Tag: George Flinn

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Politics Politics Feature

Early Voting Numbers Skew Democratic, Black, and Older

Some fun facts: According to the calculations of Election Commissioner Bennie Smith, a statistician and professional elections analyst, some 81,000 voters took part in the early voting period in Shelby County, and the voting skewed Democratic, female, African-American, and relatively elderly.

The final voting figures as of Saturday, August 1st, were 54,400 Democratic, 25,800 Republican; 50,500 female, 30,500 male; 34,400 Black, 26,200 white, and 26,200 other. Of the 81,000 voters, some 69,900 were over the age of 50.

That last figure illustrates the disproportionate tendency of older voters to take part in elections, inasmuch as the over-50 segment of the society as a whole is only 45 percent. The average age of an eligible voter in Shelby County is 48.20.

by Gender

The eligible voting population comprises roughly 331,000 females and 240,000 males, a split of 57.97 percent to 42.03 percent. Ethnically, the voting population includes 199,000 African Americans, 139,000 whites, and 233,000 who consider themselves “other.” As the last week of the August 6th election round began, candidates were putting their best surrogates on display — hitchhiking, as it were, on other, better established, or more well-known political figures.

In the case of Tom Leatherwood, a Republican running for re-election to the state House of Representatives from District 99 (Eads, Arlington, eastern Shelby), the doppelgänger was Governor Bill Lee, down from Nashville. The two held forth to a sizable late-Monday-morning crowd at Olympic Steak and Pizza in Arlington, while partisans of Leatherwood’s GOP primary opponent, former Shelby County Republican chairman Lee Mills, picketed outside.

A little later on Monday, U.S. Senate candidate Manny Sethi, a Nashville physician and Republican newcomer who styles himself “Dr. Manny,” hit the stage of another well-attended event at The Grove in Cordova. He had in tow U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and Sethi, who is opposed by former Ambassador Bill Hagerty, a Trump endorsee, fairly quickly disposed of any idea that he might be the moderate in the race.

“I’m tired of this coronavirus, aren’t you?” Sethi said, addressing a seated crowd of which roughly a third were maskless. “Let’s fire Dr. Fauci!” he continued, going on to endorse the glories of hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug President Trump has touted as a potential antidote to COVID-19.

James Mackler, a Democratic candidate in the Senate race, has condemned Sethi’s position as one making him unworthy of serving in the Senate.

Sethi is one of two physicians in the Senate race. The other, Republican George Flinn of Memphis, has denounced Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as being woefully insufficient.

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Politics Politics Feature

Signs of Political Life as Election Season Finally Kicks Off

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

At long last, and after months of inaction, it can probably be said that there’s an election season on. On the Republican side, GOP members of all stripes were on hand Sunday at a Germantown Parkway storefront that will serve as the party’s campaign headquarters for the duration of the 2020 election year.

Interestingly, the new party headquarters location is on the approximate geographic site — the same lot, it would seem — as the old, sprawling Homebuilders headquarters, razed to the ground some years ago but, in its prime, a complex that contained a generous-sized auditorium/arena area that long served as a meeting place for local GOPers, as well for civic clubs of various kinds.

Local Republican party chairman Chris Tutor, who, because of the resurgent coronavirus, insisted that all attendees wear face masks and do what they could to achieve some measure of social distancing, turned things over to keynote speaker David Kustoff, the 8th District congressman, who pointed out that one final Democrat-vs.-Republican contest loomed on the August 6th county general election ballot: the General Sessions Court clerk race between Republican Paul Boyd and Democrat Joe Brown.

That was something to unite upon, given that others in the crowd were running against each other for positions in the federal/state primary elections to be held on the same day.

In theory, Shelby County Democrats were on the move, too, organizing a series of “forums” involving their candidates for the state and federal primaries, and simultaneously recording for later broadcasting these events, some of them conducted at the old Hickory Ridge Mall.

Jackson Baker

Who was that (un)masked man? At Sunday’s opening of the Shelby County Republcan campaign headquarters on Germantown Parkway, everybody, in accordance with advance instructions, wore a face mask. There was one exception — the unidentified interloper at the very right side of this photo.

Jackson Baker

time for the U.S Senate seat being vacated by Lamar Alexander.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Fincher Paid to Defeat Flinn in 8th Race, Publication Says

CREDIT: JB

JB

Fincher (l), Flinn

It will be recalled that Memphis physician/businessman George Flinn, a frequent candidate for political office, was edged out in the August Republican primary for 8th District Congress by fellow Memphian David Kustoff, a former U.S. Attorney.

Kustoff’s margin of victory, 2,689 votes, was earned late in the contest, it is generally acknowledged. Both campaigns were aware of polling that showed Flinn, who out-spent all others in the multi-candidate GOP race, was leading in various private polls until the last week of the campaign.

During that last week, a flurry of print and TV ads appeared in the district alleging that Flinn was on record as having supported a Democratic candidate. The Democrat had been Flinn’s son, Shea Flinn, who ran unsuccessfully for a state House seat some years ago, later was appointed to an interim state Senate seat, and still later won and served two terms on the Memphis City Council.

With election day almost on top of him at that point, candidate Flinn, a longstanding Republican, tried to point out the obvious — that he had merely been supporting his own son — but had little time to get that message circulated. Flinn’s people — and some outside observers as well — blame the last-minute anti-Flinn adds for his defeat.

Now, it develops, according to the Tennessee Journal, that those ads were paid for by the outgoing Republican 8th District congressman, Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump in Crockett County. In its October 21 issue, the Journal notes that $100,000 in late contributions by Fincher to Win for American PAC, which technically placed the anti-Flinn advertising, match up directly with the placement-time and amount of the ads.

Flinn had been among several candidates in 2010 who ran for the 8th District seat, won that year by Fincher, and had, as was the custom by all the candidates in the race, run negative ads against his opponents. But Flinn had supported Fincher during the now congressman’s successful reelection runs in 2012 and 2014.

Whatever may have motivated Fincher, Flinn himself seems to have been no stranger to Realpolitik. Though no evidence links him to the expenditures of another group, a 501-C4 organization called Power of Liberty, that group, which was able legally to conceal the identities of its donors, had launched issue-advocacy ads attacking every candidate but Flinn in the recent congressional race.

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Politics Politics Feature

First Licks in the Tennessee 8th District

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

As introductory campaign events go, the forum for 8th District congressional candidates held Tuesday night last week by the East Shelby Republican Club at Germantown’s Pickering Center was somewhat tentative — as most such debut cattle calls are — but it contained plenty of foreshadowing of the slings and arrows to come.

Four of the main GOP players were there — state Senator Brian Kelsey, radiologist/radio executive George Flinn, Shelby County Register of Deeds Tom Leatherwood, and advertising man/consultant Brad Greer of Jackson. Missing among the touted contenders were former U.S. Attorney David Kustoff and Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell.

