Tag: Brian Kelsey

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Former Sen. Kelsey Hires New Legal Team, Sues Old One

Former Tennessee state Sen. Brian Kelsey exits the federal courthouse in Nashville after pleading guilty on two federal counts on Nov. 22, 2022. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Citing worsening relations with his attorneys, former state Sen. Brian Kelsey is hiring new lawyers to represent him at sentencing on a federal campaign finance conviction, possibly setting the stage for more legal intrigue, or at least a little more time before he goes to prison.

Kelsey, who previously tried to renege on a guilty plea in the case, requested permission this week to hire Alex Little and Zachary Lawson of Burr & Forman LLC as his sole counsel, giving the ax to Paul Bruno, David Rivera, Jerry Martin, and David Warrington, who did not oppose his move. U.S. Attorney Amanda Knopf didn’t oppose the change either.

“Defendant seeks this relief from the court due to the deterioration of attorney-client relationships, the potential for future litigation involving prior counsel, and the need to have counsel of choice representing him at sentencing,” the filing states.

It appears Kelsey is getting ready to sue his former attorneys so he can postpone his sentencing again.

Little also filed a separate request to postpone the July 27th sentencing date for 30 days, writing that the attorney substitution is necessary because of the poor relationship between Kelsey and his attorneys and “the potential of future litigation involving prior counsel.”

Bruno, who is considered one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the area, and Rivera and Martin, both former U.S. attorneys, represented Kelsey at his guilty plea. Kelsey sidelined them and brought in Warrington to help him try to take back his guilty plea, saying crying babies (twin sons) and the death of his father left him unable to make good decisions. He also claimed he didn’t understand the criminal legal process even though he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

The judge said no take-backs.

It’s little wonder the relationship between Kelsey and his attorneys soured. He didn’t get what he wanted so he benched them.

Kelsey pleaded guilty to illegally filtering $106,000 through co-defendant Josh Smith, owner of The Standard Club, a downtown Nashville restaurant frequented by Republicans, and two political action committees to the American Conservative Union, which bought radio and digital advertising supporting him in his failed 2016 congressional campaign. Kelsey’s wife, Amanda Bunning, worked at the American Conservative Union at the time of the buys and was an unnamed individual in the indictment.

Smith pleaded guilty last fall, shortly before they were to go to trial, and Kelsey followed with his own guilty plea before changing his mind and deciding he didn’t do what he said he did. It’s illegal to use “soft money” not governed by federal laws for a federal campaign.

Kelsey pleaded guilty to two counts, one for conspiracy to defraud the United States and another for aiding and abetting the acceptance of funds exceeding federal limits. Each plea could net him five years in prison, three years of probation and a $250,000 fine, in addition to the penalties for being a convicted felon. He can’t carry a gun, vote or practice law, though some question whether he ever did the latter.

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.

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CLA Report: Tennessee Ties For Second Most-Conservative State House

State Capitol (Credit: Tennessee State Government)

Tennessee and Indiana tied for the second most-conservative group of state lawmakers in 2021 during a “new level of political polarization,” according to the Center for Legislative Accountability (CLA), a conservative think tank. 

The group released findings of a new study last month that reviewed votes from all 7,400 of the country’s state lawmakers from all 50 states. This covered more than 265,000 votes on about 3,500 bills introduced in state legislatures.  

In 2021, Tennessee’s GOP-controlled House and Senate was just barely less conservative than top-ranking Alabama. Tennessee’s lawmakers voted “with the conservative position” (as CLA puts it) 73 percent of the time. Alabama topped the state by one percentage point with 74 percent. 

The CLA tracked dozens of bills in the Nashville Capitol that year, everything from bills regulating art therapists and homemade food to teaching Critical Race Theory and carrying guns without a permit. 

The CLA’s highest (most conservative) score went to Sen. Paul Bailey (R-Sparta) who voted by CLA’s definition of conservative 87 percent of the time. Former Sen. Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), awaiting sentencing after a conviction on election fraud charges, scored 85 percent. The lowest-ranking lawmaker (19 percent) in 2021 was Sen. Katrina Robinson (D-Memphis) who lost her seat after wire-fraud convictions in 2021. 

