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

State Capitol (Credit: Tennessee State Government)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Key Races on May 3 Primary Ballot

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris. (Courtesy Shelby County Government).


As of Thursday’s filing deadline, the lineup cards are in for the first major voting of the campaign year: the county Democratic and Republican primaries of May 3, pending withdrawals by next Thursday. Most of the primary races are between Democrats, though a serious showdown in August will come for some of those Democratic winners, as formidable Republican foes will await them on the general election ballot. (Incumbents’ names are in caps.)

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY

MAYOR: The County’s first-term chief executive, LEE HARRIS, will be favored against city administrator Kenneth Moody and Michael Banks. City Councilman Worth Morgan, a Republican, lies in wait for the August general election.

SHERIFF: FLOYD BONNER, JR., who also has de facto Republican endorsement, is highly favored against challenger Keisha Scott.

ASSESSOR: MELVIN BURGESS, who probably has ambitions down the line, should be secure against this relatively  unknown challenger, Roderick Blount.

CIRCUIT COURT CLERK: Veteran TEMIKA GIPSON will have all she can handle against challenger Jamita E. Swearengen, the current Memphis City Council chair and member of a prominent political clan.

COUNTY CLERK: Activist clerk WANDA HALBERT should be well positioned vs. Arriell Gipson (daughter of Temika Gipson), Mondell Williams, and William Stovall.

JUVENILE COURT CLERK: Retiring County Commissioner Reginald Milton could have brisk challenges from TV reporter Janeen Gordon, former School Board member Stephanie Gatewood, and Marcus Mitchell.

PROBATE COURT CLERK: BILL MORRISON is opposed by Eddie Chism and retiring County Commissioner Eddie Jones.

REGISTER: SHELANDRA FORD is matched against retiring Commissioner Willie Brooks and Wanda Faulkner.

TRUSTEE: REGINA NEWMAN will be highly favored against frequent candidates Roderic Ford and Marion Alexandria-Williams (aka M. LaTroy Williams). Former GOP County Commissioner Steve Basar will oppose the winner in August.

CRIMINAL COURT CLERK: HEIDI KUHN has won awards and is hustling hard to stave off a repeat primary  opponent, Carla Stotts, and Maeme Bernard.

DISTRICT ATTORNEY GENERAL: The celebrated legal activist Steve Mulroy, a former County Commissioner and University of Memphis law professor, is favored  against two able opponents, Linda Harris and Janika White, for the right to challenge the formidable Republican incumbent AMY WEIRICH in August.

COMMISSION #5: The newly forged Cordova seat on the County Commission has drawn three formidable aspirants, the Commission’s able administrative assistant Quran Folsom, recently retired School Board member Shante Knox-Avant, and Reginald French, a prominent aide to former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton.

COMMISSION #6: Minister/activist Charlie Caswell is matched against former Young Democrat president Alexander Boulton.

COMMISSION #7: Former legislator and Commissioner Henri Brooks is hazarding a comeback against School Board vice chair Althea Greene, Kathy Temple, and Cartavius Black.

COMMISSION #8: MICKELL LOWERY will run unopposed and will have no Republican opponent in August.

COMMISSION #9: EDMUND FORD, Jr. will defend his turf against contenders Sam Echols and Sean Harris.

COMMISSION #10: Activist Britney Thornton, she of the unofficial homeless shelter, vs. lawyer Kathy Kirk, member of a Memphis political family, and Teri Dockery.

COMMISSION #11: Human Resources specialist Candice Jones vs. School Board member Misaka Clay Bibbs and Eric Winston.

COMMISSION #12: Erika Sugarmon, the well-known activist and member of a legendary political family, has challengers in Reginald Boyce, David Walker, and Jasmes Bacchus.;

COMMISSION #13: MICHAEL WHALEY, running in a new district unopposed, will be challenged in August by Republican businessman Edward Apple.

Other Democratic candidates: Donna McDonald Martin vs. Kerry White in Commission District 1; Lynette Williams in Commission District 2; Britney Chauncey in Commission District 4.

