Elected officials took heat over spicy comments they made on the MEMernet last week.
Memphis-Shelby County School Board Member Towanna Murphy issued a formal apology days after she threatened to have a Facebook commenter deported for comments she made.
Posted to Facebook by Brent Taylor
Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) raged on Facebook about a column from the Daily Memphian’s Dan Conaway. In it, Conaway criticized Taylor’s moves to remove Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy, called him a “gadfly,” and said Taylor lives in a replica of the Mississippi governor’s mansion.
For this, Taylor issued a “libtard alert,” calling Conaway “a pompous, elitist, leftwing clown … suffering from Taylor Derangement Syndrome.”
“A dog gets more useful information sniffing the ass of another dog than you get reading a Dan Conaway column,” Taylor wrote.
Posted to Facebook by Otis Sanford
Otis Sanford, a longtime Memphis pundit, said, “This is one of the meanest things I have ever read from an elected official who fashions himself a public servant.”
Sanford wanted as much hubbub on Taylor’s post as Murphy’s deportation post.
“Shame on you, Senator,” Sanford wrote. “Your respect meter is plummeting toward zero.”
A freed Kelsey with well-wisher Naser Fazlullah at celebration party (Photo: Courtesy Naser Fazlullah)
King Arthur was not present. In fact, the ranking attendee at the Roundtable in East Memphis last Saturday night for Brian Kelsey’s out-of-prison celebration was Brent Taylor, the fellow Republican who won a special election to succeed Kelsey in the state Senate.
A crowd of some 50 family members and well-wishers braved street floods and a thunderstorm of generational ferocity to help Kelsey rejoice at his recent pardon by President Trump — a circumstance that a grateful Kelsey kept referring to as a “miracle” in the course of a 15-minute speech to the gathering.
Kelsey had been convicted of conspiring with others in a scheme to illegally funnel campaign finance money from his state account into his unsuccessful 2016 congressional race. He consented to a plea arrangement of guilty but later tried and failed to get his plea rescinded.
Ultimately, he would surrender and had spent two weeks in a federal prison in Kentucky before getting the surprise pardon from President Trump two weeks ago. After his indictment, he had contended that he was being unjustly targeted by then-President Joe Biden. Though the claim appeared far-fetched to many observers, Trump may have regarded it as credible. In any case, Kelsey had a network of GOP supporters who had kept up his fight for vindication.
On the morning that he learned of his pardon, Kelsey told the crowd, guards were conducting a shakedown of the prison population, looking for illicit drugs.
Kelsey said that he was writing a book about his brush with the law, presumably including information about his trial as well as his incarceration.
• Another Go Mark Billingsley, the once and possibly future county commissioner, speaking with KWAM on Monday morning, announced his candidacy in 2026 for the District Four commission seat, now held by the term-limited Brandon Morrison, saying, “The last couple of years I’ve been really concerned with our leadership. The way we change things is getting involved. People are voting with their taillights, they are leaving, and I want them to have better opportunities in Shelby County for young and old.”
Republican Billingsley mentioned a dilapidated jail and a defective educational system as things in need of remedy.
“All Shelby County residents deserve better, and they should demand more common sense and real accountability from their elected officials, no matter their party affiliation,” he said, pledging to work across the aisle with the commission’s majority Democrats.
And Terry Roland, who served as commission chair during his two terms on the body, wants to return to his old District One seat, now held by the also term-limited Amber Mills.
Roland, another Republican, is well known to followers of local politics as a colorful ideologue with pronounced MAGA sympathies. But, like Billingsley, he boasts his record of working across the aisle and was in the forefront of efforts to resolve racial disparities in the county workforce.
A specialist in economic development tools, Roland is the immediate past president of the Millington Area Chamber of Commerce. He recently cofounded a consultancy group with Cary Vaughn and Jon Crisp to focus on development issues.
State Representative Justin Pearson, whose presence during this year’s legislative session has been fragmentary, has resumed regular attendance as the General Assembly heads into its stretch drive.
Pearson, who has avowedly been dealing with the aftereffects of his brother’s death in December, was a speaker at the meeting of the Shelby County Democratic Party (SCDP) convened Saturday at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church to elect new party officers.
