A persistent issue in Tennessee government is that of whether state law should trump the preferences of local jurisdictions. Two tests of the proposition are now before the General Assembly. One concerns Senate Bill 29 by state Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown). Passed last week by the Senate and pending in House committee, the bill would strike down local residence requirements for first responders.
Another measure, House Bill 1280, by state Representative Tom Leatherwood (R-Arlington), would outlaw partisan primaries for judicial or local political offices in counties containing populations greater than 500,000 (Shelby County and Davidson County). This bill is now before the Senate State Local Government Committee and the House Elections and Campaign Finance Committee. In a preliminary committee vote, the Shelby County Commission voted 7-2 last week on a resolution to oppose the Leatherwood bill.
Joining other bar associations statewide, the Memphis Bar Association issued a statement on Friday “strongly condemning” a Republican-backed Tennessee House resolution that would initiate a process to remove Nashville Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle from office. House Resolution 23 (HR 23), said the MBA, “is as undemocratic as it is dangerous and flatly forbidden by the separation of powers principles enshrined in the Tennessee Constitution.”
The resolution, sponsored by state Representative Tim Rudd (R-Murfreesboro), has numerous GOP signers in the state House, and at least one Republican state Senator, Frank Nicely of Strawberry Plains, has indicated he will sponsor an equivalent resolution in his chamber.
TN State Senator Brian Kelsey
Ruling on a suit last year by Up the Vote 901, a Memphis group, and the state ACLU, Lyle ordered state absentee voting restrictions relaxed to allow universal mail-in voting in view of the ongoing pandemic. The state appealed, and her order was later modified somewhat by the state Supreme Court, but it resulted in the acknowledgment of COVID-19 as a factor weighing in favor of an absentee-voting application.
• It is hard to believe that I won’t get to see Drew Daniel again. Although he had become 40-something and thereby ineligible to be a member of the Young Republicans, he was given permanent status as “honorary elder” by that local group even as he rose in estimation among his party’s seniors, winning their Statesman Award in 2019 for the 9th Congressional District.
Though he was a legacy Republican from an established GOP family, he was an almost archetypal version of the youthful political activist — the eternal volunteer and doorbell-ringer — idealistic, dedicated, in for the outreach as well as the fellowship. He was somehow untarnished by the seamier, cynical side of politics and utterly uninvolved with anything slashing or over-ideological.
Drew died over the weekend, and this came as a total surprise to many who knew him. He apparently suffered from diabetes, a disease that, it would seem, figured in his demise. Granted, he was physically frail in appearance, though appearances could be deceiving. He was a runner and was used to running 10 miles a day. As recently as the big snow, he kept to that pace while the rest of us were shivering in our blankets. I always enjoyed seeing Drew on my political rounds. He was the sincerest and best kind of citizen, and as likable as anybody I’ve ever known. I don’t know how many friendships he had across party lines, but he deserved to have many.
• Former Memphian Hendrell Remus, who was recently elected chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party, will have a homecoming of sorts on Wednesday, March 24th, when he becomes the guest speaker, via Zoom, for the Germantown Democratic Club, an unusually active group that is resuming its pattern of regular meetings, suspended during the pandemic, and hopes to be resuming in-person meetings in short order.