Although the Memphis city council, by means of a letter to the Shelby County legislative delegation signed by all 13 of its members, more or less put itself on record last week as favoring the construction of a new local arena for the would-be itinerant Vancouver Grizzlies, some doubt remains about how the Shelby County Commission will come down on the issue.

The council members’ letter seems straightforward enough, concluding, “In addition to communicating our support, we want to extend our commitment to work with you in every way to seize the tremendous opportunity standing before our community.”

However, key members of the commission — Commissioner Walter Bailey among Democrats and Commissioner Tommy Hart among Republicans being typical — are still playing their hands close to the vest, citing concerns about the use of public money for building the arena. (Each local body is being asked to pledge roughly $12 million toward the end.)

Two speakers before the commission on Monday presented differently shaped appeals as a symbolic debate erupted over the issue of appointing six nominees by Memphis mayor Willie Herenton and Shelby County mayor Jim Rout to the Memphis and Shelby County Public Building Authority.

The six are: Willard Sparks, Luke Yancy, Carol Crawley, Henry Evans, Kevin Kane, and Kevin Roper. (A seventh nominee, Elijah Noel, withdrew his candidacy on grounds of a possible conflict of interest; he is a part-time tax attorney with the county Trustee’s office.)

Rout was on hand to ask for an immediate resolution of the nominations, reassuring Commissioners Bailey, Hart, and Bridget Chisholm that the newly reconstituted body would A)be dealing in the short run only with the matter of getting The Pyramid up to snuff for potential short-term use by the Grizzlies, beginning this fall; and B) be reporting back to the commission in advance concerning any commitment of public resources.

The mayor insisted that “we can’t afford to wait … to put The Pyramid in good enough shape to serve the NBA’s purposes.” If the Pyramid were not fitted to the league’s specifications, Rout said, “they’re going back to Vancouver.” (The statement drew ironic cheers from opponents of the arena, who were on hand for the meeting in some numbers.)

If the arena issue were not quickly resolved, Rout said, “My personal opinion is that it’s going to be 30 or 40 years before we have another shot at this.”

In the follow-up to the mayor’s statements, Hart noted that the NBA had already ruled that it didn’t “have enough time to decide whether to change the colors or not” on the Grizzlies’ uniforms. More cheering erupted when Hart asked rhetorically why the commission was expected to act so much more promptly.

Duncan Ragsdale, who has filed a suit in Chancery Court challenging the use of public money, spoke at some length against the arena project, explaining the main premises of his suit, which alleges, among other things:

· that Article II, Section 29 of the state Constitution, prohibited the “issuing of credit” (as in a bond issue) without a vote by the residents of affected jurisdiction;

· that Section 835 of the Memphis City Charter prohibits the arena constructions on the grounds that the Grizzlies’ lease “will not be a ‘profitable’ use in that the lease will result in a loss of revenues of the City of Memphis … and will result in injuries and damages to Plaintiffs and the Taxpayers of the city of Memphis;”

· that Article 1, Section 212, of the Tennessee Constitution provides “that perpetuities and monopolies are contrary to the genius of a free state, and shall not be allowed,” whereas the proposed stadium lease would create such a monopoly.

One member of the commission, asking not to be quoted, said he thought Ragsdale’s legal case was “pretty shaky,” in that, “if what he says about the Constitution is true, then we would never be able to issue bonds for any purpose, and we do it all the time.”

In the end, the six proposed PBA members were approved. Three more will be named in the next few days by the mayors.

Meanwhile, Ragsdale and other opponents of the arena — some circulating petitions for a referendum — will rally at Overton Park Shell this Sunday at noon.

· An interesting sidelight to the main debate at the County Commission meeting Monday was the final resolution of a matter that had been hanging fire for a couple of months — ever since the Sports Authority, at the beginning of the current cycle, first played host to visiting principals of the NBA and the Vancouver Grizzlies at the Memphis Country Club.

That fact had raised the ire of Commissioner Walter Bailey, who has done his best over the years to keep the issue of racial exclusivity in private organizations on the front burner of public consciousness. Bailey sounded off on the matter and became even more offended when he thought Sports Authority executive director Reggie Barnes had attempted to publicly minimize his concerns.

One result of that was the postponement, meeting after meeting, of what normally would have been the routine appointment of three new members to the Shelby Farms Board by county mayor Jim Rout.

Of the three, no potential controversy attached to nominees Lee Winchester and Dr. Theron Northcross. But former First Tennessee Bank president Ron Terry happened to be a member of the stoutly private (and exclusively WASPish) Memphis Country Club, and that made him a suspect nominee in Bailey’s eyes.

Accordingly, the pending nomination was kept on deep freeze for several weeks. On one occasion, back in early April, the three Shelby Farms nominees were sitting together at a commission meeting preparatory to the scheduled vote on their nominations. Rout went over, whispered to them, and then the three left. The same ritual was repeated at several successive meetings. As one commission member noted after this week’s meeting, “It was just a matter of allowing a decent interval to intervene between the Sports Authority’s meeting and the vote.”

Enough of the edge had clearly worn off the issue to permit a vote on the nominations this week. Nor that Bailey didn’t seize the opportunity to state his objections. When the matter came up, the commissioner delivered himself of some brief remarks, the kernel of which went this way: “I feel pretty strongly that people who are members of organizations and clubs that don’t have diversity, such as, primarily, Memphis Country Club … it seems to me we ought not appoint those people to boards and commissions.”

Bailey then suggested voting on each of the three names separately, a suggestion adopted by chairman James Ford. Terry was asked if he wanted to say anything, and he came to the podium to make this statement: “I’ll only say that I have great admiration for the service Mr. Bailey has given our community for many years, and I respect his right to an opinion. I have a passion for Shelby Farms, and I’ll do my best to fulfill your needs. Thank you.”

When the vote came, Northcross and Winchester received unanimous approval. Terry’s name drew a pass from Commissioners Marilyn Loeffel and Bridget Chisholm. And at his point of the roll call Bailey answered, “Regretfully, no.” The rest voted yes.

Thus was the issue — which once was feared as the possible igniter of racial division on the commission — resolved in a reasonably pro forma manner.

· U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. celebrated his 31st birthday at The Peabody’s Skyway last Friday night. Well-wishers, who included a cross-section of party cadres and most Democratic candidates for election in 2002 — including those for Shelby County mayor — paid $50 a head for the privilege. It was suggested to the congressman that many a profitable birthday loomed ahead should he continue the practice every year he serves in public office. He grinned.

· Local political frontiers have expanded to include the open skies. Wearing her bright-yellow campaign T-shirt and accompanied by a companion similarly dressed, state Rep. Carol Chumney, a Democratic hopeful for county mayor, campaigned among the spectators at the weekend Mid-South Air Show at Millington, featuring the Thunderbirds flying team. And Republican activist John Willingham played host to the Thunderbirds at his East Memphis restaurant Monday night, inviting a number of his political friends over to help keep them company.

“Yell Louder”

Periodically, we promised a few weeks back, we would afford our readers a selection of what former Commercial Appeal political writer Terry Keeter — now retired after surviving a serious bout of emphysema-cum-pneumonia — was up to.

Keeter’s first contribution was a tribute — straightforward but not without its flourishes — to a late friend, flood-control engineer Pete Houston, putting him in the right time-and-place context of Memphis history. It seemed clear from the piece that the longtime dean of Mid-South political writers still has a hand for the public use of the word.

For years, of course, Keeter has also kept his other hand involved in the form of commentary — ranging from acidic to slapsticky — characterized by the annual Gridiron Shows, which use musical skits and comic routines to roast local politicians. (The shows, whose audience normally includes many of the victims themselves, raise scholarship money for journalism students.)

And for some months Keeter has kept a growing network of friends hooked in to his sarcastic vein via an e-mail feature called “Yell Louder,” which employs, a la the Gridiron Shows, a cast of cartoonish characters in place of their real-life counterparts.