The outlier of the group, both geographically and, to a large extent, philosophically, was Greer, whose chances for prevailing are maybe not quite as good as those of then state Senator Marsha Blackburn when she ran for the 7th congressional seat in 2002 against three Shelby Countians— the aforesaid Kustoff, then Shelby County Commissioner (now state Senator) Mark Norris, and then Memphis City Councilman Brent Taylor. 

Blackburn, whose home base was Brentwood in Williamson County, campaigned well across the 7th District, even in Shelby County. She would win easily, taking advantage of the split vote among Shelby County natives, none of whom exactly ran like a house afire anyway.

But if Greer’s public image is not as well honed as was Blackburn’s, who at the time was one of the preeminent leaders of the anti-income tax movement in Tennessee, he has even more opponents from Shelby County than had Blackburn in 2002, and thus can count on an even more advantageous split.

Jackson Baker

(l to r) Brad Greer, George Flinn, Brian Kelsey, and Tom Leatherwood in Germantown

Flinn, Kelsey, Kustoff, Luttrell, and Leatherwood (to list them in the order of their campaign financial holdings) could very well divide the vote in their home county of Shelby, wherein resides 55 percent of the 8th District electorate. And that could pave the way for an upset victory for Greer, whose Madison County bailiwick is closer to the traditional heartland of the District, which since 2010 has been served by Crockett County resident Stephen Fincher, who is voluntarily relinquishing the seat.

That might especially be the case if the 8th District votes according to the same pattern as in March on Super Tuesday, when the distribution of votes for the hotly contested Republican presidential primary was, according to Greer, 60 percent in the non-Shelby part of the district and only 40 percent in the Shelby County bailiwick of Flinn, Kelsey, Kustoff, Luttrell, and Leatherwood.

To be sure, Greer has some competition of his own among fellow Jacksonians Hunter Baker, David Bault, and George Howell, none of whom, however, have raised much money at this point or figure to run well-supported races. And prominent Madison County kingmaker Jimmy Wallace, a major force behind Fincher, is putting his eggs this time in the basket, not of Greer, but of Kelsey, who also has good support and fund-raising potential in the Memphis area.

For the record, candidate cash on hand, as of the first-quarter reporting period, was: Flinn, $2,930,885; Kelsey, $439,005; Kustoff, $319,682; Luttrell, $144,570; and Greer, $103,713. No one else had amassed $100,000, or anything close to it. (And Flinn’s total should be taken with a grain — or perhaps an airplane hangar — of salt. Like Donald Trump at the presidential level, he is wealthy enough to self-finance, and, unlike The Donald, actually does so to a substantial degree; he does minimal fund-raising as such.)

All of the foregoing is a recap of the basic paper facts. Last week’s forum at the Pickering Center gave a partial foreshadowing of how the race might be run and of some of the intangibles involved. Herewith are some (admittedly sketchy) reviews of how and what the participating candidates did:

First up was Greer, who established the fact that he represented rural Tennesseans and had handled 18 West Tennessee counties in the 2006 U.S. Senatorial race for Republican victor Bob Corker. He distinguished himself from the others when an audience member asked about trade policy, and Greer wasted no time blasting away, Trump-like at the purportedly ruinous effects of various free-trade pacts on ordinary working folk. “I don’t give a good rat’s ass about other countries before my fellow countrymen,” Greer declared, in what may have been the line of the night.

Flinn was next, and right away declared his fealty to presumptive GOP presidential nominee Trump. He went on to express, as he does in his now-frequently-appearing TV ads, some of the well-worn GOP shibboleths of recent years, fretting that “we’re being killed by entitlements,” and promising to “represent you to D.C., not D.C. to you.” (I can’t help fantasizing about what would happen if the genial and accomplished Flinn dispensed with such pedantic bromides and let fly something defiant about the independence secured by his self-financing, a la “If you like Trump, you’ll love me!”)

Kelsey was third to speak, and in his allotted two-minute introductory spiel, he must have used the self-defining phrase “proven conservative” perhaps 50 times. Okay, that’s hyperbole, but variations on the phrase dominated his brief remarks to an overwhelming degree. In fairness, he did get to elaborate on his record during the Q-and-A portion of the evening, touting his sponsorship of a constitutional amendment to ban a state income tax and his enmity-to-the-death for Medicaid expansion.

Most compellingly, Kelsey signaled his willingness and intent in the future to attack the absent Luttrell, a supporter of Governor Bill Haslam’s ill-fated “Insure Tennessee” proposal: “We have Republicans in this very race who supported extending Obamacare.” And later: “As I mentioned before, we have Republicans who want to expand Medicaid under Obamacare.” 

And there was Leatherwood, whose hold on his county register’s job owes much to a neighborly demeanor and a competent, customer-knows-best attitude but who, when running for offices of partisan consequence, prefers to present himself as some kind of avenging Robespierre of the Right. He vies with Kelsey in his contempt for “socialism” and regard for “free enterprise” and, on matters of education policy, gave notice of his wish to purify both state (“Frankly, TNReady is merely Common Core by another name”) and nation, promising to support the abolition of the Department of Education.

In brief, Flinn, Kelsey, and Leatherwood all essentially stuck to well-worn Republican talking points, and Greer evinced at least some disposition, in this year of Trump and Sanders mass assemblies, to go yellow dog.

The next forum for these Republican contenders is scheduled for this Thursday night in Dyersburg.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Poll shows large Luttrell lead over other Shelby Countians in 8th District race.

A po

Luttrell

ll completed by the Remington Research Group of Kansas City shows Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell to have a commanding lead over other Shelby County candidates in the 8th Congressional District Republican primary.

The poll, conducted on February 29 and March 1 involved “686 likely Republican primary voters,” with a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percent, according to Remington director Titus Bond.

Below is the tabulated response to the question, “ If the candidates in the Republican primary election for United States Congress were Brian Kelsey, David Kustoff, Mark Luttrell, George Flinn, Tom Leatherwood and Steve Basar, for whom would you vote?.”

Mark Luttrell: 26%
George Flinn: 11%
Brian Kelsey: 9%
David Kustoff: 8%
Tom Leatherwood: 7%
Steve Basar: 1%
Undecided: 38%

The press release announcing these results said further:

“In addition to his ballot strength, Luttrell possesses the strongest image rating of all the potential Republican candidates. 43% of likely Republican primary voters view him favorably with only 5% viewing him unfavorably. This is by far the strongest image rating of the field by more than double his nearest competitor.
“Luttrell enjoys massive support in the Memphis media market where he receives 33% support. The Memphis media marketanchors the district, comprising more than 71% of Republican primary voters.

“’Mark Luttrell holds a strong advantage in the early stages of this race. In a winner take all primary, other candidates will have to spend significant sums just to match Luttrell’s current ballot position and favorability,’ said Titus Bond, Director of Remington Research Group. ‘Mark Luttrell is the heavy early favorite in this Republican primary.’”