Things went downhill after rousing unity speeches by Pearson and others, as the assembled Democrats could not reach agreement on the bylaws needed to continue with the meeting, which was to have elected a new chairman and other officers. Amid chaos, the meeting was aborted, with the professed intent by those present of reconvening within 30 days.
The Tennessee Democratic Party (TNDP), whose chair Rachel Campbell of Chattanooga was on hand, temporarily decommissioned the local party, as it had nearly 10 years earlier during a previous period of public disorder in the SCDP.
• The Democrats’ foreshortened meeting was the site for a fair amount of schmoozing from potential near-term political candidates. One such was Michael Pope, a former sheriff’s department deputy who served a brief tenure as the SCDP’s last nominal chair before its previous shutdown by the state party in 2016.
Pope later became police chief in West Memphis. He resigned during a controversy over allegedly suppressed evidence in the case of the West Memphis Three, who were subsequently released after serving several years for a notorious murder.
Pope is now an announced candidate for sheriff in 2026. An expected opponent is Anthony Buckner, the current chief deputy to Sheriff Floyd Bonner.
• Former state Senator Brian Kelsey will hold a celebration in East Memphis on Saturday for his recent release from prison. “It’s time to party!” say the invites. Kelsey, who had been convicted of campaign finance violations and served only two weeks at a federal prison in Kentucky, was pardoned last month by Trump.
• State Senator Brent Taylor is trying again after his bill seeking the legislative removal from office of DA Steve Mulroy failed to gain traction and was taken off notice.
Taylor and state Senate Speaker Randy McNally made public their request that the state Supreme Court create a panel to investigate Mulroy, Nashville DA Glenn Funk, and Warren County DA Chris Stanford. Like Mulroy, Funk is a liberal who has ruffled the ideological feathers of the state’s GOP supermajority. Stanford is something of a throw-in. He is under indictment on charges of reckless endangerment after firing a pistol in pedestrian pursuit of an accused serial killer.
The shift in tactics from legislative to judicial was an effort to avoid the appearance of being politically partisan, said Taylor, who acknowledged that any action on the new proposal would be delayed at least thorough the summer.
• Entities in Memphis and Shelby County seem to have done well in their entreaties for financial aid from the state. Included either in Governor Bill Lee’s original budget or his supplemental budget, announced last week, were such petitioners as the city of Memphis, the Memphis Zoo, the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, Agape Child & Family Services, Youth Villages, Memphis Allies, Operation Taking Back 901, Church of God in Christ (COGIC), PURE Academy, YMCA of Memphis & the Mid-South, Tech901, Moore Tech, Southern College of Optometry, Hospitality Hub, Memphis Teacher Residency, Memphis City Seminary, Africa in April, Stax Music Academy, and Tennessee College of Applied Technology (for the Memphis aviation campus).
Also included was funding for an audit of Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Conspicuously missing so far are allotments for Regional One Health and the Metal Museum. Additions and subtractions are to be expected before the session ends.
Boots, hats, four wheelers, food, drink, line dancing, and more brought hundreds to the Byhalia Trail Ride event over the weekend. It looked “like good, pure, country fun,” as knatalya_ described it.
“Radical” Rage
Posted to X by @toddstarnes
Newsmax host Todd Starnes claimed a “radical leftist exploded in rage,” “lunged at me,” and threw his phone on the ground when he and state Senator Brent Taylor visited protestors at the Bartlett Tesla dealership this weekend.
“These people are insane,” he tweeted.
While he was here, two rappers were shot Downtown. To which, Starnes opined that “we need President Trump to stage an intervention in this city.” No thank you.
Dust In the Wind
Posted to Facebook by the Damn Weather of Memphis
The U.S. National Weather Service of Memphis issued its first ever Blowing Dust Warning last week. The Damn Weather of Memphis posted a satirical, AI-generated image of what it looked like. More simply, though, Judith Johnson just commented, “shit.”
Young at Kiwanis: Leery of “BS” issues (Photo: Jackson Baker)
After a lengthy period of inaction on it, state Senator Brent Taylor’s much-vaunted legislative resolution to remove Shelby County DA Steve Mulroy from office was scheduled for a hearing in the state House Criminal Justice Subcommittee on Wednesday of this week.
