Democrats Johnson, Huseth at High Point (Photos: Jackson Baker)
As was surely to be expected, the next-to-last weekend of the climactic 2024 election campaign was filled with feverish activity of various kinds — with early voting into its second week and candidates trying to get as many of their partisans as possible to the polls.
A case in point was a pair of events involving Gloria Johnson, the Knoxville Democrat who is trying to unseat incumbent Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn.
Johnson, the state representative who gained national attention last year as a member of the “Tennessee Three” proponents of gun-safety legislation, has raised some $7 million for her bid — almost all of it from in-state sources, she contended proudly.
While that is no match for the incumbent’s $17 million or so, it has been enough to buy Johnson a series of concise and well-produced TV spots pinpointing Blackburn’s alleged shortcomings. And it even gives her some of the kind of influence that politicians call coattails.
Opponents Nordstrom and White at Belly Acres
Johnson was in Shelby County on Saturday, sharing time with two other Democrats, District 83 state House candidate Noah Nordstrom (like Johnson a public schoolteacher) and District 97 House candidate Jesse Huseth.
The first event was a joint rally with Nordstrom and state Democratic chair Hendrell Remus just outside the perimeter of the New Bethel Missionary Baptist early-voting station. Next, Johnson met up with Huseth at High Point Grocery for some joint canvassing efforts, after which Huseth, who opposes GOP incumbent John Gillespie, set out on some door-to-door calls on residents in that western part of his district.
The most unusual pre-election event on Saturday didn’t involve Johnson, nor was it, in the strictest sense, a partisan event at all. It was a meet-and-greet at the Belly Acres restaurant in East Memphis involving both Nordstrom and his GOP adversary, incumbent Republican state Representative Mark White.
Not a debate between the two, mind you. A joint meet-and-greet, at which both candidates circulated among the members of a sizeable crowd, spending conversational time with the attendees and with each other.
The event was the brainchild of one Philip D. Hicks, impresario of something called the Independent Foundation for Political Effectiveness. Hicks says he hopes the Nordstrom-White encounter, his organization’s maiden effort, can serve as a precedent for other such joint candidate efforts to come — presumably in future election seasons.
Inasmuch as political competition is, by its nature, an adversarial process, it’s somewhat difficult to imagine such events becoming commonplace, but, all things considered, this first one went amazingly well.
It wasn’t the same kind of thing at all, but there were elements of such collegiality between potential election opponents at an earlier event, a meeting of the Germantown Democratic Club at Coletta’s on Appling Road during the previous week.
That event included Memphis City Council Chair JB Smiley as its featured speaker, and Smiley, who is reliably reported to be thinking of a race for Shelby County mayor in 2026, spent a fair amount of time comparing notes on public matters (e.g., MLGW, the future of the erstwhile Sheraton Hotel) with attendee J.W. Gibson, a businessman who has basically already declared for that office.
The Flyer recently highlighted several referenda for Memphis voters on the November 5th election ballot. This week, which will see the onset of early voting (October 16th through October 31st), we look at partisan contests in several key races.
Legislative Races
Noah Nordstrom, tall, stately, with long blonde hair he ties into a bun, says people tell him he looks like Trevor Lawrence, the ex-Clemson quarterback who now pilots the Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL. “Either that or Thor,” Nordstrom says. “I’ll take either one.”
Images aside, Nordstrom is paradoxically mild-mannered and not macho at all, indeed somewhat diffident, as befits his day job as a public school teacher.
Noah Nordstrom (Photo: Jackson Baker)
What else he hopes to take is the title of state representative for Tennessee’s District 83, an enclave that straddles the southeastern rim of Shelby County and the western edge of Germantown. Challenger Nordstrom, a Democrat, has his work cut out for him. The seat has been held since 2010 by Republican Mark White, a fixture in the state GOP’s legislative supermajority in Nashville and the chair of the House Education Committee.
Education, as it happens, is also the central concern of Nordstrom, who teaches Spanish at Overton High School and is sounding the alarm about what he calls the “radical” ideas of the current legislative Republican supermajority. The specific moment that galvanized him into running came, he says, “when I realized that my state representative, Mark White, is pushing the voucher bill.”
