BY
JACKSON BAKER |
JUNE 28, 2007
A new
physical principle has been discovered about the known Universe, or at least
about that corner of it occupied by the Shelby County Democratic Party. It is
this: That the likes of Richard Fields can be gotten rid of – perhaps
permanently — but longtime gadfly Del Gill is irrepressible and will return
again and again – perhaps till the end of time.
Fields, accused by Mayor Willie Herenton of a “blackmail plot” aimed at
deposing the mayor, was the subject of two votes at Thursday night’s monthly
meeting of the local Democrats’ executive committee. First, his resignation from
the committee – tendered in a letter to party chairman Keith Norman in which
Fields blamed his departure on complications arising from “my present
investigation of problems in Memphis” — was accepted by a 36-0 vote.
That
vote, however, came only after Gill – yes, Gill – tried to move for Fields’
expulsion and was talked by Norman into tacking that motion on to the acceptance
motion as a second stage. The reason: As Norman explained it, only the state
party could rule on an expulsion; hence, Fields’ resignation had to be accepted
first, lest some discovered technicality bind him forever to the committee, and
to the party.
And
that, Norman explained, was what nobody wanted. The chairman opined that “we
should never have elected him back on in the first place” after Fields was
forced off an earlier version of the committee in 2006 for working with
Republican lawyers to overturn the election of Democrat Ophelia Ford to the
state Senate.
Norman
allowed himself some additional rhetoric to the effect that Fields was best gone forever –
a point that Gill and others thought had been incorporated into the resolution
of expulsion, which passed 27-6. Both Norman and party secretary David Holt said
afterward, however, that the word “permanently” – heard frequently in discussion
on Gill’s motion – was not involved in the final vote. The point may be moot; it
is hard to imagine a third coming for Fields.
The
real miracle was the return to the committee of Gill – who has his own detractors. That resurrection occurred when Gill, a perennial member who was not, however, elected at this
year’s party convention, got nominated by the newly formed Memphis Democratic
Club as its representative on the executive committee.
The
Memphis Democratic Club is chaired by Jay Bailey, the lawyer who was defeated by
Norman for the party chairmanship, and numbers other dissidents among its
members.
Also returned to the
committee was another longtime maverick, Bill Larsha, who was accepted as the
representative of yet another newly formed dissident club.