Asked about the matter following his appearance before the Downtown Kiwanis Club last week, Mayor Paul Young had this to say: “I don’t think they should remove a duly elected individual. I told Brent that, but I opt not to get into all of the public back-and-forth on DA Mulroy or the school board because I believe that Memphis needs a leader that can stay above the fray. And I get so sick of the drama. It’s just nauseating. Every day is some BS that people want us to respond to that’s all personality-driven that does not help our people, so I stay out of it and let them figure it out.”
What the House subcommittee will try to figure out was expressed this way in Taylor’s original Senate resolution: “General Assembly, Statement of Intent or Position – Authorizes the Speaker of Senate to appoint a committee to meet with a like committee from the House of Representatives to consider the removal of Steven J. Mulroy from the office of District Attorney General for the Thirtieth Judicial District by the Tennessee General Assembly acting pursuant to Article VI, Section 6 of the Constitution of Tennessee.”
The Senate resolution has not so far advanced. It is the House version, more or less identically worded and co-sponsored by state Representative Kevin Vaughn, that will be considered on Wednesday, to be regarded either (in Young’s phrase) as “BS” or, as Senator Taylor has argued, as an important element of his soi-disant “Make Memphis Matter” campaign.
Taylor has issued a lengthy, if somewhat sketchy, bill of particulars to justify his essential claim that Mulroy’s tenure is injurious to the prospects for crime control in Memphis.
Word to this point has been that few members of the legislature’s leadership or its rank and file have shared Taylor’s sense of urgency or timing.
The issue will be vying for attention with such matters as a pending measure authorizing state takeover of the Memphis Shelby County School Board and Governor Bill Lee’s announcement this week of a supplement to his budget.
And both Mulroy and Young, in his remarks to Kiwanis last week, have cited figures showing dramatic recent decreases in the incidence of crime in the city.
The mayor presented figures showing a 13.3 percent decrease in crime overall since 2022, with reductions occurring in every ZIP code except two. Homicides were down 30 percent, and motor vehicle thefts were down 39 percent, he said.
He also cited figures demonstrating that crimes in the FedExForum area were substantially lower than equivalent areas in Downtown Nashville.
“Results,” he said when asked why the city council, which failed to approve his reappointment of Police Chief C.J. Davis in 2024, had unanimously approved her this year.
• The appointment of Circuit Court Judge Valerie Smith to replace the retiring Judge Arnold Goldin on the state Court of Appeals was finalized by the legislature on Monday.
• Inspired by the ongoing series of angry popular protests of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) actions at congressional town halls nationwide, Shelby County Democrats made ready to organize a protest action last Saturday at a scheduled local appearance by 8th District Republican Congressman David Kustoff.
The action had to be called off, however, when Kustoff’s speech to the men’s club at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Germantown was canceled because of what church officials called “safety concerns.”
Lawmakers gonna law-make, and committee agendas for the Tennessee General Assembly are filled to the brim with a vast and complex array of proposals for a better Tennessee (depending on where you sit).
Hundreds of bills filed in Nashville cover everything from far-right-fueled covenant marriages to hunters finding wounded deer with drones to rules that take the high out of Tennessee cannabis products — and so much more.
Here are a few bills we’re watching.
Senator Brent Taylor (Photo: wapp.capitol.tn.gov)
Gender transition (SB 0676)
Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) says this law ensures that if a gender clinic takes state funds to perform gender transition procedures, they’ll have to also perform “detransition procedures.”
The bill also requires a report to the state on a ton of information about any transition procedures: the age and sex of the patient, what drugs were given to them, when the referral was made, what state and county the patient is from, and a complete list of “neurological, behavioral, or mental health conditions” the patient might have had. Almost everything but the patient’s name and WhatsApp handle.
Forever chemicals (SB 0880)
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is pushing this bill, and maybe not just in Tennessee.
When Mark Behrens, a representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform, explained it to a Senate committee last week, he specifically mentioned PFAS (also called forever chemicals by some), which are found in nonstick cookware, firefighting foam, and more. He also broadly mentioned “microplastics” and “solvents.”
Behrens claimed these may have a PR problem but they may also be in a situation where “the science [on them] is evolving and they may not have an impact on human health, or that impact may be unclear.”
So rather than the state banning them for just having a bad rap, any ban would have to be based on “the best available science.”
