Tennessee’s lieutenant governor is backing a Memphis state senator’s move to force the ouster of Shelby County’s prosecutor for “dereliction of duty” in connection with felons caught carrying weapons.
Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) issued a statement Monday saying he “wholeheartedly” supports efforts by Republican state Sen. Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) to dismiss Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy from office for “failing to properly prosecute convicted felons in possession of a firearm.”
Taylor sent McNally a letter Monday notifying him he plans to file a Senate resolution after the November election to remove Mulroy from office. The district attorney general said recently he plans to adopt a policy allowing non-violent felons to avoid being prosecuted for possession of weapons.
McNally said Mulroy’s “explicit refusal to prosecute criminals with guns is inexcusable and unconstitutional. While district attorneys have prosecutorial discretion, that discretion is not a license to override or subvert the law of the land. DA Mulroy’s record of refusal to prosecute laws he does not personally care for is longstanding and clear. I believe it is time for him to go.”
State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) during the 113th general Assembly Credit: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout
Even though district attorneys general are elected by a county’s voters, the Legislature can oust them with a two-thirds vote, according to a state law cited by Taylor in his letter.
Taylor and House Speaker Cameron Sexton made social media posts last week calling Mulroy soft on crime for his new policy to provide “diversion” from conviction for non-violent felons caught carrying weapons.
Mulroy, a Democrat serving his first term after defeating Republican Amy Weirich, told the Tennessee Lookout last week the DA’s Office continues to prosecute illegal gun possession cases, including possession of a gun connected to drug crimes and possession of a Glock switch, which makes those types of handguns fully automatic. His office did not respond to questions Monday.
The district attorney, though, noted his office is “open to offering a diversion track, on a case-by-case basis for those defendants who have no history of violence or significant criminal history and seem reformable.”
Those types of offenders would be prosecuted but could avoid conviction by meeting “stringent requirements” for rehabilitation, he said. The policy is designed to free up prosecutors to focus on offenders who “use a weapon,” he said.
Taylor acknowledged Monday that district attorneys general have “prosecutorial discretion” but contended that state law prohibits felons from possessing weapons and argued if Mulroy thinks non-violent felons should be excluded, then he should lobby the Legislature to change the law. He denied that his effort to remove Mulroy is a political move and maintained that the district attorney has “abused his prosecutorial discretion.”
It looks like every local official is now on notice not to cross powerful state politicians – or else. Memphians are sick and tired of seeing their local elected officials run over by state politics just for doing the job they promised to do.
Sens. Raumesh Akbari and London Lamar, Memphis Democrats, in a statement
“He’s attempting to enforce and prosecute the law based on how he wishes it were written, not how it’s actually written,” Taylor said. “District attorneys are obligated to enforce the law the legislature enacts.”
Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) and Minority Chairman London Lamar (D-Memphis) issued a statement in response calling Taylor’s effort an “unconstitutional attack” on Shelby County’s district attorney and saying it “sets a dangerous precedent.”
“It looks like every local official is now on notice not to cross powerful state politicians – or else,” they said. “Memphians are sick and tired of seeing their local elected officials run over by state politics just for doing the job they promised to do.”
They contend crime didn’t start with Mulroy’s election and said, “it’s beneath the Legislature to threaten local officials over a policy debate.”
Sen. Taylor and state Rep. John Gillespie (R-Memphis) passed legislation this year overturning a Memphis City Council ordinance stopping police from making “pretextual” stops such as driving with broken tail light. The measure was designed to prevent violent incidents between police and motorists such as the death of Tyre Nichols who was pulled over for reckless driving and beaten by five police officers, according to video of the stop.
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and X.
Brent Taylor exiting the SCEC (Credit: Jackson Baker)
State Senator Brent Taylor confided to the Memphis Flyer on Sunday the basic outlines of the procedure he intends to set in motion to remove Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy from office.
The plan, as the senator indicated, will depend on legislative action in a coming session of the General Assembly, either a regular session or a specially called one.
Taylor, a persistent critic of Mulroy for what the senator considers laxity in local law enforcement, says his plan is based on Article VI, Section 6, of the state constitution and would call for a removal resolution to be passed by both chambers of the legislature, to be followed by gubernatorial action to appoint a successor as Shelby DA.