Even in our broad-minded times, some of these entries would not pass muster with the most liberal censor, but, in tune with the topic of the day and (upon reflection) unabridged, here are two recent selections. Some of the identities are those of Keeter’s running mates (former CA writer Larry Williams and lawyer Murray Card can be deduced); others are patently local politicians and public figures. And “Yell County” (interestingly enough the name of a bona fide Arkansas county) is clearly our own Shelby County.

The envelope, please:

“Signs reading NBA-NOT (Not Our Taxes) are beginning to show up across Yell County, in response to the NBA-NOW signs, which are, not surprisingly in the Fed-Hex color-blind shades of Purple, Orange and White. ‘I think it’s the sign of the times,’ said Cousin D. Ragshead Clyde, lawyer, veteran freedom fighter and opponent of public money for a $250 million arena for the rich and famous.

“Cousin Ragshead, author of No Taxes-NBA, said that NBA NOT joins the original sign protest along with NBA SHAFTS (Send Hide and Fredrich To a Star). ‘Hell, for that much money, we could buy Cousin Fredrich $ Clyde and Cousin Snake Pitt Hide Clyde their own space station,’ said Dr. Drummond Clyde, Mexican gynecologist and expert on heavenly bodies.

‘I might be rushin’ things, but these guys already have their head in the clouds. And their hands in our pockets,’ said Yell resident liberal Cousin Larry W. Clyde. ‘They’ve already done their share to finger us.’

‘Oh, my,’ said Cousin Dorothy Clyde, crossing Gayoso. ‘Ragshead, fingers, and shares! Oh, my! I’m keeping my fingers crossed, along with my legs!’ Aunt Nellie Belle, Iuka queen, said, ‘It’s like the old days, shooting pocket pool in Tishomingo County. One minute your pockets are empty, and the next minute they’re full of balls. Then, the next thing you know, your balls are getting racked! But Cousin $ and Cousin Pitt’s NBA-sized balls are bigger than those usually found on the table!’ ·

You can e-mail Jackson Baker at baker@memphisflyer.com.

We have not yet reached the halfway point of 2001, a specimen of the one
year in every four that is politics-free in the election calendar of these
parts.

But merely ask the deep-pocketed ones among us whether politics
is at a standstill. Fund-raisers abound for the political hopefuls of Campaign
Season 2002.

Among the notables who’ve had them around town of late are: U.S.
Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (beneficiary of a $500-a-head version at the Plaza
Club at AutoZone park, an increasingly sought-after venue); U.S. Rep. Van
Hilleary, Republican of Tennessee’s 4th Congressional District, who’s
slipped in once or twice for big-ticket affairs; Shelby County Trustee Bob
Patterson, who engaged a prize-winning barbecue team to cater his, at
Kirby Farms; Circuit Court Clerk Jimmy Moore, at the Collierville home
of developer Jackie Welch; and county Probate Clerk Chris
Thomas, who had his affair at another increasingly popular venue, the
Union Planters Bank building on Poplar Avenue.

(For the record, Moore is still considering a run for sheriff
next year instead of one for re-election.)

State Rep. Carol Chumney, who’s gotten off to an early
organizational head start on her Democratic rivals for next year’s nomination
for Shelby County mayor, is unable to hold a fund-raiser by virtue of a state
law forbidding same for legislators while the General Assembly is in
session.

But she did the next best thing — holding a reception last month
at a Germantown supporter’s residence. She, like state Senator Jim
Kyle, a declared party rival for the mayoral post, have to be yearning a
little bit more than the rest of their colleagues for an end to what may turn
out to be another marathon session, like last year’s. (What’s holding things
up, of course, is the legislature’s continued failure to find a solution to a
threatened budget deficit whose dimensions could reach as much as $1 billion
by next year.)

Kyle, by the way, is secretly thankful for Governor Don
Sundquist‘s recent veto of a Kyle-sponsored bill to place a lower limit on
retail gasoline sales. The measure, passed several weeks ago before the latest
dramatic price hikes, is at least off the table now — although the senator
knows to expect gigs from his mayoral rivals.

Down the line

n The Shelby County Democrats don’t have a date fixed yet, but
Chairman Gale Jones Carson announced that the keynote speaker for the
party’s forthcoming Kennedy Dinner will be former Atlanta mayor and noted
civil rights activist Maynard Jackson.

At its last steering committee meeting, the party also formally
voted to petition the Election Commission for a countywide primary next
year.

n Mississippi Governor Ronnie Musgrove told Memphis
Rotarians Tuesday that the NFL’s New Orleans Saints are flirting with a move
to his state’s Gulf coast.

Outside the Box

As no one needs to be reminded, much attention of late has been
focused on the hows and whys and whethers of building an NBA-worthy arena to
house the putatively transplant Grizzlies of Vancouver.

John Q. Public has weighed in on the subject with us, as with the
other paper in town. Following are two excerpts from two unusually pointed
responses to the issue:

“Whenever the subject of securing a professional sports
franchise in Memphis arises, I am reminded of the expression ‘if you can’t run
with the big dogs, stay on the porch.’ In matters urban, the acquisition of a
pro sports team confers ‘big dog’ status like few other things, and Memphis
seems to be a Chihuahua that spends a lot of time barking from behind the
screen door …

“As the ex-wife of an All-American in football and the
mother of two teenage sons who were swinging a baseball bat before they could
read, I understand the importance of sports. As an alumnus of the University
of Memphis, I can attest to the tremendous sense of pride that comes with
having a team bring national attention to our city.

“And I am as weary as anyone else of hearing people complain
that Memphis would be great if only we had a professional team. But if Memphis
is not a viable venue for pro sports profits without taking all the financial
risk, could it be because the economic underpinnings of this city are
fragile?

“Might we be better off trying to solve the problem of an
undereducated work force that depresses our per capita income, which in turn
keeps commerce and pro sports from chasing us? If we improved the economic
foundation of Shelby County first, maybe we could become big dogs without ever
leaving the porch … .” — Ruth Ogles (free-lance writer and 2000
candidate for the Memphis School Board)

“At some point Memphis is going to build a stadium, a
structure budgeted at 250 million dollars, which means that it will probably
cost upwards of $275 to 300 million dollars. With such an expenditure of
money, we might ask how the citizens of Shelby County can best be served this
appropriation, and how we can get the most bang for the buck. Considering the
fact that major league sports teams have become Gypsies, and an NBA team could
well move out of town within a half-dozen years, the new stadium should be
something that will continue to serve even if the NBA team decides to move
on.

“With all of these factors in mind, there really is only one
logical building option: a retrofitted and domed Liberty Bowl. This would be a
multi-sports arena which would also benefit the University of Memphis, the
Liberty Bowl, and the Southern Heritage Classic, all of whom play their
football games there.

“Today all it takes is a threat of rain, or a temperature
drop of 10 degrees to cut attendance by as much as 50 percent, which is a
small fortune at $20 per ticket or more … .” — Larry Moore
(University of Memphis law professor)

COVINGTON — Time was when the annual Coon Supper hosted by Jimmy Naifeh and other members of the current House speaker’s extended family at Covington was an end-of-legislative-session affair, a time for the hundreds of pols, junkies, and hangers-on present to take stock and let it hang.

For the last couple of years, the event, held on the grounds and in the clubhouse of Covington Country Club, has come more or less mid-session, since mid-April these days is a full month or two (or maybe even three) short of adjournment.

And letting it hang anymore coincides with a sort of gallows humor appropriate to a state fiscal crisis that is still nowhere near solution.

At this year’s version, last Thursday night, state Representative Tre Hargett, a Bartlett Republican and a native of Ripley, was discussing the work-groups Naifeh has divided the House membership into, in an effort to come up with some sort of a budget solution before hell freezes over this summer.