Senator Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma) asked if this could be used to keep fluoride out of drinking water. No, she was told.
Medical Ethics Defense Act (SB 0955)
“This bill prohibits a healthcare provider from being required to participate in or pay for a healthcare procedure, treatment, or service that violates the conscience of the healthcare provider.” The bill itself is scanty on details. On its face, it sure sounds like it’s aimed at the LGBTQ community.
But bill sponsor Senator Ferrell Haile (R-Gallatin) said it was a “straightforward bill,” covering things such as assisted suicide or whether or not a pharmacist felt comfortable prescribing birth control.
Deer and drones (SB 0130)
This one is straightforward. It would allow hunters to use drones to find deer they shot.
WHO now? (SB 0669)
With this bill, Taylor, the Memphis Republican, says pandemics can only be declared by the American, baseball-and-apple-pie Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), not the Swiss, soccer-and-Toblerone World Health Organization (WHO).
Senator London Lamar (Photo: wapp.capitol.tn.gov)
Cash for STI tests (SB 0189)
Senator London Lamar (D-Memphis) wants to give higher-education students in Tennessee $250 for taking a voluntary test for sexually transmitted diseases.
Felonies for protestors (SB 0672)
You know how Memphis protestors like to shut down the Hernando DeSoto Bridge? Well, Taylor, that Memphis Republican, would make that a felony.
But it’s not just big roads and protestors. The bill applies to anyone obstructing “a highway, street, sidewalk, railway, waterway, elevator, aisle, hallway, or other place used for the passage of persons or vehicles.” Those would be Class E felonies.
But if the “offense was committed by intentionally obstructing a highway, street, or other place used for the passage of vehicles,” it would be a Class D felony.
What’s in a name? (SB 0214)
This bill would prohibit any public facility to be named for a local public official who is currently in office — and for two years after they leave office. The same prohibition would also apply to anyone who has “been convicted of a felony or a crime of moral turpitude.”
Covenant marriage (SB 0737)
This bill creates “covenant marriage” in Tennessee. And the most important thing the bill caption wants you to know about the law is that this kind of marriage “is entered into by one male and one female.”
Covenant marriage is, like, a mega, pinky-swear marriage. To get it, couples have to go to premarital counseling and their preacher or counselor or whoever has to get notarized and some kind of pamphlet to be printed by the secretary of state.
Getting out of a covenant marriage is, like, way hard. A partner would have to cheat or die, be sentenced to death or lifelong imprisonment, leave the house for a year, or physically or sexually abuse the other partner or the couple’s children.
These types of marriages are only available now in Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
Oh, and if you wonder where this is coming from, check out a video posted on our website that shows Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon), one of the bill’s sponsors, at church talking about “wicked” gay marriage. — Toby Sells
Taylor sponsored SB 0217. (Photo: Joshua Rainey | Dreamstime.com)
Clearing Homeless Camps (SB 0217)
A bill would give those living in homeless camps three days to vacate if their camp is targeted for removal in a new program that could cost around $64 million each year from the state highway fund.
Senate Bill 0217 would require the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) and other agencies to regulate “the collection, storage, claiming, and disposal of personal property used for camping from the shoulder, berm, or right-of-way of a state or interstate highway, or under a bridge or overpass, or within an underpass of a state or interstate highway.”
The bill, sponsored by Taylor, coasted through its first vote by the Senate Transportation and Safety Committee last week with only one Democrat voting against it. Taylor said he had experience in trying to clear areas of personal property and called it the “most complicated thing [he] had done as an adult.”
“What this bill does is simply allow TDOT to go into communities like Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, or any other community and to go ahead and preplan how they’re going to deal with homeless encampments and go ahead and work with social services networks in that community,” Taylor said.
Taylor said this network will include law enforcement, so that all the duties will already be spelled out when an encampment needs to be removed. He also said this bill does not criminalize homeless people.
“This serves not only the state and the local community, but this serves the homeless folks as well,” Taylor said. “When they identify a homeless encampment that needs to be cleared, there’ll be nonprofits and social services available to the people in homeless encampments. We all have empathy, but whatever has driven somebody to have to live under a bridge, their lot in life is not getting better by living under a bridge.”
