Tag: Gabby Salinas

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Cohen, Sawyer, Salinas, Johnson Among Election Winners

Tami Sawyer (Photo: Courtesy Tami Sawyer)

There were no major — or even minor — surprises in the August 1st round of elections in Shelby County.

In the only county general race on the ballot, Democratic nominee Tami Sawyer defeated Republican nominee Lisa Arnold by 40,383 votes to 34,563 for the position of General Sessions clerk.

In the tightest race on the state and federal portion of the ballot, for the Democratic nomination for the open District 96 state representative seat, Gabby Salinas eked out a close win over runner-up Telisa Franklin, 2,168 votes to 2,036.

Others, with their vote totals, were Eric Dunn, 397; David Winston, 281; and Orrden Williams Jr., 52. 

There being no Republican candidate on the November 5th ballot, Salinas becomes, ipso facto, the state Representative-elect.

In the Democratic primary for United States Senate, Gloria Johnson, state representative of Knoxville, overcame runner-up Marquita Bradshaw, a Memphian who had been an upset winner of a previous Senate primary four years ago.

Votes statewide were: Johnson, 22,255; Bradshaw, 16,857; Lola Denise Brown, 3,585; and Civil Millder-Watkins, 1,875.

In November, Johnson will oppose incumbent Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, who won her primary with ease over Tres Wittum. The margin in Shelby was 25,2001 to 2,566.

In the Democratic primary for the 9th District U.S. representative seat, incumbent Steve Cohen easily won renomination. Votes were: Cohen, 29,818; Corey Strong, 7,115; M. Latroy A-Williams, 1,928; Kassandra L. Smith, 1,507.

Cohen will be opposed in November by Republican Charlotte Berman, who was unopposed in her primary.

In the Democratic primary for the 8th District congressional seat, Sarah Freeman won nomination with 2,661 votes. Others were: LunetteWilliams with 905 votes; Brenda Woods, 824; Leonard Perkins, 538; and Lawrence A. Pivnick, 762.

In November, Freeman will oppose incumbent Republican Rep. David Kustoff, who was unopposed in his primary.

In the Republican primary for state representative, District 97, incumbent John Gillespie defeated Christina Oppenhuizen, 4,910 votes to 236. He will be opposed in November by Democrat Jesse Huseth, who was unopposed in his primary.

In the Democratic primary for state representative, District 84, incumbent Joe Towns defeated Vernell Williams, 2,321 votes to 461.

In the Democratic primary for state representative, District 93, incumbent Rep. G.A. Hardaway defeated LaShanta Rudd, 2,209 votes to 730.

More results to come, including Shelby County School Board races. 

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Politics Politics Feature

The Last Straw?

Paul Young (Photo: Brandon Dill | MLK 50)

Push is coming to shove in the public outrage stemming from the shooting death last week of MPD Officer Joseph McKinney. And the shoving, on behalf of stouter crackdowns on local crime, is coming from more sources than ever before.

Mayor Paul Young, who has arguably been somewhat slow on the draw in fleshing out his crime program, cruising along with an interim police chief and nobody yet to fill his ballyhooed position of public safety director, is suddenly all cries and alarms.

Sounding almost like some of the more active Republican critics of Memphis crime in the legislature, Young released a statement including these words: “Together, let’s petition our judges and the DA for stronger, swifter sentencing for violent offenses. If you are part of the judicial system, hear my voice first. We need to work together to do better for our community.”

DA Steve Mulroy himself expressed anger that a $150,000 bond that he’d previously set for previous crimes committed by the youth suspected in the death of Officer McKinney had been somehow amended by a judicial commissioner to allow the youth back on the streets through his own recognizance.

And Shelby County Commissioner Mick Wright, a leading critic of the current crime wave, was warning, on behalf of his commission mates, “We are not finished. … You’re going to see some judges get exited stage left if I have anything to say about it.”

It was a definite irony that, scarcely a week after the MPD had announced the 100th homicide in Memphis this year, Young scheduled this week’s public celebration of his first 100 days in office at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church.

Perhaps the mayor will use that occasion to outline further his and the city council’s plan for a new nonprofit organization to reverse the crime trend.

• Former Shelby County Democratic chair Gabby Salinas, who in recent years ran two close races against established Republican office-holders, has a different situation on her hands this year.