Asked the obvious question about the poll — whether he or his campaign had commissioned it — Luttrell said no.

There was no explanation as to why several declared candidates from outside the Shelby County area were not included in the questionnaire.

[pdf-1]

[pdf-2]

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Politics Politics Feature

Matters of Tenure on the Shelby County Commission

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Jackson Baker

Walter Bailey

No suggestion at Monday’s regular meeting of the Shelby County Commission could have been treated with more courtesy than the request by long-serving Democratic member Walter Bailey for an ordinance to amend the County Charter so as to eliminate all reference to term limits for county officials.

And no suggestion had so little chance of passage as Bailey’s ordinance, which, on the first of three readings, gained the votes of only three members — Bailey and fellow Democrats Justin Ford and Van Turner — on the 13-member body. 

The ordinance allows for a public referendum of county voters, and that provision allowed several members to abstain from voting on the premise that they would meanwhile consult their constituents, but this was largely a face-saving mechanism for Bailey and perhaps for themselves.

The fact is, as a number of commissioners say privately, and as David Reaves said out loud on Monday, most members of the current commission would not have been able to run successfully for their seats on the body if term limits had not been imposed.

In arguing for the ordinance, Bailey noted for the record that members of Congress and the state legislature are not bound by term limits and that the imposition of them on the commission arbitrarily deprives the public of needed experience on the part of members. Bailey himself, a member of a distinguished political family that included his late brother, author/civil rights icon D’Army Bailey, is the longest-serving member of the commission and, as he put it last week in committee, where his ordinance was first vetted, maybe the longest-serving public official in the state. He won office first in 1971, has served as chairman twice, and has served continuously, with the exception of four years, from 2006 to 2010, when the charter’s then-new term-limit requirement caused him to step down temporarily.

He is now serving his second term since being returned to the commission in 2010 and faces another mandatory withdrawal from service. • More local backdrop for the 8th District congressional race: As indicated last week, a victory by Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell in the crowded Republican primary field would occasion some frenetic maneuvering on the part of the county commissioners, inasmuch as Luttrell would thereby vacate his county position, opening it up to a reappointment process.

Luttrell, if  victorious in the congressional race, would presumably resign his mayoralty sometime between the general election in November and his January swearing-in in Washington. Meanwhile, the commission would have selected a new chair in September, according to its normal schedule. And whoever is chair when Luttrell ceases to be mayor automatically becomes interim Shelby County mayor for a maximum of 45 days, after which the commission will select a new one by majority vote.

As Commissioner Mark Billingsley of Germantown reminded his colleagues with copies of a handout he distributed Monday, the county charter makes no provision for an election to fill a vacancy in the mayor’s office “until a successor is elected and qualified at the next countywide election allowed by the state election laws.” Hence, whoever is selected by the commission upon the completion of the interim mayor’s service will serve as a fully pledged county mayor until the county general election of 2018.

There is no doubt that current commission chairman Terry Roland, a Millington Republican, wants to be the next county mayor. His intentions of running for the position in 2018 have been clear for months, and, in case anyone should forget the fact, he announces it periodically during meetings of the commission. (Roland pointedly did so at last Wednesday’s committee sessions and did so again at Monday’s regular commission meeting.)

It now appears, however, that Roland sees no need to seek reappointment to a second consecutive term as commission chairman in September (as numerous commission chairs have done in the last several years, with former member Sidney Chism, a Democrat, having brought off the trick). Roland is content to allow things to take their natural course in September, with Democratic member Turner the favorite to become the next chairman.

But Roland is certain to be front and center as a candidate for appointment as mayor when the commission convenes, sometime early in 2017, to serve as a successor to Luttrell through the election of 2018. And word has it that he believes he already has most of the votes in hand to overcome other candidates, including possible opponent David Lenoir, the county trustee, who intends to run for the office in the regular 2018 election cycle. Another possible contender for the commission’s mayoralty selection would be GOP Commissioner Steve Basar, whom Roland bested for the chairmanship last year in a hastily called revote after Basar had held the position for roughly an hour.

All of this would be moot, of course, should someone other than Luttrell win the congressional race. There are five other Shelby County Republicans in the field — Basar; radiologist/broadcast executive George Flinn; state Senator Brian Kelsey; County Register of Deeds Tom Leatherwood; and former U.S. Attorney David Kustoff.

And Jackson businessman Brad Greer must be delighted at the prospect that so many Shelby Countians in the race, dividing up the local vote, creates the real mathematical possibility of his winning. (Something like that happened in the 7th District congressional race of 2002, when Kustoff, then city council member Brent Taylor, and then County Commissioner Mark Norris split the Shelby County vote, allowing for an easy victory by Marsha Blackburn of Williamson County, who still represents the 7th District.)

Outlook on Convention Delegates

Some 400 Democrats betook themselves to First Baptist Church Broad last Saturday to make themselves eligible for formal Shelby County conventions on Saturday, March 19th, that will select from this pool of eligible members the delegates to the Democratic National Convention at Philadelphia this summer.

Yes, there will be two conventions on March 19th — one to be held at First Baptist Broad that will determine the identity of the delegates and alternates who will go to Philadelphia to represent the 9th Congressional District; and another, to be held the same day in Jackson, that will determine who goes to the national convention to represent the 8th Congressional District, which takes in a generous hunk of eastern Shelby County.

At both locations, the delegates to be selected will conform to the pattern of the two districts’ voting in last week’s “Super Tuesday” presidential primary in Tennessee, with the lion’s share of delegates and alternates going to Hillary Clinton, who won the primary vote handily, and a handful going to Bernie Sanders. 

In the case of the 9th District, that would be six delegates and one alternate for Clinton, with one delegate apportioned to Sanders. In the case of the 8th, it’s four delegates for Clinton and one for Sanders. Insofar as the math permits, the delegates are apportioned, half and half, by gender.

For the record, Clinton beat Sanders statewide by a two-to-one ratio. The ratio in Shelby County, whose African-American demographic (generally very supportive of Hillary Clinton) is higher, was four to one: Clinton, 66,465; Sanders, 15,985. 

The Democratic Party’s ex post facto process for selecting delegates differs from that of the Republicans, which required would-be delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland to file for election on the Super Tuesday ballot on behalf of the specific presidential candidate they chose to represent. The chief vote-getters on each list became convention delegates in a ratio proportionate to how well their candidates did in head-to-head voting.

For the record, Donald Trump won 39 percent of the statewide Republican primary vote; Ted Cruz won 25 percent; Marco Rubio, 21 percent, Ben Carson, 8 percent; John Kasich, 5 percent. (Results rounded off.)

The preliminary delegate list released last week by the state Republican Party did not include the apportionment for Shelby County, but the county’s GOP primary results went as follows: Trump, 30 percent; Cruz, 29 percent; Rubio, 26 percent, Kasich, 8 percent, Carson, 6 percent, and “others,” 2 percent. (Again, results rounded off.)

