Tag: Deidre Malone

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Politics Politics Feature

And There’s Deidre …

Ever since the names of state senator Jim Kyle and county commissioner Steve Mulroy were mentioned in a recent column as possible Democratic candidates for county mayor in 2014, numerous plugged-in sorts have made a point of reminding me that former county commissioner Deidre Malone is almost certain to be a candidate.

Malone, who was edged out in a bid for county mayor by then provisional mayor Joe Ford in 2010, confirms that she’s likely to run. And she has experience and relationships that would enable her to run seriously. A longtime Democratic Party activist, Malone served two terms on the commission, from 2002 to 2010. She subsequently ran Memphis mayor A C Wharton‘s successful 2009 reelection campaign. She served two five-year terms on the Shelby County Housing Authority and is currently a member of the city/county EDGE board and the Memphis-Shelby County Port Commission. And she runs the Carter-Malone public relations firm.

•  While we’re speculating on names of possible future candidates, an interesting email came through the transom this week from a well-informed friend who suggests that Wharton is almost certain to run for reelection in 2015 and wonders who might be wanting to succeed him in 2019.

Sez he: “The general consensus seems that people need to be positioning themselves now for a run at the big chair when that time comes … but nobody really is. There are a few usual suspects that pop up in conversation (Darrell Cobbins, Tomeka [Hart], Mike Carpenter, [Jim] Strickland, [Harold] Collins, Paul Morris, and Keith Norman).”  

All of the aforementioned seem credible and credentialed enough. Cobbins is a longtime activist and former MLGW chairman; Hart has served as local Urban League head and on the MSC and Unified school boards and ran for Congress in the 9th District last year; Carpenter, currently an aide to Wharton, served two terms on the county commission and, until recently, represented the StudentsFirst organization in Nashville.

Strickland and Collins are both city council members who have been prominent as budget chairman and council chairman, respectively; Morris is head of the Downtown Memphis Commission; and Norman is a local Baptist minister who has been Shelby County Democratic chairman and was recently cited by the White House for his efforts to stem youth violence.

Of course, 2019 is a long way off.

 

• NOTES FROM NASHVILLE — Shelby County Democrats voted overwhelmingly for the winner in last Saturday’s election contest for a new state party chairman.

The winner, by a 32-27 vote of state executive committee members, was former legislator Roy Herron of Dresden, who as a late entry overcame what had earlier appeared to be a consensus in favor of Dave Garrison of Nashville, who had been serving as party treasurer.

The vote by Shelby Countians was nine for Herron, a fellow West Tennessean, and three for Garrison.

• Governor Bill Haslam, ever adept at walking political tightropes, managed several versions of the feat during his 2013 State of the State address before a joint legislative session in the House chamber and before whatever political junkies might have tuned in to a statewide multimedia simulcast.

On several key issues, the governor expressed himself with studious ambiguity — notably on the still pending matter of Medicaid expansion under the terms of the Affordable Care Act. “Most of us in this room don’t like the Affordable Care Act, but the decision to expand Medicaid isn’t as basic as saying, ‘No ObamaCare, No expansion,'” he said. In other words, he was carefully weighing the issue.

On the one hand, “The federal government is famous for creating a program and then withdrawing the funds years later, which leaves state governments on the hook.” That was apropos conservative opponents’ expressed fears — embodied in new prohibitive legislation sponsored by state senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown).

But on the other hand, “There are hospitals across this state, many of them in rural communities, that are going to struggle, if not close, under the health-care law without expansion.” For “hospitals,” read: sources of serious lobbying efforts for expansion.

And, regarding proposed legislation to enable state vouchers for use in private schools (including a far-reaching variant by the self-same Kelsey), Haslam was able to thread his way through the controversial issue without ever even using the word “voucher” at all. Still, the governor left no doubt that he would be pushing a “school choice” proposal, one that focused on low-income students, and he balanced that with boasts that he had greatly increased financial support — $47 million, over and above annual funding — for the struggling schools that might lose students through a voucher program.

What was interesting about the SOTS address from the standpoint of audience reaction in the chamber was that every time Governor Haslam mentioned this or that new expenditure — $51 million for “technology transition upgrades in schools across the state”; $16.5 million for workforce development programs; $45 million for a new community health facility at the University of Memphis; $58 million for new jails and prisons, etc., etc. — he got substantial applause from the supermajority of supposed GOP tightwads.

True, too, however, that the governor stressed whenever possible anything he could refer to as a tax cut — in levies on groceries, for example; or in the state inheritance tax (which he, admirably, declines to call a “death tax)”; or on gift taxes; or on the Hall income tax — and he got the same prolonged applause.

