Tag: David Lenoir

Lee Harris Looks to Lead

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date September 20, 2018

CREDIT: Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

On August 2nd, the voters of Shelby County resoundingly voted for Lee Harris, a law professor at the University of Memphis, a former city councilman, and the Democrats’ leader in the state Senate, to be county mayor for the next four years. Harris, who was sworn in on August 30th in a joint ceremony with other county officials, is still in the early stages of organizing his mayoralty. On Monday, he sat down with the Flyer in his 11th-floor office in the Vasco Smith County Administration building to discuss the prospect of things to come.

Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

You’re going from the position of being a minority legislative leader to being a county executive. What’s it like in those circumstances, going from one branch of government to another?

I think there’s a huge difference. I didn’t realize how big a difference there was until I got here a couple of weeks ago. You really have your hand on the lever in this office, no doubt about it, and you can effectuate change and drive a message and an agenda. That’s much better! No doubt about it.

As a minority leader in the Senate, I had a role in putting messages in the pipeline and putting the brake on some things. But here you get to set the stage for change. And before I was part-time. Now I can do this every single day, all day long, bringing beneficial change for our community. Two early examples have been the opportunity to appoint Patrice Thomas as CAO and Marlinee Iverson as county attorney.

I know you’re aware of the schism that has existed between your predecessor, Mayor Mark Luttrell, and the Shelby County Commission the last couple of years. Can you avoid something like that?

I didn’t realize how bad it was until I won the election and began the process of settling in. It’s even worse than you reported. I don’t think they got along well. I gave Mayor Luttrell high marks in terms of leadership and the team he put together, but he really fell down in terms of relating to the commission.

Like this idea, four years ago, of separate inauguration ceremonies for the mayor and the commission. There was the expectation that I was going to have a separate ceremony. I thought, “Are you kidding me? If we do, we’ll start off on the wrong foot.” This is local government, not Washington, D.C., and all of us in local government should be on the same page. [Outgoing commission chair] Heidi Shafer did a great job working with me to make a unity ceremony, bringing together a lot of stakeholders. So far we’re getting along very well.

As for why they [Luttrell and commissioners] didn’t get along, part of it was a matter of perspective. On both the 11th floor [site of mayor’s office] and the 6th floor [site of commission offices] it’s too easy to surround yourself with fans feeding your point of view. But I’ve served as a local legislative official on the city council; so I know they [members of the legislative branch] expect somebody to communicate and work with them.

Your profile on the Shelby County website notes, “He has won numerous awards because of his work in politics and government.” What awards do you take most satisfaction from?

I just won one a couple of days ago for environmental justice. I joined with others to point out contamination of water at TVA’s new power plant and got them to stop drilling. And there are only 10 states that have a law requiring pure water in public schools. Tennessee became the 10th state because of legislation I sponsored. If they find lead contaminant at a school, they’ll have to take that water out of circulation and replace it with water free from contamination. I worked with Senator Bo Watson on that one.

Then I sponsored bills, some with [Senator] Brian Kelsey, to get ourselves into the conversation on the aquifer. We got the Ground Water Control Board to start meeting and write new rules for drilling, and to work with the University of Memphis on aquifer issues. You have to make the effort to get all the stakeholders involved. In Nashville, there are a lot of stakeholders involved on issues all the time.

You have to deal with a lot of polarities in government, don’t you? Democrats vs. Republicans, cities vs. suburbs, blacks vs. whites, and so forth.

Yes. One of the first persons I talked to in Nashville and tried to befriend was [Representative] Andy Holt. He’s a teacher, a part-time professor, and he likes to talk about economics, and I don’t mind talking about economics. He likes to talk about Republican orthodoxy, and I love to talk about Republican orthodoxy and what they should be doing, about how they’re concentrating on giveaways instead of being true to the free market. We’ve sponsored bills together. He was skeptical of me for a long time. You can find common ground with anyone.

At your first campaign debate with Republican nominee David Lenoir, you mentioned “segregation” as a major county issue. Would you elaborate on that?

Yes, sure. De facto segregation is still with us — schools and all the major places. How do we combat it? With high-quality schools that everybody wants to go to, that create interaction. Schools like White Station and Central and some others create diversity to a certain extent, and it helps for people to grow up in diversity. When I was growing up, there was no white person in my house, ever. I lived in a segregated neighborhood. My parents and I didn’t ever encounter anybody who didn’t look like us, unless maybe a repair-person. I don’t think I really talked with anybody white until Overton High School. [Smiles ruefully] And then, of course, I went to an all-black college.

Someone has quoted you as saying you want to put $300 million into the schools. What are your plans?

Well I don’t think I said a specific number. But, yes, there’s a lot of need for more investment in our school systems. I don’t want to get into the weeds on specific structural issues. That’s one of those things that’s been a distraction for years. I’m saying that, no matter what, there’s room for investment in education. And I think everybody in the community wants to see more investment. We need both more funding and more accountability. I’m one of the few Democrats, by the way, who say we haven’t made gains fast enough. I’m not a cheerleader unless we’ve been stone-cold successful.

Is the independence of the public schools from direct control by the mayor and commission a barrier?

Yes, and the first thing I’m going to do on Monday will be to announce to the commission my intention to appoint an educational liaison officer. That’s step number one: someone to work with Shelby County Schools and the other stakeholders. Way down the line are structural and legal challenges. First we need to get everybody connected — mayor, county commission, superintendent, school boards, etc.

That sounds like something your opponent David Lenoir talked about.

Lenoir did talk about it. Oh, yeah, I got it from him. I spent a career as a [law school] teacher. The best teachers in my view are really great students. You learn things from the give-and-take of a conversation. The campaign was a great conversation, and that was a good idea. Schools are a major expense, and we need a liaison.

What persuaded you to run for County Mayor?

Two friends, Steve Mulroy and David Upton, hounded me about it. They explained to me things about this role, and I became convinced. There were two major considerations: Can you win? And the other is much more service-minded. If you win, would it really make that much of a difference? I concluded “Yes” on both fronts. Even if I didn’t win, I thought I could change the entire conversation, I knew I would force everybody else to talk about things in a totally different way.

My opponent would talk about tax cuts, people leaving the county, made-up stuff. The only way to grow your county is to make your county attractive to move into, with great schools, great neighborhoods and people, and good public transit. If I wasn’t in the race, nobody would talk about those things. And I think it was right that I could hold on to the Democratic vote and stretch out to get others better than some predecessors. Some people think that to get the urban vote you’ve got to be a certain kind of candidate, that if you’re not behind on your taxes and haven’t piled up bankruptcies, you’re not qualified. Such folk don’t think a lot of the voters. The voters want high-quality representation. I talk the same way in Collierville as I do in Orange Mound.

Lenoir did take you to task on some crime issues.

Well, criminal justice, in my view, is not a bumper sticker. There’s such a thing as being “tough on crime” for the sake of being tough — without making us safer. The “Crooks with Guns” bill he talked about, for example, giving previously convicted felons stiff penalties merely for possessing a gun. If you’ve committed a crime, I’m happy to give you 10 years [in incarceration]. If you’re asleep in town, and a weapon is found under your mattress, I’m not happy about giving you 10 years. That’s more than you’d get if you raped somebody or committed manslaughter.

And there was my opposition to the Drug-Free School Zones bill, with its dramatically stiffer penalties. I argued we should have incremental reform. My position was supported by both the ACLU and the Koch Brothers, by the way. The 1,000-foot radius of that bill swallows entire communities. Liberally defined, you’re almost always in a school zone in the city of Memphis, which means that a drug sale there can get you eight to 15 years instead of 11 to 29 months if you’re not in a school zone.

In Tennessee’s four urban counties, you’re almost always in a school zone; in the other 91, you’re almost never in one. So urban violators are penalized enormously and unfairly more than rural ones for exactly the same crimes.

Crime control should be like a three-legged stool. The first leg is arrest and prosecution. The second has to do with education and other preventive efforts to keep people from going down the wrong path. We need to emphasize pre-K, K-12, and teaching vocational skills. The third leg is re-entry. The county runs the re-entry office, and I’m going to have an announcement on that in the next 10 days. We’ve got to make sure we are meaningfully reintegrating people into the community.