That bill, a main priority of GOP Governor Bill Lee, is described by Nordstrom as “a proposal that would defund our public schools across the entire state of Tennessee.” A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but the premise of the proposed legislation is that substantial amounts of taxpayer money would be siphoned out of the general fund to provide tuition at private schools, which, arguably, are in direct competition with the long-established public school system.
“I live just over on the Memphis side [where] Memphis has set up against it completely,” said Nordstrom. Also, as he notes, “The leaders here in Germantown, the entire school board, and the mayor stood up and said, you know, we don’t want this. … Even the Republican-leaning communities don’t want it. And so I decided to throw my name in.”
Indeed, opposition to school vouchers is universal in Shelby County school circles, not only in the urbanized Memphis-Shelby County Schools, but in each of the six county municipalities — Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Lakeland, Arlington, and Millington — that won the right to establish their own public school districts during the school merger controversy of the county’s previous decade.
Opposition to vouchers is one of the key wedge issues, along with demands for gun safety, also linked to public schools, that Democrats — presumed to be a minority in District 83, as they certainly are in the state at large — hope can support a political comeback for the party.
“We can do better for our kids, and so that’s been one of the main issues,” Nordstrom said at the Future901-sponsored meeting, held in a Germantown household, where he recently spoke his views. “Obviously one of the other major ones is gun violence. It’s overwhelming to realize that you might not be able to save some of these kids. We see it every day, wondering whether they’re going to make it home safe.”
Gloria Johnson (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Unforgotten is the “good trouble” of spring 2023, when mass protests were held at the state Capitol following a lethal episode of gun violence at a Nashville school. In the aftermath, three Democratic House members, including Justin J. Pearson of Memphis and Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, a candidate this year for the U.S. Senate, were held to accounts by the Republican majority for their passionate support of protesters’ demands for gun safety legislation.
Pearson was expelled by the vengeful majority, along with Justin Jones of Nashville, the third member of the “Tennessee Three.” Johnson survived expulsion by a single vote. All three were celebrated nationally for their stands, and Pearson and Jones were hastily returned to office in special elections.
Realistically, Democrats don’t envision any immediate regaining of the hegemony the party held for much of Tennessee’s history, but they do hope to achieve at some point a competitive status with the Republicans, who established their dominance in the statewide election years of 2010 and 2014 and have never looked back.
At the Future901 meeting in Germantown, there was a fair amount of partisan bear-baiting of Republicans, to be sure, but there were also expressions of concern regarding the increasing takeover of the GOP by MAGA ideology and a corresponding erosion, as attendees saw it, of commonsense shared values among Republican office-holders.
John Gillespie (Photo: Jackson Baker)
White, Nordstrom’s opponent, and state Representative John Gillespie, the incumbent Republican in House District 97, were specifically cited as case studies of GOP moderates shedding their scruples, or at least trimming them at the edges, while going along to get along with the MAGA-minded majority.
As Nordstrom noted, “Now the gun lobby is so strong they say, ‘Don’t vote our way and we’ll find a candidate for the primary, and we’ll pick you out.’ And that’s part of the reason why Mark White has gotten so much more radical. You know, at one point he opposed getting rid of the permitting system for concealed carry. And last year, he voted to arm teachers, and that’s because he knows they” — members supported by the gun lobby — “are comfortable.”
Democratic activist Diane Cambron, an attendee, concurred: “That’s one of the reasons why [District 96 Democratic state Representative] Dwayne Thompson is not running for reelection. He didn’t run for reelection this time because, according to him, when he first got elected in 2016 there were some moderate Republicans with whom he could work, but every year, those moderate Republicans drop out, they don’t run, and they’re replaced by younger, more radical Republicans, and that is what our Republican legislature is becoming. Even though they have a majority, they’re getting more and more radical all the time. There are very few moderate Republicans left.”
It should be said that White, the criticism notwithstanding, is widely regarded as being able to work across party lines. And, as the old joke has it, White can cry all the way to the bank. As is the case with most incumbents, especially well-heeled establishment figures, his cash receipts dwarf those of opponent Nordstrom, a first-time candidate.
