Tag: Mark Luttrell

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Politics Politics Feature

The Bredesen Bubble; County Government Showdown

CREDIT: jackson baker

Since Phil Bredesen‘s name was first dropped as a possible Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Bob Corker, the former governor has done a neat back-and-forth on the prospect, first expressing no interest, next rising to the bait, and then leaving the idea open as both fellow Democrats and Republicans have engaged in a running guessing game as to his intentions.

That quandary persists right up to the minute, with a decision by Bredesen likely to come between the composition of these lines and their appearance in print. Or not.

The effect has been to paralyze or at least inhibit the momentum that declared Democratic Senate candidate James Mackler might otherwise have achieved. First-time candidate Mackler, a lawyer and Iraq war veteran from Nashville, has had difficulty emerging from the shade of anonymity despite a well-turned-out mailer or two and some impressive appearances before limited audiences — like the meet-and-greet/fund-raiser he held a month ago in the East Memphis home of Bryce Timmons, in which the personable candidate demonstrated in his remarks what could be a fetching mix of progressive political positions and, on the basis of his military service, some old-fashioned patriotism.

That the Bredesen mystery was ripe for solution was the thrust of a lengthy report in the latest edition of the nonpartisan “Smart Politics” newsletter published this week by the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs and Center for the Study of Politics and Governance.

Eric Ostenmeier, the resident “Smart Politics” sage, begins his account with a sense that a decision by Bredesen is imminent and casts the issue in a somewhat skeptical light. Says Ostenmeier: “The ‘will he or won’t he’ question may finally be answered this week with regards to a Phil Bredesen 2018 U.S. Senate bid, but, in the meantime, a new ‘Smart Politics’ report examines how unusual it would be for the former Tennessee governor to win the seat.”
Ostenmeier proceeds to review the history of Tennessee ex-governors who sought Senate seats during the last 100 years and finds that only one, Republican Lamar Alexander in 2002, who succeeded, while the handful of Democrats who’ve tried it — the most recent being Frank Clement in 1966 — have come up short.

Another caveat noted by Ostenmeier is the fact that, if Bredesen runs and is elected, he would enter the Senate at the age of 75, making him “the fifth-oldest to win a first term via an election, the second-oldest to enter via election since the passage of the 17th Amendment, and the oldest to enter via direct election for a full term.”

Meanwhile, the aforesaid Alexander, meeting with reporters in Nashville Friday after an appearance before the Greater Tennessee chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors, had this to say about a potential Bredesen candidacy:

“He would be a formidable candidate. He was a popular governor. I think what he would have to explain to the people is how electing one more to the Democratic number in the Senate would help the people of Tennessee, and my argument would be if you want conservative judges and lower taxes and deregulation, then it’s better to have a Republican majority.” 

Alexander’s lines themselves bespeak a certain respect, born of fruitful relations between the two of them for the eight years of their simultaneous service from 2003 to 2009, when a term-limited Bredesen left the governorship. Beyond that, and the Republican senator’s obligatory bromide in favor of the mother ship GOP, Alexander’s meta-message is one of elementary and neutral caution to the two party-mates — former 8th District Congressman Stephen Fincher and 7th District Congressman (her preferred title) Marsha Blackburn — who will slug it out for the Republican Senate nomination.

What Democrats might divine from Alexander’s evaluation is less obvious. The fact is that the political views of Bredesen, a moderate Democrat who governed the state with a tight rein on expenditures, are probably closer in spirit to Alexander’s own than they are to the ultra-conservatism of Fincher and Blackburn.

And, with old Democratic loyalties having long since washed away in most of rural and small-town Tennessee, it remains to be seen whether the current rank and file of youthful, urban-based Democrats will respond more enthusiastically to a Bredesen than to a Mackler. It is certainly true that the former governor would have a commanding lead among old-line party types and traditional donors.

If Ostenmeier proves correct in his projection of a timely decision by Bredesen this week or soon thereafter, we will soon know whether this kind of speculation is academic or on point.

