Tag: Greg Grant

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“Bogus Ballot” Deal Hits Snag

(courtesy of John Marek)

Word is that the Shelby County Democratic Party and sample-ballot entrepreneur Greg Grant are on the cusp of an agreement that would eliminate an ongoing injunction against Grant preventing him from using the term “Democratic” to describe his election ballots, which list “endorsements” and mug shots of candidates who pay Grant for the privilege.

Grant is one of several such entrepreneurs who circulate such “pay-to-play” ballots — often described by critics simply as “bogus ballots” — at election time. Among the others are former City Councilman Rickey Peete and perennial candidate M. Latroy Alexandria-Williams.

The injunction dates from February 2021 when special judge William Acree of Jackson levied it against Grant and others for using the words “Democratic” and “official” on their products. In April, the plaintiffs, who included the Shelby County Democratic Party and several others, singled out Grant for violation and asked Acree to assess a judgment or to impose a new temporary injunction (TRO).

Acree declined to issue a TRO, evidently accepting the argument of Grant’s attorney, Julian Bolton, that other ballot publishers had also, as Grant had, used variants of the word “Democrat” and “official” but were omitted from the new litigation.

Meanwhile, Judge Acree has plans to retire by the end of August, making moot the possibility of new legal actions from him after that point.

Faced with the prospect of having to re-initiate legal action from scratch against the bogus-balloteers, the Shelby County Democratic Party has reportedly offered Grant, the only currently active defendant, an agreement allowing him to continue issuing ballots under the name of “Greater Memphis Democratic Club” so long as he includes a disclaimer that he does not represent any organ of the actual Democratic Party.

Snags have occurred meanwhile. The Tennessee Young Democrats, who are a party to the suit, are not on board with the agreement, nor is plaintiff John Marek, nor, more immediately, is Grant, who is said to be resisting the idea of a disclaimer.

As Marek notes, the permanent injunction still holds, in the meantime, and is subject to enforcement.

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SCDP Gets Setback in Battle to Ban “Official Sample Ballots”

Once more, with for-profit sample ballots flooding the inner city on the eve of election, the Democratic Party cried “foul” and took what it regarded as the chief offender to court on Thursday..

Jake Brown represented the party, as he had back in February, 2021, when special judge William Acree of Jackson levied a permanent injunction against several  balloteers, prohibiting them from insinuating that their published for-profit publications had official connections to the Democratic Party, whether local, state, or federal. Brown was assisted on Thursday by John Marek, a lawyer and former candidate who had been a party to the Democrats’  prior action. 

In the earlier legal action, there had been several defendants. This time the plaintiffs named only one, veteran ballot entrepreneur Greg Grant.

And, while  Brown acknowledged that the crunch of time and the supposed singularity of Grant’s offenses were factors in limiting the party’s request for a temporary restraining order to Grant’s work, that act of singling-out damaged their hopes for immediate action

After some two hours of testimony from Brown, Marek, and Grant’s lawyer Julian Bolton, the judge — once again Acree —  declined to issue a T.R.O., evidently accepting Bolton’s argument that other ballot publishers had also, as Grant had, used variants of the word “Democrat” and “official,” but were omitted from the litigation.

Grant was named in the suit, Brown explained, because his artwork had featured a donkey, generally regarded as a Democratic symbol, along with the word “official,” under the auspices of Grant’s shell company, the “Greater Memphis Democratic Club,” as it was described on the ballot. “We didn’t like some of the other ballots, but his [Grant’s] is the one we’re objecting to,” said Brown.

Bolton was able to show that other, untargeted balloteers also used the word ‘Democratic” and/or “official” on their products.

All of the various entrepreneurs  sell spaces on their ballots to candidates, and that’s all the “endorsements” they get on the ballots, along with their mug shots, amounts to.

Thursday’s court session was held in Criminal Court, where special Judge Acree was hearing other cases, and he did set a date in June to arraign Grant on the charge of violating the injunction he issued last year. That would be criminal contempt, and it could involve jail time if Grant is convicted..

Meanwhile,with the May 3rd Democratic primary slated to come and go in in the  interim, there is evidently nothing to stop Grant or the other balloteers from continuing to mail out or hand out — and profit from — their versions of a sample ballot.

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‘Bogus Ballots’ to Exist No More, Orders Judge

Judge William Acree

Remember the sample ballots you always saw at election time purporting to be “endorsements” of a group of candidates by this or that “Democratic” organization? Glossy with color mug shots of the lucky “endorsees,” these broadsheets did their best to resemble official documents of the Shelby County or even state Democratic Parties.

In reality, advertisements for the candidates in question is all they ever were — advertisements paid for by their campaigns and tricked out to look like official party statements by the local entrepreneurs who sold space on them.

“Endorsements” they were not, except in the technical sense that they signified the support of the shell companies that published and distributed them, most of these with the word “Democratic” in their name.

It was the misleading aspect of these advertisements that made them targets of litigation by candidates, Democrats in the main, running legitimate campaigns for office and boasting no such false endorsements.

Now, several hearings over several years later, a judge has imposed a permanent injunction against such published products.

