Tag: David Lenoir

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Politics Politics Feature

Filling in the Blanks

If Rip Van Winkle happened to be not a fictional character from a previous century but  a current resident of Shelby County, Tennessee, he would not have had to nod off for a full score of years to wake up to a drastically changed landscape.
If he’d just blinked his eyes about midway through last week, he might have missed significant doings in the race for Shelby County mayor and that for United States senator.

State Senator Lee Harris

The first major change in the projected 2018 political lineup occurred on Wednesday with the carefully stage-managed entry into the county mayor’s race of Lee Harris, a Democratic state senator and former Memphis City Council member whose ambitions to keep on moving up in the political hierarchy were clearly signaled back in 2016 when he flirted with the idea of challenging 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen in that year’s Democratic primary but thought better of it.

As the senator confided in a recent conversation, “I can serve anywhere” — the choice of a particular political office being something of a pure variable.
Harris’ interests in running for county mayor had been obvious for most of the current year but were screened somewhat by an elaborate Alphonse-Gaston scenario in which he appeared to be deliberating along with close friend and University of Memphis law faculty colleague Steve Mulroy, a former county commissioner and a mayoral candidate in 2014, as to which of them would actually make the 2018 race.

The veil was dropped abruptly on Wednesday via an interview in The Commercial Appeal, a venue choice made after scouting out the possible advantages of announcing in other media.

Harris has a reputation as a progressive but one adept at working across the aisle, a fact indicated by his partnership with Republican lawmakers on criminal justice issues and with GOP state Senator Brian Kelsey in seeking to safeguard the Memphis Sand aquifer.
As of now, Harris would appear to be the likely Democratic nominee against the winner of the three-way Republican mayoral primary between County Commissioner Terry Roland, County Trustee David Lenoir, and Juvenile Court Clerk Joy Touliatos.

But two other eminences with credentials both with Shelby County Democrats and with the civic and social universe at large are still meditating on a possible mayoral entry. Bank of Bartlett president Harold Byrd holds numerous political IOUs as a political donor and broker, a holdover following from his past as a Democratic state representative and two previous near-runs for mayor, and ample access to financial support.

Equally well-positioned is Shea Flinn, currently an influential Memphis Chamber of Commerce vice president and a former progressive spark-plug on the city council. Flinn’s access to funding, too, would be considerable, and, in a political environment not over-stocked with charisma, he has more than his share.
Either one of these figures, running in the Democratic primary or even as an independent, would have a dramatic effect on the outcome.
The other major development last week was in the race for the seat being vacated by Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker, whose decision not to seek reelection did not prevent him from continuing to make political waves. (See Editorial, p. 8) To no one’s surprise, 7th District U.S. Representative Marsha Blackburn, an arch-conservative, quickly announced as a GOP candidate, though she withheld her announcement until Governor Bill Haslam, a favorite of moderate Republicans, publicly opted out.

Another conservative GOP prospect is former 8th District Congressman Stephen Fincher. And the party’s centrist wing still hopes to convince Memphis philanthropist and longtime party eminence Brad Martin to make the race.

The state’s Democrats may end up fielding a serious candidate, as well. Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke is seriously contemplating a Senate race, while Nashville lawyer and Iraq war vet James Mackler is already in the field.

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David Lenoir Makes It Official: He’s a Candidate for County Mayor

CREDIT: JB

JB

Trustee Lanier, announcing for Shelby County Mayor on Thursday

County Trustee David Lenoir, wearing a dark business suit, cap-toed shoes, and a composed, no-nonsense mien to match, strode to the lectern set up in the lobby of Crye-Leike Realtors on Poplar, acknowledged the generous introduction of him by host Dick Leike, nodded appreciatively to a heartily applauding gathering of supporters, many of them prominent members of the business community or the local Republican rank and file, and proceeded to present the case for his election as Shelby County Mayor.

He began by characterizing himself as “the county’s banker” and as a “bottom-line kind of guy.” He spoke of boyhood experiences cutting grass and helping his parents with a start-up business, of going to the University of Alabama on a football scholarship and getting an accounting degree, and later operating three small businesses of his own, while his wife Shannon, who had been his sweetheart both in high school and at ‘Bama, would end up as a small-business owner herself.

A little bit of Horatio Alger that, updated to the 21st Century standards of the nuclear family (the Lenoirs have sons, “our two young men).

Lenoir said three objectives — or “issues,” as he referred to them — should predominate in the mayoral campaign: “great schools, great jobs, and a mayor who understands how to run an efficient operation and can reduce the tax burden.”