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Another issue that, at press time, was due for some kind of likely resolution this week is that of the showdown over opioid litigation between Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell and the County Commission, a clear majority of whose members have lined up behind the defiant leadership of commission chair Heidi Shafer.

The matter ended up this week in the courtroom of Chancellor Jim Kyle, who was asked to rule on Tuesday on Luttrell’s request for an injunction and restraining order against Shafer and her fellow commissioners.

The latest chapter in what has been an ongoing power struggle between the two branches of county government stems from Shafer’s bombshell announcement last week that she had, in the name of the county, engaged the national law firm of Napoli Shkolnik to seek damages from a wide variety of principals — drug manufacturers, pharmacists, physicians, and distributors (licensed and otherwise) — allegedly responsible and potentially liable for the adverse effects of widespread opioid addiction in Shelby County.

Luttrell, who contended that his administration had already been weighing the options for such legal action, promptly objected that Shafer was attempting a usurpation in the face of language in the county charter giving the office of mayor complete authority over legal contracts and establishing the county attorney, appointed by him, as the sole administrator of legal actions on behalf of Shelby County government.   
Another burr under Luttrell’s saddle was the fact that, to serve as co-counsel with Napoli Shkolnik, Shafer had named former Commissioner Julian Bolton, whom the commission had formerly sought to employ as an independent counsel of its own but, thwarted by County Attorney Kathryn Pascover‘s adverse ruling, had been forced to hire on instead as a “policy advisor.” Bolton’s involvement in the proposed opioid action thereby constituted an end run of sorts around Pascover’s ruling and Luttrell’s authority.

Whatever the outcome of the hearing in Chancellor Kyle’s court on Tuesday, the issues implicit in the mayoral-commission confrontation were certain to linger and continue to fester.   

At its Monday regular meeting, the commission overwhelmingly adopted a stern resolution presented by Commissioner Terry Roland, the language of which “directs” Luttrell and Pascover to desist from their lawsuit against the chair and commissioners. The resolution further seeks financial compensation for the commissioners’ legal expenses and, as an ultimate challenge, “prohibits the County Attorney or the Administration from entering into any litigation without the prior consent of the Commission by majority of their vote.”

Breathtaking as that resolution was (however questionable in its provenance), it fell short, in terms of its immediate effect, of another, more practical resolution that was held back from being introduced on Monday. This one, also prepared by Roland, called for a vote of no confidence in Pascover (and, by implication at least, of Luttrell) and is likely to be introduced at the commission’s December meeting, if not at a special called meeting beforehand.

Whatever the result of Kyle’s hearing, or of any formal mediation the two warring county branches might engage in by choice or by dictate, this power struggle is not even close to being over. The issue of opioid litigation is more a symbol of pre-existing intractable differences and a pretext for dealing with them than it is an animating reason for those differences.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Chancellor Kyle Splits the Baby in the Opioid-Suit Dispute

CREDIT: JB

JB

Smiles from the Commission’s side of the dispute indicated at least some satisfaction with Chancellor Kyle’s even-handed ruling.

Asked to rule on the dispute between two branches of county government on a dispute involving authority to sue regarding opioid damages, Chancellor Jim Kyle took a  leaf from the Biblical account of King Solomon, After hearing out legal pleading on Tuesday  for the Shelby County administration of Mayor Mark Luttrell and opposing testimony offering the County Commission’s case, Kyle split the baby neatly.

And, unlike the  account in the Bible, both parties got some of what they wanted, and neither complained.

Kirk Caraway, acting as attorney for the county administration, sought a restraining order and injunction against a suit — contracted for by County Commission chair Heidi Shafer, supported by a Commission majority, and filed in Circuit court — that sought damages against various principals (including physicians, manufacturers, pharmacists, and others) involved in the distribution of opioids in Shelby County, on account of the resulting ravages of addiction in the population.

Allan Wade and Herman Morris, attorneys for the County Commission and the legal firms hired by Shafer et al., respectively, had offered in their turn two motions of dismissal of the administration’s request for specific punitive and restrictive actions against the Commissioners..