REPUBLICAN PRIMARY

COUNTY COMMISSION # 4: In the only out-and-out Republican primary contest, BRANDON MORRISON is favored against challenger  Jordan Carpenter.

Running unopposed in the GOP primary are: Worth Morgan, Mayor; Stephen Cross, Assessor; Sohelia Kail, Circuit Court Clerk; Jeffrey Jacobs, County Clerk; Steve Basar, Trustee; Paul Houston, Criminal Court Clerk; Rob White, Juvenile Court Clerk; DeWayne Jackson, Probate Court Clerk;  Bryian Edmiston, Register; and District Attorney General AMY WEIRICH.

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Politics Politics Feature

MAD AS HELL: Keeping the Faith in God’s Own Party

As we all know, the president of the United States is
elected and swears to serve all citizens of this nation by protecting and
defending the Constitution rather than the Bible or any other religious text.
America, founded by men who in some instances proclaimed Jesus as their God,
was created to assure the freedoms of religion and conscience without regard
to an individual’s personal beliefs, creed, or worship practices.

The Republican Party appears to have abandoned any
commitment to this tenet of the Constitution and is positioned to elect a
preacher- in-chief whose first loyalty will be to the dogmas of Christian
Fundamentalism.

And they have a constituency. Across the country
sprawling corporate religious “lifestyle centers” serving more as Christian
country clubs than as houses of worship have produced congregations who foster
a blend of ostentatious piety, self-righteous intolerance, and unyielding
arrogance. For these parishioners, voting Republican is de rigueur.

Unprecedented amounts of wealth have been amassed in many
of these churches, not in small part as a result of the wealth-redistribution
policy of the Bush and Republican faith-based government programs established
in this century. The threat of losing this power and money may in fact be
looming large in the selection of the party’s nominee and in the desperately
pious tone, manner, and attitude of the Republican presidential acolytes.

Not to be outdone, the media, particularly cable
television punditry and radio talk show hosts, are reliably helping to advance
the idea of establishing a religious test. Although the last Republican
debate fielded questions created by viewers of You Tube, those questions were
vetted and selected by officials at CNN. Thus, all Republican presidential
candidates were asked by Wolf Blitzer if they believed in the inerrancy of the
Bible. (Any guesses as to how the pack of them answered?)

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a proud member of
God’s Own Party and an ordained Baptist minister, may be the most flagrant
offender against the Constitution. Mr. Huckabee recently told a group of
students at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University that his astonishing rise in
the Iowa polls is an act of God. He has also received letters of endorsement
from Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind series which extols the
Rapture as an imminent end-of-the-world phenomenon. Huckabee has stated on the
record that he does not believe in evolution and lists among the most urgent
issues facing the country the perils of abortion and gay marriage, as well as
threats to the unlimited rights of gun-owners. His frequent statements of
religiosity are delivered with a jocular smile and a sense of humor —
designed apparently to seem non-threatening to anyone who is not a believer.

As if this country hasn’t suffered enough division, enough
religious hypocrisy, and enough self-righteous intolerance in the last seven
years, now we have former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, an ex-moderate of
sorts, hastening to join the ranks of Christian soldiers in the Republican Party
and seeking like the rest to impose a religious obligation on political service.
His immediate motivation, amplified by concern about rival Huckabee, is to gain
the White House at any cost, but the ultimate result of his apostasy from reason
is to further decimate the wall of separation between Church and state in this
country–something most Christian fundamentalists disbelieve anyhow as a myth
concocted by them God-hating secular liberals.

Scarified by Huckabee’s surge, Mormon Romney has ramped up
his attempt to sway the fundamentalist crowds and seems determined to try to
one-up Preacher Huckabee. He may indeed have trumped Huckabee with this
mind-bending assertion: “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires
freedom—-Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.” Can Romney
really not know of the suppression, torture, and murder of heretics and infidels
by Christians (and members of virtually every other religion) throughout
history?

When candidates like Romney, Huckabee and others ratchet up
their effort to destroy the wall of separation built by the founders, it
requires somebody to ratchet right back. After all, it is an election that will
be held in America next November, not an altar call.

