Author: Steve Ross

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Opinion Viewpoint

Time to Get Rid of the Electoral College

As the new session of Congress gets underway, members are submitting legislation to be considered over the next two years. Memphis’ own Representative Steve Cohen has introduced 16 measures to be considered, including a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College. The Electoral College amendment brought a swift condemnation from the Shelby County GOP, who used a Brietbart.com link to plead their case.

Steve Ross

Cohen has sponsored this constitutional amendment several times. He proposed it in the 114th and 115th Congresses. It should come as no surprise that he’s putting it forward now, as a member of the majority.

A little history: The Electoral College came about thanks to the “Grand Compromise.” Southern states had a problem: They were really rural. They didn’t have the population density of northern states. They also had another concern: slavery. In 1787, slaves didn’t count for the purposes of apportioning Congressional Districts. As a result, the South’s ability to have an impact on national politics would be greatly diminished.

Enter the three-fifths compromise, two Senators per state, and the Electoral College. Thanks to this compromise, Virginia had an outsized impact on national relections for decades. Seven of the first 12 presidents hailed from Virginia. Nine of 16 pre-Civil War presidents hailed from Southern states. The three-fifths compromise and the Electoral College together gave Southern states incentive to increase their slave population to increase their political power in the nation. The three-fifths part of the Constitution was repealed after the Civil War, but the Electoral College, despite its role in empowering slave states, lives on. Since its inception, the Electoral College has favored smaller states over larger states. This holds true today.

• Twenty U.S. states, including Texas, California, and Tennessee have less electoral power per vote to decide the presidency than the other 30.

• Fifteen states have more power in the Electoral College than their population. Seven-and-a-half percent of the population has 12.6 percent of the Electoral College votes.
• The 20 largest states have less power than their population. Seventy-five-point-six percent of the U.S. population has only 68.4 percent of the power to decide the presidency. This disparity is the rationale behind Cohen’s constitutional amendment. By relying on the popular vote, the majority of the nation’s voters are better served.

This is the third time Cohen has filed a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College. Certainly, he knows it’s a long shot, but as the saying goes, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”

The amendment would need 290 votes in the House. Currently, Democrats occupy 235 seats. So 55 Republicans would have to join the effort. Then, two-thirds of the Senate would have to agree. With only 47 Democrats in the Senate, it’s unlikely the amendment would even come up for a vote. And even after meeting those two very high bars, the amendment would have to be ratified by 38 states.

Fifteen states currently get a great deal more power from the Electoral College than their population warrants. That alone is enough resistance to keep the amendment from being ratified. But there are another 15 states who also benefit some from the system. That brings the total to 30. Some of those 30 states might choose to ratify. But there are plenty of states, like Texas and Florida, who currently lose electoral power but are unlikely to push it forward for purely partisan reasons.

Since 1980, smaller Southern and Western states with less than six Electoral College votes have generally favored Republicans. No Republican-led state legislature is going to give away that advantage, no matter how badly it disadvantages voters in their state. The GOP controls both houses in 30 states. Democrats control just 18 (two are split). To get to 38 states, you would need the majority of GOP-led legislatures to approve the amendment, which seems unlikely.

But let’s say the amendment did make it past Congress. The amendment would have seven years to be approved by 38 states. That still leaves time for Democrats to gain power and get it passed … even if that’s not very likely.

In the end, Cohen is right to bring this amendment forward, even if it doesn’t have much of a chance of moving. By doing so, he’s placing a marker on the right side of history. And if conditions on the ground change to make this more viable, he’ll be ready.

Steve Ross is a longtime contributor to the Flyer and proprietor of the watchdog blog, Vibinc.

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Opinion The Last Word

Shelby County Election Commission’s pseudo-solution to early voting sites.

You may think the uproar about early voting for the August Shelby County General election was just another example of Democrats saying the sky is falling.

You’d be wrong.

There are a lot of good reasons to be suspicious of the Election Commission. This is the same bunch, sans election administrator, who “helped” thousands of voters get the wrong ballots in 2012.