Haslam briefly boasted about his educational reforms and improved student performance on standardized tests. He touted a variety of public-private partnerships in the marketplace and an increase in the number of state jobs. He circled around a couple of problem areas — issues within the department of children’s services, for example, concerning which he spoke mainly of “upgrading nearly 200 case manager positions” and “guns and schools,” which he morphed into a call for “a larger conversation about mental health issues, identifying warning signs, and getting people the help they need.”

One of Haslam’s strongest stands concerned his support for stability in the state’s procedures for making judicial appointments. He noted that a pending 2014 referendum calls for modest changes and said, “I … believe that it makes sense to preserve the current process until the people have a chance to vote. … Making changes in the meantime does nothing but confuse the situation further.”

At the very onset of his speech, Haslam hit one inescapable issue head-on: “I believe we have to begin this evening by addressing the elephant in the room — or I guess I should say the elephants in the room. There are a lot of expectations and preconceived notions about how our Republican supermajority is going to govern. … As we go through this legislative session, I ask everyone in this chamber this evening to keep in mind what Senator [Howard] Baker said: ‘The other fellow may be right.'”

And in the spirit of that suggested bipartisanship, the only significant modification made by Haslam in his prepared text was an ad-libbed recognition of Memphis state representative and former House speaker pro tem Lois DeBerry for her 40 years of service in the legislature. That drew a standing ovation, as did several other tributes to various state employees whom he recognized for their superior performance.

In one sense, Haslam’s State of the State message left a lot of blanks to be filled. But in another sense, he filled as many as he could with what seemed to be encouraging data and honest feel-good sentiments.

• Several of the established lobbyists on Capitol Hill in Nashville have jumped at the chance to apply for the new position of lobbyist for the Shelby County Commission — one whose very existence attests to the continued strain between the county administration of Mayor Mark Luttrell and the commission as a whole.

Indeed, suspicion regarding the administration’s motives is one of the few circumstances which can unify the members of an oft-fractionated commission.

A solid commission front emerged recently when, as commissioners saw it, Luttrell unilaterally signed a provisional accord with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding Juvenile Court reforms, which members felt could obligate the commission financially.

In any case, the deadline was this week for applicants seeking to become commission lobbyist, and interviews could begin as soon as Wednesday of next week.

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Politics Politics Feature

Herenton After Hours

CREDIT: by Jackson Baker

Mayor Willie Herenton, known for his big plans and numerous controversies during the almost 13 years he has served as Memphis mayor, is famous within journalistic ranks for his candor. Though he can be as reticent as any other public figure in formal settings, even defiantly so on particularly sensitive subjects, the mayor can dish with the best of them when he wants to.

Herenton was in such a mood last Thursday night when, after arriving late at a fund-raiser at downtown’s Joysmith Studio for his friend, Shelby County commissioner Deidre Malone, he let himself go a little with a handful of attendees. Asked about the unfounded rumor that went around, and kept going around, two weekends ago, concerning what was supposedly his imminent indictment on federal charges, the mayor made no secret of his exasperation at the willingness of people, especially the media, to believe anything and everything about him.

“It’s unbelievable what they say!” Herenton exclaimed. He recalled another widespread rumor several years ago. “They said I was at Betty Ford and claimed they couldn’t find me. Well, all they had to do was look. I was in my office working!”

At the time, E.C. Jones, then a councilman from District 1, which cuts a swath across the city’s northernmost precincts from Frayser to Cordova, went public with his concerns that Herenton was nowhere to be found.

“Couldn’t find me!” the mayor expostulated. “Well, he could have found me if he wasn’t … .” Here came one or two unflattering epithets. The mayor went on. “He could have found me if he’d had enough sense to ride the elevator up two floors, from five to seven, and just look around.”

Herenton was dismissive about current suspicions that he was behind the surprise firing by new superintendent Kriner Cash of the Memphis school system’s former longtime athletic director, Wayne Weedon, and his replacement by David Gaines, who was once a basketball teammate of Herenton’s at LeMoyne-Owen College. “Is ‘Smokey’ Gaines an old friend of mine? Yes. Was he a treasured teammate of mine? Yes. Did I have anything to do with getting him hired? No. I never said a word about the matter. That was Kriner Cash all the way.”

(For the record, Cash has since complained that a recent, highly positive performance review had been missing from Weedon’s file when he reviewed it and indicated he thought the matter deserved to be investigated. Weedon is meanwhile on “special assignment.”)

The mayor offered an opinion on another issue, the sponsorship of potential referendum proposals to require City Council approval of city contracts and second-level mayoral appointments by Barbara Swearengen Wade, long presumed an unswerving Herenton loyalist. He saw it as a matter of payback. “I think she was perturbed by my support of changing police residency requirements,” said Herenton, who has favored a variety of proposals to expand the geographical areas from which police recruits can be drawn.