Taylor said the bill will help communities develop a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to tackle this issue in a way that’s beneficial to both the city and the homeless. Senator Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) asked if the bill outlines how their belongings will be stored, to which Taylor responded that the decision would be left to the board.
“I understand the intent,” Campbell said. “I have a similar thing happen in my district. I just am concerned without the direction from the legislation, the homeless peoples’ items and things need to be considered, that we’re putting the discretion to be able to take stuff away from homeless people in somebody’s hands where it might not have been before.”
Lindsey Krinks, co-founder of Housing for All Tennessee and Open Table Nashville, noted citizens’ concerns for the bill — specifically, the disposal of homeless people’s belongings.
“What this bill doesn’t tell you is that the campsite removal costs will be passed down to local governments; we’re really concerned about that,” Krinks said. “We all want to see the number of people living in encampments decrease, but the way we do that is not to play a game of Whack-A-Mole. It’s to break the cycle of homelessness through providing housing and support to people.”
Krinks said the bill does not address homelessness nor the deficit of housing or shelter. She noted that the bill’s “aggressive” deadline of removal three days after receiving a complaint does not allow people to secure permanent housing.
Taylor said this bill will address these concerns as the agencies and TDOT will help people get connected to the services they need. He said continuing to let people live in encampments without services does not provide them with extra support.
“If you support homeless people and want to get them the services they need and help them live in dignity, then you would support this bill because we’re able to make that connection when we clear a homeless encampment between a person in need and social services they need to connect them,” Taylor said. — Kailynn Johnson
Happy high? (HB 1376)
State Republicans propose either stricter cannabis rules or none at all.
Despite warnings that the hemp industry would be decimated, the House Judiciary Committee passed a measure last week that would put stricter regulations in place.
Sponsored by House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland), House Bill 1376 would place the industry under the Alcoholic Beverage Commission instead of the Department of Agriculture and remove products from convenience and grocery stores. Only vape and liquor stores would be allowed to sell some hemp products.
The House bill was slated to be heard this week in the Commerce Committee where agreements with the industry could be reached.
“It does ban [derivatives] THCA and THCP. The reason for that is we have not legalized marijuana in this state,” Lamberth said.
Hemp is distinguished from marijuana in that it contains a compound called delta-9 THC. Cannabis with a concentration of less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC is defined as legal hemp in Tennessee — and federally. Cannabis with concentrations greater than 0.3 percent is classified as marijuana and is illegal to grow, sell, or possess in Tennessee.
Hemp flowers also contain THCA, a nonintoxicating acid that would be banned in Tennessee under this bill. When heated or smoked, the THCA in the plant converts into delta-9 THC — an illegal substance in Tennessee in greater than trace amounts.
Clint Palmer, a representative of the hemp industry, told lawmakers the bill is similar to one passed in 2023 that led to a lawsuit against the Department of Agriculture that remains in litigation.
If the new measure passes, Palmer said, hemp businesses will be forced to shut down, even after spending millions of dollars complying with state regulations.
“Bill sponsors have said it’s the Wild West in regards to the current hemp program. This is far from the truth,” Palmer said.
The 2023 law put new restrictions on products containing THC, he said, and noted retail stores, manufacturers, and distributors are required to be licensed or face criminal charges. Palmer added that regulation is lacking from the Department of Agriculture, despite a 6 percent tax on hemp-derived products, half of which nets the department $1 million a month.
Lamberth has said that consumers should know the ingredients when they buy a hemp product. But Palmer said those are listed on labels, based on the 2023 law.
The House leader also indicated that the industry appears ready to sue the state again because the federal Farm Act sets standards on hemp. Palmer didn’t acknowledge whether a lawsuit could follow the new bill’s passage, but he said the Alcoholic Beverage Commission doesn’t “have a clear understanding of the hemp plant, and it’s clearly shown in this bill.”
The Senate version of the bill, sponsored by Senator Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville), is to be heard next by the finance committee. Briggs said last week as soon as the products are heated, they become marijuana.