So let’s go through the problems the Election Commission created for itself this time around.

Agricenter

By state law, early voting in the August election begins July 13th. One thing state law doesn’t mandate is how many locations are open and for how many days. Higher turnout elections, like November, typically have all early voting locations open throughout the early voting term. Seventy percent of participating voters in November 2016 voted early.

The August 2016 primary election wasn’t a high turnout affair. Less than 15 percent of all registered voters turned out in that election. Still, all early voting locations were open for all but two days.

The May 2018 County Primary had even smaller turnout. Just 13.76 percent of voters participated. This May, all early voting locations were open for the entire early voting period.

Finally, for an apples-to-apples comparison, the August 2014 election saw about 26 percent turnout. In that election, all early voting locations were open for all but two days.

In fact, just about every non-November election in memory has had limited early voting on the first two days of the early voting term. Then all early voting sites open the following Monday, through the end of early voting.

There should be a good deal of suspicion when the Election Commission arbitrarily cuts an additional two days of county-wide early voting from the schedule without cause or notice.

The second complaint centered around the Agricenter. It was the only site originally set to be open the first four days of voting.

The Agricenter is not a bad location for a large segment of the population. But it’s a less than ideal location for the majority of the county’s residents. As a sole voting location, the Agricenter would have kept tens of thousands of voters an hours-long bus commute away from the only place to vote for the first four days. The site may be in the most racially diverse precinct in East Memphis, but it is surrounded by some of the most white precincts in the entire county. There are only two majority-minority precincts within a five-mile radius.

Democrats wanted all locations to be open throughout the entire early voting term, just as they were in the super-low-turnout May election. But that’s not what happened.

The “compromise” means that one location, Abundant Grace Fellowship on Shelby Drive, will be open in an area that has a majority-minority population. Another, New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church on Poplar Pike in Germantown,will be open in an area that seems to have a good deal of crossover. Yet another, the Election Commission’s own Nixon Drive office at Shelby Farms, added by Administrator Linda Phillips, almost casually at the close of Friday’s public meeting on the subject (for reasons of state law, she said), will be open just around the corner from the Agricenter.  

There’s still a huge swath of Shelby County that’s nowhere near any of the three locations, including some areas that have the fewest public transportation options.

Some of the highest-turnout GOP precincts in the county now have two early voting locations right around the corner from each other.

It appears the compromise approved by the Shelby County Election Commission may have actually done more harm for Democrats, than good.

Both Downtown and Midtown have viable early voting locations that serve large populations of minority voters and are close to public transportation options. For whatever reason, no core-city locations were on the table.

Adding a Downtown location at a County building, which is the norm, would be a good alternative as well. But that also wasn’t on the table. 

Choosing not to engage stakeholders or to justify their actions is a continuing self-inflicted wound for this Election Commission. They, like so many other small boards in Shelby County, operate like a walled fiefdom, suspicious of anyone arriving at the gate. That makes them a prime candidate for skepticism.

Steve Ross is a husband, father, and occasional blogger. at vibinc.com.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Marketing Fear

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

Just about every group in America has a message. Some of those messages are uplifting, some are calls to action, and some are really trying hard to be both but just fail miserably. That’s called bad marketing.

Then there are those occasional instances where the message is so onerous that you have to wonder why someone would ever think this is a good idea. Such is the most recent example by the Memphis Police Association.

The MPA recently put up a billboard on Poplar highlighting Memphis’ high murder rate last year and implying that the number has something to do with fewer cops being on the beat. That’s foolishness, and everyone who knows anything about anything knows it. 

This is just another in a string of messages from the MPA concerning the benefit cuts that took place several years back. The group has been trying to pressure the mayor’s office and the Memphis City Council to reinstate those cuts, using the most incendiary tactics they can find — to little effect.

This isn’t a way to make friends and influence people; it’s a temper tantrum.