Memphis Mayor Strickland has his Memphis 3.0 project. Do you envision doing something similar?

I don’t do a lot of planning, a lot of committees. I talk to people in the communities. I know what they want. In order to bring stakeholders together you may have to do some planning, but it’s not my custom. I usually vote no on them and don’t participate in any of them. Like the city council committee to rename parks when I was on the council. They formed a committee. I couldn’t believe it! What is there to talk about? I just don’t know what there is to study. You either do something or you don’t. Either you pick up the trash or you don’t. And instead of firing somebody, the school system hires a “consultant” to look into the grading scandal!

What’s your take on the current dissatisfaction with EDGE [the city/county industrial recruitment board]?

I don’t plan to get involved in that unless the county commission really desires my presence on this new task force. We do need new leadership in the Chamber of Commerce, though, and new leadership all over the place. But EDGE is a priority for special interests. Of the 950,000 people in the county, 949,000 of them do not care about EDGE — absolutely, positively do not care about this issue at all. Things that people really care about are education, health care, and transit issues.

We need to do something to improve health care and to take care of Regional One [aka The Med], our only public hospital. Utilities are a big issue for everybody, and MLGW functions as an instrument of taxation, also. Should there be voting representatives from the county at large on the MLGW board? Probably.

And the EDGE board should have some regular people on it, too, just people from the neighborhoods. It’s the quintessential special interest. PILOTs [payments-in-lieu-of-taxes as an incentive for business] surrender too much revenue. Of course, businesses come here in order to make profits. To get them here, we’ve got to make this an attractive place to live. We need to invest in neighborhoods, invest in education, workforce development. I don’t think anybody seriously thought we were in competition for Amazon.

Frankly, we could shut down EDGE and give everybody a tax cut. If you cut taxes on everybody, we’d get more investment and more economic activity. If there’s a county commissioner out there who wants to take the lead on a tax cut, have at it! I’m not taking a position, other than to say I’m not for raising taxes. Tax cuts benefit everybody. A lot of this other stuff does not register.

Going forward, I think we’re going to be talking about education, public safety, and taxes. I don’t think people want to get distracted about these sideshow issues.

Looking ahead, do you think two terms as mayor are going to be necessary?

Yes. I think there are lots of things that can be done in the short term, but lots of things, too, that are going to take more than four years.

Tags David Lenoir, Lee Harris' plans for Shelby County, Mark Luttrell, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris

Politics Politics Beat Blog

Shade in Shelby County: A Guest Viewpoint

Post author By Daniel Kiel
Post date July 31, 2018

In a discussion over the weekend among the candidates for Shelby County Mayor, candidate David Lenoir was asked to respond to charges that his campaign had darkened an image of his opponent, Lee Harris, in a recent mailer. Lenoir denied that there had been any doctoring of the image and cast the blame for the topic onto Wendi Thomas, the Memphis journalist who most recently ran the MLK50: Justice in Journalism project. Specifically, Lenoir said, “This … was all cooked up by Wendi Thomas and you know how divisive she can be.” This response was wrong on so many levels, I feel a need to throw some shade on Lenoir (pun intended).

Daniel Kiel

First, blaming a critical media is like blaming the doctor who delivers an unwanted diagnosis. It is rooted in denial of facts, or at least of the way things might be interpreted. Second, though media-bashing seems to be a wise political strategy these days, Lenoir did not actually bash the media — he targeted a single member of the media, one who is black and female and whose work regularly points out racial discrimination and disparity in our community. Several white journalists had pointed out the racial overtones of the Lenoir mailer before Thomas, yet the fault was solely laid at Thomas’s feet.

One reason other non-Thomas journalists have pointed out the racial overtones of the mailer is that the racial overtones of the mailer are kind of difficult to miss. I received one of these mailers, which feature a shadowy Harris seemingly juggling $100 bills amidst claims that he will not be a responsible steward of the county’s money, and immediately shook my head. (Disclosure: I’m white) That it traffics in stereotypes, seeking to elicit a response in the viewer rooted in beliefs about trustworthiness of African Americans, is difficult to deny. It could even be read to trigger fear that some sort of rapper is running for mayor to make it rain in the club of Shelby County after raising taxes to do so. That these stereotyping suggestions appear at all is troublesome, but that they appear next to a darkened image is egregious, in my opinion. Not surprising given the local and national history with race-baiting and dog-whistling in campaigns, but still egregious.

To deny that the mailer could be understood in this way has several effects. It denies to those who are offended the dignity of deciding for themselves what is offensive. It is as if Lenoir is suggesting that people not be allowed to trust their own feelings — again, feelings that are being felt by white and black Shelby Countians alike, though likely not in equal measure — and instead, trust that he meant no harm. It also displays either a high level of ignorance or disingenuousness about race in our community. Either Lenoir is truly surprised that the mailer might be offensive, in which case he is showing himself as woefully out of touch with the experience of the majority of Shelby County residents. Or he knows, even hopes, it could be understood this way, consciously or unconsciously, and will lead voters into the safety he is offering. To me, the scapegoating of Thomas, a favorite target of local whites in power, suggests that the latter explanation is in play.

Lenoir could have blamed the media, broadly, for misunderstanding him, but he chose to cite one black journalist. He also could have feigned surprise at the reaction, acknowledged error, claimed ignorance, apologized, maybe even committed to not sending any more copies of the mailer out. That may have helped the issue go away, but maybe that is not the goal. Perhaps the goal is to give some subset of voters the sense that his opponent is not Lee Harris, but is actually Wendi Thomas.

Of Thomas, Lenoir says, “we all know how divisive she can be.” Who is the “we” in that sentence? My guess: white people, specifically white people uncomfortable with criticism from the black community. That Thomas’s work is “divisive” is hard to dispute — it divides opinions because it unapologetically touches on the racial, gender, and socioeconomic divides in our community. Thomas did not create those divides, again, any more than a doctor creates symptoms. The divisions Lenoir ought to be concerned about are the attitudes, structures, and practices that give Thomas and others focused on local inequity so much to write about.

Of course, Lenoir is not literally running against Wendi Thomas, the person. Rather, he is running against ideas some might associate with her. It is instructive to consider what a campaign against those ideas might look like. Over the years, Thomas has repeatedly raised complex and often damning questions about the distribution and use of power in our community. These questions are often inconvenient to those in power, but they serve a crucial purpose of accountability. It is as though Thomas is sitting on the community’s shoulder, reminding us of things we ought to have been considering all along — things like diversity in media and in economic development, the crippling barriers generated by poverty, racial and gender discrimination faced regularly by individuals in all walks of life and across levels of income. Think of hers as a voice of conscience, critical and persistent, but rooted in the desire to make things better.

A symbolic campaign against “Wendi Thomas” is a campaign against criticism and a campaign against change from a status quo that benefits Shelby County residents unevenly. It is a campaign against learning from mistakes, against acknowledging the feelings of others, against critical self-examination, against acknowledging the possibility that the community might look different — and less flattering — from a different perspective, all things that we could use more of. And, of course, it is a campaign against a black voice for black empowerment, a black voice that dares to question the current dispensation. And to be clear, Thomas has never been critical solely of white leaders; her voice can be inconvenient for anyone in power. It is just that political, and particularly economic, power continues to be disproportionately wielded by whites in Shelby County.

The shading of an image of an African American opponent in a county mayoral race reflects poor judgment or callous disregard of others’ feelings. An individual standing for election as the county’s executive should expect questions on the topic and either defend the decision or acknowledge a mistake. Instead, Lenoir opted to pass the blame on to a Shelby County citizen who has been willing to sit on the shoulders of our community and make noise. Our community could use more such citizens.

Daniel Kiel is a Professor of Law at the University of Memphis, a recipient of the University’s Martin Luther King Human Rights Award and a widely published author, especially on the subject of race relations.

Tags David Lenoir, political dirty tricks, the 'shading' of Lee Harris, Wendi Thomas

Politics Politics Beat Blog

Both Mayoral Candidates Wearing Well as Debates Continue

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date July 22, 2018

There are several factors that make the contest for Shelby County mayor hard to predict — not least the apparent parity demonstrated by the two candidates — Republican David Lenoir and Democrat Lee Harris — in the several public encounters they have had together.

The first two major debates between the two probably added up to a draw.