Tennessee lawmakers score well on the issues of elections, property rights, education, law, and personal liberty. Their weakest issues are energy and environment and taxes, budget, and spending. 

While the state tied for second in 2021, it ranks at the top of the list for all of the years CLA has been collecting this data. 

Nationally, the CLA report found the nation’s 3,906 Republican state lawmakers voted conservatively nearly 81 percent of the time, up from 76 percent in 2021. The nation’s 3,223 Democratic state lawmakers voted conservatively about 16 percent in 2021, down from nearly 19 percent in 2020.     

“The 64.99 percentage point divide between the two political parties marks the highest level of political polarization since the CLA became the first and only organization to track such data in 2015,” reads the CLA report. 

The CLA report said the least conservative state houses can be found in Massachusetts, Hawaii, Rhode Island, California, and Maryland.  

The CLA is a project of CPAC Foundation and the American Conservative Union Foundation.

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Seasonal Circumstances

Brian Kelsey in happier times. (Photo: Brian Kelsey | Facebook)

To vary that old TV shibboleth about the thrill of victory vs. the agony of defeat, sometimes there are a fair number of agonies associated with victory. As one example, many a victorious politician has had to grapple with resultant financial difficulties. Often enough, the pay the winner receives for his newly acquired public responsibility is less than the income source he left behind.

This is true, for example, in the case of newly installed DA Steve Mulroy, who upon assuming office basically had to take a pay cut from his former job as the Bredesen Professor of Law at the University of Memphis. And, like numerous other electoral winners, Mulroy finds himself saddled with a sizable campaign debt. Fundraisers during the course of a campaign are fundamental to the process of election. Equally commonplace these days is the post-election fundraiser designed to help retire the aforesaid campaign debt.

One was scheduled for Mulroy on Monday night of this week at the Tennessee Brewery by helpful angels Billy Orgel and Craig Weiss. And, as is typical when the beneficiary is a new office-holder, the number of good-willed benefactors can constitute something of a Who’s Who, political-wise. The co-hosts for the Mulroy affair included 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, state Senator Raumesh Akbari, former Shelby County Mayor Bill Morris, the several Byrd brothers of longtime Democratic provenance and the Bank of Bartlett, and J.W. and Kathy Gibson.

• ’Tis the season for feasts aplenty, but for some in the political world, the menu is replete with humble pie and side dishes of crow. One such unfortunate is former state Senator Brian Kelsey, who, as was noted last week in the Flyer, had his law license suspended by the Tennessee Supreme Court as a consequence of his having pleaded guilty in November to two felony charges stemming from a campaign finance case. Further action on the law license could be forthcoming from the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility, the state’s formal disciplinary body for such matters.

After asking for and receiving several postponements of a pending trial, Kelsey had resolved upon a plea agreement in the wake of co-defendant Josh Smith’s entering a plea of guilty. The offense involved essentially a conspiracy to illegally recycle funds from the state senator’s state-government campaign fund into a fund to fuel a federal campaign — what turned out to be an unsuccessful race for the District 8 congressional seat in 2016. Both Smith and Kelsey face sentencing on June 9th. According to the Tennessee Journal, “Kelsey would face at least 18 to 24 months in prison under calculations included in the plea agreement. His penalties are enhanced because he was the ‘organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor’ of the criminal activity.”

Kelsey could be eligible for a reduction upon a proper assumption of responsibility for his actions. But prosecutors have indicated that if Kelsey is insufficiently contrite in his allocution and other conduct before he is sentenced, they would seek to tack on an additional nine months in prison.

Interestingly enough, the American Conservative Union, which was involved in the channeling of Kelsey’s campaign funds but was not itself subject to indictment, recently rated the Tennessee legislature as the second-most conservative in the nation and Kelsey, while still in office, as the third most conservative member of the state Senate.

• Karen Camper, an announced candidate for Memphis mayor in 2023, has evidently decided not to relinquish her duties as state House Democratic leader next year, having accepted a vote of reelection to that post from her Democratic caucus members.

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Kelsey’s Law License Suspended by Tennessee Supreme Court

State Senator Brian Kelsey (Credit: Jackson Baker)

Former state Senator Brian Kelsey’s law license was suspended Thursday by the Tennessee Supreme Court, but more discipline could follow.