“We could withdraw the bill and let’s just put another bill out there that says we’re going to have recreational marijuana,” Briggs said. “Let’s be perfectly honest. It’ll help the businesses, we’ll have great revenue, and everybody smoking the stuff will be a lot happier.” — Sam Stockard, Tennessee Lookout
Healthcare on the Hill (SB 0402 / SB 0403 / SB 0575)
Senate Democratic Caucus Chairwoman Senator London Lamar (D-Memphis) introduced SB 0403 and SB 0402 to tackle the issue of medical debt. SB 0403 proposes that hospitals match the amount of money they receive from the government to cover “uncompensated care” in erasing medical debt. According to the Tennessee General Assembly, taxpayers paid $153 million to cover payments for 107 hospitals.
“If a hospital takes public money, they should lift patient debt in return,” Lamar said. “Healthcare should heal, not bankrupt. This is about real relief for working people — helping families stay in their homes, invest in their futures, and live with dignity.”
SB 0402 seeks to further alleviate the toll of medical debt as it would remove its inclusion from credit reports. Lamar called medical debt an “unfair financial harm.”
Lamar has also long been an advocate for reducing the state’s maternal health crisis. The state has historically had the worst maternal mortality rate in the country. To aid in this, Lamar filed SB 0575, which would require new mothers to receive information about postpartum warning signs from hospitals.
“There’s an education gap women are experiencing as far as resources, what to do, and how to go through this process,” Lamar said. “In an effort to ensure that women have the best pregnancy outcome possible, we want to make sure we’re providing them with more tools in their toolbox to protect themselves and their child in this process and after.”
Lamar said this bill would add an extra layer of accountability to make sure hospitals and birthing centers are doing their part to educate women. The senator said that medical deserts create a significant gap in accessing quality care even before they seek pregnancy care. She went on to say pregnancy outcomes are reliant on the mother’s lifestyle before and after the process.
“We have an unhealthy community that is deprived of access to resources and doctors,” Lamar said. “There is a financial burden of not being able to afford the healthcare they need. Healthcare is really expensive. It’s very elitist. It’s the haves and the have-nots, so if you don’t have the money to have insurance or pay out of pocket, then you don’t get healthcare. That stems down to Black women who are less likely to have the care they need, rural women in rural areas who are experiencing poverty don’t have access [to care.]”
The idea of providing equitable healthcare and rights have extended to reproductive bills such as HB 0027 sponsored by Representative Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville). The bill, which has been supported by groups such as Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood, states that everyone has a “fundamental right to make decisions about their reproductive health care.” HB 1220 also protects reproductive freedom as it safeguards the right to choose whether or not a person wants to use contraceptives.
Some GOP bills, like the Medical Ethics Defense Act mentioned above, seek to curb access to care. Meanwhile, SB 0139, sponsored by Senator Adam Lowe (R-Calhoun), would mandate hospitals accepting Medicaid to collect and report citizenship status about patients, and report these demographics to the Tennessee Department of Health. The department would then submit this information to state government officials to track the impact of “uncompensated care for persons not lawfully present in the United States and other related information.” — KJ
Protesters gathered on President’s Day to condemn President Donald Trump and his administration. (Photo: Chris Davis)
The Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility had good news last week for Shelby County DA Steve Mulroy regarding four distinct matters charged against him by his persistent adversary, state Senator Brent Taylor, who had included them in his proposed resolution to seek legislative removal of Mulroy.
The board found Mulroy legally blameless in:
1) His decision to take the death penalty off the table in the murder case of Michael Sample, when two different experts concluded that the defendant was intellectually disabled and thus ineligible, under the law, for the death penalty.
2) His decision not to oppose a reduction of a 162-year sentence for a string of nonviolent forgeries in the case of Courtney Anderson.
3) and 4) Two separate allegations that he had engaged in improper “ex parte” communication with a presiding judge outside the presence of opposing counsel.
OUTMemphis placed third at the 12th Annual TEP Gumbo Contest. (Photo: Courtesy Jonathan Cole)
• The OUTMemphis organization, whose booth is pictured here, was one of several winners in the annual fundraising gumbo contest sponsored by the Tennessee Equality Project.
The 12th annual TEP event was held Sunday at the Memphis Sports and Events Center at Liberty Park, drawing a large crowd of entrants, attendees, and public figures who braved the frigid weather.
Proceeds from the event support a variety of projects which, in the words of TEP, “advance the well-being of LGBTQ people and their families here at home in Tennessee.”