As Hargett noted, the core groups are arranged according to party membership, but there is a periodic coming together of Republican groups with their Democratic counterparts to compare notes. “You could call it a merging of the tribes, except that nobody gets voted off the island — not until next year anyhow,” deadpanned Hargett, referring to the hit TV show Survivor.

Getting Down

Governor Don Sundquist was on the grounds, of course, wearing a patterned sport coat that was atypical for the normally blue- or gray-suited gov. Even when dressed down casually in the past, the governor has managed to look preternaturally tidy, but of late both his manner and his dress seem to have loosened up, as if suggesting that he has come to that point of his life that permits a loosening up or letting go or maybe just some out-and-out que sera sera fatalism.

Potential successors to Sundquist were on the grounds, too. A Democratic pair — U.S. Rep. Bob Clement of Nashville and former Nashville mayor Phil Bredesen — provided an interesting contrast, to each other as well as to Sundquist.

Both Clement and Bredesen seem (even more than the incumbent) to be restrained by a tightly wound internal leash, although the former mayor seems to have progressed more rapidly than the congressman at the art of ravelling out his personality to the end of personal contact. That’s impressive, in that Clement had something of a head start at the people game.

Bredesen (clad in sport coat and open collar) acknowledged that he felt able to be more laid back than once upon a time — say, during that first governor’s race seven years ago, when you could sometimes sense that his internal cables had locked up unpredictably.

“I was raised to keep a certain reserve,” said Bredesen, a Midwestern-born Scandinavian like Sundquist, “but as I’ve served in public life, I’ve really gotten to enjoy dealing with people more.” Okay, so that’s boilerplate, but it seems to be true in his case.

An interesting thing about Bredesen is that he’s preparing to run for governor, if he does (“and it’s no secret that I’m thinking about it”), as a fiscal conservative.

Just as when he played Scrooge to Sundquist’s first tax-reform proposals back in 1999, Bredesen is still saying that the belts, nuts, and bolts of state government need to be tightened first and that there has been enough growth in revenue to keep the state going.

“Of course, I’ve always said that, as far as the type of taxes we might employ are concerned, the income tax is fairer than the sales tax. But it’s still an open question as to whether we might not have enough revenues to operate on without new taxes.”

Clement, who walked the grounds in a casual short-sleeve shirt, seemed — ironically and inconveniently enough — to be in one of his more introverted moods.

In answer to a question as to whether it was still likely that he and GOP congressman Van Hilleary would be squaring off against each other next year, the still formally undeclared Clement allowed as how he guessed that might be the case, though he seemed troubled by the act of thinking about it — more, perhaps, out of concerns about Bredesen or his own fund-raising than about the relatively distant threat of Hilleary (who, for the record, seems to be running a model campaign so far, at least organizationally).

If the Nashville congressman ever feels dominated by the shade of his famously more charismatic and oratorical late father, former Governor Frank Clement, it didn’t show in the way he beamed at being reminded of his illustrious antecedent (although it could be possible that the wide smile and the professions of being “very, very proud” to be a scion of the line had more to do with a reckoning of the Clement name’s residual effect on voters; for the record, some doubt that much remains).

Note to both Clement and Bredesen: A supporter of the potential gubernatorial candidacy of former Democratic chairman Doug Horne of Knoxville was on hand to point out that Horne had an event planned for Jackson on Friday morning and confided: “Don’t be surprised if he runs regardless of who else might be running.” The former chairman, of course, has pledged not to be a candidate if a Democratic candidate of stature (either Clement or Bredesen would qualify) chose to formally announce by next month.

The Bill and Terry Show

Other aspirants for various position showed up at the Coon Supper — like Terry Harris , the deserving assistant district attorney from Shelby County who thought he was going to win a Criminal Court judgeship in Memphis three years ago and discovered too late that the man he was matched against, Judge Joe Brown, was evolving into a national TV star.

(The victor has since resigned from the bench but continues to perform in the highly successful syndicated show that bears his name. Ironically, Brown, who passes for a hard-nosed judge on television, was a relative pussycat in Shelby County Criminal Court, bending over backward to design innovative and quite often lenient sentences.)

Things may look up for Harris at any time; he is probably the ranking candidate for U.S. district attorney in the Western District. “That’s my situation,” he said when reminded (as if he needed it) that waiting for an appointment is more nerve-wracking than conducting an election campaign. In the latter situation, one has at least some theoretical control over events.

“When and if he’s named, we’re going to start having joint press conferences, like the old ‘Ev and Gerry Show,’ joked Harris’ boss, District Attorney General Bill Gibbons, whose reference was to the weekly press briefings conducted in the ’60s by the late U.S. Senate majority leader Everett Dirksen with then House majority leader (and later president) Gerald Ford.

Gibbons insisted, of course, that he was joking. (Actually, it’s not a bad idea; if the appointment comes through, watch for “The Bill and Terry Show,” and remember who told you.)

Harris has also received some mention for the vacant U.S. district judgeship still unfilled after the death of the late JeromeTurner. The leading candidate for that position was also on hand in Covington. This was former Sundquist legal adviser and CAO Hardy Mays of Memphis who also uses jests to fend off the tension of waiting. “Sometimes … when I think about [the job], I think, ‘Judge not, lest you be judged,'” Mays quipped.

Naifeh’s Retort

Naifeh was still clearly nettled by the way he was characterized by the media in the Big Story which bubbled up mid-week — his session-eve receipt of $26,000 for his “Speaker’s PAC” from representatives of the cash-advance industry, the same cash-advance industry which profited from a bill (supported by Naifeh and a majority of other legislators) which got passed in March, allowing the collection of bad-check fees on top of towering interest rates.

The speaker repeated Thursday evening, as he had during a session with the Capitol Hill press that morning, that his PAC was meant to collect funds, not for himself, but for “pro-business” Democratic candidates.

And he reiterated as well that he would personally call in the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation if he thought that members were being improperly influenced by the cash-advance industry or any other.

But the speaker felt obliged as well to chastise individual members of the media who, he thought, had tried to show him up — saying of one, the Nashville Tennessean‘s Sheila Wisner, “[S]he’s somebody I don’t even know, and she has to be pretty damn dumb to try to call me at my Covington office on Wednesday when the legislature is in session. She ought to at least know I’m in Nashville and try to find me there instead of calling me where I’m not going to be and then saying that I ‘couldn’t be reached.'”

(Wisner, who normally doesn’t cover the legislature, had left her forwarding number at what she thought was Naifeh’s Covington home; she had earlier tried, unsuccessfully, to locate the speaker in Nashville).

You can e-mail Jackson Baker at baker@memphisflyer.com.

The Return of Michael Hooks

Shelby County Commissioner Michael Hooks Sr. made his first public appearance in well over a month Monday, sitting in briefly at a regularly scheduled meeting of the commission, where he cast two votes (both seemingly in favor of an expedited pursuit of a National Basketball Association franchise) and seconded another key NBA-related motion.

It was the first appearance by Hooks at a commission meeting or anywhere else since March 21st, when the commissioner — flanked by wife Janet Hooks, a member of the Memphis City Council, and his children, including Memphis school board member Michael Hooks Jr. — confessed an addiction to crack cocaine.

Hooks had been arrested the week before by Memphis police who had arrived at his residence to serve a traffic warrant on Michael Hooks Jr. and found drug paraphernalia and crack cocaine residue in the senior Hooks’ possession.

In the aftermath of his arrest, which resulted in a misdemeanor citation, Hooks volunteered for rehabilitation at Charter Lakeside Hospital, and word was passed by a family friend last week that he had served 28 days in rehab and had been discharged. (He may be continuing therapy on an out-patient basis.)

Hooks, who entered Monday’s commission meeting midway during a discussion of a resolution from Commissioner Walter Bailey to sponsor a $31,000 poll of Shelby Countians about their attitudes toward the NBA matter, made no remarks but voted twice.