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Editorial Opinion

Tanner’s Prescription

One of the most enduring presences on the Tennessee political scene has been 8th District congressman John Tanner of Union City, a Democrat who, since his first election to the office as a state legislator in 1988, has never been seriously tested by an opponent, Republican or Democratic.

One of the reasons is that Tanner, though a leader of the Democrats’ conservative “Blue Dog” faction, faithfully attempts to strike a balance between competing points of view as well as to propitiate the expressed will of his constituents. Better than most faced with such a task, he avoids the “on the one hand/on the other hand” mode of temporizing, though the final result of his thinking doesn’t necessarily please everybody.

Such might be the case with his answer to a question posed to him last Friday night, when Tanner, something of a foreign-policy maven, was the featured speaker at the culminating “Frontline Politics” event sponsored by the Greater Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce at the East Memphis Hilton.

Whom should we side with in the ongoing confrontation in Pakistan between the autocratic government of Pervez Musharraf and ostensible democratic reformer Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister freshly returned from exile? Not an easy question, and Tanner, after ruminating out loud over the pros and cons of the matter, finally came down, reluctantly but decisively, on the side of the status quo. What’s at stake in the region is stability, the congressman said, and that’s especially needful in the case of Pakistan, not only a de facto ally in the so-called war on terror but a country in possession of a decent-sized nuclear arsenal.

Not everybody will be satisfied with Tanner’s conclusion, especially those who see the issue posed in Pakistan to be the simple one of tyranny versus democracy. And who, after all, can fail to be inspired by the spectacle of all those protesting lawyers in business suits who let themselves be carted off to jail by the current regime’s police?

Even so, there are good reasons to heed Tanner’s caveat, especially since one of Musharraf’s accomplishments in office, through fair means or foul, has been to repress the ever-present minions of al-Qaeda, who are well represented in Pakistan and who are thought to be providing a haven there for Osama bin Laden. How certain can we be that Bhutto, who had tendencies toward authoritarianism (and corruption) herself before being thrown out of office in 1996, would be able to keep the lid on the problem?

Beyond that, our experience in Iraq has surely taught us something about the dangers of overthrowing dictators. Saddam Hussein was no paragon, to say the least. But he was A) secular and B) strong enough to hold the festering parts of that country together against potential (now long since actualized) religious anarchy. Much the same can be said of Musharraf, and it has to be considered, as Tanner indicated, whether the cure for authoritarian regimes (which are surely to be preferred to totalitarian ones) can be worse than the illness.

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Politics Politics Feature

Looking Ahead

“The tide is turning.” That’s Jim Kyle‘s confident declaration about the forthcoming election season in state government. Kyle, the Memphis Democrat who leads his party in the Tennessee state Senate, cites a number of precedents for his belief that 2008 will be a triumphant year for long-suffering state Democrats, who have been seeing their legislative numbers recede for a decade or two.

“Democrats just took over the Virginia state Senate, for one thing. And we’ve got more Democrats running in Republican districts, even in East Tennessee, than we ever had before,” Kyle said Tuesday — the very day that his opposite number, GOP Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, was due in Shelby County for a meeting of the East Shelby Republican Club.

Ramsey, a Blountville Republican, came with Mark Norris, a Shelby Countian who is currently serving as the Senate Republican leader and who, Kyle and most other observers believe, wants to succeed Ramsey as Speaker and lieutenant governor should the GOP regain the tenuous majority it held for most of this year’s session and should Ramsey go on to run for governor in 2010, as all the selfsame observers expect.

“Oh, he’s running. No doubt about it,” said Kyle of his GOP counterpart’s gubernatorial hopes — though Ramsey’s immediate concerns are likely to be the same as Kyle’s: to gain a majority for his party in next year’s statewide legislative races. (For what it’s worth, the Democratic majority in the state House — 53 to 46, at the moment — is unlikely to be overturned, though the Republicans will surely try.)

As things stand now, the two major parties are tied in the Senate at 16-16. There is one “independent,” former Republican Micheal Williams of Maynardville, who was a reliable ally of (and vote for) John Wilder, the venerable Democrat who was deposed as Speaker early this year when Democrat Rosalind Kurita of Clarksville cast a surprise (and decisive) vote for Ramsey during Senate reorganization for the 2007-’08 term.