The MPA has every right to be upset about the benefit cuts. In fact, I share their anger. But they make it hard to be on their side when they put out messages like this.

It’s a tactic the MPA has used time and time again, to little effect. The MPA and its president, Mike Williams, appear to believe provoking fear is the way to get what they want. For years, they’ve been trying to stoke fear for political effect, to no avail.

I support restoring the benefit cuts. I even support a tax increase to fund them. But I find myself hoping the city council and mayor’s office won’t reward this kind of behavior. I don’t think they should punish it either.

I do think they need to send a clear message that, until they get honest, good-faith brokering from the MPA, this kind of activity will actually hurt any effort to restore the cuts.

What’s most annoying about this messaging effort by the MPA is that it is intellectually dishonest. Their message implies that the benefit cuts have led to fewer cops on the beat, which explains the rise in violent crime. The first part of that argument has some truth to it. Benefit cuts have led to some officers leaving and have presented recruitment challenges. But linking that to the crime rate is misleading.

While the murder rate has gone up and down over the past several years, the reality is that it has stayed in a general range, no matter how many cops were on the beat. The same thing can be said for all violent crime in the city. 

Laying last year’s homicide rate in the lap of the city council, the Mayor, and the current MPD administration is like blaming the number of babies born in a year on OB/GYNs. They didn’t get the people pregnant, they just delivered the babies.

Ultimately, this kind of message does nothing but force people, including politicians, deeper into their corners. I agree that Memphis cops deserve to have their benefits restored. I agree that part of that effort may require an adversarial posture from the MPA. But this is not the way to do it.

The MPA has a right to stand up for its members, but it should do that while being honest about what drives the problems in our city.

There are plenty of cities all over the nation that have fewer cops and a lower crime rate. Why is that? Because these cities are often taking a more proactive approach to the systemic problems that lead to higher crime rates. Things like education, access to health care, good public transportation, and job placement services have a greater impact on violent crime than the number of cops on the beat.

If the MPA wants their members to get their benefits back, they should stop thinking only about what they want and start thinking about what the city needs. By advocating for those things, they could get their benefits restored, though most likely with a smaller force.

I doubt the MPA will do that. It appears they’d rather stare at the trees and wonder where the forest is.

Steve Ross is proprietor of vibincblog, where a version of this essay first appeared.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Bill Gibbons’ Return

Bill Gibbons, the current commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security and a former Shelby County district attorney general, will soon join the Public Safety Institute at the University of Memphis to lend his expertise to the study of protecting the public. He’s also re-taking the helm of the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission — a post he held until he joined state government in 2011.

Some see Gibbons’ imminent return as an encouraging move to combat rising violent crime. But it is abundantly clear to me that the prescriptions advocated by Gibbons and other members of the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission, dating back to the 2006 inception of Operation Safe Community (OSC), have done little if anything to combat crime.

The crime commission continues to use 2006, a high-water mark for violent crime in Shelby County, as a benchmark to measure violent crime. This is where politicians get their numbers when they say “crime is down.” But by any real measure, crime isn’t down, especially not this year, which has seen more murders in the first four months of the year than any time since OSC began.

In fact, the rate of violent crime in Shelby County has stayed largely the same in every year except 2006. As defined by the FBI Uniform Crime Report and reported by the various law enforcement agencies in the area, the county rate has remained in a range of 15 to 20 crimes per 1,000 people.

OSC says they use 2006 because that’s when the program began. It then releases reports that show decreases in crime on a particular month of the year. But in reality, no real progress has been made since a dramatic — and temporary — drop in violent crime nationwide in the 1990s.

This is exactly why no one believes the crime numbers, and they shouldn’t.  

As it stands, local law enforcement acts as a reactionary force. Part of that just comes with the territory. But there are preventive measures that the police can employ that build trust from the public, and build stronger ties with communities without imposing a military-style occupation on every high-crime neighborhood.

