Phase One of the mayoral residency issue got a hearing Friday in the court of Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins, and the main result was that Memphis city attorney Jennifer Sink, who may have passed the buck on residency requirements to attorney Robert Meyers, had the buck passed right back to her.
Strictly speaking, the issue was whether the City of Memphis should be joined to the case, as attorneys for the Shelby County Election Commission (SCEC) maintained and as attorneys for plaintiffs and mayoral candidates Floyd Bonner and Van Turner insisted was unnecessary.
After hearing testimony from both sides, Jenkins found essentially for the plaintiffs, ruling that he found it “unclear” that the city attorney had officially endorsed or signed off on an opinion from Meyers, a former SCEC chair, that she sent to the commission, which posted it on its website.
In the opinion, Meyers held that candidates for Memphis mayor remained bound by provisions in an 1896 city charter that insisted on a prior five-year residency in the city. Arguing for the SCEC, attorney Ed McKenney attempted to disclaim the commission’s responsibility for the ruling and said the SCEC had merely served as a conduit for the city’s position. The plaintiffs’ position has been that Sink had not submitted the Meyers opinion in any official way.
To the chancellor’s somewhat rhetorical question, “How would the city be bound?,” Bonner’s attorney Robert Spence replied, “Not to be flippant, but who cares? The city does not conduct elections.” Sink, he maintained, had not adopted or co-signed the Meyers opinion.
In essence, Jenkins concurred with that in his finding Friday. The chancellor had mentioned that, in any case he personally was aware of “two or three”opinions the city was privy to other than that of Meyers. (An author of one of those opinions, city council attorney Allan Wade, was in the courtroom Friday.)
Spence said after the hearing that the chancellor had put “the ball in the Election Commission’s court.” McKenney agreed that, pending a response by Sink, who could meanwhile add an official endorsement of the Meyers’ opinion on the part of the city. “We [the SCEC] may be forced to defend it on our own,” he said.
A status conference on the matter will be held in Jenkins’ court on Thursday .