If the last part of that triad was meant to indicate either of his two GOP primary opponents — Millington County Commissioner Terry Roland or Juvenile Court Clerk Joy Touliatos — it did so very obliquely.

In fact, Lenoir seems to be proceeding on the assumption that his record of low-keyed professional competence in his two terms as Trustee (involving a progressive shrinkage of the county debt from $1,800 per capita to $1,000) and his status as a mainstream, vaguely middle-of-the-road Republican should speak for themselves. And, in particular, he apparently intends to ignore the ad hominem provocations of opponent Roland.

Two facts in evidence of that: 1) It was clear to all observers during the County Commission’s climactic budget sessions in early summer that Roland meant to indict Lenoir’s performance with his highly public proposal to re-designate for other purposes money earmarked for lawyer Lang Wiseman, an employee of the Trustee’s office. “He don’t show up for work!” Roland claimed via his characteristic vernacular. (He also challenged the line items of Juvenile Court clerk Touliatos.)

For his part, Lenoir ignored the obvious political context and professed an ignorance of Roland’s charges when he turned up at a later commission budget session and simply made a detailed, mathematically based explanation of his employees’ salaries and workloads, including Wiseman’s. He kept all his budgeted money.

More recently: 2) Roland suggested at a recent fundraiser that Lenoir was the candidate of the county’s political/financial establishment and made it all sound like the machinations of a cabal. Alluding to the banker character in “The Beverly Hillbillies” TV sitcom, the Commissioner affected a shucksy mode and said, “I didn’t know I was going to be running against Mr. Drysdale, but I guess I am.”

Asked about that after his announcement on Thursday, Lenoir maintained a poker face and said, “I don’t know his comment. I’m proud of my background… I worked in the business community for 20 years. As far as his comments, I’m not familiar with them.”

Maybe so, maybe no. But it seems clear that Lenoir in any case has no intention of responding to Roland on the commissioner’s own terms. And, in fact, the basic line of Lenoir’s campaign staff, as expressed by one of its prominent members on Thursday, is: “We see our main opponent to be Touliatos.”

Again: maybe so, maybe no — though another of Lenoir’s statements Thursday, that the next mayor should be someone “tested in various arenas and cool under pressure,” would seem to be directed elsewhere.

As did Lenoir’s skepticism, during a Q-and-A with reporters, that the tax-rate reduction achieved this year by the County Commission (a point regularly touted by Roland) did not necessarily equate to an actual reduction of the tax load.

In any case Lenoir’s long-awaited declaration of mayoral candidacy is now official, he will definitely have significant financial and GOP-network support, and his major task now, one shared with Touliatos, is that of profile-raising. Roland long ago succeeded, for better or for worse, in getting people to know who he was.

It’s up to both Lenoir and Touliatos to achieve a wider degree of public awareness ,too. There’s little doubting that David Lenoir will have the means and the opportunity to do that.

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Politics Politics Feature

On the “Mr. Drysdale Effect” and Other Political Doings

In the same way that subtle changes in the color of leaves signal the onset of a new physical season, the increased number of fund-raisers in Shelby County — several each week and sometimes overlapping — are a reliable harbinger of the approaching 2018 election season.

A case in point was the fact that Shelby County Republican rank-and-filers had to choose Thursday of the week before last between paying homage to county sheriff candidate Dale Lane, beneficiary of a fund-raiser in Whitehaven, and rendering an ear (plus coin of the realm) to mayoral candidate Terry Roland at Southwind Country Club.

To be sure, neither candidate is yet assured of being the Republican nominee next year, although the chances of Lane, who has no name GOP opponent on the horizon yet, are better in that respect than those of Roland, who knows he has a serious race for county mayor, with fellow Republicans David Lenoir and Joy Touliatos as primary opponents, and very likely a name Democrat if he gets to the general.

But there are some card-carrying Republicans who want to support both Lane and Roland, and, unless they could clone themselves on Thursday, there was no way they could do both — not in person, anyhow. Both are looking not just for an audience and a vote, but for the fund-raising dollar.

As Roland said in his pitch to the crowd at Southwind: “I need the money, the money to get our message out. The people I’m running against are some very wealthy people.”

And, lest that appeal come off as too abject, Roland rephrased it with a cultural allusion: “I didn’t know I was going to be running against Mr. Drysdale, but I guess I am.”  