On a motion by Commissioner Linda Rendtorff to delay voting on Bailey’s motion for three months, Hooks voted yes; it lost 4-6. On a motion by Commissioner Clair VanderSchaaf to delay implementation of the poll until May 21st (a strategem that, in effect, started the disclosure clock on NBA Now, the local pursuit team), Hooks voted no; the motion passed overwhelmingly.

It would seem that Hooks, who voted identically with Chairman James Ford, a fervid supporter of building a new NBA-worthy arena, thereby aligned himself with fast-track proponents of securing the NBA franchise.

Hooks later seconded a motion to postpone naming a commission liaison person to work with NBA Now. (Chairman Ford confided that he would probably appoint himself to the post at the commission’s next meeting.)

During the meeting, Hooks made one call out from a telephone adjoining the commissioners’ meeting area. After the meeting, he raced backstage to an area which normally is open and where commissioners, during a meeting, are served refreshments and may avail themselves of restroom facilities.

As soon as Hooks passed through the door to the backstage area, the doors were locked from within, long enough to allow him to avoid the sizeable media on hand and vacate the building via an elevator. — J.B.

COVINGTON — Time was, when the annual Coon Supper hosted by Jimmy Naifeh and other members of the current House Speaker’s extended family was an end-of-legislative-session affair, a time for the hundreds of pols, junkies and hangers-on present to take stock and let it hang.

For the last couple of years, the event, held on the grounds and in the clubhouse of Covington Country Club, has come more or less mid-session, since mid-April these days is a full month or two (or maybe even three) short of adjournment.

And letting it hang anymore coincides with a sort of gallows humor appropriate to a state fiscal crisis that is still nowhere near solution.

State Representative Tre Hargett, a Bartlett Republican and a native of Ripley, was discussing the work-groups Naifeh has divided the House membership into, in an effort to come up with some sort of a budget solution before hell freezes over this summer.

As Hargett noted, the core groups are arranged according to party membership, but there is a periodic coming-together of Republican groups with their Democratic counterparts to compare notes. “You could call it a merging of the tribes, except that nobody gets voted off the island — not until next year anyhow,” deadpanned Hargett, referring the hit TV show Survivor.

State Rep. Mike Williams (D-Franklin) also talked about the discussion groups, and how it was inevitable that at some point, however distant, a solution to the fiscal crisis — however temporary — was bound to coalesce out of them.

Might that mean a sunsetted sales-tax increase, set to expire in 2003, that would generate some ad hoc revenue and force the gubernatorial candidates of next year to talk turkey about their post-election intentions?

“It could,” said Williams. “That was a problem with Governor Sundquist’s reelection campaign of 1998. He gave no notice of what the state’s fiscal problems were or of what his solutions might be. So when his proposals came, he hadn’t prepared the way. If you want a mandate, you’ve got to speak to it ahead of time. Just winning big by itself won’t do the trick.”

Getting Down

Sundquist himself was on the grounds, of course, wearing a patterned sport coat that was atypical for the normally blue- or gray-suited gov. Even when dressed down casually in the past, the governor has managed to look preternaturally tidy, but of late both his manner and his dress seem to have loosened up, as if suggesting that he has come to that point of his life that permits a letting go or maybe just some out-and-out Que Sera Sera fatalism.

Potential successors to Sundquist were on the grounds, too. A Democratic pair — U.S. Rep. Bob Clement of Nashville and former Nashville mayor Phil Bredesen — provided an interesting contrast, to each other as well as to Sundquist.

Both Clement and Bredesen seem (even more than the incumbent) to be restrained by a tightly wound internal leash, although the former mayor seems to have progressed more rapidly than the congressman at the art of ravelling out his personality to the end of personal contact. That’s impressive, in that Clement had something of a head start at the people game.

Traveling in the company of his 1994 main man Byron Trauger (a fact which, together with his appearance at the Coon Supper at all, suggests his seriousness about hazarding another go at the Governor’s Mansion), Bredesen (clad in sport coat and open collar) acknowledged that he felt able to be more laid back than once upon a time — say, during that first governor’s race seven years ago, when you could sometimes sense that his internal cables had locked up unpredictably.

“I was raised to keep a certain reserve,” said Bredesen, a MidWestern-born Scandinavian like Sundquist, “but as I’ve served in public life, I’ve really gotten to enjoy dealing with people more.” Okay, so that’s boilerplate, but it seems to be true in his case.

An interesting thing about Bredesen is that he’s preparing to run for governor, if he does (“and it’s no secret that I’m thinking about it”), as a fiscal conservative.

Just as when he played Scrooge to Sundquist’s first tax-reform proposals back in 1999, Bredesen is still saying that the belts, nuts, and bolts of state government need to be tightened first, and that there has been enough growth in revenue to keep the state going.

“Of course, I’ve always said that, as far as the type of taxes we might employ are concerned, the income tax is fairer than the sales tax. But it’s still an open question as to whether we might not have enough revenues to operate on without new taxes.”

Clement, who walked the grounds in a casual short-sleeve shirt, seemed — ironically and inconveniently enough — to be in one of his more introverted moods. In answer to a question as to whether it was still likely that he and GOP congressman Van Hilleary would be squaring off against each other next year, the still formally undeclared Clement allowed as how he guessed that might be the case, though he seemed troubled by the act of thinking about it — more, perhaps, out of concerns about Bredesen or his own fundraising than about the relatively distant threat of Hilleary (who, for the record, seems to be running a model campaign so far, at least organizationally).

If the Nashville congressman ever feels dominated by the shade of his famously more charismatic and oratorical late father, former Governor Frank Clement, it didn’t show in the way he beamed and at being reminded of his illustrious antecedent (although it could be possible that the wide smile and the professions of being “very, very proud” to be a scion of the line had more to do with a reckoning of the Clement name’s residual effect on voters; for the record, some doubt that much remains).

Note to both Clement and Bredesen: A supporter of the potential gubernatorial candidacy of former Democratic chairman Doug Horne of Knoxville was on hand to point out that Horne had an event planned for Jackson on Thursday morning and confided: “Don’t be surprised if he runs regardless of who else might be running.” The former chairman, of course, has pledged not to be a candidate if a Democratic candidate of stature (either Clement or Bredesen would qualify) chose to formally announce by next month.

‘The Bill-and-Terry Show’

Other aspirants for various position showed up at the Coon Supper — like Terry Harris, the deserving assistant District Attorney from Shelby County who thought he was going to win a Criminal Court Judgeship in Memphis three years ago and discovered too late that the man he was matched against TV star, Judge Joe Brown, who has since resigned from the bench but continues to perform in the highly successful syndicated show that bears his name. (Ironically, Brown, who passes for a hardnosed judge on television, was a relative pussycat in Shelby County Criminal Court.)

Ever since, a resigned, hurt look — almost like a permanent picket sign saying “UNFAIR” — seems to have settled into the facial features of Harris, who was at the Coon Supper with his boss, current District Attorney General Bill Gibbons. Things may look up for Harris at any time; he is probably the ranking candidate for U.S. District Attorney in the Western District. “That’s my situation,” he said when reminded (as if he needed it) that waiting for an appointment is more nerve-wracking than conducting an election campaign. In the latter situation, one has at least some theoretical control over events.

“When he’s named, we’re going to start having joint press conferences, like the old ‘Ev and Gerry Show,’ joked Gibbons. His reference was to the weekly press briefings conducted in the ’60s by the late U.S. Senate Majority Leader Everett Dirksen with then House Majority Leader (and later President) Gerald Ford.

Upon reflection, Gibbons reiterated that he was joking. (Actually, he probably isn’t; if the appointment comes through, watch for the Bill-and-Terry Show, and remember who told you.)

Harris has also received some mention for the vacant U.S. district judgeship still unfilled after the death of the late Jerome Turner. The leading candidate was that position was also on hand at Covington. This was former Sundquist legal adviser and CAO Hardy Mays of Memphis, who also uses jests to fend off the tension of waiting. “Sometimes. . . when I think about [the job], I think, ‘Judge not, lest you be judged,'” Mays quipped.