State House Speaker Cameron Sexton has also acknowledged discussing the idea of ousting Mulroy with state Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. Taylor promised to elaborate on details of his thinking and Sexton’s at a press conference at 2 p.m. Monday at the headquarters of the Memphis Police Association on Jefferson Avenue.
Both Taylor and Sexton fired off condemnations last week of Mulroy’s announcement of a diversionary program for non-violent previous offenders charged with illegal possession of firearms.
When Karen Camper, the Democrats’ leader in the state House, ran for Memphis mayor last year, she discovered that, her impressive credentials notwithstanding, she lacked the citywide name recognition of locally based officials.
Consequently, she never developed enough traction to compete effectively for the mayoralty. And her name recognition problem was exacerbated further by the fact that members of the General Assembly are prohibited from active fundraising during the course of a legislative session.
The reality, especially in the case of the minority party statewide, is that state legislators, however much they may shine in the environs of Nashville, simply lack enough day-to-day connection with local voters to become household names on their home front.
A possible exception to that rule may arise in the case of a legislator whose public activities impinge directly on a festering local issue — as in the case of Republican state Senator Brent Taylor, whose nonstop efforts as the sponsor of bills to affect the status of local law enforcement have doubtless earned him a certain local notoriety.
Taylor’s party cohort John Gillespie, equally active on similar issues in the state House of Representatives, is on the fall ballot as a candidate for re-election and has attracted similar attention, for better or for worse.
The aforementioned Rep. Camper, meanwhile, is attempting to familiarize her constituents in House District 87 with the activities of state government by means of an innovation she calls “State to the Streets,” an event she will unveil on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at New Direction Christian Church.
She calls it “a unique opportunity” for residents of District 87 to engage with more than 20 state and local government agencies, ask questions, voice concerns, and receive assistance on a wide range of topics, including healthcare, education, employment, and social services.
Among the services that will be spoken on by representatives of the affected state agencies are:
• Job search opportunities from the TN Department of Labor and Workforce Development
• SNAP benefits and Families First assistance from the TN Department of Human Services
• Help processing REAL IDs from The TN Department of Safety & Homeland Security
• Mental health, addiction, and substance abuse counseling from the TN Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and the TN Sports Wagering Council
• Legal advice from the Memphis Bar Association
• Expungement and Drive While You Pay assistance from the General Sessions Court Clerk’s Office
• Help searching unclaimed property listings from the TN Department of the Treasury
• Voter registration and information from the TN Secretary of State’s office and the Shelby County Voter Registrar
“This is a great chance for me to talk with my constituents and hear their thoughts about the recently concluded legislative session and the direction of the state,” says Camper, and she may have something there.
• With the fiscal-year deadline approaching, Monday’s regular meeting of the Shelby County Commission saw action on many matters — including the county’s proposed tax rate and numerous budgetary items — deferred for further discussion at the commission’s June 12th committee sessions, but one long-standing uncertainty was finally dealt with.
This was the question of $2.7 million in funding from opioid-settlement funds that had been embedded in the sheriff’s department budget, pending the commission’s decision on where to route them — whether to a proposed program for remedial medical treatment of inmates deemed incompetent to stand trial, or elsewhere.
Elsewhere was the answer, with $5 million going to CAAP (Cocaine and Alcohol Awareness Program), and another $18 million to juvenile court, where it will pay for a variety of wraparound services for youthful wards of the court.
Photo: Representative John Gillespie | Facebook
John Gillespie
John Gillespie, the Republican incumbent in state House District 97, has kept a relatively moderate profile in the two terms he’s served since winning his seat over Democrat Gabby Salinas in 2020, focusing on non-ideological matters like drag-racing bans and deviating from GOP orthodoxy on gun legislation.
But all that may be changing. Gillespie is now following the lead of the House Republican leadership and another Shelby County GOPer, state Senator Brent Taylor, in sponsoring hard-line crime legislation destined to strip away local law-enforcement prerogatives.
A controversy arose last week after a cell phone video was circulated of a conversation in Nashville in which Gillespie appeared to be assuring the visiting parents of the late Tyre Nichols that he would hold up on seeking an immediate vote on his bill to nullify city council restrictions on the kind of preemptive traffic stops that would end in the savage beating death of young Nichols by MPD officers who are now facing trial for murder.