His Education Committee chairmanship is consistent with his background in that, before attaining some success with a party-favor business, he was an elementary school teacher and a principal. He co-founded something called the Global Children’s Educational Foundation, which provided financial assistance and educational opportunities to impoverished children in Panama. And he won the Tennessee Community Organizations’ Legislator of the Year award in 2016 and the Tennessee CASA Association’s Legislator of the Year award in 2012.
He is no slouch, no easy target.
All of which is to say that Noah Nordstrom and the Democrats will have their hands full in District 83. They remain hopeful, though, that they can build on the incremental success they began in 2016 — ironically the year of Donald J. Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton nationally. The victory in 2016 of the aforementioned Dwayne Thompson over incumbent Republican Steve McManus in District 96 was just as much of an upset locally. As then constituted, District 96 also straddled city and county lines and the accustomed bailiwicks of either party.
Jesse Huseth (Photo: Jackson Baker)
So does House District 97, where the case can be made that Democratic challenger Jesse Huseth might even be regarded as a favorite over incumbent Republican John Gillespie. The two opponents have raised approximately the same amount of money, each with cash on hand of just under $100,000, and, as currently configured, the district lines encompass a territory where Democrat Jason Martin, a distant second to incumbent GOP Governor Bill Lee virtually everywhere statewide, actually out-polled Lee. And the same can be said of Joe Biden in his presidential race against Trump.
The district’s current configuration remains one of the mysteries of Election Year 2024, since Gillespie, as a member of the GOP supermajority, had the opportunity to call the shots during the redistricting that followed census year 2020. And he decided to discard two Republican-dominated county precincts in return for two politically ambivalent ones further west in Memphis proper, presumably lowering his chances for reelection.
There has yet emerged no satisfactory explanation for Gillespie’s decision. One theory is that, as someone not regarded as slavishly partisan, he fretted over the prospect of being challenged in this year’s primary by a MAGA type in the formerly configured district. Another is that he was determined to prove that he could still win the more problematic district as a presumed Republican moderate — one who conspicuously deviated from GOP orthodoxy on the issue of guns, among other issues. Yet a third theory is that Gillespie simply wishes to represent the concerns of Memphis’ Poplar Corridor business community.
In any case, the District 97 race is regarded statewide as something of a coin-flip race — a test case of sorts regarding future partisan tendencies and the Democrats’ best chance of altering the current statistical ratio in the House, which stands at 75 Republicans and 24 Democrats.
The race could hinge on the two candidates’ contrasting positions on crime, which reflect an ongoing showdown between state and city. Huseth is a strong supporter of three referenda on the Memphis ballot that seek citizen support for “trigger” laws that would allow possible local reinstitution of gun permit requirements, the banning of assault rifle sales, and the imposition of “red flag” laws allowing judges to confiscate firearms from likely offenders. The Democratic candidate is an adherent as well of District Attorney General Steve Mulroy’s call for a new Memphis crime lab that would facilitate detection and prosecution of violent crime.
Gillespie has allied himself with state Senator Brent Taylor, a declared foe of Mulroy, in aggressive sponsorship of legislation strengthening anti-crime penalties and counteracting local options on matters of sentencing. Gillespie authored a bill striking down the Memphis City Council’s ban of “preemptive” traffic stops based on minor infractions.
Partisan races exist in several other legislative districts, where the incumbents are heavily favored. The contests are: Democratic incumbent Larry Miller vs. Republican Larry Hunter in House District 88; Democratic incumbent G.A. Hardaway vs. Republican Renarda Renee Clariett in District 93; Democratic incumbent Antonio Parkinson vs. the GOP’s Cecil Hale in District 98; and Republican incumbent Tom Leatherwood vs. Democrat William P. Mouzon in District 99.
U.S. Senate
Democrats have not come out ahead in a statewide race in Tennessee since then-Governor Phil Bredesen fairly handily won reelection in 2006. By the time Bredesen was next on the ballot, in a race for the U.S. Senate in 2018, he was defeated with equal ease by arch-conservative Republican state Senator Marsha Blackburn.
Nothing more clearly indicates the sea change in Tennessee partisan politics which occurred in the meantime, with the rapid shift of Tennessee from the status of a bellwether state to one in which Republican domination of state affairs had become a given.
