An Uncommon Event

In his short, sweet address Tuesday to the Tennessee
General Assembly convening a special session on ethics, Governor Bredesen called
the circumstance “an uncommon event.” And, though the governor went on to assure
his audience of 132 legislators that he assumed the chamber to be “chock full of
honest, ethical, caring people,” he knows – as they do – that many, perhaps
most, members of the public might assume otherwise these days.

How could they not – after the Tennessee Waltz scandal of
last year in Tennessee and, for that matter, the continuing fallout from the
Abramoff affair in Washington? And, even as the legislature convened, there were
signs that the cure, such as can be passed in the three weeks allotted to the
matter by Bredesen, may not be equal to the dimensions of the disease.

Though Democrat Ophelia Ford has been provisionally seated
as the new state senator from Memphis’ District 29, her former Republican
opponent, Terry Roland, is still pressing his challenge, alleging that Ford’s
13-vote margin of victory was padded by various frauds and illegalities. It has
to be said that all members of the special Senate committee sitting in judgment
on the matter, Republicans and Democrats like, gave Ford herself a clean bill of
health on Monday afternoon. But partisan differences persisted on the committee,
and will in the body as a whole, as to whether two verifiable cases of Dead Man
Voting, coupled with votes from four proven felons, are enough to cause the
election to be voided.
 

Roland and his attorneys point to additional residence
issues and improperly filled-out election forms, while Ford and hers caution
that unavoidable ambiguities and inadvertent human error, not outright
chicanery, might explain most of those additional cases. Tellingly, they
produced one questioned voter, Lavinia Hampton of Memphis, who signed her
election form once, not twice as required, because election workers didn’t ask
her for a second signature. It didn’t hurt Ford’s case that Hampton, who made an
eloquent witness, was a Gold Star mother, having lost a son in Vietnam.

Which is to say, resolving this matter, like others that
will be before this legislature, ain’t as easy as it may look from the armchair.

Nor will there be an easy solution to other matters, even
procedural ones governing the special session itself. A spirited dispute broke
out on the Senate floor Tuesday between two Memphis Democrats, minority leader
Jim Kyle and Steve Cohen, on the question of whether the chamber’s traditional
committees will continue to function as such during the special session. Issues
of  turf, centralization, and open access are involved in that one, and working
it out is no piece of cake, either.

Still and all, the special session is under way.  Where
there’s a will, there’s a way, right? The real question is whether such a will
exists – or can be generated in three short weeks.

Odell Baker

All of us who believe in democracy have to be grateful for
the dogged, decades-long efforts of Odell Baker, a furniture dealer and
old-fashioned patriot, to personally enroll as many voters as he could in
various registration efforts. The kindly Baker, who died this week, was a
dedicated Republican, but he was just as avid about signing up Democrats. A
citizen’s citizen, he believed in the process.