Instead, Gillespie put the bill on the floor for a relatively quick party-line passage.
The incident may loom large in this year’s legislative elections, in which Gillespie will be opposed by businessman Jesse Huseth, a Democrat who has already released a statement deploring Gillespie’s conduct of the matter.
• Tami Sawyer, recent winner of the Democratic nomination for General Sessions Court clerk, is keeping her activist’s hand in, blogging her discontent with both a pending appearance at the University of Memphis by Kyle Rittenhouse, the youth acquitted of killing two people at a Kenosha, Wisconsin, protest event, and Rep. Gillespie’s short-circuiting whatever commitment he may have given on rolling his bill.
• A hat tip to my daughter Julia Baker of TheDaily Memphian for noting that the aforementioned Brent Taylor, notorious for his constant verbal and legislative targeting of local DA Steve Mulroy, is on the same page as Mulroy regarding the need for a new crime lab in Memphis.
• Veteran watchers of presidential State of the Union addresses over the years are used to seeing 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen ready on or near the aisle for banter or conversation as the president — of whatever year or whatever party, for that matter — is either headed to the podium or finishing up afterward and headed out.
Those aisle seats have to be staked out well in advance, and Cohen, using staffers early on to help hold down a place, is something of a master of the art.
Sometimes he shares local artifacts with the passing chief executive. In 2008, he was seen on national television handing George W. Bush a University of Memphis booster’s cap to be autographed. Watching at home, then Tiger basketball coach John Calipari saw it all and later got in touch with Cohen, putting in a bid for the cap and pledging to get it into the U of M Sports Hall of Fame. Cohen turned it over, but the cap never made it to its intended destination. Not long afterward, Coach Cal — cap presumably in tow — decamped to the University of Kentucky.
Always Cohen manages to have something to say. Last Thursday night, he caught Biden going in and took the time to encourage the president to pitch his remarks to the Democratic side of the assembled audience of lawmakers and to give the Republicans hell. Presumably Biden already had that strategy in mind. In any case, that’s what happened.
Brent Taylor (Photo: Senator Brent Taylor | Facebook)
State Senator Brent Taylor, who is functioning as a sort of self-appointed scourge of Shelby County’s existing law-enforcement infrastructure, is at it again — attempting to prod state government into intervening against “the slow movement of cases” through the county’s criminal justice system.
“Crime in Memphis has risen to a level that requires immediate action to save the city,” Taylor proclaimed in a newly released letter to Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. He cites figures appearing to show that processing of criminal cases in the county dropped to a level of 40 cases last year, down from “approximately 200 per year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Taylor’s letter poses four questions to the attorney general:
“(1) Does the Governor of Tennessee have the authority to assign judges from one or more judicial districts to other judicial districts for purposes of trying criminal cases?
“(2) Does the Governor of Tennessee have the authority to temporarily assign judges from a certain judicial district to try criminal cases in that same judicial district?
“(3) Does the Governor of Tennessee have the authority to require Shelby County Circuit Court Judges to handle criminal matters in Shelby County?
“(4) Who has the authority to require certain Shelby County Circuit Court Judges to assist with and/or try criminal cases?”
Taylor, who represents state Senate District 31, said in the letter that, if the governor is deemed to have such authority to assign judges — whether from other judicial districts or from other courts within the same district — to help process criminal cases in Shelby County, then he would request the governor do so immediately.
“By prosecuting criminal cases quickly, we will remove violent and repeat criminal offenders from the streets of Memphis so that the law-abiding can raise their families in peace and safety,” he wrote in the letter.
Taylor, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote, “I am determined to pursue any legal avenue available to tackle our serious violent crime problem.”
This new letter is the latest in a series of public statements in which the senator, who was elected to his first term just last year, has inquired of other state officials about the possibility of extending state power into areas that have previously been reserved for local authorities.
In previous missives to the governor, to House Speaker Cameron Sexton, and to the state board of professional responsibility, he has proposed such actions as sending the National Guard into Memphis and reducing the supervisory power of Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy.
The senator has introduced a legislative package in Nashville that, among other things, would change bail laws, require law enforcement to report undocumented immigrants, and reclassify stolen gun charges.