She’s running for the state House District 96 seat being vacated by Democratic incumbent Dwayne Thompson. Not a Republican contestant in sight so far, but Salinas has four Democratic rivals — Eric Dunn, Telisa Franklin, Orrden Williams Jr., and David Winston. She remains the favorite.

• As mentioned in this space of late, Democrats are seriously contesting the state House District 97 seat now held by Republican John Gillespie. Mindful of the potential perils of procrastination, they brought out some heavy artillery last week.

At a fundraiser for party candidate Jesse Huseth at the home of attorney Robert Donati last week, an important attendee was 9th District U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, the county’s senior Democratic office-holder, who formally bestowed his endorsement on Huseth and was critical of Gillespie for legislative actions intended to shift various aspects of law-enforcement authority from the city to the state.

Cohen noted that the 97th, which was redistricted by the legislature last year, would now seem to be tilted demographically to Democrats in this election year — “up three points for Huseth and up five points for Biden.”

As Huseth himself put it, the East Memphis-based district had lost “four solid-red precincts and picked up two light-blue precincts and two light-red precincts.”

The point of the redistricting, which was carried out by the General Assembly’s GOP supermajority, remains something of a mystery, although it is said that Gillespie signed off on it, thinking it gave him more potential access to‚ and opportunity to serve, the business community.

• No doubt emboldened by the local unpopularity of Governor Bill Lee’s school-voucher program, which was formally opposed by the Memphis-Shelby County School Board and by the boards of the six municipal school districts as well, Democrats are taking another crack at the state House District 83 seat held by Mark White, House education chair and a champion of vouchers.

At least one Democrat is: political newcomer Noah Nordstrom, an MSCS Spanish teacher.

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News News Feature

Abortion Rights Supporters March in Downtown Memphis

Abortion rights supporters march on Beale Street on May 14, 2022. (photo by Chris McCoy)

Hundreds gathered in the hot sun to rally in support of abortion rights on Saturday in Downtown Memphis. The crowd was protesting the anticipated U.S. Supreme Court decision that would reverse the 50-year precedent of Roe v. Wade, the decision which affirmed women’s Constitutional right to abortion via their right to privacy.

A Planned Parenthood of Memphis and North Mississippi official declined to estimate how many attended the Bans Off Tennessee protest, beyond noting more than 1,200 had signed up for the event through the organization’s online organizing portal. The rally crowd spilled out of Ida B. Wells Plaza, dwarfing the dozen or so Proud Boys counter-protesters, who flashed white supremacist hand signs at the line of feminist protestors facing them across Beale Street.

A Proud Boy flashes a white power hand sign at abortion rights protestors. (photo by Chris McCoy)

Among the speakers at the hour-long rally were Tennessee House Representative London Lamar, scientist and Shelby County Democratic Party chairwoman Gabby Salinas, Planned Parenthood organizers Antoine Dandridge and Aerris Newton, Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer, and candidate for Tennessee State Senate Ruby Powell Dennis.

Planned Parenthood organizer Aerris Newton speaks next to the statue of Ida B. Wells. (photo by Chris McCoy)

After the rally, most of the attendees braved the heat to march down Beale Street, where tourists and revelers watched and took pictures of the throng. At one point, a street singer incorporated the marchers’ chant “My body, my choice” into a blues song.

Abortion rights protestors march down Beale Street. (photo by Chris McCoy)
A spectator applauds the marchers on Beale Street. (photo by Chris McCoy)

The marchers turned onto Main Street, where their chants of “No justice, no peace” echoed through the urban canyons. While taking pictures of the crowd, this reporter almost ran over Congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis, who was cheering on the marchers from the south sidewalk.

Abortion rights protestors march past the Orpheum in Downtown Memphis. (photo by Chris McCoy)

By this time, the tiny counter-protest had melted away. Beyond the occasional thumbs-down along the route, there were few signs of dissent from the marchers message in support of women’s rights to make their own reproductive health decisions.

Abortion rights protestors arrive at the National Civil Rights Museum. (photo by Chris McCoy)

The energized crowd arrived for a second rally at the National Civil Rights Museum, where organizer Newton led chants. Cohen thanked the marchers for braving the heat and told the crowd he was with them “one million percent.” Volunteers handed out water bottles as the protesters mixed about, sharing their stories of experiences with abortion and their personal awakening to the cause. No violence or arrests were observed.

Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9) rallies the crowd at the National Civil Rights Museum. (photo by Chris McCoy)
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Politics Politics Feature

After Kelsey

Brent Taylor exiting the SCEC (Credit: Jackson Baker)

One looks for potential shifts in political direction. One case where that is sure to happen is with state Senate District 31, whose seat-holder up to now has been Brian Kelsey, the erstwhile “Stunt Baby of Germantown,” who evolved from a prankster as minority member of the last Democratic-dominated House to a saboteur of the state constitution as a GOP senator in a supermajority Republican General Assembly, sponsoring an endless series of hyper-partisan constitutional amendments.

Though an engaging sort personally, Kelsey has been a take-no-prisoners type as a legislator, and his easy way with the machinations of the GOP’s extremist fringe was no doubt useful to him in a cutting-edge career that now, alas, has left him bleeding on the battlefield — indicted for campaign-finance violations and compelled to drop out of his re-election race while he prepares a legal defense.

Kelsey’s would-be successors in the Republican primary are wholly different types — all Republican regulars but all more at home in a bipartisan environment. That is certainly the case with Brent Taylor, who recently resigned as chairman of the Shelby County Election Commission and seeks state service as a way of crowning a career that has included significant stints on the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission.

Taylor, who once had an uncanny resemblance to the TV character Pee-wee Herman, has matured into a statesmanlike presence who had stabilizing roles as an elective politician and on the Election Commission. So far, Taylor, who recently sold off an extensive funeral-home business, is the only Republican who has actually filed for the Senate position. And he is said to have the support of U.S. senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty.

Paul Boyd, who served two terms as Probate Court clerk after winning election to that office in the Republican sweep year of 2010, has toiled dependably in the GOP’s ranks for decades and, as an African American, brings a bit of outreach to a party that, to mince no words, needs it.

Naser Fazlullah, an engaging and near-omnipresent figure among local Republicans, is a native of Bangladesh who has been in charge of the party’s outreach efforts overall. Well-liked and uncontroversial, he is likely to end up instead on the ballot for GOP state committeeman.

And there is Brandon Toney, a political newcomer without much of an established pedigree in GOP ranks.

Four years ago, Democrat Gabby Salinas came close to ousting Kelsey in a much-watched race. During her successful run for the Shelby County Democratic chairmanship last year, Salinas more or less committed to not being a candidate for elective office this year. But Ruby Powell-Dennis, who was a strong runner-up to Salinas in the 2020 Democratic primary for the House District 97 seat, has basically been running hard for the District 31 Senate seat for some time and must be reckoned with in a district with purplish tendencies.

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Politics Politics Feature

Labor Day Thoughts

Andre Mathis

There has been no public word yet as to the likely appointee to succeed retiring Federal Appeals Court Judge Bernice Donald, but one name seems to be surfacing more than others in speculation as to who will get the Biden administration’s nod.

That would be Andre Mathis, a member of the Butler Snow law firm’s commercial litigation and labor and employment groups. Mathis’ focus, according to his bio, is on “representing businesses and governmental entities with regard to contract disputes, employment litigation, internal investigations, education law, transportation litigation, premises liability, and financial services litigation.”

Among other lawyers likely to have been considered was the omnipresent Steve Mulroy, a University of Memphis law professor and former county commissioner.

• One of the key factors in the overwhelming support given to new Shelby County Democratic Party chair Gabby Salinas at the local party’s recent convention was the direct involvement on her behalf by the Memphis AFL-CIO Labor Council, headed by United Steelworkers President Irvin Calliste, assisted by such youthful AFL-CIO staffers as Jeffrey Lichtenstein and Sweetrica Baker.

The labor contingent taking part in the Zoom convention is estimated to have numbered in the hundreds and represented the same stepped-up commitment of resources and energy to Democratic causes as was visible locally in the “Blue Wave” election year of 2018 and the Biden-Harris presidential campaign.

• Although sparks may continue to fly involving a recent conflict in county government about how employees receive a bonus payment and how they’ll be taxed on it, the way was finally cleared for the bonus amount — ranging from $1,600 to $5,000, depending on tenure — to be paid on September 15th.

