At a lengthy and boisterous meeting at the IBEW Union Hall
Thursday night, members of the Shelby County Democratic Committee overturned
several recommendations for judicial endorsements submitted by a party screening
committee. But that wasn’t the half of it: The party’s innate fault line was
laid bare for all to see. Two bloggers have already weighed in with furious
outrage at the goings-on. Only problem: They’re outraged in opposite directions:
Left Wing Cracker is incensed that…well, as he says in part:
To the
members of the ExecCom, you acted like spoiled children, like out-and-out damn
fools, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. When we get our asses kicked on
August 3, it’s partly your fault. Only partly, because, let’s face it, the SCDP
has a bunch of underfunded, WEAK candidates who only campaign on one side of
town because they live under the delusion that enough African-Americans will
turn out so that they don’t have to get white votes. And again, they will learn
(maybe) at their own peril.
Thaddeus Matthews, on the other hand, sees white racism, not black, as
the problem:
This group which many were a part of the election committee proved tonight that
racism is alive and well in the party. In some of the races this group tried to
vote for No endorsement, than vote for the black in the race. In fact in some of
the races where there was a black candidate who was a democract, and a white
republican they recommended that the white republican be endorsed.
And there you have it. This would surely appear to be
what you would call a hopelessly divided party. But, with all due respect to
both gentlemen (who would almost seem to have attended different meetings, or to
have seen this one from diametrically different perspectives), there’s another
way of looking at the results. Yes, the meeting was a non-stop ruckus. Yes,
there were catcalls, interruptions, and enough tortuous repetition of already
covered procedural points to be considered cruel and unusual at Guantanamo.
Yes, late in the proceedings there was an ejection – sort of – as MSDIA Democrat
Pat Primrose hooted at one too many circumstances and, at chairman
Matt Kuhn‘s request, was escorted to the back of the IBEW hall, no further,
by party sergeant-at-arms John Bratcher. (Committee member Del Gill,
as obstreperous as ever, barely escaped a similar fate five or six times – and
almost got it when he shouted, “You shut up!” at fellow committee member
Desi Franklin, chair of the judicial committee. Franklin, no shrinking
violet herself, had said, a propos one of Gill’s attempts to lecture Kuhn on
procedure, “You’re not the chairman!”)
But there was method to the madness. The party
representatives (and remember, this is the same body, elected a year ago, that
contains each of the three major Democratic factions – a “Ford” group, a “Chism”
group, a “reform” group – in almost equal measure) made decisions according to a
sort of understandable calculus.
Things we found out:
It helped for a candidate to be black, but it helped even
more to be a known Democrat, and the deciding factor, all else being equal, was
– believe it or not, judicial qualifications.
The best example of that occurred with the executive
committee’s overwhelming endorsement of incumbent Paula Skahan,
previously endorsed by the judicial committee,over Tonya Saafir
for Criminal Court, Division One. Skahan is white, and Saafir is black. Beyond
that, however, Saafir has generous support from social conservatives and has
been formally endorsed by several groups on the Republican right; Skahan is
being targeted (mainly for an alternate lifestyle) by the same groups. Score a
big one for Skahan, whose judicial record has already won her a passel of other
endorsements (and no worse than a “no endorsement” decision by the Shelby County
Republican Party itself.)
There were other such examples: Incumbent judge Mark
Ward, who had been endorsed by the judicial committee, got the nod,
if barely, over opponent Alicia Howard in Criminal Court Division Nine
when party secretary Norma Lester and chairman Kuhn, during a
recount,cast deciding votes in his favor. Ward, who had the highest
ratings of any judge in a recent survey of lawyers, had previously appeared to
have won the committee’s endorsement by a single vote, and had sat,
fatalistically in the rear of the room declaring to an onlooker as the recount
commenced, “She’s going to get it this time.” That might have been so, had the
issue been determined solely by skin color, but there was enough crossover among
the majority-black voters to get Ward, the paleface in this pairing, through.