Another of his proposals would exempt Memphis police from having to uphold a city council prohibition against preemptive traffic stops for suspected minor infractions. At the moment, this matter has achieved hot-button status in city government.
As many readers may know, there is an ongoing cold-turning-hot war between Republican state Senator Brent Taylor and Shelby County DA Steve Mulroy over various matters of crime control.
Taylor has aimed several initiatives, rhetorical and otherwise, in Mulroy’s direction of late. Representing himself as a zealous advocate of strict law enforcement — a proponent of “aggressive” approaches as against “progressive” ones — Taylor has complained to the media and to Governor Bill Lee and other state officials and agencies, including the State Board of Professional Responsibility, that the Democratic DA has allowed the Memphis crime rate to skyrocket by undue emphasis on restorative justice concepts at the expense of law enforcement per se.
A fresh quote volunteered by the senator via text: “I am not trying to prove whose dick is bigger. But I am trying to show that more voters aligned themselves with my position of aggressive prosecutions.”
Whereupon he cited vote totals from his successful 2022 senate race versus his Democratic opponent — apparently unaware that his victory margin in that district race depended on fewer votes overall than were achieved by Mulroy in his defeat of Republican Amy Weirich in the DA’s race.
Similarly, the senator’s case against Mulroy on the law enforcement score is, to say the least, debatable. As is ever the case, some crime statistics are up; others are down. The senator acknowledges that the DA’s recently launched campaign against gang-led “smash-and-grab” assaults on local businesses has achieved some results. “We just need more arrests,” he says grudgingly.
Current points of contention between the two include the matter of bail-bond policy, which Taylor considers too lax, though current bail policy was arrived at jointly by Mulroy and Weirich, his Republican predecessor. Taylor also professes to be steamed by what he calls “collusion” between Mulroy and Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan in a pair of cases involving the reduction or elimination of sentences imposed on defendants. The senator vows to impose correctives in the forthcoming session of the General Assembly, one of which involves expediting the transfer of juveniles charged with capital crimes to Criminal Court.
Interestingly, in the several months before Taylor and Mulroy acquired their current offices, they had enjoyed a warm, and even cozy, degree of collaboration with each other.
That was in the period of 2021-22 when Taylor, who was already eyeing a district Senate seat that was about to slip out from under the legally vulnerable GOP incumbent Brian Kelsey, was head of the Shelby County Election Commission (dominated 3-2 by Republicans though ostensibly neutral). Mulroy, an activist Democrat par excellence, was pursuing one of his favorite causes, that of local voting via paper ballots.
On several occasions, Taylor, whose party members tended (at that time, anyhow) not to favor that idea, nevertheless exercised what Mulroy considered exemplary fairness in presiding over discussions, in matters of scheduling, and in his parliamentary decisions. In the process, the two of them, quite simply, became buds.
At the moment, that relationship seems fractured — broken on the shoals of partisan differences, political ambition, and state-vs.-local considerations.
A Republican state senator from Memphis contends post-conviction challenges in capital murder cases should be handled by the state attorney general, not local district attorneys, despite a court ruling against the bill he passed.
“Because the attorney general handles all other aspects of the appeals process in capital cases, it is more efficient for collateral challenges to stay within the attorney general’s office, which already has extensive experience with the case,” state Sen. Brent Taylor said.
The first-term Memphis Republican sponsored the bill this year to put those responsibilities under the state attorney general, sparking a lawsuit by Memphis defense attorney Robert Hutton and Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy. They argued the law is unconstitutional because it removes the local district attorney from the equation and puts the state attorney general in charge of collateral challenges, which involve judicial re-examination of judgments or claims outside the direct review process. (Photo: Brent Taylor for Senate)
Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan ruled recently that the new law removing local district attorneys from death penalty post-conviction matters is unconstitutional. She also determined that the General Assembly failed to give proper public notice about the law but did not rule on a question of voting rights in the case.
The attorney general’s office is set to file a challenge by early August with the Tennessee Court of Appeals. The Tennessee Supreme Court could hear the case at some point.
“We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision and look forward to seeking clarity at the appellate level. Ensuring the adversarial system remains fully engaged over the life of a capital case is our obligation to the victims’ families because no family should be deprived of justice,” AG’s office spokesperson Elizabeth Lane Johnson said.