In the first one, at a Kiwanis Club meeting in June that was live-streamed on WREG-TV, Lenoir probably outshone his opponent by 1) being more clearly in sync with his immediate audience, composed of predominantly middle-of-

Harris (l) and Lenoir at Rotary…

the-road business types; and 2) being willing to take on the role of aggressor, attacking Harris three times on what he perceived as one of Harris’s weak points, public safety, each time without any kind of response from the Democrat.

In the second debate, co-sponsored by the NAACP and the ad hoc Voting is Power901 (VIP901) group and held at the National Civil Rights Museum, Harris probably took the honors on the strength of having a playing field more congenial to his left-center views and on a new readiness to defend his positions and to mix it up with Lenoir on the attack front.

In a general sense, Lenoir carried into the general election race the kind of edge in financing that Republican nominees normally enjoy, while Harris has at his disposal the theoretical fact of a Democratic majority, based on the demographics of Shelby County. Inasmuch as the first of these advantages, the bounty of the GOP purse, is a consistent given in local elections, the election could hinge on the degree to which the county’s Democrats actually do manage to cohere and get their vote out — as, conspicuously, they have had trouble doing, except in presidential elections.

Hard to Call
As it happens, there does indeed seem to be a more defined and organized degree of focus among Shelby County Democrats this year, and more than a few Republicans worry about the prospect of misplaced complacency in local GOP ranks. But the fact remains: The mayoral race, like other one-on-ones on the August 2nd ballot, is hard to call, and two additional debates between Harris and Lenoir, held this past week, did little to resolve the matter.

Not that the candidates failed to measure up. Both performed well, and both, especially in the second of the two events — a forum focusing on neighborhood issues at Circuit Playhouse — indicated a familiarity with the issues and a developed sense of what to do about them.

The initial encounter of the week — a Tuesday debate before a Rotary Club luncheon at Clayborn Temple — set the tone and reaffirmed the precepts of the two mayoral campaigns.

The first question called for — and got — a self-definition from each of the candidates.
JB

…and at Circuit Playhouse

Lenoir, who has spent the last eight years as Shelby County trustee, a job requiring that he collect and manage the county’s fiscal assets, cast himself as “a problem-solver first and a public servant second.” Noting that he came to office in late 2010, in the middle of a still-raging recession, Lenoir claimed to have “made Shelby County stronger,” citing a reduction in the county’s debt, a rise in its savings, and a lower tax rate.

For his part, state Senator Harris declared his ability to “bring people together” and “work with anyone” and claimed to have “passed more bills than any Democrat in the state” — most of these measures sponsored or co-sponsored by the General Assembly’s dominant Republicans — all the while keeping the Democratic faith by striving to extend the benefits of health care and quality education.

When asked about specific issues, the two candidates responded with solutions and proposals that matched the character of their self-descriptions. For example, Harris not only called for the county to devote oversight and funding to the improvement of MATA, he maintained that developing a better mass transit system was “the easiest way to get people out of poverty.”

Lenoir cautioned about “double taxation,” noting that MATA’s purview was, for the most part, restricted to the area of Memphis proper and that city government was essentially responsible for its funding and management. Moderator Otis Sanford put enough of a finger on the scales to point out that specific bus routes extended beyond the city limits.

Differing Approaches
On the general question of how best to establish equality and social justice, the candidates also differed. Lenoir touted what he said had been his efforts as trustee to educate the public on fiscal issues, including an educational effort inside Juvenile Court to tap the entrepreneurial instincts of youthful offenders. He proposed “wealth creation, not wealth transfer” or “a radical, new wave, new agenda campaign” as the key to progress.

For his part, Harris said the problem required a “perspective that is social justice-oriented,” and recommended that, in replacing the current, outmoded facilities for juvenile detentions, provision be made for fewer, not more confinements. He supported the continuation of the federal oversight that was imposed on Juvenile Court in 2012, whereas Lenoir said he would defer to the opinions of current Mayor Mark Luttrell and Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael, who have sought to have the oversight terminated.

Both candidates paid homage to the principle of frugality, with Lenoir boasting the efforts of Shelby County government during his tenure to lower the county debt and Harris noting that he slept in his Senate office, “on the floor,” during overnights in Nashville.

Lenoir cited two occasions from Harris’ governmental record to refute Harris’ claims, as City Councilman and state senator, never to have voted for a tax increase, to which Harris retorted, “At least I have a record,” contrasting his hands-on involvement in budgetary and taxation matters in health care and in other areas with what he said was Lenoir’s total lack of such experience.

Harris stressed his active role in efforts that led up to the removal of Confederate statues from downtown parks, and Lenoir cited documentation to establish that rumors of his having opposed that process were ill-founded. Both candidates gave President Trump’s ongoing “zero tolerance” approach to immigration a wide berth.

In general, each candidate depicted his own background — Lenoir’s in the private financial sector and as “the county’s banker,” Harris’ as active legislator and as “leader” in public solutions — as better suited to guide county government for the foreseeable future. Lenoir got two late jabs in, suggesting that Harris, who had moved from the Memphis City Council to the legislature and was now ready to move on again, had a disinclination to finish the terms he was elected to, and he repeated allegations that specific votes by Harris indicated he was “soft on crime.”

Harris, who has in fact moved quickly through governmental ranks, disputed the first matter and made credible explanations of his voting record, converting the two allegations into proofs of his detailed — and more nuanced — experience with the range of public issues.

Two nights later, the argument was continued on the stage of Circuit Playhouse, where, for roughly an hour and a half, moderator Marc Fleischer and representatives of various neighborhood associations subjected the two contenders to what was probably their most detailed grilling yet on the issues.

Speaking in a sense for them both, Harris said the ordeal of campaigning was something like “drinking water out of a fire hose” and jested that in doing a recent sweep from Collierville to Cordova to downtown he had found himself “kissing a hand and shaking a baby.”

The proportion of ad hominem exchanges in the Thursday night encounter was considerably diminished, as Lenoir and Harris set out to demonstrate their familiarity with the several subject areas they were asked about and their ability to suggest hands-on solutions.

Hands-On Answers
The candidates were asked not just about MATA in the abstract, for example, but whether they had ridden the bus themselves, when they had, and what the routes were. Similarly, they were asked to detail what their associations with neighborhood associations had been. Lenoir got to drop the names of well-known activists like Janet Boscarini and Charlie Caswell that he had worked “shoulder-to-shoulder” with, removing blight or clearing property, and Harris alluded to his watchdog efforts, in tandem with Republican legislator Brian Kelsey, to put an end to TVA drilling at the Memphis aquifer that threatened to contaminate Memphis’ pristine drinking water.

Mere days before the current weekend’s “Roundhouse Revival” activities at the Fairgrounds site of the long-dormant Coliseum, both candidates waxed nostalgic and put themselves on record as lamenting the terms of the contract of the Grizzlies that kept the facility from serving as an arena.

Both weighed in on subjects as diverse as EDGE, Land Banks, Victorian Village, a proposed Juvenile Assessment Center, agreeing here, disagreeing there, but creating a sense that each was aware of the myriad issues confronting the county and each had some detailed and precise and often original notion of how to deal with it all. All in all, the debate served as something of a symposium, as a classroom of sorts for the audience.

There was something of a partisan divide, to be sure, both in the audience and between the two candidates themselves, but nothing like the unbridgeable chasms of our national politics at the moment. Each side might — and did — claim victory, but from an audience perspective, it was something of a win/win, generating a sense that, however this thing comes out on August 2nd, whoever wins will be adequately prepared and not closed off from the ideas of the opposition.

Tags David Lenoir, Lee Harris, Shelby County Mayor's Race

Cover Feature News

Democratic Blue Wave or GOP Firewall?

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date July 19, 2018

In truth, there are several elections on the August 2nd ballot in Shelby County.

One is a county general election, featuring contests for Shelby County mayor, sheriff, and various other county official positions, as well as for members of the Shelby County Schools board and Shelby County Commission, special elections for three judgeships, as well as a referendum on pay raises for county officials. And, for roughly half the voters of Memphis, a contest for an open at-large position on the City Council.

Another election, involving primaries for major statewide and federal offices, includes races for governor, U.S. senator, the U.S. House of Representatives, and legislative positions in the Tennessee General Assembly.