And, in between debating those precise points of difference, the opposing sides essentially made competing cases for and against the right of Shafer and the Commission to file their action independently of consent and oversight from the administration via the County Attorney’s office.

After an hour and a half of arguments back and forth, Kyle withdrew to his chambers and emerged some ten minutes later with a ruling. As indicated, there was something in it for both sides.

The Chancellor declined to cross jurisdictional lines and intervene against the Commission’s suit, filed in Circuit Court by the national firm of Napoli Shkolnick and associated local attorneys, including lawyer Julian Bolton, who serves as the Commission’s policy advisor but is actively involved with as an associate of the other litigators.

Kyle also took under advisement the two motions for dismissal filed by Wade and Morris. And he offered the opinion that there seemed to be agreement between the contending parties that legal action against distributors of opioids and that time was of the essence in proceeding on the matter.

In that sense, Kyle ruled on behalf of the Commission’s argument that a “public health crisis” existed. But on the matter of legal authority to pursue damages, he sided with the administration, agreeing that the county charter categorically and unmistakably restricted the right of legal action to the executive branch, allowing legal activity by the legislative branch only in support of legislative ends.

Having found on that count for the administration, which had argued that a “constitutional crisis” existed, Kyle granted a temporary injunction against the commission’s immediate right to proceed independently with the Circuit Court suit. But he noted that Luttrell had responded to the Commission’s action with a statement that the administration had  itself  been on course to proceed by the end of the year with some legal action against distributors of opioids.

Kyle therefore limited the injunction period to the end of 2017, acknowledging the administration’s authority over lawsuits but giving it time to decide whether to join in on the Circuit Court suit. Meanwhile he suggested from the bench, as he had previously in separate discussions with the parties, that the contending parties consult as to the possibility of joint action.

Thereby was the baby split, still alive and potentially able to be conjoined again via an agreement between the administration and the Commission. Should that happen, the Commission would have in effect forced the administration’s hand in expedited action against the purveyors of opioids. Or at least that’s how various Commissioners in attendance tended to view the outcome.

MTK

 

JB

Smiles from the Commission’s side of the dispute indicated at least some satisfaction with Chancellor Kyle’s even-handed ruling.

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Editorial Opinion

Should Shelby County Raise Officials’ Salaries?

The old bugaboo of pay raises for public officials rose again at Monday’s regular meeting of the Shelby County Commission, and, perhaps because of the proximity in time to Halloween, enough members of the commission were spooked by the prospect of raising their own salaries and those of several other elected county officials that the proposal — actually, three separate proposals in as many formal ordinances — went nowhere.

Technically, the votes taken Monday were on second reading, and there is one more final reading to come, presumably at the commission’s next meeting, scheduled for November 13th, but nobody needs a crystal ball or consultation with either a pollster or a necromancer to see that the ordinances are doomed to defeat in two weeks’ time, as well.

In point of fact, there is a commission majority in favor of the pay raises, but the county charter prescribes that issues of this kind require a supermajority of the entire commission.

That would be nine votes, and the ordinances fell short Monday by identical votes of seven for, four against, and one abstention. The seven aye votes belonged to six of the seven commission Democrats — Willie Brooks, Walter Bailey, Justin Ford, Reginald Milton, Eddie Jones, and Van Turner — and one Republican, Steve Basar. The four naysayers were Republicans Terry Roland, David Reaves, George Chism, and commission Chair Heidi Shafer. (GOP Commissioner Mark Billingsley would later ask that his vote be added on as a fifth no.) The one abstainer was Democrat Melvin Burgess Jr., who, as a declared candidate for Assessor in 2018, might have been concerned that, as a would-be tax collector for the county, his vote would draw special attention from opponents in next year’s election.

Under the proposed pay hikes, the salary of the county mayor would rise from $142,500 to $172,000; the sheriff salary from $116,995 to $154,890, and those of county clerk, trustee, register (all now pegged at $109,810), and assessor ($110,465) to go to $126,000. The commissioners’ salaries (currently $29,100, with the chair getting $31,100) would go to a uniform $32,000.