The mayor shrugged. “She feels very strongly that all city employees should reside in the city. I respect that, but I just need — the city needs — police officers, and we have to do what we have to do to attract them.”

Though Herenton was ostensibly in a lighthearted, jesting mood, the concerns of office dominated his conversation at the fund-raiser. Reminded of his teasing suggestion on two recent public occasions that he might choose to seek a sixth term, the mayor let his wide grin settle into a wan smile, then disappear altogether. “No,” he said. “No, it’s just too much … ” Momentarily he searched for the right word, then said it, softly and almost inaudibly, “… stress.”

Weighing Shelby’s Vote

• Though few people not in their dotage or approaching it can recall it, there once was a time when the phrase “Solid South” was used to describe the voting habits of the sprawling area coinciding more or less with the limits of the old Confederacy. The era of Democratic supremacy dated more or less from a decade or two before the Civil War through the election of President John F. Kennedy in 1960, when the majority of voters in every Southern state were so reliably Democratic that the phrase “tantamount to election” was used to describe the results of party primaries.

Now, of course, the voting habits of the South have largely flipped, and Republicans dominate the region’s vote — at least in presidential and major statewide elections. The one remaining place on the face of the earth that, in golf terms, has continued to be such a “gimme” for the Democrats, in local, statewide, and national voting, is Nashville/Davidson County.

That and the fact that Nashville is the state capital account for the predominance of the Middle Tennessee area in party fund-raising and in the incidence of Democratic nominees for statewide offices. Case in point for the former was the fact that 9th District congressman — and, not incidentally, former state senator — Steve Cohen had some of his major fund-raising events this year in Nashville. Case in point for the latter is the fact that two of the three major Democratic primary candidates for the U.S. Senate this year — Bob Tuke and Kenneth Eaton — hail from Nashville (the third, Mike Padgett, is from Knoxville).

What is unusual about the Senate primary that ends this week is that Tuke, regarded by most observers (and by his own polls) as the leader in that race, chose to make Shelby County the focus of his primary efforts — to the point of scheduling his election-night celebration for the Cadre Building in downtown Memphis. “We think this is where the decision will lie,” said an aide to the former Democratic Party chairman on an all-day swing through Shelby County on Saturday.

The thrust of his remark was that what is true for this week’s primary will hold true again for the November general election, when the Democratic Senate nominee will be up against it in a contest with the formidable Republican incumbent, Lamar Alexander.

Interestingly enough, Shelby County has figured large in another well-watched race — the Republican primary for Congress in the 7th District, a jurisdiction that snakes from Memphis’ eastern suburbs all the way into the western suburbs of Nashville.

Still regarded as a long shot, challenger Tom Leatherwood entered the last week of the primary hoping that home-county Shelby, where his yard signs have been plentiful of late, would give him a chance of overtaking the heavily favored incumbent, Marsha Blackburn of Williamson County.

• As Election Day approached, the voting patterns of Shelby County, as evinced during the two-week early-voting period, were subject to a variety of interpretations.

Bill Giannini, the Republican candidate for assessor against Democrat Cheyenne Johnson, saw the early stats as ominous, e-mailing a “Campaign Update” to his supporters that warned “Democrat turnout is at record levels in some Memphis precincts” and urged remedial action via a 72-hour get-out-the-vote operation.

The overall statistics on which Giannini based his conclusions went this way: Of the slightly more than 22,000 total ballots cast during early voting, 14,277 were by persons classifying themselves as black, 4,019 by self-identified whites, and 3,900 by persons choosing the description “other.” It is the hard-to-define demographics of that last category that could tell the tale in several close races.

A fair number of the “other” voters are presumed to be Asians and Hispanics, but many, too, are local residents who simply bridle at the idea of racial classification and choose not to identify themselves by race. Depending on how the “other” category breaks down, it could alter — minutely or substantially — the results that can be extrapolated from the ratio of self-identified black and white voters.

Clearly, Giannini is correct in that early voting, with its heavy concentration of African-American voters, favored Democratic candidates in head-on contests with Republicans. The effect of the ratio on other races is more uncertain, especially in regard to the 9th District contest between Cohen and primary opponent Nikki Tinker.

Democrat Cohen, it should be noted, has traditionally drawn Republican crossover votes, despite having a voting profile that is distinctly liberal, and several of his late ads and other pitches to voters have been thinly veiled appeals to GOP voters to come his way once again. In that sense, he and Leatherwood are involved in something of a competition.