Naifeh’s Retort

Ah, judgement! It was pronounced, in quite determined form by the host, Speaker Naifeh, who was still clearly nettled by the way he was characterized by the media in the Big Story were bubbled up mid-week — his session-eve receipt of $26,000 for his “Speaker’s PAC” from representatives of the cash-advance industry, the same cash-advance industry which profited from a bill (supported by Naifeh and a majority of other legislators) which got passed in March, allowing the collection of bad-check fees on top of towering interest rates.

The Speaker repeated Thursday evening, as he had during a session with the Capitol Hill press that morning, that his PAC was meant to collect funds, not for himself, but for “pro-business” Democratic candidates.

And he reiterated as well that he would personally call in the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation if he thought that members were being improperly influenced by the cash-advance industry or any other.

But the Speaker felt obliged as well to chastise individual members of the media, two in particular who he thought had tried to show him up.

Of The Tennessean‘s Thursday morning coverage, Naifeh said, “That reporter . . . Sheila Wisner, she’s somebody I don’t even know, and she has to be pretty damn dumb to try to call me at my Covington office on Wednesday when the legislature is in sesssion. She ought to at least know I’m in Nashville and try to find me there instead of calling me where I’m not going to be and then saying that I ‘couldn’t be reached.’

And Naifeh had harsh words, too, for the News-Sentinel‘s Tom Humphrey, a manstay also of the Scripps-Howard News Service and a frequent contributor to Tennessee Politics. The Speaker acknowledged that Humphrey was a seasoned, respected reporter but complained of the way he had been approached, as Naifeh chracterized it, in the middle of his supervision of the budget work groups Wednesday.

“Now, Humphrey usually does okay by me, ” Naifeh said, “but I don’t know what the hell he thought he was doing tracking me down when I was on my way to the men’s room. He knows how consuming those budget sessions are, and how heavy we get into it, and how important that work we’re doing is, and I told him I didn’t have time to talk about anything else just then, and I was just taking enough time off to go to the men’s room, that I would talk to him later, and then he says that I ‘declined’ to answer him.”

Following that up with what may have been a grin or may have been a glower, or may have been a combination of both, Naifeh added, “He’ll get his payback.”

When the U.S. census of 2000 was taken stock of recently, it turned out to be considerably more than a numbers game. For the first time, people interviewed by the head-counters were allowed wide liberty in how they chose to identify themselves ethnically.

Unlike the census of 10 years earlier or of any previous time, one could slip the narrow boundaries of racial classification and claim to be a member of more than one race and, for that matter, of more than one ethnic group.

This was more than an exercise in P.C. In a time of increased intermarriage and disaffection with old hand-me-down identities, it is simply becoming less and less realistic to confine Americans to the simple categories of the past.

Take, for example, the case of Gabrielle Elise Buring. She is a pert 12-year-old who has done all her growing up so far in Memphis — which, almost by definition (and certainly by reputation), is as racially polarized a place as you can find in North America — or anywhere else, for that matter. Memphis is also one of the better-known capitals of the Bible Belt.

The city has its share of aspiring young thespians, of course, and though Gabrielle wants to join their ranks someday, she shares with most other citizens of Greater Memphis a preference for some of the verbal distinctions now under challenge. She shuns the unisex word “actor,” for example, preferring to be known as a future “actress.” Why? She shrugs. “It’s more feminine. It just sounds better. It conveys the right image.”

Typically Southern and conservative, she is. And an object lesson of a new way the 21st century may come to regard the question of ethnic origin.

For Gabrielle doesn’t see anything especially needful in other familiar ways of categorizing people. When asked on the occasional form to designate herself by race, for instance, this child of the 21st century avoids the two main and accustomed possibilities and opts for the category “Other.”

In that, she is like a growing number of other children of the middle class, restless with labels that are, both literally and symbolically, black and white. When the categories are broader or less fixed, she inclines toward the designation “racially mixed.”

After all, Gabrielle has a mother who is, by the old vocabulary, “white.” She has a stepfather who would still be considered by most people to be “black.” As it happens, her birth father was also of African-American descent. Being a child of divorce who hasn’t seen her father since the age of 2 is a more important fact to her, though, than anybody’s racial identity.

She has searched her memory for any incident that might be considered racially troubling, for any slighting treatment, for any overheard insensitive remark directed at either her or her mother and stepfather (an LPN and a restaurant supervisor, respectively) and can’t find one.

“It’s never been a problem for me at all,” she says. In Memphis, Tennessee? “Oh, I know there are supposed to be problems. I’ve seen it on TV and read about it in magazines and the papers. But I’ve never experienced any of it. I honestly can’t recall a single thing.”

All that comes to her mind are the advantages of having had mixed parentage. She attends Campus School, a laboratory facility attached to the Education Department of the University of Memphis. The school accepts only a limited number of applicants, and she knows that she got in because she was considered “biracial,” a category — considered a necessary component of the school’s goal of diversity — that was in short supply at Campus.

She reflects. “And another nice thing about being racially mixed is that nobody would ever possibly consider me a racist.” (One must bear in mind that the term itself is one she knows only as an abstraction.)

As if having had two black fathers and a white mother weren’t enough potential complication, Gabrielle also considers herself — without ever having been to a temple or synagogue — Jewish. She knows that her mother (the daughter of a Jewish father and a mother converted from Christianity) was Jewish and grasps the tradition that in Judaism one’s maternal line is the determining factor.

But this, too, is of no great moment. She has been to her stepfather’s Baptist church many times but, unlike her mother, who is on the verge of accepting Baptism (in both the upper-case and lower-case sense of the word), will keep to the Old Testament faith.

It is only, oddly enough, in matters pertaining to race that Gabrielle sees no reason for accepting brackets or categories or delimiting terminologies. “I fit in anywhere I am, basically,” she says. “When I’m around blacks, I probably act ‘black.’ When I’m with whites, I probably do ‘white’ things. That’s what my friends tell me, anyhow. I’d never noticed it myself.”

“Plain” With Blacks, “Preppy” With Whites

How would she describe the difference between acting black and acting white? “Well, I think I act plainer around black people, and more ‘preppy’ around whites. I know that’s true because a black friend and a white friend both told me something like that. Independently of each other.” She tries to avoid thinking in stereotypes, though, pointing out that “some blacks act like whites, some whites act like blacks.”

In any case, Gabrielle feels at home, as she says, in virtually any kind of company. She divides her time, on an almost 50-50 basis, between her own home and a nearby one occupied by maternal grandmother Jerry Cocke, a fifth-grade schoolteacher and a convert to Judaism who still keeps kosher and whom Gabrielle calls “Bubby.”

Bubby’s husband, David — “Day-Day” to Gabrielle — is a lawyer, an Episcopalian, and the recent past chairman of the local Democratic Party. He dotes on his step-granddaughter. It is an open secret that one reason for Gabrielle’s spending as much time as she does at the Cockes’ home is that it is, unlike her own, a smoke-free environment.

Again, she is not without firm preferences and strong convictions on some matters. It is just that race in the familiar black-and-white sense is not one of them.

An all-A student and member of one of the city school system’s CLUE classes for the academically gifted, Gabrielle, whose life has clearly given her broad chameleon-like experience, expects to do well at her chosen career of acting.

“My teacher thinks I have a lot of potential. He thinks I could be a writer, too.” The one thing she has little experience at, racial distinctiveness, is something she has to try to understand intuitively. “I sort of understand what life must have been like for my parents. Even after Civil Rights, I’m told, everything didn’t work just right.They were able to be together, but they were around some people who were still …” She looks for the right word. “… headstrong.”

The only racial profiling Gabrielle countenances is one that she and her peers at school, the racially mixed and the racially unmixed alike, indulge in. “Whenever one of us is telling the others about a new friend they’ve met, the rest of us want to know, ‘Are they black or white?’ You know, just so we can form the image.”