The “Mr. Drysdale” in question would be the wealthy banker/bankroller played by actor Raymond Bailey in the vintage ’60s TV sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. That many members of Roland’s fund-raiser crowd guffawed in appreciation is some indication perhaps of one of the demographics he is counting on for support.

County Trustee Lenoir was being cast by Roland as someone in league with the county’s political/financial establishment. Nor did the commissioner overlook his other GOP opponent, Juvenile Court Clerk Touliatos, about whom he said this, clearly tailoring his remarks to a suburban constituency:

“The other one that I’m running against, if you look at the people that’s supporting her, it’s the people you’re fighting right now; it’s the pro-consolidation people, okay? And Jim Strickland is one of her lead dogs. Let me tell you this: If she gets to be the mayor, then you might as well say that Jim Strickland will have free run of the whole county.”

This attempt at drawing a connection between city Mayor Strickland and a candidate running for county mayor foreshadows what could become a serious leitmotif in the politics of 2018. On Monday of this week, Roland, in his guise as county commissioner, had no difficulty persuading fellow commissioners to hold off on approving an interlocal agreement with the city on financing a new sports arena.

Right now, as it happens, the city and county are at loggerheads on several issues — that of de-annexation, for one (a co-speaker at the Roland fund-raiser was Patty Possel, an activist in that movement and a forthcoming GOP candidate for the District 96 state House seat now held by Democrat Dwayne Thompson). Another is the recent decision announced by Strickland shutting off any new taps on the city sewer line by county developments.

• Across town, on the same day that week, in Whitehaven, a former county commissioner, James Harvey, was hosting an event for Lane, the county director of homeland security, who is the odds-on favorite to be the Republican nominee for sheriff next year.

At least half the crowd was African American, a good sign for a Republican candidate, especially one likely to be facing a credentialed black candidate, Chief Deputy Floyd Bonner, as the Democratic nominee for sheriff. And Bonner, let us remember, drew an appreciable number of white folks to his recent kickoff at the Racquet Club, among them current Sheriff Bill Oldham, who was elected eight years ago as a Republican and who made a point of endorsing Bonner.

While clearly we are not yet in a post-racial political environment — and may never be — both candidates will be pitching in all directions. A good thing, that.

Incidentally, Harvey, who was elected to two terms as a commissioner as a Democrat, spoke at some length in his introduction of Lane, making the point that he himself had crossed the party line and was now a Republican. Make of that what you will.

In his remarks, Lane, as usual, stressed his intention to focus on combatting youth violence.

 

• Another recent fund-raiser was the one held last week at the Donati law office on Union for County Commissioner Van Turner, who is unlikely to attract any serious opponents of his reelection next year but is taking no chances.

A goodly crowd showed up for that one, and, as is fairly often the case, much of the drama lay in who was there to see and be seen. In the case of the Turner event, it was Bank of Bartlett president Harold Byrd, a former state representative and Democratic congressional candidate who, as was noted recently by the Flyer, has signaled an interest in re-entering active political life as a candidate for county mayor.

More show-and-tell is due this week, with Germantown Democrats awaiting an appearance at their monthly meeting on Wednesday night by state Senator Lee Harris, who is also floating a possible mayoral bid (actually co-floating one with his University Memphis law school colleague and former County Commissioner Steve Mulroy; don’t ask).

And, apropos that aforementioned city/county dichotomy, two potential cross-overs are in play: City Councilman Ed Ford has a fund-raiser Wednesday night for his bid for county commission District 9 (now held by the term-limited Justin Ford). And conjecture continues about a possible Democratic primary race for county mayor by former council stalwart, now Chamber of Commerce veep Shea Flinn.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Touliatos Announces for Shelby County Mayor

CREDIT: JB

JB

Joy Touliatos announces for County Mayor as prominent backers John Bobango and Brent Taylor look on.

As of Thursday, there’s a race on for the Republican nomination for Shelby County Mayor. With conspicuous backing from some GOP luminaries of the past and present, two-term Juvenile Court Clerk Joy Touliatos, stressing the issues of public safety, taxes, and education,  announced for Mayor at a press conference at Waterford Plaza.

Among the family and well-wishers looking on were former Memphis City councilman and Shelby County Commissioner Brent Taylor and former Councilman John Bobango, both of whom will have major roles in the Touliatos campaign (as treasurer and co-chair, respectively), her political consultant Steven Reid, and Shelby County Clerk Wayne Washburn.