The outcomes of the county general election and the state/federal primaries will not only be consequential in themselves but will have significant barometric relevance to ongoing political currents — local, statewide, and even national. In particular, the most closely watched races will indicate the extent to which the current century’s ramparts of Republican dominance in Tennessee and Shelby County are still at full strength or whether, conversely, the much-rumored “blue wave” of 2018 will signal a Democratic revival.

Certainly, a Democrat — Lee Harris — is regarded as having a fair chance to prevail as Shelby County mayor, the first to do so since two easy victories in 2002 and 2006 by former county and city Mayor A C Wharton. Harris is a former Memphis city councilman and, more recently, the elected leader of the Democrats’ five-member remnant in the state Senate. He is opposed by David Lenoir, a two-term county trustee, who won a three-cornered Republican primary over County Commissioner Terry Roland and Juvenile Court Clerk Joy Touliatos in May.

GOP: Bill Lee, Diane Black, Randy Boyd, and Beth Harwell

The root fact is that the August 2nd county ballot will be the first real test this year of Democrats against Republicans, and might provide a measure of the respective prospects for either party in the months and even years to come.

As it happens, of course, balloting in the county general election, as well as in the state/federal primaries, is already underway, in an official early voting period that began last Friday, July 13th, and will continue through Saturday, July 28th.

And, because of a controversy over the Shelby County Election Commission’s choice of voting sites that flared up in the couple of weeks before the process started [see Editorial, p. 8], public attention to the process of early voting was whetted to an unprecedented degree.

By the time the controversy was resolved in the courtroom of Chancellor JoeDae L. Jenkins, Democrats and Republicans had seen early voting sites added in pockets of the county dominated by their constituents. The final number of sites was 27, fairly evenly distributed, and five of those sites — also apportioned equably party-wise — were enabled to operate for an extra three days each.

When the Shelby County Democrats for Change PAC held a reception and rally for party candidates in the Serenity Events Center in East Memphis on Sunday, the organizers proudly claimed a 68 percent to 32 percent voting ratio in favor of the Democratic state/federal primary versus the Republican one for Friday’s first day of early voting. If that kind of differential should continue and be reflected in the voting results of the county general election, chances for the putative blue wave would be looking good.

DEM: Karl Dean and Craig Fitzhugh

The two mayoral contestants will have had several public one-on-one matchups by the time final voting ceases on Election Day. In the first one, held last month at a meeting of the Downtown Kiwanis Club, Republican Lenoir seemed to gain some traction by selectively using Democrat Harris’ legislative record to make a “soft-on-crime” attack.

In the candidates’ second major encounter, held last week by the NAACP and the ad hoc Voting is Power 901 activist group at the National Civil Rights Museum, Harris made pointed efforts to rebut Lenoir’s charge and clearly found the environment more hospitable to his own message of progressive social change. Score it one-to-one as the opponents prepared to square off again this week before the Downtown Rotary Club.

Though this potentially nip-and-tuck mayoral contest will have exposed the two parties’ contrasting attitudes, the real battle was taking place in the political center.

Lenoir’s pitch, based essentially on his claim of demonstrated competence, was centrist enough, his supporters hoped, to give him the same shot at independents and Democratic crossovers that current GOP Mayor Mark Luttrell enjoyed in two elections. Similarly, Harris’ professional gloss as a Yale Law graduate and his record in office of simultaneously working across the political aisle, and pursuing cutting-edge Democratic goals gave him a good chance to activate his base, demographically presumed to be a majority, while discouraging crossovers the other way.

Even the race for sheriff, not normally one characterized by political extremes, has a discernibly ideological edge this year, as was demonstrated by another NAACP/VIP901 debate last week, this one between Chief Deputy Floyd Bonner, the Democrat, and county homeland security director Dale Lane, the Republican.

Phil Bredesen and Marsha Blackburn

Among other issues, Bonner’s declared disinclination to cooperate with the Trump administration’s roundups of undocumented immigrants, locally, contrasted with Lane’s professed willingness to assist the operatives of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officials as “fellow law officers.” (See Politics, p. 7, for more.)

Consistent with the blue wave theme, the August 2nd election ballot shows three Democrats running for the office of governor, and only one of them — political unknown Mezianne Vale Payne — has the look of a ringer. The other two Democrats — former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and outgoing Democratic state House Leader Craig Fitzhugh — are major league, all the way.

Most analysts see Dean as the clear favorite, on the basis of his financial edge and backing from traditionalists in the party network, though Fitzhugh has the declared support of party legislators, educators, state employees, and various other rank-and-file groups.

There are three Democrats vying in the party primary for the U.S. Senate, too, and one of them is former two-term Governor Phil Bredesen. His party rivals, for the record, are named Gary Davis and John Wolfe, but there is no mystery about who the Democratic nominee will be. Bredesen not only has wall-to-wall support from rank-and-file Democrats in Tennessee, he is counted on by national Democrats of all persuasions to contribute mightily to the party revival that Democratic optimists (and numerous media analysts) have been forecasting.

And, just as there is no mystery about Bredesen’s looming victory in the Democratic primary, the identity of his Republican adversary in November, U.S. Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee’s 7th Congressional district, is also a given, though one Aaron L. Pettigrew also has his name on the primary ballot. Blackburn, who occupies a position on the hard right of the Republican Party, was a Trumpian before there was a Trump, and her all-too-obvious intent to move on to the Senate was probably a major factor last year in convincing incumbent Senator Bob Corker, a Trump critic, that it was time to bow out.

There is something of a coin-toss situation among Republican gubernatorial candidates.. Considering the fact that three of the six GOP aspirants — entrepreneur and former state economic development Commissioner Randy Boyd, 6th District U.S. Representative Diane Black, and Williamson County businessman Bill Lee — are multi-millionaires, that metaphor is almost literal. The fourth serious candidate in the GOP primary, state House Speaker Beth Harwell, has been hampered by her relative lack of financial resources.

Though only Black has a political profile arguably close to Trump’s (she’s an advocate for building “the wall” on the nation’s southern border, and she veers hard right on most other issues), all of the Republicans call themselves “conservatives” and are at pains not to put too much public distance between themselves and the president.

Boyd, in particular, seems determined in that respect, running ads that seem designed to depict him as more rigidly conservative than Black, though in person he is soft-spoken and thoughtful, a near clone in his thinking to current Governor, Bill Haslam, for whom Boyd designed such arguably forward-looking programs as Drive to 55 and Tennessee Promise.

Lee, a genial man who campaigns heavily on his Christian faith and his rebound from family tragedies, is clearly a generic conservative, though one with few hard and fast positions. By general consensus (and such reliable polling data as exists), he has been running third and hoping for a stumble by one or both of the acknowledged GOP front-runners, Boyd and Black.

There are those who see Lee’s real purpose as building a profile for some future race. Harwell’s is more a case of sink-or-swim in a possible last hurrah, though she is well-liked enough to be called upon for further public duty, possibly by someone’s appointment.

In any case, Bredesen vs. Blackburn and the eventual gubernatorial matchup in November will measure the contrary tides of political sentiment in Tennessee. Apropos prospects for a blue wave, a look at the legislative races on the ballot, with Democrats vying for every available position and there being numerous races for which no Republican is contending, would almost suggest that Shelby County has returned to the circumstances of the old Solid Democratic South of the pre-civil rights era, in which the GOP was an outlier party.

That, to say the least, would be misleading. What the dearth of Republican candidacies, almost entirely in predominantly black areas, does represent, however, is a continuing lack of indigenous support in the inner city of Memphis, as well as a serious downturn in the party’s outreach results, whether through lack of serious effort or simple failure. In theory at least, the party is still trying, as would be indicated by the presence on the GOP ballot once again of Charlotte Bergmann, an African-American activist and a perennial candidate, once again seeking the 9th District Congressional seat.

The omnipresence of Democratic legislative candidates, meanwhile, signals a rekindled zeal among rank-and-file Democrats as well as in the leadership of a local party which was reorganized in 2017, after internal disunion and chaos resulted in the state party’s lifting its charter in 2016.