It is something of an irony, of course, that Gabrielle may typify a new kind of future American, who — both by example and by stated preference — makes the task of forming a defining “image” more and more difficult. And perhaps beside the point.

· More info on the developing race for Shelby County sheriff in 2002:

A candidate who promises to be a formidable competitor for Republican votes in the suburban heartland of Shelby County is longtime Bartlett alderman Mike Jewell, who is also a veteran member of the Sheriff’s Department, serving currently as a field commander in the department’s fugitive-transport unit. Jewell, a former vice chair of the Shelby County GOP, plans a formal announcement sometime in May.

Another rumored candidate is former Memphis police director James Ivey. (One of his successors in that job, former director Melvin Burgess, now director of security at Horseshoe Casino in Tunica, is still being talked up for a race, too.) Also still thinking about it is Memphis city council chairman E.C. Jones.

· The gubernatorial trial balloon sent up recently by state Rep. Larry Scroggs, R-Germantown, took a hit of sorts last week when U.S. Representative Van Hilleary of Tennessee’s 4th District, generally considered the Republican front-runner for his party’s 2002 nomination for governor, released a list showing him to own endorsements from a majority of the state’s Republican legislators.

Of the 33 signatories from both chambers, four were Shelby Countians. They were state Senator Mark Norris of Collierville and state Representatives Tre Hargett, Bubba Pleasant, and Paul Stanley. Hargett and Pleasant are from Bartlett; Stanley is from Germantown.

In a release sent out by Hilleary, it is noted that Norris was elected a county commissioner in 1994, the same year Hilleary was first elected to Congress. “We were elected to public office at the same time, so we have that in common,” the freshman senator is quoted. “But our friendship grew when I became a Senator and saw Van in action. He has momentum because he understands Tennessee.”

Standard endorsement boilerplate, but it still translates into the fact that Norris, who has been handed several significant tasks by his party, including the office of caucus parliamentarian, had been sewed up quickly and firmly by the fast-moving Hilleary, who followed up the release of his endorsement list with a fiery speech attacking a state income tax, teachers’ unions, and TennCare and with yet another release this week, claiming to have raised half a million dollars for his campaign.

Scroggs, who hopes to appeal to the same ideological base of conservatives as does Hilleary (and who broke publicly and somewhat bluntly with his early patron, Governor Don Sundquist, on the issue of the governor’s tax-reform proposals), will be hard put to catch up.

Said Stanley, one of Hilleary’s sign-ups: “This has got nothing to do with Larry. Van, whom I’ve known for a while, just asked me for a commitment way back when it first looked like he was running.” ·

Memphis, Nashville Rank High in Governmental Efficiency

It is no secret that Memphis and Nashville engage in a rivalry that often reflects credit on neither city. And the question of which one is up and which one is down can be argued either way, depending on the yardstick used.

The newest measure, performed by the Reason Public Policy Institute, in conjunction with the Nashville-based Tennessee Institute for Public Policy (TIPP), shows both cities ranking high in a study of (are you sitting down?) efficient use of government services.

And, for the record, Memphis is a notch ahead of Nashville, standing fourth among the nation’s 50 largest cities with the state capital coming in a step behind, at fifth.

TIPP is the think tank — alternately considered libertarian or conservative in its sympathies — whose heavily researched rankings of Tennessee’s school systems recently made so many waves. And the Reason Institute is indisputably libertarian in its orientation.

TIPP president Michael Gilstrap hopes in the near future to arrange an appropriate ceremony in Memphis commemorating the new rankings and involving principals in the Herenton administration. · — JB

The cadres of the Ford political organization, once upon a time the diehard Democratic adversaries of the now-dominant Herenton-Chism camp, remain in the conciliatory mode with which they had awaited Saturday’s inevitable coronation at East High School of the mayor’s press secretary, Gale Jones Carson, as new chair of the Shelby County Democratic Party.

Ever since the mayor’s race of 1999 in which Herenton won a third term resoundingly against city council member Joe Ford and several other opponents, these Democrats — most of them loyal to the Ford family political organization or at least close to it — have backed away from the sort of direct contest with the Herenton camp that they were long-used to winning.

After all, the 2000 political season, a presidential one, demanded Democratic unity — meaning that the Fordites and the Herentonites were constrained to work in harmony, as for the most part they did. Sidney Chism, the former Teamster leader and onetime Democratic chairman who had been a chief aide to Willie Herenton since the then-challenger’s first run for the mayoralty, cooperated with the get-out-the-vote efforts of former congressman Harold Ford Sr., with the result that the Gore-Lieberman national ticket carried Shelby County with a handy 40,000-vote majority.

If Democrats in the rest of the state had done as well, Al Gore would have won Tennessee and the nation’s pundits would probably be pondering the prospects of some Gore-backed environmental-protection measure just now instead of wondering how much of George W. Bush‘s tax-cut legislation will make it through Congress.

Except for the bizarre scare whipped up by some of the mayor’s cadres concerning an alleged plot by outgoing chairman David Cocke, a Ford ally, to stack the party caucuses and convention with a horde of teenage voters, there was little friction between the two camps in advance of this year’s selection of a new executive committee and new chairman.

“We’re tired of trying to keep Gale Jones Carson from being chairman,” said one Ford cadre, a veteran of at least three prior (successful) efforts to do just that. “We don’t have a candidate of our own,” said another Fordite (a fact which, when communicated to City Court Clerk Thomas Long, who had hoped for the Ford camp’s endorsement, meant the end of Long’s candidacy).

The current star of the Ford dynasty — U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., who has national ambitions and considerable clout with the Democratic Party brass and the media within the Washington beltway — had long been distancing himself from the trench warfare of local politics and let it be known that he had no interest in the outcome of Saturday’s convention.

As if to provide a symmetry of sorts, Mayor Herenton said at a Democratic meeting or two that he, too, would stay out of the convention picture.

Right, and Don Corleone was an above-the-battle olive-oil importer with no connection whatsoever to the nitty-gritty operations carried out by his soldiers.

The Herenton-Chism Game Plan

The fact is that there was no contest last Saturday because the outcome was certain. Last month’s caucuses had elected a majority of convention delegates in some measure hand-picked by Chism and certainly responsive to his wishes.

The Fords and their supporters, rather than risking their still-formidable political clout in pointless resistance, will live to fight another day. For the time being, they have had to yield the field to the mayor’s men (and women), and they’re making the best of that bargain.

But make no mistake about it. Willie Herenton, about to embark on a fourth-term re-election effort which looks like the proverbial lead-pipe cinch, is not only the chief political figure of Memphis politics, he and his cadres dominate the Democratic Party as well. Consider:

(a) The delegation sent to last year’s National Democratic Convention was almost exclusively composed of Herenton allies. Selected in a steamroller convention overseen by the indefatigable Chism, it included, besides the ex-party chief himself, mayoral spokesperson Carson, mayoral bodyguard Mike Graves, and a plethora of others whose only — or primary — political loyalty was to the mayor.

(b) In the aftermath of that process, Herenton made it clear what his next move would be — the domination of this year’s caucuses and convention and the installation of spokesperson Carson as party chair. None of this was a matter of conjecture; it was attested to by the mayor himself, in a taped interview.

(c) Then there was the fourth-term announcement, made at least a year early so as to be “pre-emptive,” as Herenton put it. The mayor cited “unfinished” business — as if anything in government or politics is ever “finished” — and, at Herenton’s formal announcement ceremony at the Adam’s Mark last week, there was no shortage of talk amongst the Who’s-Who types on hand about the possibility of the city’s having a mayor-for-life.