In her announcement statement, Touliatos had this to say about her major  campaign priorities: “First and foremost crime and public safety will be the most important priority of my administration. Second, we need to lower property taxes by making Shelby County Government smaller and more efficient. Third, we must attract new business and create new jobs. And that requires an education system that prepares our kids for college but also recognizes the need to prepare young adults for the workforce. “

Acknowledging the head start, campaign-wise, of Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland, who announced for mayor more than a year ago and maintains a high public profile, Touliatos expressed confidence in her ability to bridge the name-recognition gap.

It has long been assumed that County Trustee David Lenoir will also be a candidate for County Mayor, though Lenoir has not yet announced and is rumored also to be looking at the state Senate seat currently held by Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris of Collierville, who has been nominated for a federal judgeship by President Trump.

It is probably not coincidental that, during the course of budget negotiations on the County Commission this year, Roland found occasion to fault the spending priorities of both the Trustee’s office and the Juvenile Court Clerk’s office.

In a three-way contest with Roland and Lenoir, both high-powered political figures with presumed support in influential Republican Party circles, Touliatos, who can make claims of her own on GOP loyalists, would conceivably have an advantage with female Republican voters.

Meanwhile, as the blanks are being filled in on the Republican side, the picture among potential Democratic aspirants is more opaque, Former County Commissioner and erstwhile political broker Sidney Chism has advertised his likely candidacy, and outgoing Commission chairman Melvin Burgess has also expressed an interest in running.

Two other possible Democratic candidates, University of Memphis law professor and former County Commissioner Steve Mulroy and state Senator Lee Harris, are apparently both deliberating on an entry into th e mayoral race. Whichever one makes the plunge can count on the support of the other.

And there could be a Democratic wild card — former City Councilman and current Chamber of Commerce vice president Shea Flinn, whose name was prominent among those of candidates being asked about in a recently run telephone robo-poll.

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Politics Politics Feature

Roland “Rolls Um Easy” on Campaign Trail

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

The county mayor’s race is still some distance down the calendar, but at least one candidate — Republican Terry Roland, a Millington store-owner and Shelby County commissioner — has been running in public for a year or more.

On Saturday, he brought his campaign to the newly renovated Houston Levee Community Center in North Cordova, where he gave a fair-sized crowd his patented mix of country vernacular, governmental shop-talk, class-action rhetoric, and, where need be, a little topical pop talk.

Before he got started, he and his helpers fired up a grill and laid out a generous supply of hot dogs, hamburgers, and what Roland described as some “great Italian sausage.” Campaign associate Cary Vaughn — who would follow up Roland’s remarks later on by likening him to Joe Montana and calling him “the only candidate who understands urban and suburban” — jested on the front end that “we’re picking pockets all over Shelby County.”

That was an apparent tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that the late-morning rally, fifth in an ongoing series across the county, would double as a fund-raiser, but there would, in fact, not be much of a hard sell to the attendees, most of whom seemed to be Roland loyalists already.

In his talk, Roland ran through a miscellany of his platform planks, including a boast on behalf of the commission’s recent two-cent property tax decrease, a recommendation of de-annexation as a way for Memphis to conserve its resources and pay for more police (and to avoid having to borrow deputies from the Sheriff’s Department), a ringing endorsement of TIF (tax-increment-financing) projects as an alternative to PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-tax) arrangements, a pledge that his would be a “blue collar vs. blue blood” campaign, and finally some Lowell George.

Roland, a onetime country/rock singer himself, quoted some lines from “Roll Um Easy,” a favorite lyric by the Little Feat lead singer:

“I have dined in palaces, drunk wine with kings and queens,

But darlin’, oh darlin’, you’re the best thing I ever seen. …”

Except that Roland, to accommodate the plurality of his audience, made that “y’all are” rather than “you’re.”

At the moment, Roland remains the only formally announced mayoral candidate, though County Trustee David Lenoir is known to be planning a county mayor’s race on the Republican side, and former commissioner Sidney Chism has informally touted his own candidacy as a Democrat. Roland has wasted no time in gigging Lenoir. He made an effort during the recent budget season to defund part of the trustee’s budget, and on Monday afternoon — in a session called to discuss a draft of a “Strategic Agenda 2017-20” — he complained about what he said was the trustee’s laxity in selling off tax-defaulted property.

The Strategic Agenda project was overseen by the 2016-17 commission chair, Democrat Melvin Burgess Jr., who has let it be known that he, too, is likely to become a candidate for county mayor. “We’ve got to have a plan,” he said over and over on Monday, both in his public remarks and in private conversation.