Blackburn is up for reelection this year, and Democratic hopes are vested in the aforementioned Gloria Johnson, who won prominence as a member of the “Tennessee Three,” the Democratic House members who drew the ire of the Republican leadership for their assertive support of gun safety protesters in 2023.
Both Blackburn and Johnson have well-deserved reputations for intense partisanship, with Blackburn being a mainline supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, of strong action against illegal immigration, and of MAGA causes in general, and Johnson being equally vigorous in espousal of Democratic positions on such matters as reproductive freedom and climate change. She has clashed repeatedly with Republicans in the legislature and, after being gerrymandered out of one state House seat by the GOP supermajority, returned to the General Assembly as the representative of another.
Efforts by Democrats and others to arrange debates between the two candidates have so far foundered on a confident and financially well-endowed Blackburn’s reluctance to entertain them, but various polls have suggested that underdog Johnson, beneficiary of a recent fundraiser at the Annesdale Mansion in Memphis, may be within striking distance.
Congressional Races
Incumbent Democrat Steve Cohen is heavily favored against Charlotte Bergmann, a perennial Republican opponent of his in the Memphis-based 9th District, while Republican incumbent David Kustoff in the 8th District has a scrappy challenger in Sarah Freeman of Germantown, who hopes to revive a dormant Democratic base in the rural enclaves of that West Tennessee district.
Sarah Freeman (Photo: Jackson Baker)
The effect of the 2024 presidential race on any and all of these local races is somewhat harder than usual to estimate. Normally a heavy Democratic turnout in Memphis precincts for the presidential race inflates the totals of Democrats running in local districts. And that effect could be augmented by a larger turnout than usual among women voters who favor the Democratic position on behalf of abortion rights and who might be influenced by the fact of a woman, Kamala Harris, heading the Democratic ticket. But local Republican candidates, too, can expect a boost, from whatever turnout the Trump/MAGA base can command.
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.
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.
District 30 state Senator Sara Kyle (Photo: Jackson Baker)
The historic congressional district of Memphis, currently and for many years designated as Tennessee’s 9th, has generally been one of long incumbencies.
The seat’s current inhabitant Steve Cohen, a Democrat and a longtime member of the state Senate, won it in 2006, after Harold Ford Jr., who had succeeded his father in the seat, had let go of it to seek an open U.S. Senate seat.
The two Fords, both Democrats, had served the 9th for a total of 32 years, beginning in 1974 when Ford Sr. pried it loose in what was then regarded as an upset, from Dan Kuykendall, the only Republican ever to hold the seat, at least in modern times.
Kuykendall had won the seat in 1966, defeating liberal Democrat George Grider, who in 1964 had won a Democratic primary race against Cliff Davis, a longtime member of the old Crump political machine who had held the Memphis seat for a full quarter century.
From an historical perspective, the relatively brief Grider/Kuykendall period, during which Republicans had, both locally and statewide, enjoyed a resurgence, was the only real time of rapid flux in the district’s — which is to say, the city’s — voting habits.
Before then, Memphis and the 9th had voted the traditional Southern Democratic party line. And, after that, with the Fords’ advent, that line bore the imprimatur of the growing political dominance of African Americans.
Cohen, white and Jewish, won the seat in 2006, taking advantage of a split among a dozen-odd Black primary opponents, and he has held it ever since — successfully taking on a series of name Black primary opponents and defeating them all, one-on-one, usually with ease.
He would seem clearly on that record to have represented his majority-Black district faithfully.
Cohen’s main current primary challenger is no slouch. Lawyer Corey Strong is a former Democratic Party chair with a background in education and military affairs (U.S. Naval Academy, two tours of Afghanistan).
Faced with Cohen’s enduring popularity and his million-dollar war chest, Strong has done the best he can, chiding Cohen for his often antic behavior and claiming the incumbent has not helped to keep the city’s infrastructure current (despite an impressive record of securing grants and Cohen’s recent announcement of $400 million for a new I-55 bridge).