If all of this appears to be a mite complicated, that’s because it is. Updates will be provided by the Flyer as they are received.

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Two More for Tennessee’s 8th District

The race for the 8th Congressional District, due to be vacated following incumbent Republican Stephen Fincher‘s surprise announcement of non-candidacy this year, has turned into a free-for-all on the Republican side, with controversial Republican state Representative Andy Holt joining the already full ranks of GOP hopefuls.

At least one Democrat, Shelby County assistant District Attorney Michael McCusker of Germantown, has announced his interest in running for the seat, thereby serving notice that there may well be a general election contest in the district, once counted safe for Democrats but considered Republican property following the easy victory of Fincher over veteran Democrat Roy Herron in 2010, a GOP sweep year almost everywhere in Tennessee.

A flood of Shelby County Republicans responded almost immediately to Fincher’s withdrawal statement, made two weeks ago. Within an hour of hearing the news, five local GOP hopefuls had their hats in the ring.

In order of their announcement, these were: George Flinn, the wealthy radiologist, broadcast executive, and former Shelby County commissioner; former U.S. Attorney David Kustoff; Shelby County Register Tom Leatherwood; state Senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown; and County Commissioner Steve Basar.

Of those five, three had made previous races for Congress — Flinn in both the 8th and 9th Districts and Kustoff and Leatherwood in the 7th, when that district lapped into the eastern portions of Shelby County the way the 8th does now after reapportionment. The new lines drawn after the 2010 census resulted in 55 percent of the 8th District’s population residing within Shelby County.

Holt is a decided contrast to the more urbanized aspirants from Big Shelby. A pig farmer who hails from Dresden, in Northwest Tennessee, Holt has been under investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency for polluting the fields and streams adjacent to his property with massive amounts of waste, nearly a million gallons of it, produced by his animals. He was also the sponsor of legislation aimed at penalizing whistleblowers who reported instances of animal cruelty.

In a press release issued Friday, Holt made an effort to set himself apart from the Shelby County candidates, saying that “to me, the idea of deciding (within mere moments of hearing Congressman Fincher isn’t running for reelection) to run for Congress without truly taking the time to fall on my knees and pray to God for his guidance with family and friends seems self-entitled and reckless. I simply am not that person.”

McCusker is a wholly different kind of outlier. An assistant D.A. for the past several years, he is a retired Army major whose military career was prompted by the 9/11 attacks in 2001. He served in Afghanistan as combat advisor to the Afghan National Army and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for Meritorious Service and the Army Commendation Medal.

Upon resuming civilian status after 2006 and joining the D.A.’s staff, McCusker attempted to file for D.A. himself as a Democrat in the election of 2010 but was denied the opportunity to do so by a faction on the Shelby County Democratic executive committee that questioned his party bona fides because he had supported Republican Mitt Romney during the 2008 GOP presidential-primary process and had pulled a petition to serve as a Romney delegate at that year’s Republican National Convention.

McCusker, who grew up in a Roman Catholic Democratic family in East Tennessee, would explain his flirtation with the GOP as a consequence both of his wartime service under a Republican commander-in-chief and his sympathy with Mormon Romney as a member of a religious minority. He accepted his temporary banishment from the Democratic ticket in good grace and was rewarded with a position on the party’s ballot in 2014, when he ran unsuccessfully for Criminal Court clerk.
Here he is again, considering both a personal comeback try and one for his party, which has been diminished to the point of near-extinction in Tennessee, except in Memphis and Nashville. As McCusker put it in a statement released over the weekend, “At this time, I am exploring whether or not we can conduct a campaign that meets the needs of the hardworking people of the 8th Congressional District. Ultimately, my decision will be to do what is in the best interests of the constituents and my family.” 

• As noted in this week’s cover story (“Making a President,” p. 16), Tennessee is preparing to have its say in determining the presidential nominees for both political parties, as of Tuesday, March 1st — dubbed “Super Tuesday” because of the number of states holding primaries or caucuses that day.

A harbinger of what is expected to be a flurry of local activity on behalf of several campaigns was the visit to Whitehaven High School last Thursday of former president Bill Clinton, who, on behalf of the candidacy of his wife, Hillary Clinton, addressed an overflow rally of several hundred in the school’s gymnasium. On the same night that former first lady, senator, and secretary of state Clinton was tangling in a TV debate in Milwaukee with her Democratic rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, her husband was making her case in Memphis, a potential hotbed of Democratic primary votes on account of the city’s large black population.

Memphis congressman Steve Cohen introduced the former President variously as “the greatest president this area has ever seen” and (reprising a onetime honorary title) as “the first black president” and (in a more accurate variation on that trope, considering Barack Obama’s later election) as “a stand-in for the first black president.”

The point was that both Clintons had developed important connections with black voters over the years, and a large part of Bill Clinton’s mission in Memphis was to demonstrate that, even on populist issues where Sanders’ campaign might have obvious appeal to African Americans, Hillary Clinton’s positions were equally compelling, if not superior.

The former president argued that his wife’s means-based plan for reducing tuition costs in college was more realistic than Sanders’ call for universal free tuition, and contended further that her proposals to build upon the already existing Affordable Care Act was economically feasible, while the Vermonter’s espousal of “Medicare for all” was not.

He cited Hillary Clinton’s jobs proposals, coupled with stout raises in the minimum wage, as common-sense solutions to a stagnant consumer economy in which “somebody’s got to earn something to buy something.” He quoted Lyndon Johnson on the notion that anyone spurning “half a loaf” solutions is someone “who’s never been hungry.”

Clinton spent considerable time demonstrating his wife’s commitments to criminal justice reform and her intercessions, going as far back as her time in Arkansas, against federal funding for white-only schools. 

He touted her as able to “stand her ground” on principle and “seek common ground” on issues, noting that she was able to team up with former Republican House leader Tom DeLay on legislation facilitating post-infant adoptions.

As Hillary Clinton herself has done of late, the former president made efforts to endorse the actions of the Obama presidency and to associate her with the president’s accomplishments, which are “far greater than he’s been given credit for.”

Her goal was to make “the American dream” available to everybody, to people of all races, classes, and stations in life — “Yes, we can,” he said, invoking a well-known Obama phrase — and the course of her life, he proclaimed, had been one of “always making something good happen.”

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Politics Politics Feature

There’s an 8th District Congressional Race!

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Yes, yes, in the wake of the Iowa caucuses, it would appear that the forthcoming March 1st Super Tuesday presidential primary in Tennessee is going to be hard-fought in both parties. And the down-ballot primaries for the one local race, that of general sessions clerk, will no doubt pick up some extra votes from the overflow.

But another political contest, involving any number of prominent local politicians, came out of nowhere on Monday to loom as this year’s feature race-to-be on the August 4th state primary ballot.