While the Operation Safe Community 2012-2016 plan continues to talk about pilot programs for community-oriented policing, there’s no guarantee that with the departure of former Memphis Police Department director Toney Armstrong, their strongest local advocate, these programs will continue.

One good thing in the OSC plan is that it calls for more supportive services outside of law enforcement, like mental health treatment access and job training. These are absolutely necessary tools, but there’s little talk of funding sources.  

At the same time, the plan pushes for harsher sentences and mandatory minimums, which have been repeatedly shown to disproportionately impact racial minorities and the poor, at a time when such strategies are falling out of favor, to say the least.

There’s no question that organizations like the crime commission can be effective tools to help bring together for a common cause disparate groups that otherwise wouldn’t talk to each other. To the extent that this has happened, the crime commission has been successful.

The plan the commission has laid out has lofty goals. But with such scarce communication with the public, there’s little hope of building the kind of buy-in that would help achieve them. The commission has mostly been used as a PR tool to pump up the stats of politicians rather than to bring these and other diverse groups together or educate the public in a real way. 

Gibbons was involved in the commission’s creation. This pattern started with him at the helm. So there’s little reason to believe it will change now that he’s back.

Good intentions notwithstanding, the crime commission, which includes a host of “community partners,” suffers from the same problems other such boards do: The people who serve on them may be stakeholders, but they are not representatives of the community, and so reaching out to the community is virtually impossible, making improbable at best the goal of achieving the consistently moving target of truly reducing crime in Shelby County.

There’s no question that Shelby County has a huge task in working to reduce crime in our community. But let’s be real about it, and talk about the warts at least as openly as we talk about the successes. Give people actionable things to do before a call to 911 is necessary rather than relying solely on the constant drumbeat of “report the crime.”

And make sure law enforcement is building lasting relationships with communities of need.

Steve Ross is proprietor of vibincblog, where a longer version of this essay first appeared.

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Opinion Viewpoint

De-annexation Equals Chaos, Not Cure

By the time you read this, the Tennessee General Assembly may have already voted to allow as many as 10 areas of Memphis a chance to vote themselves out of Memphis.

HB 779, sponsored by Representative Mike Carter and Senator Bo Watson, both of Hamilton County, is an effort to roll back nearly two decades of land use and planning by cities all over Tennessee, including: Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Johnson City, Kingsport, and tiny Cornersville (population 1,199).

On Monday, the House passed HB779. The Senate could take action later in the week.

If enacted, the bill could put as much as 12 percent of the city’s tax base in question, making an already tough budget even tougher and severely hamstringing the city’s ability to plan for the future.

Addressing the bill last week, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said it could put Memphis in such dire straits that “forced consolidation” was a possibility. He’s since downplayed those comments.

But what is certain is that the city would be put in a nearly impossible position. Nearly two decades of growth brought on by annexation could be undone by referendum, putting millions of dollars of infrastructure and service deployment in those areas in question.  

While the bill allows the city to continue to tax these departing residents for the debt incurred, it doesn’t mention hard costs such as investments that didn’t incur debt, including parks, streets, streetlights, police, and fire houses. It also fails to mention employment costs for sanitation, police and fire salaries, pensions, healthcare, and other post-employment benefits (OPEB) the city incurred when it ramped up services to these areas. Considering the city’s financial position, there’s no question that the total bill would be contested in court, a process that would be very costly and take years to resolve.

De-annexation could also make borrowing for the city more expensive in the future. Bond ratings are set by a calculation of tax collections versus outstanding debt. Fewer tax payers means fewer dollars to pay existing debt. The bill says nothing about additional borrowing costs that could come as a result of a potential credit downgrade after de-annexation.

Shelby County government would also feel the brunt of this bill if passed. The county would have to ramp up deputy patrols and fire service in the newly de-annexed areas, as well as incurring other costs, meaning an almost certain property tax hike for Shelby County. Thus far, Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell has been virtually silent on the possible financial ramifications of the bill for the county.