The votes essentially fell along predictable lines, with Bailey, speaking for the Democratic contingent of aye voters, pointing out the obvious, that the cost of living was continuing to rise and wondering if the objectors were contending that the pay of officials could never rise accordingly. Roland protested with insistent righteousness that commissioners should serve the public, not themselves, and he and Reaves professed themselves open to a public referendum to change the charter and tie future raises for the affected county officials to pay raises for rank-and-file county employees. As Democrat Turner noted, that was basically a way to put things off for the present.

For the future, such a referendum is not a bad option. Though prospects for passage might be remote, they are no worse, and could be better, than the existing odds for such proposals on the commission itself. We know all the political arguments against pay raises for public officials, and we regard it as unfortunate that the arguments for them cannot be evaluated on their own merits, the same way that pay matters out in the regular marketplace are, or should be.

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Politics Politics Feature

Byrd and Flinn Looking to County Mayor’s Race?

UPDATED to correct the order of finish in the 2014 Democratic primary for Shelby County Mayor.

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Last week, Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland, speaking at a fund-raiser in his honor at Southwind Country Club, let loose with typically strenuous blasts against his two major Republican opponents in the forthcoming 2018 race for Shelby County mayor — characterizing County Trustee David Lenoir as basically a tool of the political/financial establishment and questioning Juvenile Court Clerk Joy Touliatos‘ bona fides on de-annexation matters.

The Republican three-way battle royal is an open and settled proposition. It is on the Democratic side that intrigue (in every sense of that word) and potential surprise are major factors behind the scenes. 

Sidney Chism, the ex-Teamster leader, former local party chairman, two-time county commission chairman, interim state senator, and political broker nonpareil, has long advertised his availability for the office, but, though Chism continues to preside over a well-attended annual political picnic, it is an open question whether and to what degree the major clout he once enjoyed in Democratic circles has been diminished. 

Now employed by Sheriff Bill Oldham, Chism has had to weather criticism from party purists for his past electoral support of Oldham, who ran for office as Republican, and though he was eventually cleared by an ethics panel, had to withstand formal conflict-of-interest charges from then commission colleague Roland for having voted on appropriations measures that contained wraparound benefits for his day-care operation.

Meanwhile, other Democrats continue to ponder the idea of running. Two possibilities are University of Memphis law professors Steve Mulroy and Lee Harris, who have long been supportive of each other’s political careers. 

A liberal’s liberal in the manner of Memphis congressman Steve Cohen, Mulroy served two terms on the county commission and was a candidate for county mayor in the 2014 Democratic primary, finishing third a three-way race involving eventual nominee Deidre Malone and the Rev. Kenneth Whalum Jr. , who finished second despite being out of the country during the latter part of the race).

Until the surprise election of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump last year drastically altered his prospects, at least for the immediate future, Mulroy’s chief ambitions concerned the possibility of an appointment to the federal judiciary. Now Mulroy’s options have once again become more expressly political.

Harris has always leaned in the direction of political office. As a political unknown in 2006, Harris was one of the also-rans in the 9th District congressional primary of that year, won eventually by Cohen. By 2011, he had enough name recognition to run for, and narrowly win, a Memphis City Council race against Kemba Ford.

Harold Byrd and Shea Flinn

Nor did Harris’ ambitions end there. He was active in pursuit of cutting-edge issues and was the chief sponsor of an ordinance prohibiting job discrimination against members of the LGBTQ commmunity. In 2014, he ran in the Democratic primary against another member of the Ford political clan, state Senator Ophelia Ford, and was able to unseat her.

Harris got himself elected leader of the shrunken five-member Democratic corps in the state Senate and made the most of his position, becoming an active spokesman for the party’s issues, and meanwhile working across the aisle with Republicans like state Senator Brian Kelsey on nonpartisan matters.