At a specially called meeting last week, the commission approved a formula to include the payment on employees’ regular payroll checks as of that date, and to be taxed according to their established withholding data rather than at a 22 percent formula that federal bookkeeping procedures can apply to add-on payments.

The larger rate, originally designated by County Financial Officer Mathilde Crosby, had been vocally protested by numerous employees who disliked having to surrender that much of the bonus, bestowed on them during budget proceedings along with a 1.5 percent pay raise in their regular salaries.

Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr., who has been in continuous disagreement with the administration of Mayor Lee Harris over numerous matters, had voiced irate suspicions that, in originally setting the higher tax rate, the administration might either have unspecified ulterior motives or have been unduly negligent. He noted that the city government had accomplished similar bonus payments for employees at their regular withholding rate.

Crosby attempted to assure him otherwise regarding his concerns, and, upon looking further into federal tax requirements, concurred that the withholding tax rate would suffice if the bonuses were incorporated into the employees’ regular pay schedule.

The “conflict” was more apparent than real, and commissioners gave the withholding formula their unanimous approval at last week’s special meeting.

• The commissioners are due to tackle a resolution on Wednesday to invite federal monitors back down to Shelby County to investigate questions of racial inequity and misconduct on the part of Juvenile Court.

The monitors, who a decade ago responded to complaints from former Commissioner Henri Brooks and others, found a series of problems to be redressed and mandated improvements. During the Trump administration then-County Mayor Mark Luttrell announced that the reforms had been accomplished and succeeded in getting the monitors withdrawn.

Skeptical Democratic commissioners — including Reginald Milton, Tami Sawyer, and Van Turner — are behind the request to return the monitors, a request which apparently also has the support of former chair Eddie Jones. Republican commissioners might well demur, but the Harris administration, with its emphasis on improvements in juvenile justice, is presumably open to the monitors’ return.

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Politics Politics Feature

Going for It: Memphis Councilman JB Smiley Looks at Run for Governor

JB Smiley Jr. (Credit: JB Smiley Jr)

Surely it was but a coincidence, not an omen, but on Monday evening, at which time Memphis Councilman JB Smiley Jr.’s gubernatorial ambitions were becoming public, a double rainbow appeared in the western sky.

At the very least, each of these overlapping phenomena constituted solid proof that the unexpected can — and occasionally does — happen.

A first-term city councilman running for governor of Tennessee? Something like that hasn’t happened since — well, since first-term Memphis city Commissioner Bill Farris, a presumed unknown in state government, ran for governor in 1962.

Farris didn’t make it, but he ran a solid race, finishing third to then-former Governor Frank Clement and Chattanooga Mayor Rudy Olgiati and establishing himself as a major player in local, state, and even national politics for a couple of generations to come.

JB Smiley Jr., who hasn’t formally announced yet but has filed preliminary paperwork with the state for a governor’s race, is optimistic, but even he is somewhat dazzled by the uniqueness of it all.

“Is the state ready for a candidate like myself?” he mused out loud Monday night. “I’m Black, I’m unmarried, I’m from West Tennessee. …” Of course, that description, while arguably atypical of a serious statewide candidate, also fit Harold Ford Jr., the Memphis congressman who came within a handful of votes of winning a U.S. Senate race in 2006.

As it happens, Smiley has had conversations about running with Harold Ford Sr., who was in Congress before his son was and was the best-known political broker in these parts since the legendary E.H. Crump. “I’d like to have his support,” Smiley said, stating the obvious.

Like former Mayor A C Wharton, Smiley’s given name consists entirely of his initials, and he shares the name with his father, “an Army guy, a Bronze Star winner,” and a former military-recruitment official from whom, the junior Smiley says, he learned a lot about dedicated effort and about connecting with people.

Smiley has demonstrated his own possession of those traits during his Council term, where he has been a vocal exponent of racial equity and is currently co-sponsor of a preliminary city-county consolidation effort with white Councilman Chase Carlisle.

“I can broker deals and move issues,” says Smiley, who lists among those that he would take statewide the need for improving education and expanding Medicaid and broadband services, as well as easing state control over the prerogatives of local government.