Hutton, who is representing Larry McKay in a death penalty case dating to 1982 reportedly filed a petition in March claiming new evidence could change the conviction. McKay and Michael Eugene Sample were convicted of two counts of felony murder for the shooting deaths of two Shelby County store clerks in a 1981 robbery.
Initially written to deal with a yearlong backlog of rape kits, Taylor’s legislation was amended to hand collateral review cases to the state attorney general, which Mulroy and Hutton claim removes the authority of locally-elected district attorneys and gives it to the state’s top attorney.
State Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, who leads the Senate Democratic Caucus, spoke against the measure on the Senate floor this year and continues to raise questions. She points out that Democrats told Republicans they were pushing an unconstitutional measure stripping people of their “right to local control” over death penalty cases.
“Now a state court is telling them the same,” Akbari said in a statement. “By eliminating the power of locally elected prosecutors to manage these cases, this law undermines the very essence of democracy and denies communities of their voice in matters of life and justice.”
Taylor, however, pointed out that “collateral challenges” usually take place well into the appeals process and said it is “cumbersome and disjointed” for a district attorney unfamiliar with a decades-old case to handle it.
“Additionally, by keeping the entire appeals process within the attorney general’s office, the law aims to improve transparency for victims’ families who have existing relationships” with lawyers in the attorney general’s office, Taylor said.
House Majority Leader William Lamberth, a former assistant district attorney in Sumner County, sponsored the bill originally, and Taylor signed as Senate sponsor. Lamberth could not be reached for comment.
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.
District Attorney-elect Steve Mulroy took the opportunity last week to name the members of his newly created transition team, to be chaired by outgoing County Commissioner and local NAACP head Van Turner.
Turner, who recently acknowledged that he would be a candidate for mayor in next year’s Memphis city election, promised “a thorough, top-to-bottom review of the operations, priorities, and staffing of the District Attorney’s Office.”
Other members of the transition team are: District 29 state Senator Raumesh Akbari (D); District 83 state Representative Mark White (R); Demetria Frank, associate dean for diversity and inclusion at the University of Memphis Law School; Richard Hall, chief of police, city of Germantown; Muriel Malone, executive director of the Tennessee Human Rights Commission and former Shelby County assistant DA; Kevin Rardin, retired member of the Public Defender’s Office and former Shelby County assistant DA; Mike Carpenter, director of marketing and development for My Cup of Tea; Yonée Gibson and Josh Spickler of Just City; and attorneys Jake Brown, Kamilah Turner, Brice Timmons, and Mike Working.
Paul Young (Photo: Jackson Baker)
• Paul Young, the director of the Downtown Memphis Commission, gave members of the Kiwanis Club a comprehensive review of current and future projects for Downtown development on Wednesday of last week. One matter of public curiosity did not go unspoken to in the subsequent Q&A. Would he, someone asked, be a candidate for Memphis mayor next year as has been rumored?
Young’s reply: “Obviously, we’ve had a lot of conversations. And you know, it’s not time for any type of announcements or anything like that. I’m gonna continue to do the job at DMC to the best of my ability, regardless of when the season comes for the mayor’s race, but we definitely have had discussions.”
• Meanwhile, the Shelby County Republican Party, having been defeated for all countywide positions in the recent August 4th election, is doing its best to retain optimism. Looking ahead to the next go-round, the federal-state general election of November 8th, the local GOP held a fundraiser Friday at the South Memphis headquarters of the Rev. Frederick Tappan, who will oppose Democratic nominee (and recently appointed incumbent) London Lamar for the District 33 state Senate seat.
Imported for the occasion was state Senator Ken Yager of Kingston, the GOP’s Senate caucus chair, who assured local Republicans, for what it was worth, that “the Republican leadership are 100 percent committed to the election of Frederick Tappan.”
Tappan, pastor of Eureka TrueVine Baptist Church and founder of L.I.F.E. Changing Ministries, sounded his own note of commitment: “We can do this if we come together. We need one mind, have one mission, to become one Memphis. We don’t lean to the left, we don’t lean to the right.”