Ever on the move, Harris meditated seriously on another race for Congress against incumbent Cohen but thought better of it, publicly dropping the idea in early 2016. His latest initiative, the Tennessee Voter Project, serves the dual purpose of revving up Democratic energy in general and keeping his name before the public.

And now opportunity beckons once more with the county mayor’s race. It seems almost inevitable that either he or Mulroy, still functioning as a mutually supportive duo, will make the race, and that coin flip will likely happen fairly soon.

Nor does the guessing game end there. The latest rumors in Democratic Party circles concern the possible mayoral candidacies of two other big names — Harold Byrd and Shea Flinn. 

A core member of the politically active Byrd family, Byrd is president of the Bank of Bartlett, essentially a family enterprise. A longtime state Representative and a political broker in his own right, Byrd was the Democratic nominee for Congress in the 7th District in 1994, losing that year to Republican Ed Bryant.

He prepared a race for county mayor in 2002 but reluctantly withdrew when then Public Defender A C Wharton became a candidate for the nomination, transforming that year’s Democratic primary into a three-way affair that also included then state Representative Carol Chumney.

By 2010, Byrd’s reputation and popularity, both in Democratic circles and across the party line, were such as to make him an odds-on favorite to be elected county mayor that year. Pointedly, Mark Luttrell, the ultimate winner as a Republican nominee, had let it be known that he would eschew the mayoral race and seek reelection as sheriff if Byrd ran for mayor. But a combination of a personal illness and a post-recession duty to see to the needs of the family banking business kept Byrd from running that year.

Now, the word is that Byrd, with both his own and the bank’s health in seemingly good order, is looking at one last chance at gaining the office.

Then there is the chance of a candidacy for the office by Shea Flinn, yet another former political figure with a high profile, both in Democratic Party ranks and in bipartisan circles. A prominent member of the city council after his election in 2007, Flinn resigned his seat in 2015 to become senior vice president for the Greater Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce.

That Flinn was considering a re-entry into political ranks was first signaled recently when his name was prominently featured in a telephone robo-poll of potential candidates for county mayor. That was amid rampant speculation that Flinn had a hand in the sponsorship of the poll.

If Flinn should become a candidate he is sure to have the full support of his father, wealthy radiologist/broadcast executive George Flinn, whose resources are such as to have paid for numerous political races by the senior Flinn himself, a one-time member of the County Commission but a so-far unsuccessful aspirant for a variety of other offices.

That George Flinn is a conservative Republican and Shea Flinn is known as a progressive Democrat is an anomaly of the James Carville-Mary Matalin sort that troubles neither father nor son.

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Politics Politics Feature

Dueling Visions

The voices of Shelby County commissioners audiby changed during the course of Monday’s special meeting — a  marathon affair that had been called to deal with a budget that was already past its July 1st deadline. Toward the end of a meeting that started at 3 p.m. and adjourned at 10:15 p.m., the commissioners sounded either strident (maybe “strung out” is closer) or exhausted.

What had not changed was the substance of what they were saying. The commissioners — or at least what seems to be a working majority of them — remained fixed on a course that will give their constituents a tax cut of from 1 to 3 cents on a still-to-be-determined tax rate.

Mayor Mark Luttrell, who was as edgy as anybody on Monday, went with the flow and reluctantly consented to budget amendments that cut close into what he sees as a necessary fiscal reserve. But he is clearly resolved to do what he can between now and the fixing of the tax rate to either scale back the amendments or keep the rate close to the level of 4.13 cents, a status-quo figure adjusted to the latest county property assessment and designed to generate the same amount of revenue as the current pre-assessment rate of 4.37 cents.

Luttrell made it clear that he wants to have enough of a discretionary fund on hand to deal with exigencies. That was the case also two years ago, when the administration and the commission had a similar disagreement, one that ultimately saw a win for the mayor in the slowing down of what had been a pell-mell move toward a tax decrease and then the aborting of that tax-cut initiative altogether.