So maybe Smiley’s a long shot. So, for that matter, are two other Democrats who’ve filed papers with the state regarding a gubernatorial race. They are Nashville physician Jason Martin and Memphis activist Carnita Atwater.

They all understand the difficulty of unseating an incumbent, in this case Republican Governor Bill Lee. And they all surely grasp something even more basic: You can’t win if you don’t run.

• Shelby County Democrats elected Gabby Salinas their new party chair via a well-attended Zoom convention on Saturday.

• Meanwhile, wheels are beginning to grind on the redistricting front.

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton has named three Shelby Countians — State Representatives Karen Camper, Dwayne Thompson, both Democrats, and Kevin Vaughan, a Republican — to the General Assembly’s 16-member redistricting committee.

And the Shelby County Commission, looking to its own imminent reapportionment, voted Monday to hold a series of public meetings on the matter, starting next Wednesday.

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Politics Politics Feature

Salinas or Strong? Local Democrats Prepare to Choose New Chair

Gabby Salinas and Corey Strong (Photos: Salinas / Facebook; Courtesy Corey Strong)

Shelby County Democrats completed Phase One of their biennial reorganization on Saturday, conducting 13 separate caucuses via Zoom to elect delegates to this coming Saturday’s convention, which will complete the cycle with the selection of a new chair and other party officers.

Outgoing Chairman Michael Harris expressed satisfaction at the online turnout, which included some 550 registrants and 300 active participants, of whom roughly 100 were elected as members of the party’s Grassroots Council, along with 26 members to serve as SCDP’s executive committee.

Those elected to the two bodies will serve as the voting members at Saturday’s convention, which will take place on Zoom and will also be watchable on YouTube and on the website of the Shelby County Democratic Party.

The two declared contestants for the party chairmanship are Gabby Salinas and Corey Strong. Salinas is making her third try for a significant office, having in recent years won the Democratic nomination for two legislative seats, which she narrowly lost to Republicans in general election races. Despite these losses, she is in the unusual position, politically, of still being regarded as something of a face for the future. This is largely owing to her inspiring backstory as a dual survivor.

A native of Bolivia, Salinas came to this country with her family as a toddler to be treated for cancer at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. After successful treatments for the disease, she then survived a catastrophic automobile accident that took the lives of several family members. As an adult graduate of Christian Brothers College, Salinas would herself become a researcher with the St. Jude Department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics.

Strong, too, has an interesting biography. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he did active duty in Kabul, Afghanistan, and maintains his membership in the Navy Reserve with the rank of Commander. He possesses a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law and has an extensive history as a party activist.

After the Shelby County Democratic Party was recommissioned by the state party in 2017 after a period of being defunct, Strong was elected as chairman of the restored party and served until 2019. His term included the local party’s electoral “sweep” year of 2018.

• Former Senator Bob Corker, who was one of the few congressional Republicans (and one of the first) to have a public falling-out with the Trump administration, was quoted by the Nashville Tennessean as saying, apropos the current Afghanistan debacle, “It appeared to me that [President Joe] Biden basically continued the Trump policy.” Corker delivered similar sentiments in a weekend address at Monteagle to members of the Episcopal Churchmen of Tennessee.

As far back as 2011, Corker, who later became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed frustration with the American military effort in Afghanistan, seeing Pakistan to be the actual haven for Al Qaeda and other militant Islamic groups. “The fact is,” he told the Flyer at the time, “if you travel through Afghanistan, as I’ve done many times, and you talk to our military leaders, they’re unbelievably frustrated because they’re fighting a war in a country where our enemies are not.

“And on the other hand we’re providing aid to a country where our enemies are. To me­ — and this is what I really pressed hard in this last hearing — this is where our focus needs to be.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Wish Lists

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

As expected, the Biden-Harris ticket was an easy winner in Democratic-dominated Shelby County last week; also unsurprising was the overwhelming support enjoyed by the Trump-Pence Republican ticket in Tennessee at large.

To the extent that there was any kind of suspense factor, it was in a pair of local races. Even as Democrats nationally made serious inroads on previously Republican suburban areas, the contests for House District 83 and House District 96, both on the suburban fringe, were unusually tight. Republican state Representative Mark White was able to hold off a stout challenge by Democrat Jerri Green, by a margin of 17,682 to 15,063, and the GOP’s John Gillespie had an even closer margin over Democratic candidate Gabby Salinas, 14,697 to 14,212.