GOP chair Cary Vaughn, who would probably admit leaning somewhat to the right, said, “We took it on the chin a few weeks ago. But that was not the finish line. That was the starting line for November 8th, we’ve got a chance to redeem ourselves.” Vaughn mentioned several of the party’s legislative candidates, including state Senator Kevin Vaughan, state representatives Mark White and John Gillespie, and state Senate candidate Brent Taylor. “We have a chance to rectify the situation. And we have an opportunity, not just to finish, but to finish well.”
Surprise! Republicans, who have generally ended up mounting a pro forma opposition to long-term 9th District Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen (if anything at all), may have a serious contender this year — Brown Dudley, who is associated with Independent Bank and was the entrepreneur behind resale establishment Plato’s Closet.
According to his recently filed financial disclosure, first-time candidate Dudley raised $385,968 in the first quarter of the year and has $292,771.69 on hand. That’s real money at this point. He has two opponents on the GOP primary ballot in August — Charlotte Bergmann, a perennial candidate, and Leo AwGoWhat, a performance artist of sorts, also a perennial. Neither should give Dudley a tussle.
Even with redistricting, which modified the northern or rural/suburban part of the district, the 9th is still heavily Democratic in its demographics, though, and Cohen will not be financially handicapped in the race. He reports first-quarter receipts of $297,528.50 and cash on hand totaling $1,372,863.23. His opponent in the Democratic primary is M. Latroy Alexandria-Williams, another perennial.
Dudley, by the way, professes open-mindedness on the subjects of LGBTQ rights and climate change.
• Another potential surprise confrontation on the August ballot is for the District 31 state Senate seat (Germantown, East Memphis) being vacated by Republican Brian Kelsey. Democrat Ruby Powell-Dennis is unopposed on the Democratic ballot. The surprise is that Brent Taylor, who has had virtually wall-to-wall support from the GOP establishment (as well as from Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, a nominal Democrat), may be opposed in the Republican primary by a candidate with financial resources close to Taylor’s on-hand total of $442,566.62.
Brandon Toney (Photo: Courtesy Kristina Garner)
The operative term here is “may.” Taylor’s would-be primary opponent, Brandon Toney, will find out this week if the state GOP executive committee permits him to be on the primary ballot.
On his financial disclosure, Toney, a nurse practitioner, lists cash on hand of $404,964.86 — a competitive sum, though almost all of it is money loaned by Toney to himself.
Toney’s problem is that he was one of a handful of potential Republican primary candidates statewide whose bona fides were denied by the state party last week. The ostensible reason, according to Shelby GOP chair Cary Vaughn, who professes neutrality in the matter, is that Toney has failed a requirement that Republican primary candidates must have voted in any one of the last four GOP primaries.
Toney and his local campaign manager, Kristina Garner, are crying foul and calling his exclusion a put-up job on Taylor’s behalf. They maintain that Toney has done solid grunt work for past Republican candidates, including former President Donald Trump, and was not able to vote in recent primaries because he was doing around-the-clock work combatting the Covid-19 pandemic at Mid-South Pulmonary Specialists.
Toney has appealed his original denial and has submitted additional evidence of his party credentials to the state GOP executive committee, which will meet and weigh the matter before week’s end. If he should be certified to run, he would become something relatively rare — a Republican candidate opposed to private-school vouchers (though his three children attend private schools) and in favor of accepting federal Medicaid support. “I’m not a ‘moderate.’ I’m just determined to be sensible,” he says.
• The aforementioned Republican chair Vaughn says that former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, who will be the keynote speaker at this weekend’s annual GOP Lincoln Day banquet at the Agricenter, is not meant to be a symbol of the Republican Party but as someone who can aid local GOP fundraising efforts. Meadows is under fire these days for his alleged ties to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Democrat Dwayne Thompson (left) and Republican John Gillespie talk over the current legislative session. (Photo by Jackson Baker).
If there is a single leitmotif that defines the coming disharmony of a local election in these parts, it is the struggle between members of the two parties — Republican and Democratic — for dominance. The 2022 election in Shelby County is skewed in this way, with all the structural advantages adhering to the Dems. Actually, there is a fairly accurate division of influence — with the demographics of the city (i.e., Memphis) favoring Democratic candidates and those of the suburbs tilting unmistakably and dependably toward Republicans.