The outlook for this year’s race for the 8th District congressional seat transformed itself from a ho-hum incumbency-reelection effort into what is certain to be a hard-fought, free-for-all, with the surprise announcement that incumbent Republican congressman Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump, in Crockett County, would be bowing out after completing the present term, his third. Fincher’s stated reasons were of the sort that could certainly be taken literally, though they hinted at unsaid reasons that the state’s political class will doubtless spend a good deal of time guessing about.

Jackson Baker

Five hopefuls: (from l) Flinn, Kustoff, Kelsey, Leatherwood, and Basar.

“I have decided not to seek re-election to the 8th Congressional District seat this year,” the Republican congressman and well-known gospel singer said, in a prepared mid-morning news release. “I am humbled by the opportunity to serve the people of West Tennessee, but I never intended to become a career politician. The last six years have been the opportunity of a lifetime, and I am honored to have been given the chance to serve.”

But, while political observers were still scratching their heads in amazement, a small host of ambitious Republican politicians swung into action. Almost instantaneously came an announcement from radiologist/radio magnate George Flinn, who has sought the seat before, that he would be a candidate in the 8th again this year.

Flinn, a former Shelby County commissioner and frequent candidate for several other positions, suggested he had intended to challenge for the seat even before Fincher’s announcement and, by implication, might have influenced the incumbent’s decision: “I have been traveling in West Tennessee for the past few months and listening to citizens talk about their lives,  what is happening in our community. The overwhelming facts are that Congress has not been doing enough to address our needs. I have heard all of our concerns, and I am convinced that we must act. We are headed in the wrong direction, but we can fix things. That is why I am running for U.S. Congress in the 8th District of Tennessee.”

In rapid-fire order came announcements from other hopefuls, most of them clearly ad hoc statements prepared in haste.

There was this from former U.S. Attorney David Kustoff, who had previously run for Congress in the 7th District, much of which is now in the 8th District: “I want to thank Congressman Fincher for his service to our country and for fighting for conservative values in Washington. I strongly believe our state deserves a congressman who will continue the fight for Tennessee values and principles, and that is why I will be candidate for the 8th Congressional District. ”

And, not long after that, came word from Shelby County Register Tom Leatherwood, who had also previously sought election from the 7th. Said Leatherwood, who was already trying out the rudiments of a campaign speech: “I am throwing my hat into the ring for the 8th congressional seat. I believe I have a very strong, proven conservative record which will resonate in the district, having served two terms in the state Senate, where I helped kill a state income tax twice. I also served on the Senate Finance Committee, where we had to tell people no in order to balance the budget. This is the type of discipline I can bring to Washington.”

Virtually back-to-back announcements then came from state Senator Brian Kelsey and Shelby County Commissioner Steve Basar that they intended to seek the 8th District seat as well.  

Kelsey, who has long been expected to seek an open congressional seat, wasted no time in picking up a petition for the 8th District race at the Shelby County Election Commission and featured a photo of that act on his Twitter page. Basar, who had already floated a trial balloon for a candidacy in the 9th District against Democratic incumbent Steve Cohen, said a race in the 8th, where his domicile is, seemed a more obvious route to Congress. 

Neither Flinn’s entry nor Kustoff’s nor Leatherwood’s might have been unexpected, given their prior attempts at congressional service. Besides running in the 8th District in 2010, when he finished third in a three-way GOP primary race, Flinn ran unsuccessfully in 2012 as the GOP nominee against 9th District incumbent Cohen. He is well-known for his almost Trump-like willingness to self-fund his political races to the tune of millions.

Kustoff sought the 7th District seat in a four-way GOP primary in 2002 that also included then county commissioner, now state Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris and then City Councilman Brent Taylor. That race was won by current incumbent Marsha Blackburn. Reapportionment after 2010 resulted in the transfer of most of the east Shelby County portion of the 7th district into the 8th, which already included a generous section of northern Shelby County.

Leatherwood pointed out that he won 62 percent of the Shelby County vote in a 2008 direct primary challenge to Blackburn and that his Senate district included Tipton and Lauderdale counties, which also are contained in or overlap the 8th District. The county register also notes that Shelby County has accounted for as much as 55 percent of the total 8th District vote since the new district lines were established after the 2010 census.

That fact, the prominence of Shelby County in the 8th District, and especially of the Republican-dominated portions of Shelby County, may well have influenced Fincher’s decision not to seek reelection this year. He might have had thought processes similar to those of Blackburn, who did well in Shelby County against three natives of the county in the 2002 GOP primary but, as noted, lost the county to Leatherwood in 2008, and subsequently lobbied to move the western boundary of her district out of Shelby County.

Several Shelby Countians, including current Memphis City Council Chairman Kemp Conrad (who may yet be heard from this year), had in previous years thought out loud about a challenge in the 8th District, and have become a crowd, now that the district is an open seat.

Deadline for the Republican and Democratic primaries is April 7th. The Democratic front has been quiet apropos the 8th, but don’t expect that to last.

Jackson Baker

STANDARD BEARERS  — On exhibit at a fund-raiser at the James Lee House last month was an advance model of what will be sculptor Alan LeQuire’s permanent memorial to the Tennessee suffragists who fought for and won the vote for women in Tennessee — the decisive vote for the 19th (or Universal Suffrage) Amendment. The inset shows (l to r) Adrienne Pakis-Gillon, vice president of the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monument, Inc. board; Perfect 36 member Jocelyn Wurzburg; and board president Paula Casey.

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Cover Feature News

A “Change” Election

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Jackson Baker

Lawyer Lang Wiseman and Supreme Court Justice-designate Holly Kirby make the case for Amendment 2 on judicial appointment

It is one of the laments of local political junkies that the number of seriously contested candidate races on the November 4th ballot is somewhat restricted, to say the least. Oh, they exist here and there — in a hot race for mayor of Germantown between Mike Palazzolo and George Brogdon, for one example, and one in Bartlett  between incumbent Bubba Pleasant and challenger Mick Wright, for another.

And, of course, Charlotte Bergmann and George Flinn, two Republican never-say-die types would insist on the competitive nature of their races — for the 9th District congressional seat and the District 30 state Senate seat, respectively. And so, for that matter, would Dwayne Thompson, the valiant Democrat who is running against incumbent state Representative Steve McManus in House District 96, one of the reddest Republican areas of Shelby County.

There is, moreover, a race of sorts in the mainly rural 8th Congressional District, which these days includes a generous slice of eastern Shelby County within its far-flung western-Tennessee sprawl. One Wes Bradley, a sheriff’s deputy from Paris, up near the Kentucky border, traveled into Germantown (yes, Germantown) not long ago to make a rousing speech to a group of Democrats (yes, Democrats) in support of his race against well-heeled Republican Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump, who seeks a third term in a district that, like so much of Tennessee, switched abruptly to GOP control in 2010 and hasn’t yet looked back.

