A Welcome Addition
This being an election season, the same old same old power
brokers are out in force. As always, there is this or that slate of candidates
sponsored by this or that self-interested individual or political organization
— preoccupied more with their own power or prerogatives than with the greater
social good.
Well, help is on the way. A new group, The Coalition for a
Better Memphis, came into being last year under the organizational aegis of
Calvin Anderson of Blue Cross Blue Shield of
Tennessee and Dean Deyo of the Leadership Academy. Comprising an impressive
variety of local civic organizations of various kinds, the Coalition undertook,
through a series of questionnaires and interviews, to rate candidates in the
following categories: Vision; Qualifications & Experience; The Ability to
Implement Initiatives; Integrity and Ethics in Government; The County Debt; and
Education Finance.
Without attempting to evaluate
the evaluators and making allowances for the fact that not all candidates –
including a few generally reckoned as major — cooperated with the process, we
suggest that potential voters in next week’s May 2nd countywide
primaries could do worse than consult the Coalition’s numerical ratings of
candidates at
www.bettermemphis.org. There are no endorsements of candidates as such, but
the Coalition’s rankings are in-depth, apparently conscientiously determined,
and therefore helpful to any voter willing and able to make up his own mind.
Especially at a time when the
trend in local elections is for lower and lower turnouts, partly because of
voter cynicism about politics as usual, the Coalition and its efforts constitute
a welcome addition.
Bummer
Any time two such different
political animals as Shelby County commissioners Bruce Thompson and Walter
Bailey agree on an issue, it is worth our while to pay attention. Republican
Thompson and Democrat Bailey argued strenuously but in vain Monday for an early meeting
by the commission to appoint an interim state Senator in District 29
With at least a month to go in
this session of the General Assembly and with last year’s special election
results voided by Senate action last week, the residents of that district, a
sprawling area than runs along the Shelby County riverfront, suddenly find
themselves without representation.. With the forced departure of Democrat
Ophelia Ford, whom no one blames for the irregularities of last year’s election,
both real and suspected, District 29 now lacks both a voice and vote on the
important deliberations yet to come – not the least of which is the final
shaping of the state budget..
Thompson and Bailey are unlikely
to see eye to eye on the identify of an interim replacement for Ford. But they
were willing to take their chances with a vote on May 8th.
That a majority of their
colleagues preferred – for obvious reasons of political caution — to put off
the issue for another two weeks, with the likelihood that the legislature will
then have adjourned for the year, is a major disappointment – a de facto
disenfranchisement for the residents of District 29.
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