Senate candidate Gloria Johnson (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Other races of note on the August 1st ballot:
• A free-for-all in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, with Knoxville state Rep. Gloria Johnson (she of the “Tennessee Three”) vying with Memphian Marquita Bradshaw and others for the right to take on Republican incumbent Marsha Blackburn in November
• Another brisk competition in the Democratic 8th District congressional primary, with Sarah Freeman, Leonard Perkins, Lawrence A. Pivnick, Lynnette P. Williams, and Brenda Woods, competing for a November shot against GOP incumbent David Kustoff
• A Democratic primary challenge to District 30 state Senator Sara Kyle from Erika Stotts Pearson
• A primary challenge to District 84 Democratic state Rep. Joe Towns from Vernell Williams
• A primary challenge to District 86 state Rep. Justin J. Pearson (he of the “Tennessee Three”) by David Page
• A Democratic primary challenge to District 93 state Rep. G.A. Hardaway from Lashanta Rudd
• A hot race in the Democratic primary for the open District 96 state House seat involving contestants Eric Dunn, Telisa Franklin, Gabby Salinas, Orrden Williams, and David Winston
• A Republican Party challenge to District 97 state Rep. John Gillespie from Christina Oppenhuizen
• A general election race for General Sessions Court clerk between Democrat Tami Sawyer and Republican Lisa Arnold
Shelby County Republican chairman Cary Vaughn with General Sessions clerk candidate Lisa Arnold (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Along with other offices to be decided this year, five of the nine seats on the Memphis-Shelby County School Board are on the August ballot. Candidates are:
• District 2: Ernest Gillespie III, Althea Greene (incumbent), and Natalie McKinney
• District 3: Jesse Jeff, Stephanie Love (incumbent), Ozell Pace Jr., and Angela Rogers
• District 4: James Q. Bacchus, Alvin Crook, Eric Harris, Tamarques Porter, and Anecia Washington
• District 5: Mauricio Calvo (incumbent), Audrey Elion, and Sable Otey
• District 7: Chavez G. Donelson, Danielle Huggins, Frank William Johnson (incumbent), Towanna C. Murphy, and Jason Sharif
Saturday of this week will see the end of early voting for the August 1st Shelby County general election and the state and federal primary elections.
As a reminder, Monday through Friday, early voting locations are open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with the exception of the Shelby County Election Commission site which is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Weekend times for all sites are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 27th.
Early voting sites (in Memphis except where otherwise indicated) are:
• Abundant Grace Fellowship Church, 1574 E. Shelby Drive
• Anointed Temple of Praise, 3939 Riverdale Road
• Arlington Safe Room, 11842 Otto Lane, Arlington
• Baker Community Center, 7942 Church Road, Millington
• Briarwood Community Church, 1900 N. Germantown Parkway
• Collierville Church of Christ, 575 Shelton Drive, Collierville
• Compassion Church, 3505 S. Houston Levee Road
• Dave Wells Community Center, 915 Chelsea Avenue
• Ed Rice Community Center, 2935 N. Watkins Street
• Gaisman Community Center, 4223 Macon Road
• Glenview Community Center, 1141 S. Barksdale Street
• Greater Lewis St. Baptist Church, 152 E. Parkway N.
• Greater Middle Baptist Church, 4982 Knight Arnold Road
• Harmony Church, 6740 St. Elmo Road, Bartlett
• I.H. Clubhouse, 4523 Canada Road, Lakeland
• Mississippi Boulevard Church Family Life Center, 70 N. Bellevue Boulevard
Every Tennessee student would have to get gun safety training at school under new Republican legislation, but some Democrats think the law accepts gun violence at school as a “new normal.”
The Tennessee Schools Against Violence in Education (SAVE) Act already mandates school safety planning strategies. It covers fire emergencies, severe weather events, prohibits weapons, and more. The law also mandates school districts to have procedures in place to respond to the report of a firearm on campus.
A new bill would add gun safety curriculum to the SAVE Act and parents could not opt their child out of the training.
With the new law, three state agencies — the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, the Tennessee Department of Education, and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency — would determine the most appropriate age to begin gun training for kids in school. But classes could start as early as pre-K and continue all the way through high school. Local school districts would then decide how to implement gun safety instruction into their students’ schedules.
The bill would teach students about the safe storage of guns, school safety relating to guns, how to avoid injury if the student finds a gun, to never touch a found gun, and to immediately notify an adult of the location of a found gun. This instruction should be be “viewpoint neutral on political topics, such as gun rights, gun violence, and the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.” The training should also not include the use or presence of live ammunition, live fire, or live guns.