The court’s Board of Professional Responsibility oversees and disciplines attorneys in the state for unethical behaviors. On Thursday, the court suspended Kelsey from practicing law in Tennessee after he pled guilty to two felonies related to campaign finance laws last month.    

Kelsey was indicted on the charges by a grand jury in October 2021. He pled guilty last month to violating campaign finance laws and conspiring to defraud the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as part of a scheme to benefit his failed 2016 campaign for U.S. Congress, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

For each of these charges, Kelsey faces five years in prison. He is scheduled to be to be sentenced in June 2023. 

As for his law license, the “matter has been referred to the [Tennessee Supreme Court’s] board to institute formal proceedings to determine the extent of the final discipline to be imposed upon Mr. Kelsey as a result of his plea of guilty to conduct constituting a serious crime …”

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Kelsey to Plead Guilty in Federal Election Campaign Violation Indictment

Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown (Photo: John Partipilo)
Brian Kelsey changes his plea.
Brian Kelsey changes his plea.

Ten months after calling the feds’ case against him a “witch hunt,” outgoing state Sen. Brian Kelsey is set to plead guilty to federal campaign finance violations, according to a court filing.

Kelsey’s attorneys, Paul Bruno and Jerry Martin, filed documents in federal court Thursday requesting a hearing to change his not guilty plea.

The Germantown Republican is charged with funneling more than $90,000 from his state account to his failed 2016 congressional campaign through two political actions committees and then to the American Conservative Union, which bought independent radio/digital ads supporting his run for office.

The request for a plea change comes a week after Kelsey’s co-defendant, Joshua Smith, pleaded guilty to one charge in the case. Smith’s sentencing is set for June 2023.

Federal prosecutors say Kelsey gave a $103,000 check six years ago to Smith, proprietor of The Standard Club, a downtown restaurant that catered to Republican lawmakers. The money was filtered through The Standard Club PAC and Citizens 4 Ethics in Government PAC to the American Conservative Union, which bought the advertising shortly before Kelsey finished fourth in the race, according to the indictment.

In an impassioned statement on the Senate floor this year, Kelsey blamed the indictment on political divisiveness and the Biden Administration, even though the investigation started during the Donald Trump presidency.

Kelsey also pinpointed former friend, ex-state Rep. Jeremy Durham, for talking to federal prosecutors in exchange for immunity. The Tennessee Lookout obtained a copy of Durham’s subpoena, which required him to provide copies of all documents and records related to Kelsey, Kelsey’s wife, Amanda Bunning, who worked for the American Conservative Union at the time, Jessica Durham, Josh Smith, Andrew “Andy” Miller, Zach Crandell, Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union, and several other people and organizations believed to be connected to the scheme.

Durham, an unindicted co-conspirator, also was required to turn in all records related to the transfer of funds between several entities and the Standard Club PAC.

Bunning, who later married Kelsey, is listed in the indictment as an individual who received information from the senator and passed it on to others who handled the ACU’s advertising.

Here’s Kelsey’s motion.

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.

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Meanwhile, Back at the GOP …

Brown Dudley (Photo: Courtesy Brown Dudley)

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.

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After Kelsey

Brent Taylor exiting the SCEC (Credit: Jackson Baker)

One looks for potential shifts in political direction. One case where that is sure to happen is with state Senate District 31, whose seat-holder up to now has been Brian Kelsey, the erstwhile “Stunt Baby of Germantown,” who evolved from a prankster as minority member of the last Democratic-dominated House to a saboteur of the state constitution as a GOP senator in a supermajority Republican General Assembly, sponsoring an endless series of hyper-partisan constitutional amendments.

Though an engaging sort personally, Kelsey has been a take-no-prisoners type as a legislator, and his easy way with the machinations of the GOP’s extremist fringe was no doubt useful to him in a cutting-edge career that now, alas, has left him bleeding on the battlefield — indicted for campaign-finance violations and compelled to drop out of his re-election race while he prepares a legal defense.

Kelsey’s would-be successors in the Republican primary are wholly different types — all Republican regulars but all more at home in a bipartisan environment. That is certainly the case with Brent Taylor, who recently resigned as chairman of the Shelby County Election Commission and seeks state service as a way of crowning a career that has included significant stints on the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission.