Jackson Baker

House Speaker Cameron Sexton

Gillespie, who won the open seat vacated by former Representative Jim Coley, was one of two new members of the Shelby County delegation. The other was Democrat Torrey Harris, who easily won over longtime incumbent John DeBerry, forced to run this year as an independent, in House District 90.

Both Gillespie and Harris were on hand on Monday and Tuesday for the Shelby County legislative delegation’s annual legislative retreat, this year conducted virtually as a Zoom meeting.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, a first-day speaker, said he wants CLERB, the city’s independent civilian review board, to have subpoena powers of its own so that it need not go through the city council in probing accusations of police misconduct. The mayor also wants Memphis to have equity with Nashville in state funding received for mental health services. “We have many more mental health patients than Nashville, but Nashville gets more,” he said Monday.

The annual retreat, at which spokespersons for major local interests state their wish lists for the coming legislative session in Nashville, is normally held in January, just before the session begins, but got a bit of a jump-start this year.

Among the other desiderata on Monday, the first day of the two-day virtual session:

Patrice J. Robinson, chair of the Memphis City Council, asked the legislators to pass a bill banning payday lenders. She also wanted to see the decriminalization of medical marijuana and a continuation of the COVID-era expedient of allowing sales-to-go of alcoholic beverages from storefronts.

Robinson endorsed as well a bill that state Senator Brian Kelsey (R-District 31) said he would introduce increasing the local portion of the state sales tax — this as a means of recouping some of the financial loss to cities from the pending elimination of the state Hall income tax on dividends and investments.

Memphis Police Department director Michael Rallings focused on the gun problem, maintaining that increased prevalence of firearms was the main reason for a rise in certain categories of crime. “Thank goodness permitless carry was not passed,” Rallings said, musing on the last legislative session. Rallings also noted for the lawmakers that he considers Memphis to be “490 to 700 officers down” from an optimum roster number.

The headliner on day two, Tuesday, was state Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton, Republican of Crossville, who promised the legislators that the General Assembly’s calendar would be flexed with the uncertainties of COVID-19 in mind so that, as one example, they would have a little “extra time for filing their bills.”

Asked about his attitude toward marijuana legislation, Sexton said he would feel more comfortable with efforts to legalize medical marijuana if the federal government removed its status as a Schedule 1 drug. Sexton said he was in favor of local jurisdictions making decisions about such issues as school openings and guns on school property. He also said, apropos the dormant Memphis megasite, “We’ve gone too far to pull back.”

During his appearance before the legislators, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris noted his concern about skeptical statements made by Governor Bill Lee and state Attorney General Herbert Slatery regarding the results of the presidential election won by President-elect Joe Biden. That was one of the few times during the two-day session that partisanship as such became a subject of discussion.

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Politics Politics Feature

It Ain’t Beanbag: Local Campaigns Sling Mud in Last-Ditch Efforts

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

So you think this is the hard stuff — President Trump calling his opponent Joe Biden “Sleepy Joe” and using the term “criminal enterprise” to describe the Biden family — or Biden reciprocating by calling the president a “clown” and saying to him, “Man, why don’t you just shut up!”

Both presidential candidates have addressed each other coarsely, though Trump certainly has been worse. Think of Trump’s newest audience-participation contribution: When a disapproved-of public figure is mentioned, the crowd chants, “Lock him up!” That epithet has even been hurled at Dr. Anthony Fauci, the hard-working, non-political chief of infectious disease research in these pandemic times. It’s the sort of thing that is regarded as unprecedented — as a sign of irreversible decline in the civility of our political process.

Jackson Baker

Gabby Salinas (second from left) at Shelby Farms

Well, the fact is, such invective is par for the course, and always has been in the practice of our national democracy. Just look at some of the stuff that’s being put out in our local elections.

Here’s a recent mailout from the Tennessee Republican Party, up in Nashville, aimed at Democrat Gabby Salinas, candidate for local state House District 97: Side one warns boldly, “Gabby Salinas and her Socialist friends are taking aim at our guns.” To the right of this is a huge, ugly, bright-red gun sight, and underneath the warning and the graphic is a triad of heads: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Gabby Salinas, and Bernie Sanders. If that side of the mailer is outrageous, side two is all of that and a blatant fraud as well.