School districts would decide who teaches the gun safety courses. Those courses “are certainly not about how to handle a firearm or proper techniques or anything like that,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Chris Todd (R-Madison County). “This is literally going to be more on the lines of ‘if you see a gun, [tell] an adult.’”
Todd said he sees gun training at school as just an extension of safety training already happening at schools within the SAVE. Act. He said members of gun clubs across the state, including the Alpha Gun Team of Memphis, stand behind the bill, too.
”We see this proposed legislation as a critical step in averting firearm related accidents while fostering greater awareness and responsibility among gun owners,” Todd said in a Tuesday hearing.
Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), a retired school teacher, said schools have long drilled students to react to acts of nature, like fires and tornadoes. Gun have been around for a ling time, too, she said.
“But we haven’t had our classes shot up,” she said. “This isn’t something we should just accept as the new normal. We can stop this. And this [bill] isn’t going to do it.”
Johnson said mandating students to take the gun safety course could trigger some students who had a history of gun violence in their family and would leave them at school alone without a parent to ensure they are okay.
Todd said students cannot now opt out of fire safety training, even if they’ve been in a fire or lost their home in a fire. Students still need to learn fire safety, he said.
“I just think it’s part of life that we need to learn those skills,” Todd said.
Rep. Vincent Dixie (D-Nashville) argued for an opt-out from the program, saying some parents may not want their children “talking [about], touching, or introduced to guns at all,” especially for some who want to opt out for “religious reasons.”
“We should be able to have someone to opt out of this if they don’t choose this as appropriate for their child,” Dixie said. “I thought we believed in parents’ choice.”
Rep. Mark Cochran (R-Englewood) countered, saying that the “chances of a minor seeing a gun at some point is … that’s a reality of life, as [Todd] mentioned earlier.”
Rep. John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge) told committee members that many teachers are “former veterans who are trained hunters who go through hunter safety training” and could easily teach the courses. He said allowing students to opt out of other safety training courses “is ridiculous” and that a parent’s objection to gun training “is entirely misplaced.”
“It would be the equivalent, for example, of us saying to an Amish parent, because they prefer to ride in a horse and buggy, that their children shouldn’t be trained on how to cross the street with automobile traffic,” Ragan said. “Safety is safety. Opting out of it is ridiculous.”
“If you rape a child in the state of Tennessee, you will die. Period.”
This is the hope of state House Majority Leader Rep. William Lamberth (R-Cottontown). If his legislation passes, adults over the age of 18 could face the death penalty if they rape a child under the age of 12, he told the House Criminal Justice Committee last week. He described his legislation before the Tennessee General Assembly as “the gravest type of bill we would possibly consider.”
“If [the legislation] saves even one child from going through that, because the fear of [the death penalty] gets into the head of some monster out there — that’s even thinking about this — then it’s worth saving that child,” Lamberth said. “I will tell you life in prison for these evil people is simply too good. They should not be able to live out their days with the rest of us, including their victim — paying for their food, and housing, and care, and medical as they age and everything else. If you rape a child, you should die.”
The bill moved quickly through the House committee system. It is now placed behind the budget for consideration by the full House. The Senate bill was only introduced in mid-January and awaits a review by the Senate Judiciary Committee, its first hearing by lawmakers in that house. Its sponsor there is Sen. Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), Senate Majority Leader.
So far, the only votes cast against the bill are from Democratic House members Rep. Ronnie Glynn (D-Clarksville), Rep. G.A. Hardaway (D-Memphis), Rep. Joe Towns Jr. (D-Memphis), and Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville).
Johnson said the penalty of child rape in Tennessee is life in prison, a sentence that must be served fully. She argued this already holds the guilty accountable. She worried a death penalty sentence would have a “chilling effect” on victims reporting the crime.
“If a child was raped by an uncle, say,” Johnson said. “The uncle’s going to say, ‘Don’t tell because I’ll be killed, I’ll get the death penalty.’ Then, the mother of the child, who is the sister of the [alleged perpetrator], maybe won’t want to testify against her brother, if it means the death penalty.
“If the victims fear, it will create a chilling effect on reporting.”
Johnson also argued the move could further “re-victimize the victim.”