Longtime observers of local and state politics recall a time in the 1950s and 1960s when the Republican Party, then a definite minority organization in both Shelby County and Tennessee at large, began fielding candidates in established Democratic fiefdoms. Largely unsuccessful at first, the GOP efforts eventually bore fruit, and, when social changes (most of them national in origin) began to weaken ancestral voting habits, today’s wall-to-wall GOP state government emerged.

Locally, though, the situation is far from being static. It should be remembered that the Republican sweeps and near-sweeps in the county elections of the 21st century are counter-demographic, in that they have occurred at a time when Shelby County’s emergent non-white majority has been ever enlarging. If the new flood of Democratic candidates in the suburbs can stimulate a dormant activism there and meanwhile activate the party’s urban base, generally somnolent in non-presidential election years, the political power ratio could transform quickly.

Or, as Shelby County Republican chairman Lee Mills put it, in a cautionary message to his party-mates back in February: “Since 2010, we’ve been lucky in Shelby County. Thanks to the leadership we’ve had, we’ve had good organization and we’ve had good candidates. The Democrats, on the other hand, have had just the opposite. They haven’t had good candidates and they haven’t had good organization. But for the first time in a long time, they have both of those things. They have a good organization. They have a good leader. And they have decent candidates at the top that’ll drive all the way down to the bottom. So we have got to turn our voters out.”

There are three state Senate seats at risk in the primary, and there are interesting contests in all of them:

In State Senate District 29, Tom Stephens is a token Republican entry. The real race is in the Democratic primary, between outgoing County Commissioner Justin Ford, a member of urban Memphis’ best-known political clan, and current state Representative Raumesh Akbari, a rising legislative star who won her House seat in a 2013 special election over Ford’s cousin, Kemba Ford.

Three Democrats are on the ballot in Senate District 31, where David Weatherspoon, a chaplain at Le Bonheur Hospital, seeks the party nod over Gabby Salinas, a cancer survivor and scientific researcher. A third Democrat is M. Rodanial Ray Ransom.

Salinas’ history of personal triumph over difficult odds makes for a compelling backstory, but Weatherspoon has a serious financial edge and support across party lines. Both Weatherspoon and Salinas are committed to supporting Medicaid expansion, which Republican incumbent Brian Kelsey, unopposed in his primary, has stoutly resisted.

No Republican is running in Senate District 31, perhaps because Democratic incumbent Reginald Tate is well-known for his close cooperation with the GOP leadership in the legislature. That fact has also generated a stout challenge to Tate in the Democratic primary from nursing entrepreneur Katrina Robinson, who is supported by several name Democrats, including current state Senators Sara Kyle and Lee Harris.

Of Shelby County’s 13 seats in the House of Representatives, only five have races on the ballot, and all these races are between rival Democrats. In House District 85, there is a four-way contest involving Jesse Chism, Ricky Dixon, Brett N. Williams, and Lynette P. Williams. In House District 86, long-term Democratic incumbent Barbara Cooper has two primary opponents: Amber Huett-Garcia and Jesse Jeff. In House District 90, things begin to get truly interesting. Here incumbent John DeBerry — who, like the aforementioned Reginald Tate, is considered by many of his party-mates to be too cozy with Republicans — is challenged by Torrey Harris, a small-business owner.

House District 91, vacated by Akbari, is being fought over by Democrats Doris DeBerry Bradshaw, Juliette Eskridge, and London P. Lamar, while House District 93 incumbent Democrat G.A. Hardaway has a contender in the Democratic primary, Eddie Neal. In House District 99, Antonio “Two-Shay” Parkinson, is being challenged by fellow Democrat Johnnie Hatten.

House District 99 has a special distinction as a result of the recent untimely death of Republican incumbent Ron Lollar. It was too late to change the ballot; so Lollar’s name remains. Before the November election, the Shelby County Republican Party will be entitled to name a replacement. Some of the Republican names in play: county commission Chair Heidi Shafer, Shelby County GOP Chair Mills, Bartlett Alderman David Parsons, and County Commissioner David Reaves.

And David Cambron, the Democratic mainstay and ace recruiter who is as responsible as anyone for the stepped-up party showing, has a shot at winning a seat himself. He’s unopposed to be the Democratic nominee in House Disrict 99.See ‘Politics,’ , for more election preview.

Tags Beth Harwell, Bill Lee, Craig Fitzhugh, David Lenoir, Diane Black, Karl Dean, Lee Harris, preview for August 2nd election in Shelby County, preview for TN statewide elections, Randy Boyd

Politics Politics Beat Blog

Grading the NAACP’s Mayoral Debate

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date July 12, 2018

CREDIT: JB

Moderator Ajanaku (l) and debaters Harris and Lenoir at Civil Rights Museum

So how did Tuesday night’s debate between candidates for Shelby County mayor go? The answer is: Well enough for both Trustee David Lenoir, the Republican nominee, and state Senator Lee Harris, the Democratic nominee, to claim victory for themselves. Others may have seen it one way or the other, depending on their partisanship. And it was theoretically possible to call it a draw.

In the Beginning: The debate kicked off, as is customary, with brief opening statements. Harris went first, maintaining, as he has before, that “poverty” is the biggest issue of the campaign, elaborating that county government had achieved “not enough progress fast enough.” Given that this was an NAACP-sponsored debate, in the National Civil Rights Museum, Harris’ contention was well attuned to his audience — much more so than when he named poverty and “segregation” as predominant issues in his June 13th debate with Lenoir before a predominantly white, middle-class group of Kiwanians.

Lenoir wasted no time dealing with the elephant in the room, which was the fact, obvious to attendees, that the originally scheduled moderator, veteran journalist Wendi Thomas, had been replaced by the Tri-State Defender editor Karanja Ajanaku. It was well known that Lenoir had originally balked at taking part if Thomas participated, on account of what he said (though he did not specifically identify) were Thomas’ “biased public statements” on social media.

The NAACP then planned to have the debate with only Harris in attendance, before Thomas offered to step aside. Lenoir then changed his mind again and agreed to participate. He spun the situation by congratulating the NAACP and the other sponsors for being willing to make the change. Some subdued murmuring in the audience suggested the explanation was not a crowd-pleaser.

Aside from its underscoring what had been a Lenoir power play, the basic fact of this opening exchange was that it defined who was home and who was having to play an away game. Advantage Harris.

Definition of Aims: Early on, without stirring much reaction one way or another, Lenoir espoused his usual goals of “great schools, great jobs, and safe streets,” hailing the prospect of “growing the economy and building a bigger pot” for the sake of “women and minorities” and boasting his actions as Trustee in making large deposits at the black-owned Tri-State Bank.

State Senator Lee Harris

Harris responded that “we’ve got to be watchful of the language,” that “growth is important,” but “sometimes at the expense of the folks at the bottom.” In other words, said Harris, “growth still means that we will continue with inequality. Those at the top get wealthier, and those at the bottom get a little bit of wealth.”

Both got to make their essential points, with Harris earning a bit of extra applause — both for the faintly incendiary nature of his allegation and in appreciation of its hint of originality. Lenoir would get a chance later on to expound on his “courage” and his purported successes in building up the county treasury for public purposes.

Education: Both candidates stood four-square for improvements in education, with Harris noting that he had endorsements from teachers’ groups and Stand for Children.
Lenoir got to repeat his plan for “an educational liaison” official and received some healthy applause for his plan to allocate capital construction carefully.

Clout in Nashville and Past Public Service: Lenoir boasted his connections in Nashville and his experience as an administrator and made a point of saying that he had “finished every term I was elected to.” That was a not-so-veiled shot at the upwardly mobile Harris, who, critics charge, is always sighting new jobs other than the one he has been elected to.

Harris quickly responded: “I served for three years on the Memphis City Council, and I ran for the state Senate because I was not satisfied with the incumbent [Ophelia Ford], and nobody else would run against her….God bless her heart; she was not doing a good job at that time, and I ran against her because it needed to be done. I’m serving my fourth and final year in the state Senate, and I’m giving up my seat so that new talent can come through door.”

So far, so good, and then Harris delivered the clencher to resounding applause that even forced an admiring smile from Lenoir: “And the problem is not that our politicians do not stay long enough. It is that they stay too long!” Several voices in the crowd mouthed those last two words along with him. Lenoir made an effort to recoup by once again stressing his experience as an administrator vis-a-vis an opponent who had “never run an operation.”