Kurita thereupon became Senate Speaker pro Tem, displacing Williams, who simmered quietly for a while then announced in mid-session last spring that he was leaving the GOP. Though he didn’t join the Democrats as such, he aligned with them for procedural purposes, giving Kyle’s party a technical majority by the thinnest possible margin.

When Chattanooga’s Ward Crutchfield, a longtime Democratic pillar in the Senate, was forced to resign after copping a guilty plea as a defendant in the Tennessee Waltz scandal, the Republicans nominated Oscar Brock, son of former U.S. senator Bill Brock, to vie for Crutchfield’s seat.

But Brock was beaten by Democrat Andy Berke in this month’s special election and with a percentage of the vote, 63 percent, that Kyle contends is 10 points in excess of the normal Democratic edge in the District 10 seat.

“That’s one more reason why I think the tide is moving our way,” Kyle said.

Of course, the Republicans are not sitting idly by without mounting a strategy of their own to gain control of the state Senate. They, too, evidently intend to compete seat by seat, district by district, as Kyle says the Democrats will, and one obvious GOP target is octogenarian Wilder of Somerville, who has so far given no indication whether he will seek reelection to his District 26 seat.

“Nobody knows. He’ll just have to decide how much he wants to be in the Senate for four more years,” said Kyle, who carefully skirted the issue of whether Wilder, who served as Speaker for 36 years until the narrow January vote that cast him out, might have ambitions of regaining the position. As Kyle noted, several other Democrats — not least, himself — might decide they want to be Speaker when the time comes.

Republican state representative Dolores Grisham, also of Somerville, has signaled her desire to compete for Wilder’s seat, and she expects to be strongly funded for the effort. “I don’t have any worries about John Wilder’s seat in a race against Dolores Grisham,” Kyle said drily.

In any case, the state Senate will be technically, and actually, up for grabs next year, and the two parties will both be making serious efforts. That fact may preclude Kyle’s making waves by recruiting a primary opponent for Kurita, whom he still has not forgiven for her vote on Ramsey’s behalf.

“We don’t,” the Democrats’ Senate leader said simply when asked how he and Kurita were getting along. That’s one thing that probably won’t change in 2008.

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Politics Politics Feature

Dem, GOP Leaders Differ on Wilder, Kurita, and Who Wins State Senate in 2008

On Tuesday, the two major party leaders of the currently
deadlocked Tennessee state Senate made competing claims about whether Democrats
or Republicans would control the chamber after the 2008 statewide elections.
Upon the defection from Republican ranks last spring of Republican Micheal
Williams of Maynardville, who supports the Democrats in procedural matters,
the count became 16 Democrats, 16 Republicans, and one independent, Williams.

“The tide is turning,” said Democratic leader Jim Kyle
of Memphis in a telephone chat from Nashville on Tuesday – meaning that the attrition factor which had worn away at
his party’s dominance of the Senate for a decade or so had been reversed. As
evidence of a pervasive Democratic trend, Kyle pointed to the recent capture of
the Virginia state Senate by Democrats and to the resounding special-election
victory in Tennessee’s District 10 of Democrat Andy Berke over Republican
Oscar Brock.

The latter victory was all the sweeter, said Kyle, because
it came in the wake of the potentially debilitating resignation from the seat of
longtime Chattanooga Democrat Ward Crutchfield, who had pleaded guilty to
an extortion charge in the Tennessee Waltz scandal.

“We’re going to run in every district, and we’ll win,” Kyle
said.

“He’s dreaming,” said Republican Senate Speaker and
lieutenant governor Ron Ramsey of Kyle’s claims. Ramsey, in town to address the
East Shelby Republican Club, said in fact that Kyle’s departure from reality had
begun with the “nightmare” of his own unexpected victory for the speakership on
January 9th of this year.

Ramsey’s win in January had been thanks to a surprise vote
for him by Democrat Rosalind Kurita of Clarksville, who departed party
ranks and thereby ousted longtime Speaker/Lt. Gov. John Wilder of
Somerville, the octogenarian who had served as Senate leader for 36 years until
this year.