Most political observers find it hard to share the optimism of Bergmann, Flinn, Thompson, and Bradley, since each is bucking a well-established tide favoring the opposition, but there is a caveat that needs to be taken seriously — which is that the very paucity of competitive races on the Shelby County ballot would almost seem to put the coming vote in the category of a special election, with all the attendant lack of public interest that could be exploited by a determined stealth candidate.

Case in point: Current Republican Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland is as red a Republican as they make ’em, and he very nearly upset Ophelia Ford in a 2005 special election contest for the state Senate seat vacated by the Democrat’s brother John Ford, a Tennessee Waltz indictee.

Factors such as money and organization could help offset the expected outcome to some degree. In his race against Democrat Sara Kyle for the seat just vacated by her husband, newly elected Shelby County Chancellor Jim Kyle, Flinn, a famously wealthy businessman/physician, can self-finance ad infinitum as he has in several prior races. And Bergmann may have a modest amount of financial support, too, though nothing to compare with the resources of incumbent Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen, a formidable candidate and veteran fourth-termer who has an unspent $1 million or more carried over from previous campaigns.  

But what really makes the hopes of such long-odds challengers look unrealistic is the fact that there are indeed some choices on the November 4th ballot that should jack up the vote totals enough to reduce the prospect for any freak outcomes.

John Jay Hooker, sworn foe of Amendment 2

No one expects Republican Governor Bill Haslam to be seriously troubled by Democratic gubernatorial nominee Charlie Brown, a retired East Tennessee construction worker who has the late cartoonist Charles Schulz to thank for the name recognition that got him through a crowded but little-noticed Democratic primary. Brown will do well to stay even with such other also-runnings as Isa Infante of the Green Party and legendary — if lapsed from his glory days — independent John Jay Hooker.

But Democrat Gordon Ball, the successful Knoxville lawyer who is challenging veteran GOP veteran Lamar Alexander for the latter’s U.S. Senate seat, is wealthy enough to do some self-financing of his own, and he displayed some chops in a hotly contested primary battle with fellow Knoxville attorney Terry Adams. 

Alexander is, as they say, highly favored (and is in possession of several million dollars in campaign cash, to boot), but Ball cites for the record both that the incumbent finished below 50 percent in his August primary against Flinn and the Tea Party backed Joe Carr and that a current poll shows Alexander to be still below 50 percent — though leading — in his race against Ball, Libertarian candidate Tom Emerson, and a passel of others.

(For more on the U.S. Senate race and assorted other contests, see “Alexander and Ball in Heated Tennessee Senate Race” in this weeki’s “Politics” column.)

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

Jackson Baker

Proponents of Amendment 1 with passer-by at Bartlett Festival

Again, though, the galvanizing factor in this election — and that which makes a meager special-election turnout unlikely — lies in the voting for four proposed amendments to the Tennessee Constitution, three of which are potential bringers of serious, even transformational, change to the state.

By far the most controversial of the proposed ballot issues is Amendent 1, which proponents — who include Governor Haslam and other influential members of the predominant Republican state establishment — say is necessary to amend a 2000 state Supreme Court ruling that affords more protection of abortion rights in Tennessee than the federal courts allow for the nation at large.

Opponents of the amendment — who include the chief figures of the Tennessee Democratic Party, including Ball, Cohen, and state party Chairman Roy Herron — see Amendment 1 as nothing less than the proverbial “slippery slope,” designed to turn back the clock on abortion rights or ultimately to discard them altogether.

Even some neutral observers find troubling the Amendment’s last clause — which expressly opens the way to legislative revision of the accustomed preconditions for abortion in cases of “rape, incest, or threats to the life of the mother.”

In any case, the amount of money invested on the issue seems destined to rise well above a million dollars for either side, with a major player being Planned Parenthood — which in recent years has been fighting for its life, literally, against a hostile state GOP establishment bent on defunding or disempowering it. 

Jackson Baker

Former state Senator Beverly Marrero makes the case against Amendment 1

(For a fuller discussion of Amendment 1,

and some of the issues attending it, see Bianca Phillips’ story, p. 21.)

Amendment 2, which concerns the mode of appointing state appellate judges, is seen as equally crucial by its adherents, who include numerous legal lights and an impressively bipartisan cast of characters (both Haslam and his Democratic predecessor, Phil Bredesen, are making the rounds for the amendment).

Much like Amendment 3, which would explicitly ban a state income tax, Amendment 2 is designed to eliminate an ambiguity in the state Constitution, which stipulates that appellate judges must be “elected by qualified voters of the state.” To those who take the Constitution literally — like the aforementioned Democratic maverick Hooker, once a leading political figure but now an almost hermetically obsessive one — that means to vote for appellate judges in the same way that Tennesseans vote for state trial judges.

Others believed in the legality of the state’s current “Tennessee Plan” — among them, the members of a special Supreme Court panel (including two Memphians, lawyer Monica Wharton and Criminal Court Judge Bobby Carter) that, earlier this year, validated it. The plan allowed for a special nominating commission to present names to the governor, who in turn could select from the names or call for a new list. Whoever got appointed would be subject to a statewide yes/no retention vote at eight-year intervals.

Amendment 2 keeps to the same general format, though it eliminates the provision for a nominating commission and adds a new one requiring legislative approval of a gubernatorial appointment. Without an adverse vote by both chambers of the General Assembly within 60 days, the appointment becomes final.

The veto power given the legislature was the factor that garnered approval of the amendment from such current supporters as Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey and state Senate Judiciary Chairman Brian Kelsey of Germantown, the latter of whom is Amendment 2’s chief sponsor. Supporters of Amendment 2 warn that, if it is rejected, direct election, which has had its backers and which opponents warn would bring both big money and high-stakes politics to the appellate selection process, will once again be in the legislative hopper, with good prospects of success.

In something of a hat trick, Kelsey is also the main legislative sponsor of Amendment 3, which would ban a state income tax and a state payroll tax and potentially lead to the abolition of the currently legal Hall Income Tax on interest and While essentially acquiescent in the case of Amendment 2, Kelsey has been nothing short of zealous in shepherding Amendment 3 through the complicated process of approval by both legislative chambers in consecutive sessions in order to qualify for the ballot.

Though a state income tax was seriously pushed more than a decade ago by former Governor Don Sundquist, a Republican, and by the Democratic legislative leadership of the time, it aroused grass-roots resistance bordering on the fanatical and was finally blocked in July 2001 by a bona fide mob riot on the grounds and in the halls of the state Capitol.

Though the idea of an income tax still has its defenders — to some degree, in both parties — they are so clearly in the minority that virtually no one doubts overwhelming success for Amendment 3.

After all the sturm-und-drang involved in the first three amendments, the last one, Amendment 4, comes off as inconsequential and even a bit quaint. Basically, it loosens constitutional restrictions on state lotteries to permit charity raffles on behalf of veterans’ groups, and the chief threat to its success is an existing constitutional wrinkle that ties success or failure of an amendment to the number of votes cast in the gubernatorial race. 