To his credit, Strickland has said that he’s open to a discussion about decreasing the footprint of the city. That’s a pretty brave position to stake out, considering the financial challenges that face the city and the generally negative impression that a “shrinking city” leaves in people’s minds.

There is a way to do this. Just like there’s a way to get divorced where the kids don’t suffer too terribly, or split up a business that ultimately adds value for the shareholders. This isn’t it.

Five of the cosponsors of this bill call Shelby County home: senators Brian Kelsey and Reginald Tate, and representatives Ron Lollar, Steve McManus, and Curry Todd. It should be noted that Tate lives in Southwind, one of the areas that would be allowed to vote for de-annexation.

There’s no question that Memphis and Shelby County need to have a real discussion about land use and growth. Both governments need to come together to find common cause in maximizing existing investments in infrastructure and services, in addition to the ones they plan to make in the future.

While this bill may have increased the level of urgency for such discussions, it gives neither the city nor the county any tools to try and recover from the loss of tax base brought on by de-annexation. There is no mechanism to help cities revitalize older areas or help bring up property values, and by extension, tax collections to help their financial situation.

That’s not what this bill is about. It’s about retribution against cities for using the power of state law that is provided to expand their tax base.

If the state wants to change the way cities grow, that’s very much in their wheelhouse. But their prescription must take into account the investments cities have made to provide services to neighborhoods, not just the debt. It should also give communities the tools to recover when a neighborhood that’s been a part of the city for nearly two decades decides to go their own way.

Steve Ross writes about state and local policy and politics at vibinc.com.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Changing the Guard at MPD

CREDIT: Memphis Police Department

It was recently announced that Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong and nearly half of his command staff are leaving the department. While there’s no question the departure of so many seasoned officers will be a huge loss, it also gives newly inaugurated Mayor Jim Strickland an opportunity to remake the department to better serve the community.

Memphis Police Department

Departing MPD Director Toney Armstrong

The department faces many external challenges and suffers from internal problems that have been long ignored. These challenges are unlikely to be adequately addressed by an insider.

One of the flaws that was exposed in the investigation into the officer involved in the shooting death of Darrius Stewart is the lack of consistent policy positions for officers in what would often be standard situations. 

Currently, rules are written vaguely, giving officers the latitude to make judgment calls. Unfortunately, that latitude can also be used to treat different people in similar situations very differently. This ultimately undermines the relationship between law enforcement and populations that have been wrongly targeted due to circumstances that are beyond their control (race, the condition of their vehicles/residences, and the areas in which they live).

Rules that detail when passengers involved in traffic stops are to identify themselves need to be put in writing. This will ensure people’s privacy rights are respected, and officers don’t accidentally create a situation where an arrest is thrown out due to mishandling.

Clear rules about when to call for backup need to be in place.

Finally, rules about when force, either restraining force or deadly force, is to be used need to be in line with a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which involved an unarmed, fleeing suspect and the Memphis Police Department. 

That ruling states deadly force cannot be used unless the officer has “probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.”

The new police administration should actively engage the Citizen Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) on any new policy adopted and treat their relationship as a partnership to both inform the public of new policy and provide oversight when policy violations are reported.

For too long, relations between law enforcement and the public have been strained due to real and/or perceived wrongs committed by officers. Partnering with the CLERB will give the public the assurance that conduct issues will be dealt with in a timely manner.

Changing the way the department polices the city is another issue to address.  Instituting a community policing program would help heal fractures and most likely lead to a real decrease in crime.

Officers in Memphis have little direct contact with the populations they’re serving unless they’re on a call. That means officers only see the people they’re serving when they’re at their worst or in a bad situation. This negatively impacts their outlook on the community and leads to more alienation.

While walking patrols may not be feasible in every neighborhood, focusing on developing relationships in the community will minimize the alienation that is common in traditional patrols. It also builds relationships between the public and police that are durable, even when things go wrong.