Crime: Harris drew an interesting parallel between the prospect of improved transportation as lever to create opportunities and dampen the prospect of crime. In his turn, Lenoir went for the gold, repeating a charge that had worked for him three times in their earlier Kiwanis debate, and had gone un-rebutted then by Harris. “My opponent is soft on violent crimes. He voted against a bill in Nashville that would toughen the sentencing for criminals with guns.” Further: “He wrote legislation that would reverse Representative Lois DeBerry’s drugs-around-our-schools bill.”

Harris replied, “It’s easy to criticize my record of leadership because I have a record of leadership. I have been on the forefront … on every issue we have talked about so far, for the last seven years.” He described himself as being in favor of criminal justice reform and made an effort to characterize the bill that Lenoir had spoken of as being aimed at non-violent offenders who happened to have guns. More important, said Harris, were “the rapists, the murderers — and let’s stop giving these domestic abusers slaps on the wrists.”

It wasn’t perfect, but it was far more effective than had been Harris’ choosing to ignore the charge at the earlier debate. Lenoir would return to the “soft-on-violent-crime” theme and made a point of having the endorsements of the Deputy Sheriffs Association and the Memphis Police Association’s, “because they understand my position on crime, and they understand my opponent’s position, as well.”

Both made the case for the joint city/county Office of ReEntry for ex-offenders, but Lenoir charged that Harris, on the council, had voted against funding a Second Chance program that had similar aims. Both made much of their past cooperation with DeAndre Brown, whose “Lifeline to Success” program had eased ex-felons back into the mainstream of society.

Both candidates also made a point of questioning the credibility of the federal immigration agency I.C.E., Harris going a step further and suggesting the the county’s Public Defender should consider defending undocumented immigrants.

Redirects: Lenoir, in general, had kept pace with Harris in matters that obviously resonated with the audience in the Civil Rights Museum. He stumbled somewhat when, in speaking of the bridge shutdown protest two years ago, he suggested that emergency vehicles had been unable on that occasion to use the blocked span across the Mississippi. That drew shouts of denial from the audience, the one and only time there was heckling of sorts during the debate.

County Trustee David Lenoir

But Lenoir was able to use another question about a notable public controversy to redress a charge that has lingered against him since his appearance with two other Republicans in a GOP primary debate back in April. He and they — County Commissioner Terry Roland and Juvenile court clerk Joy Touliatos — had been asked about the city’s action in arranging the takedown of Confederate statues from parks downtown and the state legislature’s resultant punitive action in withdrawing a $250,000 grant for Memphis’ bicentennial celebrations next year.

Back then, all three Republican candidates had been dubious about the exact manner of the city’s manner of removing the statues (by selling the parks to a non-profit and then providing equipment and personnel to remove the statues from the parks at the non-profit’s request).

Roland, who had spoken first, seemed undisturbed by the state’s punitive attitude. “Until people quit thumbing their nose at Nashville, there’s nothing we an do,” he said, alleging that the city had acted “like a thief in the night.” Touliatos, too, had been accepting of the state’s reaction: “The statues were handled inappropriately…. If you’re going to go against state law, there are going to be repercussions.”

Lenoir, who had spoken second then, just after Roland, addressed the matter this way: ““First of all, I believe in limited government and local control. So in terms of decision-making, it should happen at the local level. I would agree with my colleague [Roland] with the way, specifically on the statues, with the way it occurred, late at night on a Friday night [it was actually a Wednesday night], under the cloak of darkness, it no doubt sent the wrong message — not only to many that lived in Shelby County but also in Nashville. But in terms of how to mitigate that, I believe that things ought to happen on a local level. In many ways we need less of Nashville in Shelby County business. That would be my response on that.”

The Trustee’s statement in April had been somewhat shaded against what the city had done, but technically he had not endorsed the state’s adverse reaction, and just as technically (and, to be sure, modestly) he had gone on record as favoring local prerogatives.

Hence, Lenoir was more or less within his rights to say, on Tuesday night at the Civil Rights Museum, “I’m happy to tackle this one, because local control, local decisions, the decision needs to be made at a local level. It was made at a local level. It was passed unanimously by the City Council. It was a decision that was made, and I’m glad I can clear the record, ‘cause there’s folks out there — it’s politics; I get it; I understand — but you will not find me on the record as saying that I thought it was a state issue. All the lies that are going on out there are just that — they’re lies. It’s a local decision, local control as far as the removal of those statues, and I think that’s the way it should have happened.”

That answer somewhat overstated Lenoir’s position back in April, but it was not inconsistent with it, and Lenoir probably gained from the opportunity to address the matter again, in much the way that Harris had gained from the chance to deal again with Lenoir’s charge about his alleged opposition to an anti-crime control vote in Nashville.

Tags David Lenoir, Lee Harris, Shelby County Mayor's race debate, Wendi Thomas

Politics Politics Feature

Big Week for Shelby County Politics Features Joe Biden

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date June 21, 2018

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

What a week! What a weekend! Local political junkies of every stripe had plenty of occasions to nourish their activism. In addition to several fund-raisers and meet-and-greets for specific candidates in this year’s elections, there were debates, forums, and other kinds of smorgasbords featuring several at once.

The highlight of local Democrats’ week was surely the appearance on Friday night of former Vice President Joe Biden, who brought his “American Promise Tour” to the Orpheum. Biden’s visit, a ticketed affair, was part revival and part book-tour stop (for Biden’s new volume, Promise Me, Dad: a Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose, about his son Beau’s illness and ultimate death from brain cancer.)

With his regular-guy persona and tell-it-like-it-is style, Biden inarguably kindled the kind of political enthusiasm that Hillary Clinton could have used in 2016 and that Biden seems eager to deploy in 2020 against Donald J. Trump.

Not that Biden talked up a race; in fact, he got one of his most animated reactions when he complained about the unnamed Washington scribe who suggested that his book was a calculated bid for sympathy prior to a presidential run. The crowd’s murmur of outrage morphed into delighted laughter when Biden muttered something about administering a personal corrective to “the sonofabitch.”

Biden’s appeal is based partly on that kind of plain talk and partly, too, on his ability to revivify a kind of unpretentious patriotism that is either left unsaid these days or is more often obscured by the gaslight of insincere platitudes.

When host Terri Lee Freeman of the National Civil Rights Museum asked Biden what he had meant by writing that he was nostalgic for the American future, the author of that seemingly oxymoronic sentiment furrowed his brow as if wondering himself what he had meant by the line. But what followed was a wonderfully developed disquisition on the process of regaining the forefathers’ democratic dream of a just and honest realm that resolved the paradox perfectly.

On Saturday morning, Republicans turned out en masse for the opening of the party’s 2018 campaign headquarters in the Trinity Commons shopping center. Shelby County party chair Lee Mills introduced GOP candidates in the forthcoming county general election and federal and state primaries on August 2nd.
Partisans of both political parties got close-up looks at the rival candidates for Shelby County mayor and Tennessee governor when Republican mayoral candidate David Lenoir and Democratic candidate Lee Harris squared away on Wednesday at the Kiwanis Club. And four candidates for governor appeared on Thursday at a forum on legal issues before members of the Tennessee Bar Association.
At the mayoral event, moderated by WREG-TV anchor Stephanie Scurlock at the University Club, Lenoir put forth his standard goals of “great jobs, great schools, and safe streets” while boasting his achievements in managing Shelby county’s financial assets as trustee for the last eight years. Harris said he intended to focus on the themes of poverty, injustice, and residual segregation, and recounted occasions when he took the lead in resolving difficult issues as a city councilman and as state Senate Democratic leader.

Participating in the bar association event at The Peabody were Democrats Karl Dean and Craig Fitzhugh, as well as Republicans Beth Harwell and Randy Boyd. The candidates were interviewed sequentially by Commercial Appeal editor Mark Russell on such issues as criminal justice reform, judicial redistricting, and the desirability of changes in school-zone drug laws.

Tags Beth Harwell, Craig Fitzhugh, David Lenoir, Joe Biden, Karl Dean, Lee Harris, Randy Boyd, Shelby County Tennessee politics

Politics Politics Feature

In reading the May 1st election totals, it depends on what your eyes are letting you see.