Basically, for a constitutional amendment to pass, it must garner a majority of the votes that is at least equal to the number of votes that would constitute a majority in the race for governor.

Given the essential no-contest aspect of the 2014 governor’s race, pro- and con- activists in the case of a particular amendment have advocated strategies making use of this constitutional quirk. Those wishing to defeat an amendment are being counseled to vote for somebody, anybody for governor at all costs, thereby raising the threshold for the amendment’s approval.

Conversely, proponents of an amendment might well take a pass on the governor’s race, thereby lowering the threshold of success. OTHER BALLOT INITIATIVES

Wine-in-Grocery-Stores: After dint of much struggle in many legislative sessions, the wine-bibbers of Tennessee finally got the General Assembly to uncork the opportunity for them to purchase their fermented grape delights in grocery stores as well as in liquor stores per se.

There are several catches, though. One is that localities that already have legalized retail liquor sales or bars and that want to permit such diversity are obliged to pass through two hoops — first, the establishment of a referendum on this fall’s ballot sounding out voter opinion on the merits of such an expansion of wine sales; secondly, the passage of the referendum. 

Six of Shelby County’s legal municipalities — Memphis, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Arlington, and Millington — are holding such referenda, couched in simple “for” or “against” choices on the question of “legal sale of wine at retail stores” within city limits. (Voters residing in the county’s other municipality, Lakeland, will find an alternate referendum on their ballot, on whether to approve “the legal sale of alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises in city of Lakeland.” Should this referendum pass, Lakeland will qualify for a wine-in-grocery-stores referendum of its own on some future ballot.)

In the event a municipality should pass the referendum enabling wine sales in grocery establishments, several other catches come into play. One is that the grocery-store sales may not begin until July 1,

2016. Another mandates that retail food establishments within 500 feet of an established liquor store must wait another year, until July 1, 2017.

Yet another catch — a concession to big-box retailers — is that only grocery stores sized 1,200 square feet or greater may sell wine when the time comes.

Meanwhile, the liquor lobby, which has held sway in Tennessee virtually forever, won the right as of July 1st of this year to sell commercial beers, which are already available at most of them.                

Civil-service-reform: An initiative on the ballot for Memphis voters asks them to decide whether to “1) increase the number of Civil Service Commission members; 2) make administrative updates to civil service hearing processes and procedures; and 3) Allow the Director of Personnel to consider performance as a measure for personnel evaluations.” Enough said.

Making Sense of Amendment 1

A guide to the history and rhetoric behind the ballot initiative that affects abortion rights.

By Bianca Phillips

 

“Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion. The people retain the right through their elected state representatives and state senators to enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or when necessary to save the life of the mother.”

           

That’s the language Tennessee voters will see on the ballot for Amendment 1 on Election Day. But what does that mean?

In a nutshell, a “Yes” vote would amend the Tennessee Constitution to allow the General Assembly to enact new laws or amend existing laws to further restrict a woman’s right to an abortion.

They could pass bans on abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy, as some other states have done. Or they could require that all second trimester abortions be performed in hospitals. They could even go so far as to restrict abortions for women who have been raped or women who may die giving birth because of some health condition or complication.

Owen Phillips, a local OB/GYN appears in a television ad for the “Vote No on 1” campaign. In that commercial, she shares a story about a patient who had cancer and was told she might die if she kept her baby. That patient chose not to have an abortion, and she lost her life.

Screeenshot from ‘vote no on 1’ commercial

“I chose that story because whether or not she continued the pregnancy or had an abortion didn’t matter. What mattered is that she had a chance to sit down with her family and make the decision that was right for her,” Phillips said. “I think most people listening to that story would say, ‘Oh my gosh, I would not have chosen that.’ They see that their decision may have been different, and this law would take that decision-making out of their hands.”

Since the General Assembly has tried before (and failed, thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court decision), they could pass mandatory 72-hour waiting periods between a woman’s initial consultation with an abortion provider and her procedure. That would make obtaining abortions more difficult for women who are forced to travel across the state or from other states since they would have to take multiple days off work (and spend more money on travel expenses) for the entire process.

While Roe v. Wade provides some federal protection for abortion rights, it has been challenged before, and it could be challenged again in the future.

“I think [state legislators] will pass something that says abortion becomes illegal in Tennessee if Roe v. Wade is overturned,” said Ashley Coffield, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region.

A “No” vote on Amendment 1 would leave things just as they are. But how are they? The “Vote Yes on 1” camp often touts that abortions in Tennessee are largely unregulated. But that’s not exactly true.

Tennessee has had parental consent laws in place for minors seeking abortions since the 1990s. And in 2012, the state legislature passed a law requiring doctors in reproductive health clinics to have hospital-admitting privileges in order for those clinics to provide abortions. When that restriction passed in 2012, two of the state’s abortion clinics were forced to shut down. Abortion in Tennessee, said Coffield, is “highly regulated.”

“We have to have a surgery treatment center license at Planned Parenthood, and we are subject to licensure and inspection by the Tennessee Department of Health,” Coffield added. 

The licensing issue is a major talking point for proponents of Amendment 1. One who makes the case for the amendment is Lorene Steffes, a board member of Yeson1.org and the organization’s director of community education.

Steffes said in September, when announcing her campaign’s county chairs: “We even lack the legal basis for licensing and inspecting facilities where abortions are performed. The severity of this matter has inspired these 95 leaders to step forward to win Amendment 1 in November, and we are grateful for their dedication and support.”

Coffield says that the theory of abortions being unregulated in Tennessee is based on a state Court of Appeals ruling regarding licensure of ambulatory surgical treatment centers.

“The regulations in Tennessee for ambulatory surgical treatment centers say any health center that does a substantial number of abortions has to have a certificate of need from the state and a license and must be an ambulatory surgery center,” Coffield said. “But what is a substantial number of abortions?

“Nobody knows what that means, so a private physician [Gary Boyle] challenged that, and he won. And now he can do abortions in his private practices [in Nashville and Bristol] and not be a surgery center. This is where our opposition gets the idea that abortion is unregulated because private physicians can do it in their practices, and they don’t have to have a surgery treatment center license,” Coffield said.

That’s a loophole that Coffield said could easily be closed by the state without having a large effect on women’s access to abortion.

Tennessee currently has strong abortion rights protections in place. In the 1990s, the Tennessee General Assembly passed four restrictions on abortion — parental consent, a 72-hour waiting period, a requirement that second trimester abortions had to be performed in hospitals, and a requirement that physicians counsel patients with a script crafted by the state government.

In 2000, Planned Parenthood in Memphis and Nashville challenged those restrictions, and only the parental consent requirement was upheld. The other three were struck down on the basis that the Tennessee Constitution guarantees the right to privacy, even when it relates to a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Kroger Trouble Breeds Unity

CREDIT: Jackson baker

As was true of the rest of Memphis in the aftermath of the horrific mob beating of three random victims in the parking lot of Poplar Plaza Saturday night, members of the newly constituted Shelby County Commission were clearly preoccupied with the subject and made it one of the first main matters of discussion on Monday.