Those relationships also provide a “boots on the ground” intelligence to identify other societal ills that may be occurring in communities (domestic violence, child abuse or neglect, unfit housing, wage theft, and other problems people who feel forgotten may not report, because they don’t believe anything will be done about it).

These things are important for a city like Memphis that has a high rate of working poor. While the loss of decades of institutional memory may seem like a severe problem for the city, problems are really just opportunities ripe for the taking.

Positive changes are unlikely to come from within. Institutions have their own inertia and generally follow Newtonian laws of motion, meaning they will most certainly maintain their current velocity and direction unless acted upon by an external force, and even then, they’ll still resist any push to change.

The opportunity for Memphis and law enforcement in the new administration is to identify the right kind of “external force” that will move the department in the right direction and make Memphis not only safer for its citizens but also a city that places a high degree of value in a cooperative relationship between the police and the community.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Vetting the Wharton Plan

Last week, Mayor AC Wharton opened the possibility that Peabody Place might be a good opportunity for increasing Memphis’ convention space on the cheap.

Peabody Place officially closed in 2011, though it was a ghost of itself near the end. Since its closing, there have been reports that the building would be redeveloped by Belz Enterprises into a combination of suites and convention space.

There’s no question the site should be developed into something. The question is what? Mayor Wharton thinks the answer is a convention center. Is that a good idea? Let’s start from what the city needs and work backward.

What the city wants/needs: Here are several schools of thought as to what the city’s convention business needs. Spend a little time in the Cook Convention Center and your first instinct will be — a modern convention center.

That modern space doesn’t have to equal the $650-million Music City Center in Nashville. The harsh reality is, we don’t have the hotel rooms downtown to justify a space that big. Increasing the number of rooms downtown should be the main goal, and it will take time. Occupancy downtown is a little below the national average, and the Average Daily Rate (ADR) is low. Until this changes, developers aren’t exactly going to flock to downtown Memphis.

Any of the three options under discussion — revamping the Cook Center, building a new convention center, or turning Peabody Place into a convention space — could bring more space and hotel rooms, but if the goal is increasing hotel capacity, the Peabody Place proposal has some competitive disadvantages.

Stacking the deck, public-private partnership style: The convention business makes money on two things: room rentals and catering. The space is just the means to an end.

If the idea of expanding the amount of convention space is part of a long-term plan to also increase tourism and the hotel room count in the city, then you may not want to build your space on land that is controlled by a large hotel operator. It creates a competitive advantage for the host hotel. It can bundle services (catering and rooms), which means other hotels are left in the lurch.

Another area of concern is the space itself. The ceiling is mostly glass, and there’s a huge atrium area that’s uneven and concrete, which means it will have to be leveled.

These aren’t deal breakers, but there are structural concerns that have to be dealt with for a convention space that an atrium-centered mall doesn’t have to worry about.

The 300: the myth of many small meetings: In an interview, Mayor Wharton spoke of a “niche market” of 300- to 500-person conventions that the city could seek out. It’s true, the 10,000-person convention market is small and very competitive. It’s also true that most conferences include fewer than 1,000 people. But there are some problems with Wharton’s premise.

First, no one builds with an eye toward the small market. They make large spaces that can be tailored to smaller meetings when necessary.

Second, any space should represent growth from the current convention center. Peabody Place is 300,000 square feet. The Cook Center is 350,000 square feet. There’s no question that adding Peabody would add much-needed space, but it doesn’t build on what we lack. It adds to what we’re already not utilizing.

Finally, Peabody Place is land-locked. There’s no room to grow in the future to accommodate new meetings, and the growing size of meetings that we currently host.

If we did build a new building, even half the size of Music City Center, we should make sure we have the space to expand — just in case.

Our ultimate goal should be bringing more hotel rooms to Memphis so we can compete for other things like an NBA All-Star game, a political convention, or whatever the next opportunity holds.

As for Peabody Place, if Belz Enterprises wants to redevelop it into something like Wharton’s vision, they should go for it. It’s not like they weren’t thinking about it already.