Taylor, who once had an uncanny resemblance to the TV character Pee-wee Herman, has matured into a statesmanlike presence who had stabilizing roles as an elective politician and on the Election Commission. So far, Taylor, who recently sold off an extensive funeral-home business, is the only Republican who has actually filed for the Senate position. And he is said to have the support of U.S. senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty.

Paul Boyd, who served two terms as Probate Court clerk after winning election to that office in the Republican sweep year of 2010, has toiled dependably in the GOP’s ranks for decades and, as an African American, brings a bit of outreach to a party that, to mince no words, needs it.

Naser Fazlullah, an engaging and near-omnipresent figure among local Republicans, is a native of Bangladesh who has been in charge of the party’s outreach efforts overall. Well-liked and uncontroversial, he is likely to end up instead on the ballot for GOP state committeeman.

And there is Brandon Toney, a political newcomer without much of an established pedigree in GOP ranks.

Four years ago, Democrat Gabby Salinas came close to ousting Kelsey in a much-watched race. During her successful run for the Shelby County Democratic chairmanship last year, Salinas more or less committed to not being a candidate for elective office this year. But Ruby Powell-Dennis, who was a strong runner-up to Salinas in the 2020 Democratic primary for the House District 97 seat, has basically been running hard for the District 31 Senate seat for some time and must be reckoned with in a district with purplish tendencies.

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Kelsey Announces He Won’t Run for Re-Election

State Senator Brian Kelsey (Credit: Jackson Baker)

Tennessee state Senator Brian Kelsey announced in an email today that he would not be running for re-election in 2022. The text of Kelsey’s letter follows:

I will not be running for reelection due to a recent, exciting change to my personal life, and I look forward to spending more time with my family.

It has been a true honor to serve you for 18 years and to work with you to pass more constitutional amendments than any other Tennessee legislator in history — including one to forever ban the income tax. But now my service to you is best spent fighting for American values in the court system and stopping the Biden Administration’s failed policies like the attempted OSHA vaccine mandate.

I’m happy to return any recent campaign contributions, and Lord willing, I hope that you will give me the opportunity to run for elected office in Tennessee again in the coming years.

In October, a federal grand jury in Nashville returned a five-count indictment charging Kelsey and Nashville social club owner Joshua Smith with violating multiple campaign finance laws as part of a conspiracy to benefit Kelsey’s 2016 campaign for U.S. Congress. It’s unclear whether his upcoming trial is one of the “exciting changes to [his] personal life” that Kelsey references in his email.

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Kelsey Bill Would Ban Ranked Choice Voting

Brian Kelsey

Say this for Brian Kelsey: The State Senator from Germantown is not letting the burden of a felony  indictment (for campaign finance violations) inhibit his legislative activity. In that regard the Germantown Republican is like State Senator Katrina Robinson (D-Memphis) who also continued working legislatively in the face of a felony indictment (since resulting in conviction that has put Robinson on the brink of expulsion from the Senate).

Kelsey’s latest project is Senate Bill 1820 (companion measure: 1868 HB, by Rep. Nathan Vaughn, a Collierville Republican), which would prohibit the use anywhere in Tennessee of ranked choice voting (a.k.a. instant runoff voting), a mode of elections that has been twice approved by Memphis voters in referenda but has been prevented by the City Council and by the state Election Coordinator from taking place.

Introducing his bill in the Senate’s State and Local Government committee on Tuesday, Kelsey noted that his legislation had both Republican and Democratic co-sponsors and said, “It’s not a partisan issue. It’s really an issue about voter clarity.”

He went on to give an explanation of the ranked choice process that he himself might not regard as a model of clarity: “Instead of voting for a name, you would rank candidates, for example, one through seven. And then if for all those people who voted for the seventh place receiving vote person, those, then your first choice would be thrown out, and then you come back and they go to see okay, well, now how who did you vote for it for your second choice, and then you got to reallocate those votes that way, and then you got to go back and recount them. So you can see, this can take many rounds, and can be very confusing.”

A shorter but more informative explanation might characterize the process as one designed to prevent minority vote-getters from triumphing in winner-take-all elections. All candidates would be ranked by voters, and — absent an immediate majority winner — runner-up votes would be successively applied in subsequent rounds until a majority winner emerged.

