Tag: M. Latroy Alexandria-Williams

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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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It’s No Go for Three Democrats Appealing Ban from Primary Ballot

M. LaTroy Alexandria-Williams

Oh-for-three. That’s how things turned out Wednesday Night, April 15th, as a trio of would-be penitents — most notably 13-term State Representative John DeBerry — pleaded in vain for the members of the state Democratic executive committee to restore them to the positions on the August 6th primary election ballot from which they were purged last week.

In the course of a virtual meeting of the state committee that was conducted by telephone and sprawled for nearly four hours, DeBerry’s pleas were rejected for reinstatement in the House District 90 race, as were those of Michael Minnis for House District 93, and M. LaTroy Alexandria-Williams for the 9th Congressional District. All the appellants were from Memphis.

Although the cases against DeBerry and Minnis were of a radically different nature — DeBerry’s consisting of alleged anti-Democratic votes and actions, Minnis essentially of not meeting the requirement of having voted in 3 of the last 5 Democratic primaries — the votes against them were remarkably similar — DeBerry’s appeal falling short by a vote of 24 Yes to 40 No, with one abstention, while Minnis’ failed 24 to 39 with two abstentions. Alexandria-Williams went down 8 to 34, with 14 abstaining.

Although DeBerry’s chances for reinstatement on the primary ballot were not regarded as strong (he had been voted off the week before by a vote of 41 to 18 with two abstentions), he probably did not help them much by declining, unlike Minnis and Alexandria-Williams, to take part in a pre-vote Q-and-A with state committee members.

In the five minutes granted him by state party chair Mary Mancini to make a verbal appeal, DeBerry talked about his past chairmanships on legislative committees and his efforts on behalf of civil rights. He asked that committee members look at “my record in toto, my character, the way I carry myself, and my ability to build a consensus when Democrats are a super-minority.”

Among the minority of yes voters were state Senator Raumesh Akbari of Memphis and Representative Mike Stewart, the House minority leader, both of whom said the question of DeBerry’s party bona fides should be settled by the voters in a primary. The nay-voting majority coalesced around complaints about DeBerry’s seconding Republican positions on abortion, vouchers, guns, and much else; his acceptance of support from GOP financial sources; and his participation in the right-wing ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council).

Committeeman Will Cheek of Nashville said his vote of no was not predicated on matters of party “loyalty” but on Democratic “resemblance.”

Though several members commended Minnis for his involvement with a nonprofit working on behalf of criminal justice, the outcome for him, as indicated, was similar to that for DeBerry.

The debate over the appeal of Alexandria-Williams was both the strangest and the lengthiest. At root the issue with the candidate (formerly known simply as M. LaTroy Williams) was his historical involvement with pre-election sample ballots from the “Shelby County Democratic Club,” a shell organization unaffiliated with any organ of the actual Democratic Party and the occasion of several lawsuits pitting Williams against the Party.

Though, as was attested to in the debate, these “ballots” — many of which have favored the candidacies of Republicans as well as Democrats — bore his name as “coordinator,” Williams persisted in denying any ownership of involvement in them. Unspoken to in the committee’s discussion was the fact that the favored candidates featured on them pay considerable sums to have themselves so listed.

Besides denying his central relationship with the sample ballots, Williams mentioned his alleged past association with the athletes Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and, strangely, conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. “Nobody’s done more for the Democratic Party than I have,” Williams insisted. To no avail.

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DeBerry, Four Others Dumped from Democratic Ballot

John DeBerry

State Rep. John DeBerry, who has represented District 90 in the state House of Representatives for 26 years, has been voted off the August party primary ballot by the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. The committee, meeting online in virtual mode Wednesday, voted 41 to 18, with two abstentions, to oust DeBerry.

The board also acted to remove four other candidates from the party’s primary ballot. They were: William Frazier, in State House District 84 seat; Michael Minnis, state House district 93; M. LaTroy Alexandria-Williams, 9th Congressional District; and Tharon Chandler, U.S. Senate.

DeBerry’s comeuppance was long in coming. Democrats, including local ones, had been vocal for years about the businessman/minister’s tendency to vote as a de facto ally of Republicans on a variety of issues, notably on bills to outlaw abortion and to legalize taxpayer-supported private-school vouchers.

Michael Minnis, who filed to run for the Tennessee State House District 93 seat, was removed without a vote of the board.

The now ex-Democratic candidate expressed himself stoically about the ouster vote: “The Tennessee Democratic Party has decided that a 26-year representative that spent 12 years as a committee chairman, conducted himself with integrity, served the party well, sponsored meaningful legislation, and built bridges across the aisle to get bills passed is no longer a Democrat. And so, I’m not,” he said.

Since the two major parties have control over their own primary ballots and the deadline for filing, even as an independent, has passed, DeBerry’s only option for re-election is via a write-in campaign, a very long shot. The remaining Democrats on the ballot are Torrey C. Harris, Anya Parker, and Catrina L. Smith.

State Democratic chair Mary Mancini of Nashville said, apropos the ouster of the five candidates from the party’s ballot: “After a long meeting in which we heard challenges and evidence, we did what we thought was best to protect the Tennessee Democratic Party and the values we stand for.”

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

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.