Toward the end of the meeting, Republican Mark Billingsley, who represents Germantown, raised the issue: “We need a discussion of public safety,” he said, and that became the basis for a spirited discussion in which the ominous import of the mob violence at a key Poplar corridor crossroads was acknowledged around the board.

Billingsley pointed out the impact of the event on suburban points east and the likelihood of even further fissures in a longstanding city/suburban divide that had been stretched to the breaking point by years of bitter disagreement over the school merger issue. Fellow Republican Terry Roland, who hails from Millington, said, “Crime doesn’t have borders,” and he was seconded on the point by Democrat Reginald Milton. Heidi Shafer, another GOP member, pointed out that the outrage at Poplar Plaza — a follow-up to a previous one that occurred there the weekend before — took place at a popular shopping venue within a residential area that was thickly populated with representatives of local government, Democratic and Republican, black and white.

“We have to have a little bit of muscle,” she said, and it was finally agreed that the commission would seek a meeting with county Mayor Mark Luttrell, Sheriff Bill Oldham, and — per the suggeston of Democrat Melvin Burgess — Gerald Darling, the chief of security at Shelby County Schools, along with perhaps other officials, to hammer out a response.

Jackson baker

Commissioners Billingsley (left) and Shafer discussing the Poplar Plaza incident.

For an elective body known more for disagreement than concord, there was a striking sense of unanimity in the commission’s action — one reflective, no doubt, of attitudes in the community at large.

 

• It would seem that the former practice of commission members rotating their chairmanship back and forth between Republicans and Democrats is a thing of the past — and so is the value of a vice chairmanship in establishing the succession of chairs.

Justin Ford, a Democrat, was elected commission chair Monday for the commission year 2014-15, besting three other nominees, fellow Democrat Walter Bailey and Republicans Roland and Steve Basar. All were holdovers on the 13-member county legislative body, newly elected from 13 single-member districts.

Roland would end up with the consolation prize of the vice chairmanship — an office that, in times of yore, would have put him in the line of succession to the chairmanship, but hasn’t done so for the past several vice chairs, including Basar, who was last year’s vice chair (aka chairman pro tem).

It is true in a sense, as Republican Shafer said during the debate, that Ford’s election is a triumph for bipartisanship. No other Democratic member, with the possible exception of the now departed James Harvey, sided with Republicans as often during the previous commission session as did Ford.

But the real meaning of the outcome is that Democrats, whose current 7-6 majority on the commission is, if anything, likely to expand in years to come, are in control of the commission and its agenda whenever they can agree on something.

The chairmanship vote occurred early on in Monday’s meeting and was overseen by Ford, who in a prefigurement of sorts, was elected temporary chair by a single vote over Shafer.

The proceedings began with an interesting wrinkle, when, after the original four nominations were made from the 13 commissioners themselves, Ford allowed speeches of support from members of the audience. Roland won that straw vote hands down, with four testifiers to his virtue compared to one for Bailey.

But it was Bailey who would lead the pack through the first two ballots, garnering six votes and ending only a vote shy both times. His nearest competitor, early on, was Roland, who essentially split the GOP vote with Basar, getting as many as four votes until Shafer, toward the end of the second round, shifted her vote from Roland to Ford, who thereby survived into the third ballot when the field, according to commission rules regarding such matters, was pared down to a final twosome.

Shafer, who had championed Roland’s cause beforehand, would acknowledge later that her vote change was in recognition that a Bailey vs. Roland runoff would end in victory for the Democrat on a straight party-line vote, while Ford vs. Bailey would allow Republicans to influence the outcome.

And so it came to pass that Ford, with considerable backing from Republican members, prevailed by a single vote over the venerable Bailey, whose positions on issues are more likely to be fixed in longstanding Democratic doctrine.

• Another important decision was reached Monday — this one occurring in the evening, as the Shelby County Democratic Executive Committee met at the IBEW meeting hall on Madison to nominate a candidate for state Senate District 30 on the November 4th county ballot.

A vacancy was created last month when the longtime seat holder, Jim Kyle, was elected chancellor on  August 7th and formally resigned on the 29th. Three candidates, all women, vied for the honor of the nomination, which, as state Attorney General Robert Cooper had ruled, had to be filled by a given political party’s governing committee.

In Shelby County, the relevant organizations were the Democrats’ executive committee and the Shelby County Republicans’ steering committee. Though District 30, which encompasses much of North Memphis, Frayser, and Raleigh, is heavily Democratic, it was the GOP that filled its place on the ballot first, having nominated physician/broadcast executive George Flinn as its nominee at a steering committee meeting last week.

Sensing all but certain victory in November, several Democrats considered throwing their hats in the ring, but in the end it was three of the party’s prominent women who vied for the nomination. They were Sara Kyle, wife of the former senator, and a former city judge and member of the state Regulatory Authority; Beverly Marrero, a former state senator who had lost a 2012 race to Jim Kyle in District 30; and Carol Chumney, a former state representative, city councilmember, and mayoral candidate.

Present for the occasion was state Democratic Chairman Roy Herron of Nashville, who delivered encouraging remarks before the committee’s vote, as did newly elected District 29 state Senator Lee Harris and former county commissioner and county mayoral candidate Steve Mulroy.

All three struck a note of harmony, as did the three candidates, who made brief speeches before the vote was taken. The only surprise came when Chumney announced that she was withdrawing and throwing her support to Marrero.

Kyle prevailed by a margin of 18-to-16, with only those committee members voting who represented districts encompassed by or within District 30.

For all the well-known schisms within local Democratic ranks, Monday night’s meeting had less contentiousness, at least on the surface, than the GOP equivalent.

On that occasion, which took place at Clark Tower last Thursday night, steering committee member John Niven had nominated Flinn, and Justin Joy, the Shelby County Republican chairman, had been about to call the nomination process over when Colonel Gene Billingsley, the party’s nominee for state House District 93, unexpectedly interjected, “Somebody nominate me!”

When no one responded, Billingsley, who has a well-deserved reputation in party circles as being eccentric and was at the meeting as a spectator, groused loudly, “What? A bunch of wimps?” Committee member Wayne West did point out, in an apparent attempt to settle down the interloper, that Billingsley already had a place on the November ballot. 

More would be forthcoming, however, from the Colonel, who kept up something of a running commentary, even as Flinn, clearly a consensus choice, was addressing committee members, pledging his usual earnest (and no doubt well-financed, also as usual) electioneering effort and calling for their support.

As Flinn was finishing up with his remarks, Billingsley had one more taunt. “I’m not going to vote for you!” he yelled out. He seemed all by himself with that sentiment, however. Flinn received a hearty round of applause when Chairman Joy pronounced him the party’s nominee.