But there’s a reason Belz Enterprises hasn’t already turned Peabody Place into the very thing Mayor Wharton is proposing, and that’s because it’s just not feasible for them at this time. And that doesn’t make it look any more attractive as a public project either.

Steve Ross is a video director and event-production coordinator. He writes about local public policy at vibinc.com and state government at speaktopower.org.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Pennies from Haslam

Over the past three sessions, the Tennessee General Assembly, dominated by archconservatives from the Tea Party wing of the GOP, have brought us bill after bill expressing the fundamental convictions of their ideology: Keep the government out of business and cut benefits to the “unworthy.”

From a change to the workers’ compensation system to “tort reform” that caps damages to cuts to the Hall tax and to the eventual sunset of the inheritance tax (a levy which only affected 900 people a year at its peak), these changes to state law benefit a scant few Tennesseans.

Governor Haslam supported all of these bills.

A single piece of progressive legislation, the lowering of the sales tax on food by a quarter of 1 percent, was originally opposed by the administration before its passage in the final days of last year’s session. This year, an additional .25 percent cut in sales tax on food is a part of the governor’s legislative agenda and on track to pass.

So, while corporations and the wealthy saw their state taxes and potential liabilities drop by thousands of dollars a year, average Tennesseans saw a tax cut of a mere $3.65 annually — which will buy a burrito at your local Pilot Travel Center.

A recent Vanderbilt poll showed that Governor Haslam enjoys a 68 percent approval rating. That same poll also notes that 60 percent of Tennesseans think state government should place a priority on policies that help build the economy and create jobs. Haslam’s signature economic development bill was the aforementioned tort reform, passed in 2011. A study by the Economic Policy Institute shows that “reform” of this sort actually slows job growth.

Last year, the governor touted his “Tennessee Economic Miracle” to the chattering classes on cable TV. Since the beginning of Haslam’s term, poverty in Tennessee has increased to nearly 17 percent, wages have remained stagnant, and unemployment has tracked national averages. Some miracle.

None of the bills supported by the governor increases job creation or wages, nor do they extend the buying power of regular Tennesseans. Instead, all help wealthier people save money, which is an inefficient, if not downright chimerical, job-creation strategy.

Last year, the governor asked every agency of state government, other than education, to cut 5 percent from their budget. To cover the losses, state administrators trimmed staff and sought to erect barriers to eligibility. These changes don’t need legislative approval. They do, however, keep eligible people from receiving services.

According to a recent study authored by Cyril Chang of the University of Memphis, some 98,000 Tennesseans qualify for TennCare but are not in the system. Many of these working Tennesseans either don’t know they qualify or don’t have the time or resources to navigate the maze of requirements to meet eligibility. Many blame the federal government, but the state runs most federal social services through block grants. Block grants give the state authority to establish eligibility guidelines, within reason. The state has been pushing the edge of reason to the limit.

Through it all, Haslam’s policies further a system of government that focuses on helping those who don’t need it rather than those who do. It’s a policy agenda that fits nicely into a worldview that has dominated American politics for the past 30 years.

“Personal responsibility,” a longtime rallying cry of the GOP, holds that people who have access to quality health care, education, and capital accomplished this, because they chose to or worked hard for it — even if they were born into it.

On the other hand, people lacking such access don’t deserve help, because they made bad choices. If you’re not doing well, according to Republicans, it’s because of something you did or didn’t do, regardless of your circumstances.

While some may contest the strength of Haslam’s commitment to this brand of “personal responsibility,” it’s there, obscured behind his mushy language and overshadowed by the red-herring rhetoric of the General Assembly’s firebrands.

For the 2.6 million Tennesseans whose earnings are near or below poverty, and the 2.2 million more who are one financial disaster away from poverty, Haslam’s economic policies do absolutely nothing to provide relief.

In the end, the governor has shown he believes that if you aren’t making it, it’s not because of your circumstances, or bankers who tanked the financial system, or laws that actually slow job growth. It’s something you did to yourself.