The ruling comes from Judge William B. Acree, a senior jurist from Jackson, after a January 6th hearing in the case of Tennessee Democratic Party and candidate John Marek vs. Greg Grant, individually, & d.b.a. Greater Memphis Democratic Club and M. LaTroy Williams, individually, & d.b.a. Shelby County Democratic Club. This was the climactic one of three hearings — the others having occurred on October 20, 2019, and October 3, 2020.

Those prior hearings had imposed temporary injunctions against the defendants and imposed penalties for renewed infractions.

Judge Acree based his judgment Thursday on TCA statute 2-19-116, which reads:

No person shall print or cause to be printed or assist in the distribution or transportation of any facsimile of an official ballot, any unofficial sample ballot, writing, pamphlet, paper, photograph or other printed material, which contains the endorsement of a particular candidate, group of candidates, or proposition by an organization, group, candidate, or other individual, whether existent or not, with the intent that the person receiving such printed material mistakenly believe that the endorsement of such candidate, candidates, or proposition was made by an organization, group, candidate or entity other than the one or ones appearing on the printed material.

Acree’s order states:

The court finds that the Defendants engage in the distribution of campaign literature on behalf of candidates seeking public office, are paid for such activity, and have violated the statute and restraining order on previous occasions. Thus, the Court finds a permanent injunction shall issue enjoining the Defendants from: Distributing literature, disseminating information, or, in any way, communicating, utilizing work, symbols, or graphical schemes reasonably implying endorsement of or affiliation with the Democratic National Convention, the Tennessee Democratic Party, or the Shelby County Democratic Party.

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Bogus-Ballot Entrepreneurs Get (Suspended) Jail Time

If either M. Latroy Wiilliams or Greg Grant had been harboring any plans to put out a version of their candidate tout sheets (a.k.a. “bogus ballots”) in time for the November election, they were advised Friday that it could cost their their freedom, in the form of 10 days in jail.

Judge Acree

That was the sentence meted out by special judge Bill Acree in the contempt case brought against the two habitual purveyors of such pay-for-play ballots by attorneys Jake Brown and Bruce Kramer, who represented variants of the Democratic Party.

Both Grant and Williams had been enjoined by Judge Acree to cease and desist from publishing and distributing tout sheets in prior elections that all too closely resembled recommendations made by the Democratic Party or its official offshoots.

One of the ballots not only seemed to falsify a party origin, it actually bore a headline streamer that misrepresented a previous judicial finding and even misspelled the name of the candidate (Williams) it was meant to boost: “JUDGE ORDERED M. LATORY [sic] ALEXANDRIA-WILLIAMS ON BALLOT AS DEMOCRAT NO ‘JIM CROW’”.

Brown and Kramer renewed a legal action against Grant and Williams after both offenders had openly flouted Acree’s previous injunction against their attempting to invoke the Democratic Party’s credibility in previous pay-for-play ballots — on which the “recommended” candidates had paid for the privilege of having their names included.

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Status Conference on Monday for “Bogus Ballot” Offenders

We use the term “bogus ballot” to denote a species of advertisement sheets and/or four-page mailouts which contain the names and pictures of political candidates who have paid some local entrepreneur for the privilege of appearing on them — often in overtly devious ways that suggest, falsely, that the Democratic Party is behind the endorsements.

the new M. LaTroy Wiliams ballot in which he misspells his own name; note streamer line across top

Two of the entrepreneurs — Greg Grant and M. LaTroy Williams — are at it again this election season, though they have been enjoined by a court to cease and desist. Meanwhile, attorneys for the plaintiffs, who in 2019 sought and got an injunction against the balloteers, are taking the pay-for-play mischief-makers to court.

More of that anon: A brief time-out here to proclaim our astonishment at the streamer line that Williams appended to the top of his most recent “ballot.” It says, in bold capital letters: “JUDGE ORDERED M. LATORY [sic] ALEXANDRIA-WILLIAMS ON BALLOT AS DEMOCRAT NO ‘JIM CROW’”.

Not only is that claim wholly untrue regarding the congressional office Williams (or Alexandria-Williams as he now signs himself) was seeking until an April meeting of the state Democratic executive committee declared him invalid. It is a uniquely skewed falsehood in that the man manages to misspell his own name, which is “LaTroy,” not “LaTory.”

Anyone who cares to confirm that Williams’ name is not on the August 6th Democratic primary ballot for any office at all need only consult the website of the Shelby County Election Commission (shelbyvote.com). Yet on his own self-published “ballot” (more properly regarded, perhaps, as an advertisement sheet for the favored — or paying — candidates) there is a mugshot of Williams as a candidate for Congress alongside a mug of his son Marion Alexandria-Williams Jr., an actual candidate for the Democratic nomination for state Senate District 30.

The Williams ballot is labeled as the product of the “Shelby County Democratic Club” — with the first three of those words displayed prominently on the sheet and the climactic word “club” in relatively small letters underneath. The effect is to suggest the status of an official organ of the Shelby County Democratic Party — the very kind of claim that led the actual Shelby County Democratic Party, along with the Shelby County Young Democrats and John Marek, a 2019 candidate for the City Council, to file suit last year against Williams, his “club,” and his ballot.