Said Kelsey: “I do think that it’s a very confusing and complex way of doing elections, and one that does not create voter confidence in the counting system and the outcomes, and one that would not be helpful for Tennessee.”

State Senator Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) intervened to point out that the process had been approved in Shelby County twice. He went on to suggest that it would be helpful if someone involved in the Memphis effort would address the committee and shed some light on the issue. Kelsey suggested that Beth Henry Robertson of the State Election Coordinator’s office, which, via Coordinator Mark Goins, has previously expressed doubts about ranked choice could offer some clarification.

State Senator Sara Kyle (D-Memphis) confirmed for the committee that, “In Memphis, we have had referendums, one I think past 63 percent. One 70 percent … I am just asking if the sponsor would consider moving this to a study committee this summer so that we can have people to come in and testify.”

Kelsey objected: “I first heard about a request to testify yesterday and I said, bring them on, you know, that’s great, please, it’s three hour drive. From Memphis. No one chose to make that drive this morning.”

There was discussion back and forth, with Sen. Kenneth Yager (R-Kingston) expressing agreement with the need to hear witnesses and committee chair Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville) agreeing and ultimately making a motion to roll the bill for a week and perhaps further if need be to allow witnesses to testify.

Asked his view ot today’s discussion, University of Memphis law professor Steve Mulroy, who has been the major advocate of ranked choice voting locally, pointed out that the Tennessee legislature is majority Republican and that it was both likely and desirable that Republican advocates for the process would make themselves available for testimony for it in Nashville.

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The State Democrats Throw a “Hail Mary”

The Democrats’ map (Photo: Courtesy Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus)

As reported last week by Erik Schelzig of The Tennessee Journal and the On the Hill news blog, the General Assembly’s Democrats are gamely offering their version of a fair and balanced redistricting map for Tennessee’s nine congressional districts.

“This map proposal is a reflection of real people and the concerns that are shared by underserved communities across the state,” said state Rep. Karen Camper, the leader of the Democratic minority in the state House. “We look forward to presenting their ideas and policy priorities to the General Assembly.”

The map attempts to make minimal changes in the state’s current political topography. Although Middle Tennessee’s rampant population growth is accounted for by routing several of Nashville’s fastest-growing suburbs into a reconstructed 4th Congressional District, the state capital itself would remain intact and whole, as at present, within lines that would continue its status as one of the state’s two dependably Democratic districts — the other, of course, being the 9th Congressional District, which now encapsulates most of Memphis. In the Democrats’ recommended version, the 9th would include all of the city plus Bartlett.

Shelby County’s other suburban municipalities — Germantown, Collierville, Lakeland, Arlington, and Millington — would be included in an expanded 8th Congressional District that would stretch from the Tennessee River to the Mississippi River. Millington’s inclusion in this hypothetical 8th District would remove it from its current coupling with Memphis in the 9th.

Of course, it is the legislature’s Republicans, a supermajority, who will determine the final outlines of Tennessee’s congressional districts, regardless of what Democrats or the Assembly’s nominally bipartisan advisory committee should advise.

And, while the 9th District could hardly be anything but Memphis-centric and majority-Democratic, the state’s demographic contours being what they are, it is otherwise with the status of Nashville. The city is not only Democratic in its history and voting habits; it is probably the most focused Democratic area in Tennessee, an irony, given the frequent use of “Nashville” as a synecdoche denoting the ultra-right doings of the predominantly rural legislators who control the actions of the General Assembly, which meets there.

And such word, as has come from legislative Republicans, indicates that the final redistricting of Middle Tennessee will slice and dice the capital city and its environs into an assortment of gerrymandered districts that would give Republicans good chances of winning all of them.

And, the good intentions of the Democrats’ redistricting proposal notwithstanding, such an outcome would make Memphis’ 9th District a last, lone Democratic preserve in a solid red Republican state.

• Last week’s verbal mistreatment of two county government emissaries by City Councilman Edmund Ford Sr. was essentially a spin-off of the continuing feud between firebrand County Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. and County Mayor Lee Harris. The feud continues despite valiant efforts by Commissioner Van Turner and others to arrange a truce.

• State Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), fighting campaign finance charges, has engaged Jerry Martin, the attorney who previously assisted former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, dealing with misconduct allegations, in negotiating her resignation.