“Not only is [the child in the scenario] a victim, she will be victimized every day by the state that’s going to require her to carry that pregnancy [to term]. Then, they’re going to require her to show up for appeal after appeal.”
“It’s a heinous crime and I hate to think about it, but life in prison also takes care of the situation.”
Lamberth read an email from a young, female victim, asking committee members to support the legislation. It spoke the high hurdles for criminal charges and soft sentences for defendants accused of child rape. It described their sexual desires like “they were at an all-you-could-eat buffet with the appetite of a bear coming out of hibernation and only having access to a single plate.”
“The ones that actually get convicted should face real consequences,” the letter read. “Perhaps if that happened, there would be less people in our community forever changed.”
If the legislation passes, Lamberth vowed to fight for its implementation in court. A 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling said the death penalty is not proportional punishment for the crime of child rape. Lamberth countered this, however, noting that the court’s ruling came because “not enough states had this type of penalty on the books.”
“We’re seen other decisions by the Supreme Court overturned,” Lamberth said. “I believe this particular makeup of the court, it leans more towards state’s rights.”
Death penalty executions remain on hold in Tennessee, after a scathing report in December 2022 found numerous problems with the state’s execution protocols.
Two death penalty bills failed in the legislature last year. One would have added firing squads to the state’s options for executions. Another would have brought more transparency to the execution process.
One death penalty bill passed last year. It gave the Attorney General control over post-conviction proceedings in capital cases, rather than the local District Attorneys. That bill was ruled unconstitutional in July by Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan.
Can Knoxville state Senator Gloria Johnson, she of last spring’s “Tennessee Three” and a heroine of sorts among Democrats, actually unseat the GOP’s Marsha Blackburn in the 2024 U.S. Senate race?
There is an illustrative case — that of James Mackler, a Nashville lawyer and former Iraq war helicopter pilot, who made bold to put himself forth as a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2018 for the seat then held by the retiring moderate Republican Bob Corker.
Meanwhile, out of the Republican MAGA ranks, seeking the same seat, came the aforementioned arch-conservative Marsha Blackburn, then a congresswoman. The then still existent state Democratic establishment, two years into the Trump age, didn’t trust a novice Democrat like Mackler, no matter how promising, to take on Blackburn, so talked Tennessee’s recent Governor Phil Bredesen, an old-fashioned conservative Democrat, out of retirement to become their candidate.
Mackler dutifully withdrew, biding his time.
History records that both Bredesen and Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, the last two name Democrats to carry the party banner into battle, were both routed in 2018, Bredesen by Blackburn (who would end up a cover girl on The New York Times Magazine) and Dean by Bill Lee.
Mackler was still on the scene and considered it his time to take on the next Senate race in 2020, where he would be opposed by the GOP’s Bill Hagerty, a former ambassador and state economic development commissioner. What was left of the Democratic establishment, in something of its last go-round, thought Mackler was right and timely, also, and got behind him.
Alas! Mackler and the party establishment withheld their considerable fundraising receipts from a five-way Democratic primary, hoarding them for the forthcoming race against Hagerty, and never even got to the general election. Mackler was upset in the primary by one Marquita Bradshaw, an environmentalist from Memphis who had no ballyhoo whatsoever and had raised virtually no money.
What she did have was an emergent standing among Memphis Blacks as a progressive candidate (though a nonmember of the now-expiring party establishment).
What she had was enough to win 35.5 percent of the primary vote, outpolling poor Mackler, who had 23.8 percent. Between the primary and the general, Bradshaw upped her campaign kitty from $22,300 to $1.3 million (a major-party nomination is still worth something), but lost to Hagerty, once again polling 35 percent.
Jump to last week, when the Beacon Center, a conservative think tank, released the results of two Emerson College polls — one measuring incumbent Blackburn running for reelection against Gloria Johnson, another matching her against Bradshaw, regarding the Memphian, once again as a prospective Senate candidate.
Beacon had Blackburn running ahead of Johnson by 49 percent to 29 percent, with the balance undecided. Against Bradshaw, Blackburn’s margin was smaller, 48 percent to 36 percent.
What Beacon did not do was match the two Democrats against each other, testing what might happen in a primary encounter.