The reverse side of the mailer is loaded up with more gun symbols and with the information that Salinas is “Endorsed by Memphis Democrat Socialists of America; Endorsed by far-left Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren; Supports Socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”

Jim McCarter

John Gillespie at Cordova Community Center

The outright fraud part comes when the piece declaims “Gabby Salinas Earns an F Rating from the NRA!” sandwiched in between headshots of Warren and AOC and overlaying this legend: “Here’s what the NRA says about candidates [note that plural] who earn an F rating. True enemy of gun owners’ rights. A consistent anti-gun candidate who always opposes gun owners’ rights.” It seems clear that this scourging text was not composed by the NRA with Salinas in mind. She isn’t a “consistent anti-gun candidate.” She isn’t even a “consistent” candidate. This is only her second race! And she runs as what she is, a cancer survivor who came to St. Jude from Bolivia as a child to get medical treatment that saved her life, and stayed on as a naturalized American and as a research scientist interested most of all in public health — someone given the highest possible endorsement by Marlo Thomas of St. Jude.

The negative lines quoted above from the mailer were more likely aimed at Warren or AOC or some other person concerned about firearm violence. Both Salinas and her opponent, John Gillespie, a grant coordinator for Trezevant Episcopal Home, have issued mailouts touting their own claims to office.

And the Tennessee Tomorrow PAC has put out its own attack mailer on Gillespie. It brandishes a cartoon image of the GOP candidate and is in the style of a poem, entitled “Little Johnny Gillespie wants to work on Capitol Hill.” It begins: “There was nothing Little Gillespie/really wanted to be./Why be a doctor? Why dig a ditch?/Why do anything? My daddy is rich!” And it continues in kind.

The contest between Salinas and Gillespie in House District 97 is considered one of the closest and most hard-fought on the ballot, though it is only one of several similar ones taking place in hybrid city-suburban districts this year that will test the Republican hold on the shifting populations of the suburban fringe area.

For the record, candidate Salinas faces the end game with a financial balance of $77,945.43, while Gillespie has $43,430.77.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Thompson Endorsement Could Affect Democrats’ District 97 Race

CREDIT: JB

JB

Rep. Dwayne Thompson making his endorsement at a fund-raiser for House District 97 candidate Allan Creasy.

One of the facts of life for Democrats, in Shelby County as elsewhere in Republican-dominated Tennessee, is that their primaries for state-government offices have tended to be lonely affairs, usually with only a single significant candidate, if any at all. Oh, Democrats may vie in an occasional intra-party contest for U.S. senator or governor, but most of the real competition, certainly in legislative races, has generally taken place on the other side, in GOP primaries. Once upon a time, that was the Democrats; now, unmistakably, it’s the Republicans.

Except that, more and more often, there is a bona fide Democratic contest — as there was, for example, in 2018 between David Witherspoon and Gabby Salinas, a scientific researcher and former St. Jude patient, for the right to oppose Republican incumbent Brian Kelsey in a much-watched state Senate race. Salinas won that primary and went on to give Kelsey a serious challenge.

The same year, Allan Creasy, a manager and bartender at the Celtic Crossing Restaurant, ran a spirited race against GOP incumbent Jim Coley in state House District 97. Coley is retiring, and Creasy is taking another shot at the seat this year. But he has a primary opponent — the demonstrably formidable Salinas.

The showdown between two strong Democratic candidates from 2018 races makes the District 97 primary one of the most intriguing races in the state in 2020. To compound the watchability, two Republicans, Brandon Weise and John Gillespie, will simultaneously be competing in the GOP primary.

The intensity of the competition made it all the more interesting Thursday night when an established Democratic legislator, state Representative Dwayne Thompson, decided to cast his lot with one of his party’s two entries. Appearing at a Creasy fund-raiser at the Starlight Event Center in East Memphis, Thompson stood alongside the candidate onstage and extended his endorsement.

Such intra-party endorsements are relatively uncommon, especially in primary races deemed as competitive as this one (although Shelby County Commissioner Reginald Milton is methodically racking up endorsements from fellow Democrats in his primary race for General Sessions Court Clerk).