Yes, Virginia, there is a Tennessee Democratic Party, the current Republican supermjaority in state government notwithstanding. And an impressive delegation from the TNDP arrived at the Flyer office Thursday, headed by the party’s state chairman Hendrell Remus (who happens to be an ex-Memphian) and executive director Brit Bender.
Their mission was made clear: With the county primaries over, said Remus, “we know that back here in Shelby County and in Memphis, the political climate is a little bit different. … We know that there’s some Democrats, incumbents, who won’t be returning. So we want to make sure that we’re able to coalesce voters, especially of our base, around those Democrats who have been nominated to carry the torch for us in August and beyond.”
Accordingly, the local primary winners, along with the other candidates and the party’s rank-and-file, had all been invited to Loflin Yard for a combination fundraiser and post-election rally Thursday night. “Hopefully, that gives us an opportunity to light that spark and grow,” he said.
Remus made the state party’s priorities clear. “We’ll be here making the case for [County Mayor] Lee Harris for re-election, because obviously, we want him reelected. But most importantly, the D.A.’s race is a top priority for for the state party this year, almost as important as the gubernatorial race is for the state. It is at the top of our list of targets for this election cycle. And so we’ve got to be intentional about where we put that investment in how we’re down here, coalescing people around the the nominee … to move the needle [and] give us an opportunity to bring everybody together.”
Remus referred to the post-primary invitation by GOP incumbent D.A. Amy Weirich to defeated Democratic primary candidates Janika White and Linda Harris, both African Americans, for a look-around in her office. He called that “a political stunt,” adding, “she [Weirich] has a diversity issue in her office. It’s a reality that that there’s no diversity in that office. So either one of those candidates would probably be more qualified than she is to run the office. But it’s a telling approach to take after a primary’s over.”
The chairman also alluded to the fact that “we have a Democratic incumbent who seemingly endorsed the [Republican] opponent, because she didn’t win her primary.” That, it turned out, was defeated Circuit Court Clerk Tamiika Gipson, who lost the Democratic primary to City Council chair Jamita Swearengen. The potential beneficiary would be Sohelia Kail, the Republican nominee for the position.
So, per Remus, the state party’s mission was clear: Bring everybody together in common cause and energize the troops for what the chairman saw as the most important August contest — the equivalent, as he said, of a gubernatorial race — that between Democratic D.A. nominee Steve Mulroy and incumbent Republican Amy Weirich.
Later, once a goodly crowd had settled at the Loftin Yard event, Remus wasted no time in broadcasting that message. Standing on a table-top, he said: “In this election cycle, the most important race at the top of that ticket, is a district attorney, a very terrible district attorney, someone who has shown that she’s willing to step into a courtroom and strictly show up to score. She doesn’t care about whether or not she’s telling the truth. She doesn’t care about whether or not she inconveniently leaves evidence in the backseat of the car, or leaves it locked up in evidence or somewhere else.
“Here’s someone who talks about being tough on crime. Someone who wants to drive the crime rate down. The entire time she’s been district attorney, the crime rate has gone up. It’s because she’s not tough on crime in a way that drives crime down. … We cannot cannot let her become the district attorney for eight more years. Imagine what crime will look like over the course of the next eight years. Imagine what that would mean for young black and brown children who are being charged as adults almost every single day, because her office is more concerned about scoring a win than they are about truly fighting crime in the county.”
The antidote? “We’ve got a hell of a candidate for district attorney,” Remus said. Whereupon he summoned Mulroy to the table-top alongside him.
Mulroy gave the crowd more of the same, beginning with an appeal for party unity: “I really appreciate the opportunity to speak here, and I’m really glad to see all of you Democrats. Democrats are in the house tonight. The thing we need to remember, in Shelby County, is we’ve got the numbers. If we stick together and we turn out, there ain’t nobody stopping us.”
As to the importance of his race: “Now, obviously, I am very concerned about district attorney’s race and everything that’s being said is exactly on point. There is a reason why this particular race in Shelby County is gonna get national attention. Our district attorney has received national attention over the last decade for all the wrong reasons.
“We [were] written up in The New York Times and in best-selling books for prosecutorial misconduct and ethical violations which led to overturned convictions. We don’t disclose evidence when we’re supposed to; we make improper comments to the jury when we’re not supposed to. And not only does it give us a black eye and erode public confidence in the fairness of our system, it also overturns convictions. So either we’re trying to convict people who are innocent, which happens a heck of a lot, or criminal defendants who actually are guilty are being let free, because we’re not playing by the rules. Either way, it needs to be repaired.”
Mulroy continued: “We’re number-one in the state in transferring young African-American men from juvenile court to adult court, where they end up in adult prisons, which are essentially crime colleges with no rehabilitative services, and where they’re more likely to reoffend when they come out. Ninety-five percent of them are black. We’re number-one in the state for the number of people who are languishing behind bars who haven’t been convicted of any crime. They’re awaiting trial at 201 Poplar; they’re waiting their day in court. Over a quarter of them are there for 500 days or more, the longer they’re in there, the more likely they are to be black.”
And it went on from there — Mulroy’s catalogue of misprisions on the part of the incumbent. Eventually he summed up: “We can reform the system, refocus on violent crime, restore public confidence and the fairness of our system; we can get the community to cooperate with law enforcement in a way that they have not been. I’m going to end tonight in a slightly modified way, because there can be no Mulroy remarks at a Democratic function without a Mulroy limerick. I think it’s federal law somewhere.”
“So let’s make this a bash, not a bummer.
Let’s all march to the beat of the same drummer.
Thanks for Tuesday night’s win,
Let’s all do it again.
Let’s go kick ass and win this summer.”