The best average folks can expect are 365 pennies from Haslam, one a day — cold comfort for millions of Tennesseans struggling to get by.

Steve Ross is a former Democratic candidate for the Shelby County Commission, a member of the Shelby County Democratic Party Executive Committee, and a blogger about state and local politics at vibinc.com.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Restore Voter Confidence

On Monday, August 20th, the Shelby County Election Commission was scheduled to certify the results of the troubled August 2nd primary election. Problems exposed in that election by Joe Weinberg and myself involved thousands of voters receiving wrong ballots in federal and state primary contests, as well as an undetermined number in municipal referenda throughout the county.

The state of Tennessee has promised an investigation into these problems. We can only hope that this investigation will be speedy and thorough and offer concrete solutions to problems with the electoral process in Shelby County.

Shelby County has a long history of problems at the polls — from the basement votes found in the 1974 U.S. House and 1991 mayoral elections to the “dead voters” in the 2005 Ophelia Ford election, the 2010 electronic poll book imbroglio, and now the 2012 “wrong-ballot” primary election.

All of these examples point to systemic problems that the public feels are not resolved, depressing turnout and reinforcing a belief that the process is inherently tainted or at least poorly managed.

Two weeks ago, interim county commissioner Brent Taylor took to these pages offering a Viewpoint opinion about precinct consolidation as a solution for problems with our elections and as a means to increase voter turnout.

While there’s no question some precinct consolidation will occur in the coming months, the idea of 50 “super-precincts,” as Taylor proposed, has several problems. First, it ignores current law restricting the size of precincts (5,000 voters max). Second, rules regulating how precincts can be split between classes of districts (precincts for state Senate and county commission cannot be split) will play a large role in any future precinct consolidation.

In addition to these legal issues, the problem of potentially reducing access to 50 locations from the current Election Day total of 219 would make it harder for those with limited transportation options to make it to the polls. Some 50 percent of total participation occurred on Election Day in the August 2nd election.

There’s little evidence to suggest that expanding the number of locations throughout early voting, but reducing the number on Election Day, would result in additional turnout. The truth is, some people just like voting on Election Day. Making it harder for them on the last day of voting will not increase turnout.

If we’re serious about increasing voter participation, there are several things that can and must be done first to increase the confidence of voters:

First, the election commission must do better at the business of actually holding elections. Sure, not every election in Shelby County has had massive problems, but the public perception is that every election is somehow tainted by a procedural fumble. This may not be a fair assessment, but perception often isn’t fair.

To correct this, the commission must work to ensure that ballots are free from errors and a publicly understood system is in place to resolve problems quickly — taking the “cuss” out of customer service. It will take several election cycles free from major malfunctions to regain the public trust.

Second, the election commission must get better at informing the public about changes and upcoming elections. Partnering with nonpartisan electoral advocacy groups and vastly expanding the use of traditional and nontraditional media to reach out to the public will help voters understand the issues and restore faith in the process.

Third, the election commission must move forward with a comprehensive plan to be more transparent and accountable than any other public board or commission in Shelby County. This means moving away from a posture that has sometimes produced dismissive statements from the body.

Other imperatives:

Offer explanations of reports to reduce misunderstandings before they’re released.

Announce status changes in voter records and precinct information publicly as they occur rather than waiting until someone else reports them.

Be proactive instead of reactive.

By doing these things, the election commission can change the conversation from one about an unaccountable board to one about a commission that is actively seeking to inform the public. If you’re not telling your story, someone else is doing it for you.

None of these suggestions are particularly earth-shattering or groundbreaking. They’re simple, low-cost solutions that will help engage and inform the public while building confidence in an institution charged with a foundational element of our republic: voting. Enacting them will require an effort from the administration, and the board, to be and to do better. 

In the wake of the problems marring the election that just concluded, the election commission doesn’t have anything to lose.

Audio-visual technician Steve Ross blogs at vibinc.com and was a recent candidate for the Shelby County Commission.