(d) There remained only one area of political possibility which Herenton had not yet proved his prowess at — the ability to elect other public officials who were bona fide members of a slate backed by — and loyal to — him. Citing failed former campaigns by such Herentonians as Harold Collins and Rickey Wilkins, and the third-place finish of the Herenton-backed Rufus Jones in the 1996 9th District congressional race, members of the Ford faction would often say, “Herenton has no coattails.”

A Test of “Coattails” in 2002

That thesis is about to be tested, big-time, in the forthcoming 2002 election cycle.

The mayor himself will profess once again to be neutral in Democratic primary situations, as will (for the most obvious of reasons) new party chairperson Carson. Chism, who is Herenton’s chief strategist and who makes, you may be sure, no political move that has not been squared with the mayor, is crystal-clear about his two major choices for 2002.

PHOTO BY JOHN LANDRIGAN

Harold Byrd

They are:

* FOR COUNTY MAYOR: Harold Byrd, the Bartlett banker and two-time Democratic congressional candidate in the Republican-dominated 7th District. Byrd and members of his extended family and work force were prominent in the now-concluded Democratic caucuses and convention, as they had been in the Gore-Lieberman campaign of 2000.

Opposing Byrd in next year’s Democratic primary will be state Representative Carol Chumney, who is affiliated with neither of the party’s major factions but has her own constituency of Midtown residents and Democratic women; state Senator Jim Kyle, who owns a blue-collar constituency in the Frayser-Raleigh area and has proposed a controversial referendum on public financing of a proposed new arena for a transplanted National Basketball Association team; and possibly also state Senator Steve Cohen, who made an appearance on stage at Saturday’s convention, during which he indirectly tweaked longtime rival Kyle, citing his own quite different positions on such issues as the referendum and a Kyle-sponsored bill that would penalize vendors of discount gasoline.

* FOR SHERIFF: Randy Wade, currently a deputy administrator in the Sheriff’s Department and an outspoken antagonist of Chief Deputy Don Wright (who will seek the Republican nomination for sheriff along with several others, including deputy administrator Bobby Simmons and possibly including current Circuit Court Clerk Jimmy Moore). Wade has no declared Democratic opposition at present, although there continues to be talk about (and from) former Memphis police director Melvin Burgess, currently chief of security at Horseshoe Casino in Tunica.

Beyond Burgess, Wade may have another major problem in former Secret Service agent Henry Hooper, who is talking up an independent candidacy. As an African American with some name recognition, Hooper could drain votes from Wade in a general election race.

Other races there will be, for this or that clerk’s position, and do not be surprised if the Herenton-Chism forces field a full slate. If they do, and they are successful in a goodly portion of them, Willie Herenton will be master of the Memphis political battlefield in ways that only people with names like Crump and Ford have been before.

No matter how many times he solemnly swears he’s above the battle.

* Outgoing state Republican chairman John “Chip” Saltsman, who last weekend yielded the party reins to State Rep. Beth Halteman Harwell of Nashville and is expected to take a job with the Bush administration soon, marked his leavetaking with a missive sent this week to Tennessee political reporters, which said in part:

“You are the champions of the people, waging battle against wrong. Your sword of truth conquers injustice from Mountain City to Memphis. Your pens bring peace. Your cameras bring prosperity. Your words inspire hope and admiration. I write you, Tennessean sentinels of free press and commercial appeal, to bid farewell … I am sure you will grieve my absence… .”

* The Memphis “NBA Now” team’s financial proposal, announced with much fanfare at a press conference/luncheon last week, is in trouble on almost all political fronts.

City councilman Myron Lowery insisted that the bonding obligations of city and county governments, ostensibly equal, be adjusted to ease the burden on doubly taxed Memphis residents; Pat VanderSchaaf and Brent Taylor argued, respectively, for more private money and more funding alternatives as part of the arena-construction package. Tom Marshall pointedly (and skeptically) requested of “NBA Now” spokesperson Gayle Rose a cost-accounting for retrofitting The Pyramid.

County commission members, especially those representing suburban districts, have been, by and large, non-committal.

And in Nashville, where fully half of the bonding liability for the proposed $250 million NBA-worthy arena lies, members of the Shelby County delegation have been put on notice by both the administration of Governor Don Sundquist and House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh that they have little to no chance for approval of the proposed state funding package (which is considerably in excess of that granted Nashville to construct Adelphia Coliseum for the NFL Titans) unless they toe the line for significant broad-based tax reform.

That could mean, of course, a state income tax, anathema to suburban Republican legislators. It is in the suburbs, too, that enthusiasm for the NBA and an expensive new arena is most lacking. Not a good recipe for unanimity.

You can e-mail Jackson Baker at baker@memphisflyer.com.

Willie Herenton will formally announce his candidacy for a fourth term as mayor of Memphis at a rally next Tuesday night, April 3rd, at the Adam’s Mark Hotel.

The mayor made the revelation at a fundraiser Tuesday night at the East Memphis home of supporter Gene Gibson. “I intend this as a pre-emptive move,” Herenton told a crowd of some 50 people about his decision to announce now, two years before the election.

“I’m going to build my war-chest and re-tool my organization, starting now,” the mayor vowed.

As reasons for his decision to run again in 2003, Herenton cited the still undeveloped riverfront and a need to see through to conclusion various other projects, including final arrangements for accommodating a National

Basketball League team.

On that score, the mayor, a backer of the drive to bring an NBA franchise to Memphis, expressed disagreement with a suggestion made earlier Tuesday by State Senator Jim Kyle that proponents of any forthcoming general obligation bond issue for completion of arena construction should call a referendum on the matter.

“That’s how Nashville did it when they were building the arena for the Titans,” Kyle, a likely candidate next year for Shelby County Mayor, said by telephone from Nashville, “and it unified the community as only a public vote of confidence can. My first rule of politics is ‘Run to the fire,’ and I’m encouraging the backers of a new arena to do just that.”

While not disavowing a bond issue, Herenton indicated he was disinclined to pursue a referendum strategy and said he was considering a variety of other local financing alternatives, including a local restaurant tax.

Shelby County Democrats, who couldn’t scare up a candidate for county mayor in 1998, apparently are going to have a fright wig of a contest for 2002. At least two prominent state legislators are now involved in serious commitments to a Democratic primary race for mayor, and a third may not be far behind.

State Representative Carol Chumney, who has hankered for a higher office for some time, held a meeting of supporters Saturday evening at Garibaldi’s restaurant in the University of Memphis area and has already filed the required papers with the state Election Registry to form an exploratory committee. And state Senator Jim Kyle — who, as the Flyer has reported, is actively seeking the nomination and several weeks ago hired a staff — insisted Sunday that he would not be deterred by Chumney’s entry.

“I think it bodes well for us as a party to have a spirited contest for county mayor,” Kyle said, in words similar to those used by Chumney, who also said a contested primary would benefit Democrats.

Meanwhile, a third legislator, state Senator Steve Cohen, noted that his name has received some mention as a possible candidate and would not rule out seeking the office of county mayor himself.

As all three Democratic legislators pointed out, the political strength of incumbent Shelby County mayor Jim Rout, a Republican, has waned considerably since his uncontested re-election to a second term three years ago. Well-publicized problems with the county jail and with a burgeoning financial deficit are at least partly responsible for that.

Chumney, who said she intended to have another meeting with supporters “in about three weeks,” pointed to three bills she has introduced — dealing with mental health, jail conditions, and debt policy — as evidence of her commitment to county issues. “I don’t fool around,” Chumney said about her commitment to the race.

Potential opponent Kyle professed some bemusement at the idea of Chumney’s having formed an exploratory committee. “It’s not legal for us [legislators] to raise money while we’re still in session,” he pointed out, referring to laws passed in the 1990s restricting state lawmakers’ ability to hold fund-raisers during a session of the General Assembly.

Although she characterized the fact as a coincidence unrelated to her race, Chumney noted that a longtime ally, state Representative Mike Kernell, has introduced legislation in the current session that would permit modest in-session fund-raising efforts by legislators in their home districts. Kernell was in the group that met with Chumney at Garibaldi’s.