• To no one’s surprise, GOP Commissioner Heidi Shafer, the past year’s vice chair, was elected county commission chair for 2017-18. The vote was by acclamation, and the sense of unity was underscored by the fact that her nominator was fellow Republican Steve Basar, with whom Shafer has often been an odds.

The vote for vice chair went to Democrat Willie Brooks, also by acclamation after the withdrawal from contention of fellow Democrat Eddie Jones. Brooks’ victory owed something to his bridge-building endorsement of a formal resolution by Republican David Reaves opposing a proposed charter school in Bartlett.

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Roland vs. Lenoir: Next Year’s Mayoral Battle Flared Up in County Budget, Tax-Rate Debate

L to R: David Lenoir, Terry Roland

The forthcoming 2018 duel between Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland and County Trustee David Lenoir for the Republican nomination for County Mayor has become a major factor in the Commission’s proceedings, and it figured notably as the county’s legislative body moved this past week toward approval of a budget and tax rate for fiscal 2017-18.

The latest set-to occurred on Wednesday, as a quorum of 10 of the 13 Commission members met in a special called meeting for the final required reading on the $4.11 tax rate that was voted with near unanimity on Monday (12 to 1, with only one Commissioner, Democrat Walter Bailey voting Nay).

The Wednesday meeting turned out to be not quite as pro forma as expected, however. Between Monday and Wednesday, Lenoir let it be known through several means —including at least one speech, a news interview, and a pair of Facebook posts — that he disbelieved in the $4.11 tax rate as being the actual tax cut that the Commission thought it was in adopting it.

Lenoir cited numbers purporting to show that representative homeowners, especially in suburban Shelby County, would actually be liable for higher out-of-pocket property taxes in the coming year, as a result of a recent county reappraisal significantly raising property values in the county.

The Trustee was an attendee at Wednesday’s meeting, and, though he did not speak directly to the Commission during the meeting, he had with him figures that he cited to reporters afterward appearing to show that taxes would be higher on the average in three suburban communities — Bartlett (up by an average of $100), Germantown (up $150), and Collierville(up $200). “And that’s residential property. Commercial property is up even more,” he said.

The issue had been bruited about by Commissioners at Wednesday’s meeting before they ultimately confirmed the $4.11 tax rate with a unanimous vote of 10 to 0.

Unsurprisingly, the response to Lenoir’s criticism was led by Roland, who maintained that the county administration, with direct concurrence and participation on Trustee Lenoir’s part, had,on the front end of tax-rate discussions, certified $4.13 as a figure that would maintain stable revenues in accordance with a new countywide property aapparisal that had, on the average, substantially raised real property values.

Inasmuch as state law prohibits “windfall” revenues resulting from such adjustments of a county tax rate to revised assessment values, Roland’s argument went, any overage of the sort claimed by Lenoir clashed with the Trustee’s own prior participation in certifying the $4.13 rate.

In any case, argued Roland, Heidi Shafer, and others, the lower tax rate of $4.11, which was adopted by the Commission on the premise that it gave county taxpayers a two-cent real tax decrease, would by definition make windfall revenues even more unlikely. And the defenders of the $4.11 rate, while acknowledging that some property-owners in the suburbs might end up paying more taxes as a result of dramatically higher assessments, the majority of county property-owners would be taxed at a lesser amount.

Lenoir’s contention is that the balance is in the other direction — i.e., that a majority of the county’s homeowners would end up paying more taxes while a minority would gain some measure measure of tax relief from the $4.11 rate. The Trustee noted to reporters that the lower rate had been achieved via a compromise this week between Democrats and Republicans that saw an additional 1 percent pay raise for county employees, added to what had already been a 2 percent raise in the provisional budget.

“It’s all baked in together,” the Trustee said, in defense of his contention that, on the whole, the final compromise package would, on balance, raise tax rates.

Though Roland et al. won this battle, it seems clear that Lenoir is counting on reversing the outcome during his forthcoming mayoral contest, when each candidate will claim to have acted more responsibly in the taxpayers’ interest and each will be able to cite numbers justifying his position.

This week’s verbal sparring followed a previous round back in the spring, before budget discussions began in earnest, when Lenoir claimed that he had advocated specific tax reductions in previous fiscal years had been ignored by the Commission — a contention rejected by Roland, who said no such proposal had been presented to the Commission, much less ignored.

Tensions between the two had flared up also early in last week’s 7 ½-hour marathon budget session of the Commission, when Roland had proposed transferring $50,000 from the Trustee’s proposed budget allocation to help pay for a needed employee in the General Sessions Drug Court of Judge Tim Dwyer.