Yet beyond the party leaderships there is here and there a breach in this binary circumstance. Take the 13 members of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners — apportioned 8 to 5, as of now, in favor of Democrats, with the 2022 election likely to make that division 9 to 4 in favor of the Democrats — on the strength of reapportionment that’s fetched up another seat, the new District 5 seat in Cordova, expected to go the Democrats’ way.
Up until now, the Republicans have for several sessions been holding their own by the simple device of finding two dependable Democrats who could be coaxed onto their side when need be. Democrats Edmund Ford and Eddie Jones (the most recent two such) have reasonably often opted to make common cause with the Republicans, so long as the right trades were made on other points elsewhere.
Within the 2021-2022 session the Democrats did some bargaining of their own, attracting East Memphis Republican Brandon Morrison, already prone to look for non-partisan solutions, to their side on some key votes — both procedural: she would become vice chair instead of the minority Republicans’ choice of Amber Mills in northern Shelby (District 1), and policy-wise: (she would display an open mind on key votes favored by the Democrats (e.g., county funding of MATA), Morrison even agreed to serve as vice chair of a committee to re-examine the virtues of Metro consolidation, that bane of the suburbanite.
That makes the current contest in District 4 (East Memphis, Germantown) between Morrison and political newcomer Jordan Carpenter simply a matter of arithmetic. Morrison’s current GOP colleagues — Mills, Mick Wright, David Bradford, and the term-limited Mark Billingsley — are backing Carpenter to restore as much of an unbroken Republican orthodoxy as possible. Even a bloc of 4 in what is likely to be a new Commission favoring Democrats by a 9-4 margin, is, in their minds, worth something.
It remains to be seen if party loyalty or the principle of bi-partisanship will prevail. The Democrats, with their probable 9-vote supermajority, can indulge a certain equanimity on the matter.
* * *
The recent brouhaha over the endorsement of Republican state Senate candidate Brent Taylor, in District 31, by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, a nominal Democrat, indicates another way in which the binary party system is being breached. In their primary Democrats had been grooming Ruby Powell-Dennis, an educator and civil figure, to seek the seat, which up to now has been held by the indicted and now withdrawn GOP incumbent Brian Kelsey.
The fact is, Memphis mayors, whose own elections are non-partisan, have frequently crossed the party line to espouse candidates of another party. Willie Herenton, a Democrat, did it twice on behalf of the statewide candidacies of Republicans Don Sundquist and Lamar Alexander.
Strickland was in the large crowd that gathered on Taylor’s behalf for a fundraiser last Thursday at the East Memphis home of Craig and Cathy Weiss. Spotting the Mayor, who was a full head taller than most of the attendees, Taylor quoted Strickland as having said the endorsement of Taylor was for the sake of “better outcomes for Memphis.” Addressing the Mayor, he jested, “I would ask you to say a few words but I think you’ve probably said enough. If you say any more, they may try to impeach you.”
That got an animated chuckle from the crowd. Then Taylor proceeded: “I know you took a lot of heat for it. But I love Memphis and I think you know I love Memphis, and that’s one reason he endorsed me.”
Taylor continued: “There’s a second thing. I just came back to Nashville on Monday and Tuesday where I met with Senate leadership and about half of the Senate. They are very excited about having me joining the Senate, primarily because they don’t understand Big Shelby. They don’t understand Memphis and its politics. And they’re excited to have me up there…. I will tell you that [the Mayor’s endorsement] meant more among those senators than the endorsement of [U.S. Senators] Hagerty and Blackburn because they knew they needed somebody to help them understand Memphis and Shelby County.”
Binary politics is under threat elsewhere in local politics. Shelby County’s Republicans caved in to the reality that they could not find a GOP candidate to beat Sheriff Floyd Bonner, the Democratic nominee; so they have in effect endorsed Bonner’s campaign as well. It was no accident that the huge crowds that gathered the weekend before last at the Sheriff’s campaign headquarters opening included as many Republicans as Democrats.
And conversations between the two parties — like one between Democratic state Representative Dwayne Thompson and Republican John Gillespie, both representing “purplish” adjoining districts — abounded as well.
It will take some time before the twain truly meet, but it has to be a good sign that they are talking.
