State Rep. Curry Todd (R-Collierville), pleaded guilty in a Nashville court Friday to DUI and gun possesseion charges relating to a 2011 traffic arrest in the state capital and was sentenced to 48 hours in jail and 24 hours of community service.
As additional punishment, Todd, a former sponsor of guns-in-bars legislation, forfeits the right to carry a gun anywhere during a year of court-imposed probation. He was also fined $ 350.
Along with state Senator Mark Norris, his fellow Collierville Republican, Todd was a sponsor the 2011 bill, familiarly known as Norris-Todd, which provided a framework for city-county school merger in Shelby County.
Follow-up legislation by Norris and Todd , expediting the creation of suburban municipal school districts in Shelby County, was found unconstitutional last year by U.S. District Judge Hardy Mays, who has yet to rule on a provison of Norris-Todd that enabled the suburban districts in the first place.
Todd was arrested by Nashville police on the night of October 11, 2011, ater being spotted weaving in traffic. He refused a breath alcoholic test on the spot.
After being charged on that occasion, Todd stepped down as chairman of the House State and Local Government committee, though he retains membership on that committee, as well as on the House business and ulitities committee.
Todd also attained some national notoriety in 2010 when he referred to Mexican immigrants multiplying like “rats” during the course of a legislative hearing on health care benefits.
He would subsequently tell his House colleagues during a committee hearing that suffered from a slow-growing variety of lymphoma, and, for all his sudden notoriety, he was not opposed for reelection in 2012.
