With the conclusion this week of the special session on
ethics, state legislators now are free to open, or reopen, any of several other
Pandora’s boxes — the most immediate of which is the on-again/off-again question
of who gets to sit in the state Senate representing Shelby County’s District 29.
Though Terry Roland, the Republican
candidate in last fall’s special election, continues to press his case, and
Democrat Ophelia Ford, declared the winner back then, still sits provisionally,
resisting Republican senators’ efforts to void the election, two circumstances
have blunted the edge of the drama and slowed its momentum.
One
was last week’s ruling on the case by U.S. district judge Bernice Donald, which
raised as many questions as it answered. Both sides immediately claimed victory:
Ford’s side did so because Donald appeared to invalidate Roland’s numerous
challenges based on residence and improper registration procedures. Donald’s
ruling further mandated that any effort to void the election had to conform with
statewide election practices that were observed before that special election —
which was to determine a successor to Ford’s brother John Ford, a casualty of
the Tennessee Waltz scandal.
But Roland’s side still possessed the
trump card that Donald’s decision provisionally put in play: an up-or-down vote
on voiding the election. Senate Republican leader Ron Ramsey, who prevailed in a
preliminary vote of 17-14 some weeks back, has indicated he intends to proceed,
presumably with his hand strengthened by the accession to Republican ranks last
week of erstwhile Democrat Don McLeary
of Humboldt.
The
crossover vote of McLeary, then still a Democrat, in last month’s preliminary
“Committee of 33” session is what gave Ramsey the majority he needed for a
formal and final vote by the Senate. It was the imminence of such a climactic
vote that resulted in a temporary injunction by Donald at Ford’s request. But
the legal uncertainties still need to be sorted out before Ramsey, Roland, and
the Republicans get to cross their Rubicon.
Another development that may have rendered the District 29 showdown somewhat
moot is the political tide that has further eroded the Democrats’ position in
the Senate. And though the issues of ethics in general and electoral reform in
particular were, and continue to be, integral to the District 29 situation,
those issues were always somewhat overshadowed by the pure politics of the case.
In the same week that McLeary made his
surprise announcement of a party switch, a Republican state senator from
Memphis, Curtis Person, announced that after 40 years as a legislator he would
be vacating his seat this year — conceivably to run for judge of Juvenile Court,
where Person is currently a part-time administrator.
In
one sense, that would mean no change in the Senate lineup. Republican Person
will almost certainly be succeeded by a partymate. In another sense, however,
the exit of Person, a longtime friend and ally of Lieutenant Governor John
Wilder, a nominal Democrat, will have seismic consequences. Even though he
formally voted for Ramsey over Wilder for speaker in January of last year,
Person did so knowing that two other Republicans were going Wilder’s way,
assuring the venerable speaker a majority.
Whichever Republican ends up succeeding
Person is unlikely to be so ambivalent. (Nor, presumably, will the newly
chastened, formerly compliant pair of GOPers.) It could be an opportune time
for the long preeminent Wilder, who is presumably disinclined to be a
back-bencher, to consider retirement.
In any case, the high likelihood is
that octogenarian Wilder will not be a candidate for reelection in 2008.
Worsening the Democrats’ predicament is the fact that Wilder’s rural West
Tennessee district, which includes many new bedroom suburbs of Memphis, has been
slowly tilting Republican, and it could be ripe for plucking by the GOP.
The
bottom line: Even without an opportunity to avail themselves of District 29 by
means of a possible interim Republican appointee by the Shelby County Commission
(the Democrats would be heavily favored to win the seat back this fall), the
Republicans appear very much in the ascendant as short- and maybe even long-term
masters of the Senate. The magic figure of 20 seats, out of 33 overall, would
seem to be within their reach.
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