Among the elected politicians on hand were state Senator Raumesh Akbari and state Representative Gabby Salinas. Senator Akbari served as one of five primary judges for the event.
This year’s event was held amid several pending developments in both state and national government of direct interest to the LGBTQ community and on the eve of hearings in the state General Assembly on HB 315/SB 0737, the “Tennessee Covenant Marriage Act.”
That legislation, as described by its chief sponsor, state Representative Gino Bulso (R-Williamson), would allow marital unions “between a man and a woman,” requiring compulsory counseling and excluding “irreconcilable differences” as reasons for divorce.
Bulso said the bill would also challenge the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that enabled same-sex marriages.
• President’s Day weekend was notable in other ways as well. On Monday, a sizeable crowd of protesters gathered Downtown to convey their sentiments regarding ongoing actions by the Trump administration.
Former Flyer staffer Chris Davis was there and took the photo below.
(left) Marsha Blackburn;
(right) Bill Hagerty (Photos: United States Senate, Public domain | Wikimedia Commons)
To remind the faithful readers of this space: In our year-end issue, we offered forecasts about the shape of things to come in the political arena.
One circumstance noted for the record was the fact that both of Tennessee’s incumbent U.S. senators — Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty — would strongly consider running for governor in 2026.
That is what our pipeline said, and that is what we reported, even though it seemed passing strange, even to us. Why? Because the customary rites of passage flow in the opposite direction — with the gubernatorial office more often serving as a springboard for Senate, than vice versa.
That is definitely the pattern in our neighboring state of Arkansas, where such eminent recent members of the Senate as Dale Bumpers and David Pryor (both now deceased) served what amounted to apprenticeships as governor before going on to become senators.
To be sure, ambitions may figure differently in the Land of Opportunity than in the Volunteer State, but Lamar Alexander ran first for governor and then for senator. And one recalls the unhappy, arguably tragic fate of Democrat Frank Clement, who served several terms as the state’s governor before meeting his Waterloo in two successive failed runs for the Senate.
(Interestingly, Clement’s second and final failed try, in 1966, resulted in the election to the Senate of Republican Howard Baker — the forerunner of what, in the course of time, would become the wall-to-wall ubiquity of GOP state officials.)
In any case, both of Tennessee’s current Republican senators have floated unmistakable trial balloons regarding gubernatorial races in 2026, and both seem dead serious. It may be far-fetched to imagine a competitive race between the two, but, my, wouldn’t that be an attention-grabber!
More likely, forces in the Republican Establishment — most notably Donald Trump — would probably dictate the choice of one over the other. (Either could make a plausible claim of loyalty to the president and to the MAGA agenda.)
And, given the high probability of success for the ultimate GOP nominee, one can imagine a domino-like chain reaction of opportunities opening up for other upwardly mobile Tennessee Republicans.
If Hagerty makes a governor’s race, he could either run for both governor and re-election as senator simultaneously, or go ahead and shed his Senate seat (his term would expire in 2026, anyhow) while campaigning for governor. In that latter eventuality, a race for his departed seat would occur in 2026, with a high probability that 8th District Congressman David Kustoff would be a candidate.
Kustoff’s seat, in turn, might then well be targeted by, say, the preternaturally ambitious state Senator Brent Taylor, in which case his seat would open as well, with possible aspirants for it including former city councilmen Kemp Conrad and Frank Colvett, and maybe even state Rep. Mark White. (A White race would create yet another vacancy and another domino.)
If Blackburn runs and wins, she would keep her Senate seat until being sworn in, in which case either she or a lame-duck Bill Lee would appoint a temporary Senate successor, with a special election for a permanent senator to be held in 2028.
The same sort of sequence as mentioned above for a Hagerty win might then occur, involving the same or a similar cast of characters, though everything would happen at a later remove in time.
Got all that straight, gentle reader? Probably not, though it could be worse. There are other permutations and possible complications we’re sparing you from.
The bottom line is that some shock and awe seems certain for the state’s political calendar in 2026, along with a potentially dizzy round of dominoes.
And who knows? Maybe some as yet unknown Democrat comes out of nowhere to spoil the party at some point along the succession line.
This image of Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid was just too good not to share. Memphis Memes 901 titled it “the beautiful, snow-capped mountains of Tennessee.”