Chumney also acknowledged that she had also given some thought to running in 2002 for sheriff — a position that at least one of her Shelby County legislative colleagues had been talking her up for in Nashville last week. But she said she had settled on a county mayor’s race instead.

Kyle, who has something of a head start organizationally, in that he has hired two aides — Jeff Sullivan and Bob Kellett — to assist him in researching both county and state issues, has kept open the campaign headquarters he used in his Senate reelection race last year. Kyle said he would be preoccupied during the session with his legislative duties, which include his supervision of patients’ rights legislation.

Though he has not formalized his 2002 plans to the extent that Chumney and Kyle have and shied away from any commitment to a race, Cohen indicated that he was still considering running for county mayor. And he, too, said that the reawakening of interest among several potential candidates was a good sign for the Democratic Party.

Several observers, meanwhile, have pointed out the obvious — that it is a given that a strong black candidate will probably emerge to contest for the nomination, too. And the name of Bartlett banker Harold Byrd still gets frequent mention among Democrats, especially suburban ones.

• State Senator Steve Cohen (D-Memphis), a sometime maverick who has nonetheless evinced an ability to create ties with members of the political opposition, has done it again — this time with President George W. Bush.

And in the present case the tie that binds is quite literal. While attending a meeting of the National Conference of State Legislators in Washington last week, Cohen exchanged conversation with the president about the need for a state sales-tax deduction on federal income-tax forms, at the end of which Bush said, “I like your tie.” Cohen then offered to give the tie he was wearing — a light-green one with a floral pattern — to the president.

Subsequently, he arranged to have the tie — or a duplicate — sent to Bush at the White House. Cohen, a member of the conference’s executive committee, attended NCSL’s annual “Leader to Leader” meeting along with state Rep. Matt Kisber (D-Jackson), co-chair of an NCSL task force on a “uniform voluntary sales tax agreement.”

In addition to their scheduled tasks at the conference, both Cohen and Kisber had been asked by Lt. Governor John Wilder (D-Somerville) to do missionary work on behalf of the sales-tax deduction, which was permitted prior to 1986 for states, like Tennessee, which have no income tax. Kisber was a featured speaker on the subject at the conference.

Wilder, who likes to say “Uncle Sam taxes taxes,” is a fervent evangelist on the subject of restoring the deduction and has talked up legislation that would remove the state sales tax altogether and replace it with a 6 percent flat income tax. The “6-0” plan, in fact, may get a vote during the current session of the General Assembly.

Both U.S. Rep. Bob Clement (D-Nashville) and U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-Tennessee) have introduced legislation supporting the idea of allowing a sales tax deduction on the income tax.

Is Percy the Man?

Next month Shelby County’s Democrats will have their biennial caucuses, followed by a formal convention, to select a new executive committee and a new chairman. Usually the identity of the latter can be surmised, or at least narrowed down to two or three names, by this point of the cycle. Not so this year.

Not up until now. But, in fact, the mystery of the Democratic chairmanship, circa 2002, may have moved far toward resolution last week, when a conversation at the bar of the Sheraton Hotel in Nashville (formerly the Hyatt Regency and the Crowne Plaza and site of many a consummation over the years, political and otherwise) ended with lawyer Percy Harvey, a member of the blue-chip firm of Stokes, Bartholomew, Evans, and Petrie, telling a group of visiting Memphians that he was interested in the chairmanship.

Since Harvey, an elegant man whose lifetime began in the rough-and-tumble world focusing on the South Memphis intersection of Trigg and Lauderdale, gets along easily with all the various factions of a highly diverse and factionalized party, and since he has already served as vice chair of the Shelby County Democrats at least twice, and since he says he’s willing to serve, he may, ipso facto, be drafted ahead of all other comers.

Other names — those of activist Mal Hooker and longtime party stalwart Gale Jones Carson, for example — have been mentioned, but Harvey is far better known than relative newcomer Hooker, and he has been toiling in the party vineyards even longer than Carson, and he is at home with the Democrats’ Ford and Herenton factions as well as with the party’s residual Midtown and suburban whites.

Moreover, Harvey is connected to several ends of the social and governmental establishment by virtue of his main calling these days — legislative lobbyist for a wide range of clients that include the Memphis school board, Shelby County government, and assorted components of the county’s and the state’s health care establishment.

It ain’t over yet, but until someone better comes along (if, indeed, there is one such), Percy Harvey may be just what the Shelby County Democrats, always on the edge of disintegration as an organized unit, need to get themselves focused on the electoral challenges of a new millennium. (Overshadowed by the Republicans of late, they haven’t been the county’s dominant party since a decade or so back in the old millennium.) Had not a certain recent presidential contender already appropriated the slogan “I’m a uniter, not a divider,” Harvey could arguably lay claim to it. And he may have the opportunity to do just that at East High School, where the local Democrats gather next month for their reorganization. — JB

Shelby County Democrats, who couldn’t scare up a candidate for county mayor in 1998, apparently are going to have a frightwig of a contest for 2002. At least two prominent state legislators are now involved in serious commitments to a Democratic primary race for mayor, and a third may not be far behind.

State Representative Carol Chumney, who has hankered for a higher office for some time, held a meeting of supporters Saturday evening at Garibaldi’s restaurant in the University of Memphis area and has already filed the required papers with the state Election Registry to form an exploratory committee. And State Senator Jim Kyle — who, as the Flyer has reported, is actively seeking the nomination and hired a staff for the purpose several weeks ago — insisted Sunday that he would not be deterred by Chumney’s entry.

“I think it bodes well for us as a party to have a spirited contest for county mayor,” Kyle said, in words similar to those used by Chumney, who also said a contested primary would benefit county Democrats.

Meanwhile, a third legislator, State Senator Steve Cohen, noted that his name has received some mention as a possible candidate and would not rule out seeking the office of county mayor himself.

As all three Democratic legislators pointed out, the political strength of incumbent

Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout, a Republican, has waned considerably since his uncontested reelection to a second term three years ago. Well-publicized problems with the county jail and with a burgeoning financial deficit are at least partly responsible for that.

Chumney,who said she intended to have another meeting with supporters “in about three weeks,” pointed to three bills she has introduced — dealing with mental health, jail conditions, and debt policy — as evidence of her commitment to county issues. “I don’t fool around,” Chumney said about her commitment to the race.

Potential opponent Kyle professed some bemusement at the idea of Chumney’s having formed an exploratory committee. “It’s not legal for us [legislators] to raise money while we’re still in session,” he pointed out, referring to laws passed in the ‘90s restricting state lawmakers’ ability to hold fundraisers during a session of the General Assembly.

Although she characterized the fact as a concidence unrelated to her race, Chumney noted that a longtime ally, State Representative Mike Kernell, has introduced legislation in the current session that would permit modest in-session fundraising efforts by legislators in their home districts. Kernell was in the group that met with Chumney at Garibaldi’s.

Chumney also acknowledged that she had also given some thought to running in 2002 for sheriff — a position that at least one of her Shelby County legislative colleagues had been talking her up for in in Nashville last week. But she said she had settled on a county mayor’s race instead.

Kyle, who has something of a head start organizationally, in that he has hired two aides — Jeff Sullivan and Bob Kellett –to assist him in researching both county and state issues — and he has kept open the campaign headquarters he used in his Senate reelection race last year, said he would be preoccupied during the session with his legislative duties, which include his supervision of patients’ rights legislation.

Though he has not formalized his 2002 plans to the extent that Chumney and Kyle have and shied away from any commitment to a race, Cohen indicated that he was still considering running for county mayor. And he, too, said that the reawakening of interest among several potential candidates was a good sign for the Democratic Party.

Several observers, meanwhile, have pointed out the obvious — that, while no specific names have yet surfaced, it is a given that a strong black candidate will probably emerge to contest for the nomination, too.