His larger problem might have been that he was previously endorsed by the Shelby
County Republicans.
Yet another instance of that principle – party over race as
a deciding factor – occurred in the voting for Criminal Court, Division Seven.
Lee Coffee, an African American, was the judicial committee’s recommendee;
his major opposition came from Janet Lansky Shipman, a white. As members
of the judicial committee had explained, both candidates were almost equally
worthy – enough so that a finding of “No Endorsement” might be the right way to
go. That’s the way it turned out, in fact, by a bare majority of 23 for not
endorsing. Astonishingly, Shipman got 18 votes against none (count ’em, zero)
for Coffee, who had received a judicial-committee recommendation – a fact
suggesting that her support is far harder than his. But, once again, Coffee’s
total in the group at large probably suffered from the fact of his prior
endorsement by the Shelby County Republicans.
Kenny Armstrong, the current Clerk & Master in
Chancery Court and the judicial committee’s endorsee, came within a hair of
losing the executive committee’s endorsement but was saved when Lester cast a
deciding vote in his favor. Armstrong, an African American like rival Karen
Tyler, seems to have gotten something of a backlash because of his prior
endorsement by the Republican Party.
Race may, in fact, have played a major part in deciding
several other endorsement contests – including some conspicuous reversals. In
Chancery Court Division Two, well-liked and well-respected incumbent Arnold
Goldin, a judicial-committee endorsee who had won several prior
endorsements, including that of the majority-black National Bar Association,
went down in a floor vote to newcomer Carlee McCullough, an engaging if
less credentialed challenger.
Other judicial-committee endorsees who suffered a similar
fate were Jim Lammey in Criminal Court, Division Five, beaten by Dewun
Settle; Karen Massey in Criminal Division Eleven of General Sessions,
supplanted by incumbent Judge Michelle Alexander-Best; and incumbent
Judge Louis Montesi in Criminal Division Thirteen of General Sessions, outvoted
by challenger Terrence Tatum.
In two other races, a “no endorsement” recommendation by
the judicial committee was overturned by the executive committee, a majority of
whom preferred to endorse Curtis Johnson (over incumbent Jimmy
Russell) in Circuit Court, Division Two, and LaTonya Burrow (over
incumbent Fred Axley) in Criminal Court, Division Six. Meanwhile,
incumbent Judge Ann Pugh lost her judicial-committee endorsement to a
finding for “no endorsement” in Criminal Division Seven of General Sessions.
(Under the circumstances, this was a save for Pugh, whose opponent, Tyrone J.
Paylor, came within a vote of supplanting her as the executive committee’s
choice.)
Other contests were decided in favor of the judicial
committee’s endorsees: incumbents Jerry Stokes in Circuit Court, Division
Six; D’Army Bailey in Circuit Court, Division Eight; Carolyn Blackett
in Criminal Court, Division Four; John Donald in Civil Division Three of
General Sessions; Betty Thomas Moore in Civil Division Five of General
Sessions; Gwen Rooks in Criminal Division Twelve of General Sessions; and
Donn Southern in Probate Court Two.
Regina Morrison Newman continued her impressive
sweep of endorsements in Civil Division Four of General Sessions.
Last but by no means least, given the intense
competitiveness of this multi-candidate race, former U.S. Attorney Veronica
Coleman won an endorsement for Juvenile Court Judge with relative ease over
adherents of a “no endorsement” vote. The chief loser in that outcome was city
judge Earnestine Hunt Dorse, who needed the boost to bolster her claim to
be the leading candidate among African American voters. Coleman, who has good
crossover potential, can now lay plausible claim to that distinction herself.
Left out of the running was another city judge, Jayne Chandler. Thursday
night’s vote gives Coleman, who will appear with other Juvenile Court candidates
at a Public Issues Forum on Sunday, a better chance of going one-on-one against
Republican endorsee Curtis Person, who remains the favorite in the
general election race.
— Jackson Baker
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