Roland based his proposal on a contention that Lang Wiseman, a de facto legal counsel on Lenoir’s staff, was being paid despite “not showing up for work.” Lenoir appeared before the Commission to reject the claim and accused Roland of playing politics. In the end, the $50,000 needed by Drug court was approved through other channels, and Roland, satisfied, withdrew his proposal without a vote being taken.

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Politics Politics Feature

Filling in the Blanks

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Shelby County Assessor Cheyenne Johnson, a Democrat, will not be running for reelection and instead will be supporting the candidacy of Shawn Lynch, a legal adviser in her office and the son of well-known local businessman and civic figure Terry Lynch.

Shelby County Commissioner Heidi Shafer, now in her second term, has not been bashful about proclaiming a desire to serve in the state legislature.

​During last year’s Republican primary for the then-open 8th District congressional seat, ultimately won by current Congressman David Kustoff, Shafer loyally and fully supported her employer, George Flinn, in whose medical office she serves. But, if state Senator Brian Kelsey had won instead and made it all the way to Washington, there was little doubt among those who know her that she would have been a definite contender to succeed him in the state Senate.

And there is little doubt, either, that the surprise victory last year of Democrat Dwayne Thompson over GOP incumbent Steve McManus in state House District 96 gives her a target to go after as soon as next year, when Thompson has to run for reelection.

​All Shafer will say for the record regarding such a contest is, “I’m looking at it.” But Thompson indicated Saturday at the annual Sidney Chism political picnic on Horn Lake Road that he is expecting a challenge from Shafer and is girding for it.

As has long been known, Chism himself will be back on the ballot in 2018, running for Shelby County mayor. The former Teamster leader and longtime Democratic political broker served an interim term in the state Senate and two full terms on the commission, chairing that body for two years running, until he was term-limited off.

​But he may have serious opposition in the Democratic primary for county mayor. Word going around the picnic grounds at his event on Saturday was that state Senator Lee Harris is getting strong encouragement to seek the office, which incumbent Republican Mark Luttrell, now in his second term, will have to vacate because of term-limit provisions in the county charter.

​Among those reportedly urging Harris to run for county mayor is University of Memphis associate law dean and former Democratic Commissioner Steve Mulroy, a former mayoral candidate who is himself considered a theoretical possibility to seek the office again.

​Harris, who serves as the leader of the five-member Senate Democratic Caucus, has meanwhile embarked on a series of “Senator Lee Harris on Your Street” events at which he promises “updates on the latest legislative bills and issues we tackled in Nashville this year.”   

The Republican side of next year’s mayoral race will feature a showdown between Commissioner Terry Roland, who has been openly running, in effect, for well more than a year, and County Trustee David Lenoir, whose intentions to be a candidate are equally well known.       

It will be interesting to see how Lenoir responds to a gauntlet thrown down by Roland at Monday’s regular meeting of the commission, a four-hour affair that was nearing its end when Roland made a point of notifying Luttrell and County CAO Harvey Kennedy that he intended to seek an amendment to the pending county budget to provide funding for an add-on position sought by Judge Tim Dwyer for the Shelby County General Sessions Drug Court.

To pay for the position, Roland announced that he would offer a resolution at the next commission meeting to strip $50,000 from the amount already allocated to the Trustee’s office. Roland says he can demonstrate that an equivalent sum is currently being paid to an employee of Lenoir’s office who isn’t “showing up for work” — a contention almost certain to bring a hot protest from Lenoir at next week’s committee sessions, where the resolution will get a preliminary vetting.

Roland will also seek to re-allocate $100,000 currently slated to the Juvenile Court Clerk’s office to provide funding for the Shelby County law library, which, he said, faces the threat of closure for financial reasons. He accused state Senator Kelsey of letting a funding bill for the library “sit on his desk” during the legislative session just concluded.

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Politics Politics Feature

Trumped Expectations

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. Consider: As the year began, the idea of Donald Trump‘s becoming the Republican nominee for president was still considered somewhat fanciful — not to mention what seemed the remote prospect of his actually winning the presidency. But that general impression would change — and fairly rapidly.

It may be largely forgotten now, but Trump actually lost the Iowa Republican caucuses, first trial vote of the year, to arch-conservative Texas Senator Ted Cruz. And when I made my quadrennial visit to New Hampshire to check out the candidates, both Democratic and Republican, I had my doubts about The Donald. In my first online report from New Hampshire, on February 8th, here’s part of what I said:

“But for all the polls that still have Trump way ahead of his GOP rivals — by something like 20 points, at last reckoning — I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up suffering another major embarrassment like that which befell him in his second-place finish to Ted Cruz in Iowa last week. 

