe Bolton may have interrupted a drug transaction. A struggle ensued between Bolton and Wilbourn, and Bolton was shot eight times, according to an autopsy report. Police searched the vehicle Wilbourn was riding in later and found about two grams of pot. 

Wilbourn fled the scene of the shooting and allegedly carjacked another man at gunpoint. He turned himself into police for both crimes two days later.

Wilbourn is facing the state murder charge, as well as state charges of carjacking, employing a firearm in the commission of a dangerous felony, and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Additionally, Wilbourn is facing federal charges of carjacking, felony possession of ammunition, and violation of supervised release. He’s being held on a $10 million bond.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Scandal Comes to Capitol Hill in Nashville: The Durham Case

Jeremy Durham: Why is this man smiling?

 
There’s a difference between a lynching and execution by due process. That distinction (which is apparently about to receive a  practical demonstration in our state capital) may not make much of a difference to beleaguered state Rep. Jeremy Durham (R-Franklin), who seems about to experience the officially ordered death, not of his person, but of his political career.

Durham is the legislator who burst into the news big-time in the current session of the General Assembly when the House Republican Caucus met in closed session early on amid a host of mysterious and unclarified rumors and voted to allow Durham to remain as majority whip. The GOP caucus would shortly reverse itself when published reports appeared confirming that Durham had sent “inappropriate” emails to several unnamed women (interns, one hears) asking for “pictures.”

Details have been scanty, but so were the pictures Durham requested, apparently. He was not, it seems clear, asking for graduation photos.

Now, Durham is also being held accountable for an unseemly relationship with a female state representative who, according to state Senate Speaker and Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey, was moved to resign because of it.

It was Ramsey who used the expression “lynching” in relation to the fate of Durham, who is being publicly urged by Ramsey himself, by House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville), by Governor Bill Haslam, and by a growing chorus of other party-mates to get out of the legislature of his own accord while the getting is good.

“Obviously we don’t want the press lynching anybody, but nobody forced, the press didn’t force somebody to send text messages after midnight asking for pictures,” Ramsey said to reporters at a meeting of the Tennessee Press Association in Nashville on Thursday. The Lt. Governor also said enough, without naming names, to invite media speculation about former GOP Rep. Leigh Wilburn of Somerville, a legislator who abruptly resigned late last year,

The Democratic remnant on Capitol Hill had chastised the Republican leadership for moving too slow in the Durham case, but Ramsey and Harwell are moving very fast of late. Whether or not events have forced their had, both Speakers have now moved beyond requests for Durham’s resignation and are talking up the process of expulsion.

On Thursday afternoon Harwell requested a formal investigation of Durham’s conduct by state Attorney General Herb Slatery and said she would use the “findings” in any forthcoming expulsion proceedings.
Durham himself, who has accepted “separation” from the Republican caucus but has declined so far to resign his House membership, said through a intermediary that he had “no further comments.”

We bet that’ll change. Stay tuned. This is one time when the legislature process is not moving at a snail’s pace.
JB

Ramsey and Harwell at inaugural activities in 2015. Events may have forced their hand.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

State Senate, House Reach Agreement on Appellate Judges

CREDIT: JB

The unexpectedly complicated sequel to the passage last year of a constitutional amendment on judicial conformation seems to have ended finally with an agreement hammered out in the General Assembly.

JB

state Sen. Brian Kelsey

The amendment called for appointment by the Governor of state appellate judges, followed by confirmation by the legislature. Given that the legislature is composed of two chambers, which occasionally have differing points of view, some controversy had swirled around just what was involved in legislative confirmation — whether the two chambers might should express themselves jointly or separately and whether one chamber could offset the opinion of the other.

A conference committee of the state House and state Senate reached a compromise solution allowing separate initial considerations of an appellate nominee by either chamber, followed by a joint vote, and allowing either chamber to block an appointment by a two-thirds vote. 

The solution is addressed in the following news release about Senate Bill 1, sponsored by state Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), who is also chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee and was the sponsor of the original constitutional amendment.

(NASHVILLE) – The Senate and House of Representatives have adopted a conference committee report on Senate Bill 1 which puts into place a framework on how the state’s appellate judges should be confirmed or rejected under the new constitutional mandate adopted by voters in 2014. The bill is sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown).

Under the constitutional amendment, appellate judges are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the legislature. The voters of Tennessee have the ability to vote to retain or not retain judges at the end of their 8-year terms or, if an appointment is to fill a vacancy, at the next even year August election.

“I am thrilled the agreement passed the Senate and House with overwhelming majorities,” said Kelsey. The Senate passed it unanimously (33-0) and the House tally was 86-5. “I look forward to holding the first ever confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming weeks. We are setting precedent for quality judges in Tennessee for the next hundred years.”

Under the agreement, the Senate Judiciary Committee and its House counterpart will each hold a meeting to hear from the appointee. Following the hearing the committee will vote to recommend confirmation or rejection of the appointee to the full Senate. Next, the Senate and House of Representatives will meet in joint session to either confirm or reject the governor’s appointee.

If both chambers vote to confirm, the appointee is confirmed. If both chambers vote to reject, the appointee is rejected. Also, one chamber may reject the appointee by a two thirds vote.

On January 7, Governor Bill Haslam appointed Judge Roger Page of Jackson to the Tennessee Supreme Court, replacing Justice Gary Wade, who retired in September. Upon being signed into law by Governor Bill Haslam, the process laid out in the bill will be used when lawmakers consider his nomination.