In a sad and ironic twist, no sitting Shelby County judge was willing to hear the case. They had all either paid at some point to be listed on such a ballot, or they had no wish to embarrass their judicial colleagues. Or, in many cases, for both reasons.

Ultimately, a hearing was conducted before Judge Bill Acree, a retired Circuit Court jurist from Jackson sitting in as a special judge. A day or so before the election, Acree issued a temporary injunction against further distribution against “endorsement” ballots proceed by both Williams and Grant. The time-span of the injunction was indefinite and is still in effect, according to Jake Brown, who with Bruce Kramer represented the plaintiffs legally.

With things apparently setted, at least for the moment, Brown and Kramer had since moved to withdraw from involvement — for reasons “unrelated to the case,” says Brown. It was then, he says, that both Grant and Wiliams, “evidently deciding that all bets were off,” acted independently of each other and moved to issue new ballots for the current election, both ballots still implying a fictitious relationship with the official Democratic Party — Williams on behalf of the aforementioned Shelby County Democratic Club; Grant via the “Greater Memphis Democratic Club.”

Both are shell organizations, says Brown. Grant’s ballot at least had a disclaimer in fine print “that the ‘Greater Memphis Democratic Club’ operates ‘independently of the Shelby County Democratic Party and its affiliates.’”

At any rate, lawyers Brown and Kramer discarded their withdrawal motions (Brown: “We were frankly pissed off”) and re-involved themselves, asking Judge Acree to impose both civil and criminal sanctions against the two ballot entrepreneurs for “willful disregard” of the judge’s injunction. A status conference on the matter is set for Monday at 1:00 p.m., with financial penalties and possible (though limited) imprisonment at stake for the accused offenders.

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If At First You Don’t Succeed…

CREDIT: JB

A consistent problem in Shelby County elections has been the distribution of sample ballots by political entrepreneurs who charge candidates for appearing on them.

Candidate John Marek, a well-known Democratic activist  JB

John Marek

who is running for the District 5 City Council seat in the October 3 city election, was outraged when he saw one being mailed and passed out under the auspices of the “Greater Memphis Democratic Club,” a shell organization operated by entrpreneur Greg Grant that exists mainly to issue sample ballots.

Compounding Marek’s sense of injury was that his opponent, Worth Morgan, is a known Republican, as are three other candidates endorsed on the ballot. All four are official endorsees of the Shelby County Republican Party. A further issue is that the ballot employed several facsimiles of the official City of Memphis seal, a possible violation of both city and state codes.

Backed by the Shelby County Democratic Party and represented by civil liberties attorney Bruce Kramer, Marek undertook to get a Temporary Restraining Order against further distribution of the ballot in Chancery Court on Thursday. The plaintiffs were stymied. How?

Chancellor JoeDae L. Jenkins confessed that he would need to recuse himself because he had bought onto a previous election ballot distributed by Grant as well as one by another ballot entrepreneur, M. LaTroy Alexandria-Williams, also cited in the suit. The plaintiffs hope to seek redress from another judge in another court on Friday.

Marek said that the unexpected snafu was yet another instance of why the pay-for-play ballots should be restricted or banned.

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The “Bogus Ballot” Syndrome Again

The head of the ‘Greater Memphis Democratic Club’ sample ballot superimposed over several of its endorsees, including known Republicans and featuring City of Memphis official seals (circled) on several of the mugshots.

It wouldn’t be a local election without at least one case of the “Bogus-Ballot Syndrome” turning up, and, sure enough, there’s a brand-new example that District 5 City Council candidate John Marek is threatening legal action about.

Marek’s case in point is a printed sample ballot being mailed to households and passed out at early-voting polls bearing the imprimatur of the “Greater Memphis Democratic Club,” which may have some ersatz legal status but is known to be a shell organization, without members in the usual sense, that is conducted for profit for the benefit of its proprietors, the foremost of whom is political entrepreneur Greg Grant.

Grant’s is one of several such ballots that appears at election time, and it is no secret that many, if not all, of the endorsees for office listed on them paid good money to get there. Marek, in fact, says that he himself was solicited to purchase a place on the ballot and declined.

Despite being designated as being under “Democratic” auspices, the ballot features several candidates with known or suspected Republican identifies — including Council candidates Chase Carlisle, Ford Canale, and Worth Morgan, the latter, an incumbent, being Marek’s opponent.

Besides the matter of false political auspices, however, Marek also charges the Grant ballot with likely violations of city and state law, both of which, he says, prohibit the use of official governmental insignia. Several of the favored candidates on the ballot are pictured with facsimiles of the City of Memphis seal. On that account, Marek says he is considering filing an official injunction against further distribution of the ballot.

The Grant ballot, and other pay-for-play handouts like it, are not to be confused with sample ballots like the not-for-profit one openly sponsored by three Democratic public figures — Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen, Commissioner Van Turner, and former Democratic Party chairman David Cocke.

That ballot endorses Democrat Marek, among others.