But, given the example of Mackler, the already actively campaigning Johnson might wonder, as do we. Might she suffer an unexpected defeat to Bradshaw, a la Mackler?
Word from the Democratic establishment (yes, it still exists, though barely) is that Johnson has digested the lesson of Mackler and will pour a generous amount of the substantial funds she has already raised for a primary contest.
That will take pace in August, and we shall see what we shall see.
After last week’s vote by state House Republicans to expel Democrats Justin Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson over their gun-safety demonstration on the House floor, there were recriminations to be had.
In particular, GOP state Rep. Jody Barrett (R-Dickson) had to fend off his Republican colleagues for his ‘no’ vote to expel Gloria Johnson. That vote caused the expel resolution in her case to fail, and for the GOP members to be assailed for racism.
Besides Barrett, the GOP talkers are Jason Zachary, Knoxville, who begins by saying, “The Democrats are not our friends”; Johnny Garrett, Goodlettsville; Majority Leader William Lamberth, Portland; and Scott Cepicky, Culleoka. Cepicky is the one who believes the outcome of things is a threat to the existence of the Republic and who maintains, “You got to be what’s right, even if you think it’s wrong.”
Justin Pearson takes the pledge of allegiance on
Wednesday. Credit: Jackson Baker
The first-floor auditorum of the Vasco Smith County Building has been jam-packed before, but never with so many members of the national media, as it was on Wednesday afternoon when the Shelby County Commission met to consider a vote that would return Justin J. Pearson to the state House, whose Republican supermajority had expelled him a week earlier.
It was the second time this year that Memphis had become the scene of such attention — the other occasion being the tragedy of Tyre Nichols, slain by five errant Memphis cops.
Wednesday’s event, by contrast with that one, was pure celebration.
Representatives of various TV networks were chagrined to find the plug-ins for their mics and cameras not working, but they persevered as best they could in their determination to provide live feeds to the nation. Locals were there in force as well, and other legislators from Nashville, and Congressman Steven Cohen, and — frankly, there was no counting them all.
Soon to be looking for a place to sit or stand were members of what was said to a supportive 500-person march, led by Justin Jones of Nashville and Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, the other members, with Pearson, of the Tennessee Three. Jones had been expelled, along with Pearson, for demonstrating on the House floor in favor of gun-safety legislation. Nashville’s Metro Council had voted on Monday to send hm back to the legislature.
Justin’s father was asked to open the meeting with a prayer and obliged.
Wasting no time, chairman Mickell Lowery, a constituent of Pearson’s District 86, advised Pearson, who sat expectantly on the first row, “we’re all with you.”
Lowery called the roll and promptly asked for a vote on returning Pearson to the legislature.Voting aye, along with himself, were six other Democrats — Shante Avant, Miska Bibbs, Henri Brooks, Edmund Ford, Charlie Caswell, and Erika Sugarmon.
That was a quorum, and that was a Yes.
When the seven votes were properly recorded, the crowd whooped thunderously. So much for chairman Lowery’s dutiful admonition in advance that crowd responses should be either thumbs up or thumbs down.
Responding, Pearson said the GOP’s House majority hadn’t reckoned with the Shelby County Commission. He praised the “moral courage of Memphis, Tennessee.”
He further proclaimed, “We never bow, we never break, we never bend …We’re tired of business as usual. We do not speak alone. We speak together. You can’t expel hope, you can’t expel justice … and you sure as hell can’t expel our fight.”
He concluded, “Let’s get back to work!”
There was another collective whoop, and, with that, the Tennessee state House was reconstituted as had been duly elected.
Posted to Facebook by Blount County
Democratic Party
Memphis on the internet.
The Tennessee Three
Last week’s wild ride ended with the expulsion of two Black Tennessee House members, but one of the Tennessee Three (the white one) remained. It also yielded some quality memes about the rare moment of Memphis/Nashville solidarity like this one.
Posted to Reddit by u/MrAnonyMousetheGreatPosted to Reddit by u/runfreedog
Rumors swirled all over the MEMernet that Memphis could lose its funding for sporting infrastructure improvements and other projects if Justin Pearson was sent back to the Tennessee General Assembly. For guidance, many sought a statement from Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, who they said was publicly silent on the topic.