“So far I’ve only seen him in action in Saturday night’s debate of the remaining Republican contenders in Bedford, and, in all honesty, it was difficult to see Trump as a major figure in that event, or, for that matter, retrospectively over the course of the debates and cattle-call forums to date.”

I began to be disabused of that foolish conclusion (“foolish” because I mistook Trump’s lack of attention to issues in a debate to be a disqualifier) when I traveled through a blizzard to see his magic with crowds — and his fundamental uniqueness — at an indoor mega-rally in the state capital of Manchester the very next night.

That was the night that Trump shattered all verbal precedent by referring to Cruz, at the time his major GOP opponent, as a “pussy.” Granted, he was just channeling what he’d heard a woman supporter call out from the crowd, but still …

My online take: “The battle lines are now clear on an issue, perhaps the defining one, of Trump’s campaign — that of political correctness. Oh, go ahead and heap some other adjectives on: Social correctness. Verbal correctness. Philosophical correctness. What you will. The man is come not to uphold the law but to abolish it. 

“In a campaign based on the most broad-brush attitude imaginable toward political issues, it is Trump’s fundamental iconoclasm that stands out. Be it ethnic groups, war heroes, disabled persons, gender equities, or linguistic norms, Trump is dismissive of all protocols.” 

Trump won New Hampshire, easily, and, from that point on, was basically on a roll. He had the obvious aura of a winner by the time he took his road show to Shelby County on February 28th, appearing before a crowd of thousands gathered at a Millington hangar.

From my report: “The crowd, which was plainly not the usual muster of political junkie-dom (though any number of local GOP regulars could be spotted here and there) was uproariously with him … chanting “Win! Win! Win!” [W]hen, as often happens at one of his rallies, a protester began to chant against him from inside the hangar, he calmly directed the crowd to ‘get him out’ but ‘don’t hurt him.’ And so the crowd did, with its counter-chant morphing from ‘Trump! Trump! Trump!’ to ‘Win! Win! Win!’ And finally to ‘U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!’

“Call it what else you will, but this is a movement.”

And a movement it would remain, all the way through Trump’s primary victories, a turbulent GOP convention in Cleveland, and a rancorous fall campaign against overconfident Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Finally, there was the astonishing moment of truth, agonizing for so many, galvanizing for so many others, that was summed up by the now famous Flyer cover of the November 10th issue, showing a victorious Trump in profile over a capitalized caption: “WTF?”

And those bare letters (understandably controversial at the time, though they merely used a common cyber-motif to express a shocked befuddlement that we suspect was experienced by Trump himself) continue to express our — and the world’s — uncertainty as we await the forthcoming reign of The Donald.

OTHER  ELECTIONS: Most local interest was focused on the hotly contested Republican primary for the 8th Congressional District seat vacated by U.S. Representative Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump. A large field competed, including several local politicians. In the end, former U.S. Attorney David Kustoff would come from behind and edge out runner-up George Flinn, the wealthy businessman/physician who had previously served on the Shelby County Commission. Kustoff easily defeated Democrat Rickey Hobson in November.

STATE POLITICS: The prevailing fact of life in state government in 2016 was the same-old, same-old domination of all affairs by a Republican super-majority in the legislature. The upset victory in November of Democrat Dwayne Thompson over GOP state Representative Steve McManus was one of the few circumstances to counter the trend.

An early excitement in Nashville was the deposing of sexual predator Jeremy Durham (R-Franklin), first, from his perch in the GOP leadership, then from his party’s caucus, and, finally, from the General Assembly itself through expulsion.

From Memphis’ point of view, the crowning moment of the legislature had to be the dramatic turnaround of  a stealth de-annexation bill that was on the very brink of detaching from Memphis every territory annexed by the city since 1998. A concerted last-ditch effort by a coalition of city interests turned the tide and diverted the measure to the limbo of summer study.

From my article on that outcome: “‘We really had no idea this was going to happen. But it was the best possible result, obviously. This is really a victory for the entire state,’ said Phil Trenary, the Greater Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce head who had been in Nashville last week and this week opposing the bill.”

The issue of de-annexation is not dead, however. It was the subject of serious examination by local governmental task forces, and it will almost certainly return to the legislative calendar in 2017.