After the “on again, off again” transfer of party power of
the 2007 legislative session, the GOP would regain control of the Senate in
2008, Ramsey said confidently.

The two leaders also had varying viewpoints on whether
Wilder would attempt reelection – and another try at the speakership — next
year. “He’ll have to decide how badly he wants to serve in the Senate for four
more years,” was the cautiously stated estimate of Kyle, who almost certainly
will be a candidate for the speakership himself.

Ramsey was less uncertain. “If he’s living, he’s running,”
the GOP leader said bluntly of Wilder. If Wilder does run, he will likely be
opposed by Republican state Representative Dolores Gresham, also of
Somerville, who has announced her candidacy and is actively sounding out
support.

Ramsey and Wilder also had differing attitudes toward
Kurita. The Republican, who had, as virtually his first act as Speaker,
appointed Kurita Senate Speaker pro Tem (ousting Williams in the process), spoke
fondly and familiarly of “Rosalind,” while Kyle, when asked earlier in the day
how he and Kurita were getting along, said simply, “We don’t.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Mike McWherter No Go for Senate, Will , er, “Spend More Time” With Family

CREDIT: jb

West Tennessee businessman Mike McWherter,only recently the toast of Tennessee Democrats as their likely U.S. candidate against Lamar Alexander next year, is toast in the other sense of the term now. The former governor’s son won’t run.

Here is McWherter’s statement upon opting out:

“Over the past few months, I’ve been honored to receive overwhelming support by Tennesseans from all walks of life encouraging me to run for U.S. Senate. It’s clear that people want change in Washington, D.C., and I’ve spent considerable time, especially over the past two months, exploring the possibility of running. However, after careful consideration, I’ve decided the timing just isn’t right for me or my family.

“The reality is: the demands of raising millions of dollars in short order and running an intense 12-month campaign simply are not in the best interests of my family right now. With two kids in high school, I had the choice of being able to savor every day of their remaining years at home, or missing a good part of that time on the campaign trail and in Washington. I’m choosing to focus on them.

“While I’ve ruled out running for the US Senate, I continue to be interested in public service and want to do whatever I can to help move our state and country in a positive direction. That includes lending my support to whoever the eventual Democratic nominee should be. Given the dramatic change that’s occurring in our country, and the exodus that’s occurring in the Senate, it’s clear that the time is right for a candidate who has the time and resources to take on Senator Alexander and help usher in change to Washington.

“Finally, to everyone who expressed their support during my exploratory efforts: Thank you very much. I’m fortunate to have had the support of my father, wife and children, as well as Democrat and Republican friends from across the state. I look forward to talking with them in the future as we all work to keep improving our state and nation.”

McWherter’s campaign had been expected to capitalize on the name of his father, Ned McWherter, the former two-term governor.

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Politics Politics Feature

Clinton-Thompson Race Would be Close in Tennessee, Survey Says

CREDIT: FreakingNews.com

Tennesseans tend to pick Republican favorite son Fred Thompson when asked which 2008 presidential hopeful they support, but in hypothetical head-to-head contests, Democrat Hillary Clinton runs very close behind him and ties national Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani, a new poll by Middle Tennessee State University shows.

Thirty-two percent of Tennessee adults choose Thompson when asked whom they most favor in the 2008 election. Clinton attracts 25 percent, while Giuliani and Illinois Democratic Sen. Barak Obama draw 9 percent each. Nine percent name Republican Arizona Senator John McCain, and the rest choose someone else.

In a hypothetical head-to-head contest, though, Thompson garners 50 percent to Clinton’s 42 percent, with 4 percent choosing neither and the rest unsure. Considering the poll’s error margin (plus or minus four percentage points), Thompson’s lead over Clinton is small, and the two could even be tied.

Pitted against Obama, Thompson wins more handily, drawing 55 percent compared to Obama’s 34 percent, with 7 percent choosing neither and the rest unsure. In a hypothetical race between Clinton and Giuliani, meanwhile, the two tie, drawing 43 percent each with 11 percent saying they’d vote for neither and the rest not sure.