Records Request
Posted to Facebook by Steve Mulroy
Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy fulfilled a “burdensome” records request from state Sen. Brent Taylor recently. Taylor, of course, is seeking Mulroy’s ouster from the job during the legislative session this year.
The request included 4,000 documents, 16,000 pages, six boxes, and more than 150 staff hours to complete, Mulroy said. “Things like this are a distraction from the real work that our office has to do. But we will fully cooperate with legislators.”
GIF Level
Posted to Reddit by u/Melodic-Frosting-443
Reddit user Melodic-Frosting-443 took the Memphis-Shelby County Schools situation to GIF level with a photo of the board surrounding Marie Feagins, overlaid with Stealers Wheel lyrics, “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right …” (You could see it above. But we’re not The Daily Prophet.)
Naser Fazlullah with South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Trump’s secretary of Homeland Security nominee and last year’s Lincoln Day keynoter. (Photo: Naser Fazlullah | Facebook)
The race for chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party, due to be resolved at the local party convention on Saturday at the Venue at Bartlett Station, has turned into a real donnybrook, with potentially divisive consequences.
As noted previously in this space, the two candidates are former Memphis City Councilman Worth Morgan, the beneficiary of an intra-party “Revive” campaign supported by numerous prominent party members, and longtime activist Naser Fazlullah, whose nose-to-the-grindstone party activities have won him a sizable grassroots constituency.
Underlying the surface aspects of the race are conflicts and rivalries involving other party figures and a myriad of issues.
Morgan’s most significant supporter is undoubtedly state Senator Brent Taylor, who claims credit for having recruited Morgan, an unsuccessful candidate for Shelby County mayor in 2022, to seek the chairmanship. Taylor won election to the state Senate that same year, claiming the seat vacated by former incumbent Brian Kelsey, who was forced out by legal problems. Since then, he has gone on to generate an amount of attention for himself unusual for a first-term legislator.
That’s partly due to the fact that Taylor, wealthy from the sale of his extensive funeral home network, has personally endowed numerous GOP candidacies and party events, both statewide and locally. And he continues to attract publicity for his aggressive efforts, in and out of the legislature, to impose stronger state control over law enforcement in Shelby County.
The most recent manifestation of what Taylor calls a “Make Memphis Matter” campaign is his ongoing attempt to force the removal of Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, whom he accuses of lax crime control. The senator has initiated a legislative procedure that would ultimately require a two-thirds vote in both chambers of the legislature to oust Mulroy.
As it happens, Fazlullah opposes that effort, on the grounds that using legislation to remove a legally elected local official is unjustified overkill.
That’s one reason for Taylor’s animus toward Fazlullah and his recruitment of Morgan as a rival candidate. Another is his assertion that, at last fall’s Germantown Festival, Fazlullah strenuously urged GOP state Representative Mark White to oppose Taylor’s reelection in 2026. White acknowledges that Fazlullah made such an approach, which he politely turned aside.
Says Taylor: “Naser should never be party chairman after trying to recruit a candidate to run against a sitting state senator in a primary who happens to have been the largest contributor to the Republican Party while he was vice chairman. Two can play at this game!”
Meanwhile, Fazlullah has allies who hold grudges against Worth Morgan. One is Terry Roland of Millington, a notable GOP conservative who regards Morgan as a lukewarm Republican, a “Never-Trumper,” and a potential advocate of city-county consolidation.
Roland sees Morgan as a tool of party “elitists” and reproaches the chairmanship candidate for allegedly “boycotting” the local GOP’s 2022 Lincoln Day banquet, which was keynoted that year by Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The showdown over the chairmanship reflects a complicated pattern of conflicting loyalties, with GOP moderates and conservatives to be found on both sides.
• You saw it here first, in our year-end forecast of future political events: U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn is seriously considering a race for governor in 2026 and has so informed an increasing number of her fellow Republicans statewide.
Glenn Jacobs, the Knox County mayor who was previously regarded as perhaps the leading Republican gubernatorial hopeful, has energized Blackburn’s likely candidacy with a formal endorsement.
The Republican nomination, though, will apparently still be contested by U.S. Representative John Rose of Cookeville, a multi-millionaire with the capacity to self-fund.