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date May 10, 2018

Quite innocently, but with a fair amount of confidence, I opined over the weekend in an online column at memphisflyer.com that turnout numbers in the just-concluded countywide primaries had, along with other factors, indicated that the much-discussed national “blue wave” favoring Democrats might be paying a visit in Shelby County in August when the county general election and state and federal primaries are held.

On the turnout score, there were 44,768 votes in the Democratic primary for Shelby County Mayor, and 30, 208 in the Republican primary. That’s a difference of 14,000 in the marquee race, and — no offense meant to the gallant and underfunded warhorse Sidney Chism — he wasn’t able to put up much of a fight against the well-supported ultimate Democratic nominee, state Senator Lee Harris.

Meanwhile, there had seemed to be a legitimate three-way race for much of the way in the hotly contested and well-financed GOP mayoral primary, involving Trustee David Lenoir, the eventual winner; County Commissioner Terry Roland; and Juvenile Court Clerk Joy Touliatos.

A non-race versus a battle royal, as it were. Yet 14,000 more voters turned out for the former than for the latter. A fact which suggested — but did not guarantee — a positive turn in Democratic fortunes for the next round, on August 2nd.

Yet a dissent to that idea was soon to come from several sources, including my good friends Steven Reid, a highly successful political consultant, and John Ryder, a bona fide GOP luminary, as well as from Ken Taylor, another consultant and a self-professed “kingmaker.” All of them made much of the fact that the increase in primary voting over the turnout in the 2014 county primaries was larger for Republicans than it was for Democrats.

None of them pointed out the obvious: that four years ago there was a hot three-way race between Democratic mayoral contenders Deidre Malone, Steve Mulroy, and Kenneth Whalum (all “name” candidates), whereas, on the Republican side, incumbent Republican County Mayor Mark Luttrell was opposed by Ernest Lunati, a prototypical non-entity best known, if at all, for a prior pornography conviction. No contest on the GOP side, in other words. Nothing to stimulate turnout.

Honestly, the GOP primary-turnout figures of 2014 would have no direction to go but up in 2018. But in the general election of 2014, Mayor Luttrell unsurprisingly generated enough votes, including significant Democratic crossovers, to win out over Democratic nominee Malone. On that reversal of fortune from primary to general, do Messrs. Reid, Ryder, and Taylor stake their case — and never mind the other factors I mentioned in my wrap-up piece, including the far larger number of Democratic candidates on the August ballot — a possible clue as to relatively greater commitment this year among Democratic Party activists.

We’ll see what we’ll see in August, and certainly local Republicans have a shot at closing the voter gap revealed on May 1st. They’ll have a vigorous GOP governor’s race to generate turnout, for one thing. Their candidates are likely to have more money, for another, and it was disproportionately greater financing, for example, that may have allowed the primary victory of promising newcomer Brandon Morrison over incumbent District 13 Republican Commissioner Steve Basar — not necessarily the superior but unspecified “campaigning” attributed to her (and yes, Morrison, largely unknown previously, is a “her”) by pundit Ryder.

It is hard to disregard the warning given his troops, at the very beginning of the current political season by Shelby County Republican chairman Lee Mills: “For years, we’ve been lucky. Since 2010, we’ve been lucky in Shelby County. Thanks to the leadership we’ve had in the past, we’ve had good organization, and we’ve had good candidates. The Democrats, on the other hand, have had just the opposite. They haven’t had good candidates, and they haven’t had good organization. But for the first time in a long time they have both of those things, okay? They have a good organization. They have a good leader. And they have decent candidates at the top that’ll drive all the way down to the bottom. So we have got to turn our voters out. There’s no getting around it.”

Tags David Lenoir, Lee Harris, May 1st elections

Letter From The Editor Opinion

Call Them by Name

Post author By Bruce VanWyngarden
Post date April 26, 2018

The weeds keep multiplying in our garden, which is our mind ruled by fear. Rip them out and call them by name. — Sylvia Browne

It was quite a week in Nashville. The biggest news out of the capital city was the horrific mass shooting that took place in a local Waffle House and resulted in the tragic deaths of four young people: Taurean C. Sanderlin, 29; Joe R. Perez, 20; DeEbony Groves, 21; and Akilah Dasilva, 23. All four were people of color; most of them were in college.

The shooter, whose name will not be mentioned here, was a fan of white supremacist “philosophy” and right-wing politics and did the killing with — what else? — an AR-15 assault rifle.

Same story, new town. God bless America. God shed his grace on thee.

The most compelling part of this terrible incident was the bravery displayed by James Shaw Jr., the young man who jumped the assailant while he was reloading and wrestled his weapon away from him. In this case, a good man who was unarmed stopped a bad man with a gun.

President Trump and the NRA quickly issued statements praising Shaw and his courageous actions.

No, they didn’t. Trump didn’t mention the incident, probably because it involved black victims, a black hero, and didn’t fit a narrative that appeals to his base. Or maybe he was distracted by his legal troubles or maybe because it wasn’t on Fox and Friends. Hard to tell.

The NRA’s response was the usual: If others in the Waffle House had had guns, they could have stopped the shooter, because the more guns we have, the safer we all are. They failed to acknowledge the fact that if the shooter had had a larger magazine, which the NRA favors, he wouldn’t have had to reload and could have kept killing until he felt like stopping.

Meanwhile, the Tennessee legislature was wrapping up its annual session this week. It was the usual GOP ideological shenanigans, leavened with a couple of sensible moves. They passed a motion to build a monument to “unborn children” on the state capitol grounds. This, of course, in the wake of last week’s measure to strip $250,000 from funds that were to be allocated to Memphis for its bicentennial celebration. It was a vindictive move, meant to punish the city for removing two Confederate statues from city parks, because small government means the state controls everything. Especially statues.

On the plus side, the legislature voted to honor Shaw for his brave actions at the Waffle House with a resolution filled with the usual “whereas” clauses. It was a nice gesture, even if it was boiler-plate. The legislators avoided actually doing anything meaningful by refusing to allow out of committee a proposed bill to close the loophole exploited by the Waffle House murderer’s father in giving his son weapons back that had been confiscated from him in another state.

The legislators also passed a motion that will allow Tennesseeans to vote in 2022 to remove slavery as a possible punishment for criminal activity. Yes, you read that right: Using slavery as a punishment is still legal in Tennessee. Not likely, admittedly, but legal.

Speaking of slavery and the Confederacy, I hope everyone read Jackson Baker’s report on the Flyer website about the debate last weekend between the GOP candidates for the office of Shelby County mayor. All three candidates expressed support for the state legislature’s move to strip $250,000 from the city of Memphis for taking down its confederate statues. That’s right. They liked the idea of the state controlling statues in Memphis-owned parks. And they all want to be your county mayor, so you should remember their names: Terry Roland, Joy Touliatos, and David Lenoir.

And you should remember whose side they’re really on when you enter the voting booth. I mean, as long we’re naming names.

Tags Confederate statues, David Lenoir, James Shaw Jr., Joy Touliatos, Tennessee General Assembly, Terry Roland, Waffle House shooting

Politics Politics Feature

Two Approaches to Political Advertising

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date March 1, 2018

Anybody who’s been raised since the advent of television (which is everybody now alive) knows the importance of TV ads in political races. The advertising phase of several campaigns is just now coming into prominence. In the case of Shelby County political races, there are but two months to go before the May 1st election day in the Republican and Democratic primaries. Statewide races, which culminate in August, have a bit more lead time.

Two new ads that are just now getting to be seen by the public indicate wholly different strategies. One is on behalf of Shelby County Trustee and GOP county mayor candidate David Lenoir. The other is for gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd of Knoxville, the former state Commissioner of Economic Development.

Though Lenoir is well known in local government circles, he is not exactly a household name. Accordingly, his new 30-second TV spot attempts to fill a name-ID gap between himself and primary opponent Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland, a firebrand who is adept at gathering free media coverage for himself.

Lenoir’s spot begins with an image of a football helmet, which fades into a shot of the candidate as a young man, wearing the crimson uniform of the University of Alabama, and clearly game-ready. A voice-over then explains, “When an injury ended his dreams to play in the NFL, David Lenoir refused to stand on the sidelines.”