“In sum, a Thompson-Obama contest would be the best-case scenario for Tennessee’s Republicans under present conditions,” said MTSU poll director Ken Blake.

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Politics Politics Feature

The Final Four

Say this for the 2007 incarnation of the Shelby County Election Commission: Its members are trying. Right or wrong, that’s something that various critics doubted about the 2006 version of the commission, plagued by late and lost returns, ineffective software, erratic machines, incorrect election screens, and post-election printouts whose totals were entered in some kind of unintelligible Martian algebra.

“We got started on a rough, rough road,” acknowledged then chairman Greg Duckett, who has moved on since then to the state Election Commission. Another Democratic commissioner, Maura Black Sullivan, was not reappointed by her party’s General Assembly contingent. The Democratic legislators opted to fill the two vacancies with two Democrats who, coincidentally or not, had past grievances related to the commission.

One was Shep Wilbun, a defeated candidate for Juvenile Court clerk who had unsuccessfully challenged the 2006 election results. The other was former longtime commissioner Myra Styles, returning after being purged four years earlier.

Completing the cycle of reconstruction, Styles was promptly named chairman. The third Democrat on the commission was yet another vindicated retread, O.C. Pleasant, who had been replaced as chairman a term earlier by the now-departed Duckett. The two Republican members, Rich Holden and Nancye Hines, were holdovers.

Whether because of improved oversight or simple good luck, the new commission seems to have had better results than their snake-bit predecessors. Concise, easy-to-read reports have been regularly circulated to the media concerning early voting for the four City Council positions that are at stake in Thursday’s runoff elections.

Cumulatively, these reports have yielded the information that, after a sluggish start on October 19th, certain of the 27 early-voting locations had late spurts.

Leading all locations as of Saturday, when early voting ended, was Cordova’s Bert Ferguson Community Center, with 952 voters. A fair amount of voting (282) also occurred at Anointed Temple of Praise, a southeasterly suburban location, suggesting reasonably organized voting in the District 2 contest between Bill Boyd and Brian Stephens.

Heading into Thursday, Stephens, a businessman/lawyer/neighborhood activist with Republican affiliations, was getting a surprising amount of support from influential local Democrats, while longtime political figure Boyd, endorsed by the Shelby County GOP, boasted endorsements from most of the seven other candidates eliminated in general-election voting on October 4th.

Relatively stout voting at Pyramid Recovery Center (544) and Bishop Byrne School (674) indicated the level of voter interest in District 6 (riverfront, South Memphis) and District 3 (Whitehaven), respectively.

The District 6 race was between Edmund Ford Jr. and James O. Catchings, the former a beneficiary of legacy voting habits, the latter depending on support from declared reformists. The District 3 contestants were youngish governmental veteran Harold Collins, who was favored, and educator Ike Griffith.

A turnout of 453 at Raleigh United Methodist Church documented the tight race expected in District 1 between school board member Stephanie Gatewood and teacher Bill Morrison. Gatewood, the only female candidate in the runoff roster, stood to benefit if gender voting patterns, 60 percent female and 40 percent male in early voting, continued on Thursday. Participation in early voting by acknowledged African Americans was at the same level (47.1 percent) as their percentage in the available voting pool. Apparent white participation in early voting was at the level of 37.6 percent, compared to the corresponding figure of 26.3 percent in the pool of registered voters for the four districts.

What made precise demographic reckoning difficult, however, was general confusion as to just who made up the category of voters self-described as “other,” a grouping that accounts for 26.6 percent of the registered-voter pool but only 15.3 percent of early voters.

And what made predictions of any kind difficult was the fact that only 1.5 percent of available registered voters took part in early voting. As always in the case of special elections or runoffs, final victory would belong to whichever candidates mounted the most effective get-out-the-vote efforts.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

POLITICS: The Final Four

Say this for the 2007 incarnation of the Shelby County
Election Commission. Its members are trying.