CITY AND COUNTY POLITICS: The first day of the year saw the inauguration of a new mayor, former Councilman Strickland, and of six new council members. One sentence of Strickland’s well-received  inaugural address expressed a painful reality: “We are a city rife with inequality; it is our moral obligation, as children of God, to lift up the poorest among us.” Another acknowledged a problem that still remains: “We will focus on the goal of retaining and recruiting quality police officers and firefighters, knowing public safety is at the forefront of rebuilding our city.”

A new police director, Michael Rallings, was appointed from the department’s ranks, as the city confronted an alarming rise in homicides.
Late in the year, Strickland launched a “Memphis 3.0” initiative to devise a new long-range plan for the city via a series of neighborhood meetings.

The dominant motif of the Shelby County Commission’s year was a back-and-forth power struggle with Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell, focused on such matters as control of fiscal policy and the commission’s desire to have its own attorney, distinct from the county attorney’s office. The matter was one of several still hanging fire at the end of the year, though Terry Roland, of Millington, commission chair for much of the year, led the way with Heidi Shafer in getting a referendum passed extending the commission’s advise-and-consent power to the firing as well as the hiring of a county attorney.

Roland made it clear that he intended to run for county mayor himself in 2018, with another likely entry being that of County Trustee David Lenoir. Meanwhile, Linda Phillips became the new county election administrator.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS: The city council approved a measure to liberalize the penalties for marijuana possession. The Shelby County Commission failed to follow suit, and state Attorney General Herb Slatery’s opinion that state policy prohibited such local ordinances doused expectations, but reports were that medical marijuana might have new life in next year’s General Assembly. 

At year’s end, a major argument had erupted between local environmentalists and TVA over the authority’s intent to drill wells into the Memphis Sand aquifer in order to cool a forthcoming new power plant. Watch this space. 

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Shelby County Politics Wrap Up

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

At press time on Tuesday, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) was scheduled to make one more effort, via a unanimous-consent request on the floor of the Senate, to get a vote on the confirmation of Ed Stanton III of Memphis as U.S. District Judge. 

Stanton, now serving as U.S. Attorney for Tennessee’s Western District, was nominated by President Obama in May 2015 to succeed Judge Samuel H. “Hardy” Mays.

Sponsored by 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis, a Democrat, and heartily endorsed by Tennessee’s two Republican Senators, Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, Stanton was expected to be a shoo-in for Senate confirmation long ago, but the same partisan gridlock that has prevented Senate action on Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland has held up action on Stanton and other judicial nominees.

• The two major political parties have both now established local headquarters for the stretch drive of the presidential race. 

The Republicans went first, opening up a combination HQ for 8th District congressional nominee David Kustoff and the coordinated GOP campaign at 1755 Kirby Parkway on August 31st. The Democrats will open theirs, at 2600 Poplar, with an open house this Saturday. 

At the GOP headquarters opening, Kustoff spoke first, then Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland, as West Tennessee chairman for Donald Trump. Next up was Lee Mills, interim Shelby GOP chair (he replaced Mary Wagner, who had been nominated for a judgeship). He began recognizing Republican gentry in the room.

When Mills got to David Lenoir, the Shelby trustee who’s certain to oppose Roland for county mayor in 2018, he fumbled with Lenoir’s job title, then somewhat apologetically said, “David, I always want to call you tax collector.” Roland then shouted out delightedly, “I do, too!”

• Given the overwhelmingly Republican nature of voting in the 8th District in recent years, Kustoff’s chances of prevailing are better than good, but for the record, Rickey Hopson of Somerville is the Democratic nominee. Hopson is making the rounds, having spoken at last month’s meeting of the Germantown Democratic Club, one of several local Democratic clubs taking up the slack for the Shelby County Democratic Party, decertified by state Democratic chair Mary Mancini several weeks ago.

Another Democratic underdog challenging the odds is Dwayne Thompson, the party’s candidate for the state House District 96 seat (Cordova, Germantown) now held by the GOP’s Steve McManus. A fund-raiser is scheduled for Thompson next Wednesday, September 28th, at Coletta’s Restaurant on Highway 64.

Memphis lawyer John Ryder, who currently serves as RNC general counsel and who supervised both parties’ rules changes and the RNC’s redistricting strategy after the census of 2010, has been named Republican Lawyer of the Year by the Republican National Lawyers Association and will be honored at a Washington banquet of the RNLA at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington on Tuesday, September 27th. “Special guests” will include Senator Corker and RNC chairman Reince Priebus.