In fact, Lenoir, whose athletic career ended prematurely due to injury, was once a highly touted defensive end for the fearsome Crimson Tide. The duration of the ad shows images of Lenoir at work and on the campaign stump, looking both accessible and able, while the voice-over speaks of his “reduc[ing] county debt and saving taxpayers millions.” The ad promises that Lanier will “fight to protect our neighborhoods and strengthen our schools” and contends that Shelby Countians “need a mayor with drive and determination.”

Lenoir has ample funding and will be able to play that ad, and subsequent ones, abundantly in the face of Roland’s newsmaking skills and hot-button pushing, and his other GOP opponent, Joy Touliatos, whose pleasant countenance is displayed on several well-placed billboards on county roadways. No doubt each of them has a TV campaign in mind as well.

Meanwhile, Boyd, a pleasant, mild-mannered man who was a highly successful businessman (Invisible Fences) before his service in state government, where he was known as a moderate, is up against a primary opponent in U.S. Rep. Diane Black who is as well-funded as he is and has a strong hold on her party’s ultra-right constituency.

So Boyd, who has run a couple of TV ads already, stressing his business success, his grit as a distance runner, and his ambitions on behalf of economic development and education, has belatedly decided to contest Black (one of whose ads boasts her readiness to “stand up to the weak-kneed people in my own party”) on her own ground.

Accordingly, while the images in Boyd’s new ad are similar to those in his previous ones, a voice-over intones that the candidate “believes that the right to life comes from God, not the government,” and that people “who can work should work and not permanently live on welfare,” while a subscript on the screen blasts the notion of sanctuary cities. The ad concludes, “What really matters is faith, families, and a good-paying job. A conservative businessman, not a politician.”

Asked about the ad over the weekend in Memphis, where he attended the GOP’s Lincoln Day banquet, Boyd said, “If I’m asking Republicans for their votes, I need to assure them that I share their values.”

The ad, an effort to co-opt an opponent’s issues, is clearly a gamble, and it remains to be seen whether it serves the candidate’s purposes or, alternatively, could backfire with GOP voters looking for a moderate candidate.

Tags David Lenoir, Diane Black, Joy Touliatos, Randy Boyd, Tennessee Political ads, Terry Roland

Politics Politics Feature

Waiting for Shoes to Drop

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date November 2, 2017

Though competitive races for governor and senator in both major parties will dominate public attention in 2018, the other marquee race on the local ballot for 2018 remains that for Shelby County mayor.

As of now, it’s a three-way on the Republican side, with the contenders being Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland, County Trustee David Lenoir, and Juvenile Court Clerk Joy Touliatos. Democrats running include state Senate Majority Leader Lee Harris and former County Commissioner Sidney Chism.

But, conspicuously, not all the shoes have dropped. Two major figures are on the cusp of decision: former City councilman and current Chamber of Commerce vice president Shea Flinn, and Harold Byrd, president of the Bank of Bartlett and a well-known former public official.

If Flinn runs — and that’s still a serious prospect — it will not be as a Democrat, though he served a brief interim term as a Democrat in the Tennessee state Senate, where, among other things, he broke away from orthodoxy by introducing the first serious measure to legalize marijuana.

He would run as an independent because he believes that partisanship is ruining American politics, that a combination of gerrymandering and low turnouts has ensured that a politics built upon genuine debate and constructive compromise is increasingly impossible, and that the two-party system itself has become unfeasible.

If Flinn runs, it will be a way of asking, as he has expressed it, “Have moderates had enough?” His thinking is that party nominees these days, in local elections as well as statewide and national ones, are determined by the most militant and committed members of both the Democratic and Republican parties, and that, consequently, winning candidates are beholden to relatively extreme views that are bound to be resisted by militant elements in the opposition party, and that governmental gridlock is the inevitable consequence.

His views on these matters are no secret; he has expressed them in radio interviews, and he holds them intensely enough to be on the verge of making an independent run for county mayor as an act of defiance against the intrinsic negativity of partisan politics.

There have been previous quasi-independent or third-party electoral efforts at the national level — Ross Perot‘s 1992 candidacy for president against Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George H.W. Bush being a case in point — but these have ultimately come to naught, Flinn believes, because, as he sees it, these have been trickle-down movements lacking real grass-roots involvement. He thinks that reformation of the current two-party system can only begin to happen at the most basic, local level.

In other words, Flinn as a candidate would see himself as someone pursuing a reformist mission against a two-party politics that is endangering the country, but he also believes that he could win — particularly if the two major local parties nominate candidates from their militant wings.

To put that in concrete terms: a race in which the Republican nominee would be, say, Roland, the self-styled populist from Millington, versus Democrat Harris, a legislator from his party’s progressive wing.

But Flinn, who is confident of having significant financial backing, would see his independent mission still being relevant, and viable, if the party nominees turn out otherwise — that is, if the GOP nominee ends up being either Trustee Lenoir or Juvenile Court Clerk Touliatos, both regarded as mainstream Republicans, and if the Democratic nominee should become either Chism, a well-known political broker who has been a declared candidate longer than anyone else, or Byrd, whose intentions are still a matter of speculation.

At the moment, Byrd’s intentions remain, along with Flinn’s, the most significant unknown element in the developing mayoral picture.

As mentioned before in this space, Byrd has uncooked seeds remaining from his prior political experience. He was a longtime state Representative who thought long and hard about running for Congress and finally took the plunge in 1994, winning the Democratic primary for the 7th District seat fairly easily but coming up short against Republican Ed Bryant, the victor in a year which saw a Republican sweep and a GOP takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Thereafter, Byrd’s home bailiwick of Bartlett became progressively more Republican, though he and other members of his family remained pillars both of the Bartlett community, through their ownership of the Bank of Bartlett and prominence in numerous civic endeavors, and in the Democratic Party, where brother Dan Byrd had continued to represent Bartlett well into the 1990s.

Harold Byrd first prepared to mount a serious race for county mayor prior to the race of 2002, organizing a coalition that included basic elements of the urban Democratic constituency along with suburban supporters in a campaign that would draw on significant IOUs, both political and financial, owed Byrd from decades of his involvement in public life. In a sense, that 2002 campaign, though Byrd would have been run as a Democrat, was aimed at being the kind of omnium gatherum of political opposites that Flinn may be contemplating for the campaign year of 2018. But it was forced to a halt mid-way by the unexpected entrance of then Public Defender A C Wharton, who was also able to draw on similar bipartisan sources of political and financial support.

For a variety of reasons that seemed practical to Byrd at the time, he withdrew, if reluctantly, and Wharton went on to win and serve one term and the better part of another before ascending to the mayorship of Memphis via a special election in 2009.

By general consent, the county mayor’s job might have been Byrd’s for the asking in the election of 2010, when the other major likely claimant, then Sheriff Mark Luttrell, a Republican, let it be known that he would defer and not run if Democrat Byrd chose to. But by then Byrd, a well-known fitness advocate, was recovering from a bout with cancer, and the bank he administered was having to deal with the aftershock of the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

Both factors kept Byrd from being a candidate that year, and Luttrell went on to run and defeat Democratic nominee Joe Ford.

But here it is, late 2017, and Byrd is once again looking seriously at running for county mayor. He has formed a Political Action Committee (Friends of Harold Byrd) for the purpose, and he has been steadily reaching out for assurances of support from well-known Democrats, both urban and suburban, who are either in office now or likely candidates for various positions next year.

Moreover, Byrd believes he still has, uniquely for a Democrat, significant support in areas of Shelby County where Republicans are used to dominating. And he is confident that he, more than any other Democrat, can raise the money necessary to run a fully empowered mayoral campaign.

The question remains: Will either Shea Flinn or Harold Byrd actually run for county mayor? Though nothing is absolutely certain, the likelihood is that both will — Byrd as a Democrat and Flinn as an independent.

Flinn had come very close to making an announcement this week, the Flyer has learned, and the odds — once rated by him as 70-30 in favor — still tilt toward his making the race. For his part, Byrd has set the end of the year as a personal deadline for decision, with the likelihood, he says, that one will come even sooner.

Tags David Lenoir, Harold Byrd, Joy Touliatos, Lee Harris, Shea Flinn, Shelby County Mayor's race 2017, Sidney Chism, Terry Roland