Right or wrong, that’s something that various critics
doubted about the 2006 version of the commission, plagued by late and lost
returns, ineffective software, erratic machines, incorrect election screens, and
post-election printouts whose totals were entered in some kind of unintelligible
Martian algebra.

“We got started on a rough, rough road,” acknowledged then
chairman Greg Duckett at a post-mortem following an August election cycle
that was sabotaged by all of the above gremlins and more.

Duckett has moved on since then, to the state Election
Commission. Another Democratic commissioner, Maura Black Sullivan, was
not reappointed by her party’s General Assembly contingent. The Democratic
legislators opted to fill the two vacancies with two Democrats who,
coincidentally or not, had past grievances related to the commission.

One was Shep Wilbun, a defeated candidate for
Juvenile Court clerk who had unsuccessfully challenged the 2006 election
results. The other was former longtime commissioner Myra Styles,
returning after being purged four years earlier.

Completing the cycle of reconstruction, Styles was promptly
named chairman. The third Democrat on the commission was yet another vindicated
retread, O.C. Pleasant, who had been replaced as chairman a term earlier
by the now departed Duckett.

The two Republican members – Rich Holden and
Nancye Hines – were holdovers.

Whether because of improved oversight or simple good luck,
the new commission seems to have had better results than their snake-bit
predecessors. Though Mayor Willie Herenton made a point of challenging
the accuracy of the Diebold machines being used in this year’s city elections,
he ultimately was unable to deliver convincing examples.

As for last year’s hieroglyphic-like, analysis-defying
election returns, some hope of improvement has been kindled of late by an omen
of sorts. Concise, easy-to-read reports have been regularly circulated to the
media concerning early voting for the four city-council positions that are at
stake in Thursday’s runoff elections.

Cumulatively, these reports have yielded the information
that, after a sluggish start on October 19th, certain of the 27 early-voting
locations had late spurts.

Leading all locations as of Saturday, when early voting
ended, was Cordova’s Bert Ferguson Community Center, with 952 voters. Coupled
with the fact that a fair amount of voting (282) also occurred at Anointed
Temple of Praise, a southeasterly suburban location, that suggested reasonably
organized voting in the District 2 contest between Bill Boyd and Brian
Stephens.

Heading into Thursday, Stephens, a
businessman/lawyer/neighborhood activist with Republican affiliations, was
getting a surprising amount of support from influential local Democrats, while
longtime political figure Boyd, endorsed by the Shelby County GOP, boasted
endorsements from most of the seven other candidates eliminated in
general-election voting on October 4th.

Relatively stout voting at Pyramid Recovery Center (544)
and Bishop Byrne School (674) indicated the level of voter interest in District
6 (riverfront, south Memphis) and District 3 (Whitehaven), respectively.

The District 6 race was between Edmund Ford Jr. and
James O. Catchings, the former a beneficiary of legacy voting habits, the
latter depending on support from declared reformists. The District 3 contestants
were youngish governmental veteran Harold Collins, who was favored,and educator Ike Griffith.

A turnout of 453 at Raleigh United Methodist Church
documented the tight race expected in District 1 between school board member
Stephanie Gatewood and teacher Bill Morrison. This is the only
runoff race in which demographics could have played a part, though both Gatewood,
an African American, and Morrison, who is white, made a point of pitching voters
across the board.

Gatewood, the only female candidate in the runoff roster,
stood to benefit if gender voting patterns, 60 percent female and 40 percent
male in early voting, continued on Thursday. Participation in early voting by
acknowledged African Americans was at the same level (47.1 percent) as their
percentage in the available voting pool.

Apparent white participation in early voting was at the
level of 37.6 percent, compared to the corresponding figure of 26.3 percent in
the pool of registered voters for the four districts.

What made precise demographic reckoning difficult, however,
was general confusion as to just who made up the category of voters
self-described as “other.,” a grouping that accounts for 26.6 percent of the
registered-voter pool but only 15.3 percent of early voters.

And what made
predictions of any kind difficult was the fact that only 1.5 percent of
available registered voters took part in early voting. As always in the case of
special elections or runoffs, final victory would belong to whichever candidates
mounted the most effective Get-Out-the-Vote efforts.