Luttrell had held the line back then, pleading that the county had infrastructure needs (it plainly did), and the tax rate held firm. The mayor’s victory proved to be a pyrrhic one, however — especially as the county’s general fund, even with a good deal of overdue paving and other infrastructure work taken care of, turned out in an ad hoc audit to have a significant and unforeseen surplus: upwards of $20 million. That was enough, contended the commission’s tax relief advocates, to have underwritten the gift to the taxpayers that they had intended but, ultimately, under pressure from the administration, had backed away from.

That was essentially the casus belli for what has turned out to be a two-year power struggle between the mayor and his commissioners. The commission, with two fired-up Republicans, Heidi Shafer of East Memphis and Terry Roland of Millington in the lead, and with a sufficient number of other suburban Republicans, along with fellow-traveling inner-city Democrats, following, began campaigning for new commission perks, including a greater share in budgetary decisions, and to that purpose, the acquisition of an independent commission attorney so as to augment its own oversight.

The commission ultimately got a lawyer approved, former commissioner Julian Bolton, though both his title and his function are more tightly circumscribed than the commissioners preferred. And the battle goes on, with both sides taking as much as they can and giving up as little as they have to. Right now the $4.10 tax rate seems to be holding, but sans a vote, some or all of that hard-earned three-cent discount could vanish in further negotiation, as could other budget goodies voted on on Monday. (More details this week in Politics Beat blog.)

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Politics Politics Feature

Echoes of Discord

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

As partisan disagreements on pending legislative measures continued to dominate the Washington political scene, there were distinct local echoes.

Even as Democrats in Congress were trying to force open discussion of the Senate’s pending version of an Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill, now being prepared in private by an ad hoc group of Republican Senators, the party faithful across the state held press conferences last Friday protesting the GOP’s close-to-the-vest strategy.

In Memphis, the protest, led by London Lamar, president of the Tennessee Young Democrats and including state Representative Antonio Parkinson, was held in front of the Cliff Davis Federal Building downtown. The group’s call for open discussion of health-care legislation was directed not only at congressional Republicans but at Tennessee Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander and U.S. Rep. David Kustoff specifically.

Though the matter of the federal government’s current direct oversight of mandated improvements in the procedures of Shelby County’s Juvenile Court was not, per se, a partisan issue, local attitudes toward it have tended to cleave along party lines.

Such, at least, was the appearance of things after news accounts surfaced over the weekend detailing recent efforts by three county officials seeking an end to federal oversight of Shelby County Juvenile Court, the result of a 2012 Memorandum of Understanding between the county and the Department of Justice.

The officials — county Mayor Mark Luttrell, Sheriff Bill Oldham, and Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael — were all elected under the Republican electoral banner. 

The three officials discussed the matter of ending the federal oversight with Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his recent visit to Memphis. As attorney general, Sessions has taken a hard-line approach to law enforcement, focusing on what he sees as a need for more stringent enforcement and stricter penalties.

Luttrell, Oldham, and Michael subsequently elaborated on their request in a formal letter to the DOJ, which maintained that the court’s shortcomings — pinpointed in the DOJ investigation and subsequent MOU — have been rectified.

That claim drew negative reaction, much of it from local Democrats. One critic was state Representative Larry Miller, speaking as a panelist Monday morning at the National Civil Rights Museum.

Answering a question from the audience about legislative action on juvenile justice, Miller noted the county officials’ letter to the DOJ and took issue with it: “They’re saying, ‘We’ve done it. … We no longer need oversight.'” Disagreeing, Miller said, “We’re not there yet. The system is based on incarceration of young black men.”

A more reserved response came from former county Commissioner Sidney Chism, now an employee of the Sheriff’s Department and a declared candidate in next year’s race for county mayor. Said Chism, evidently speaking on behalf of Sheriff Oldham: “He has taken the goals seriously and has worked hard to achieve them, and I think he believes they have been achieved.”

Two legislators who were on Monday’s panel at the NCRM — state representatives Joe Towns and John DeBerry — commented afterward that the MOU should remain in effect but acknowledged, like Chism, that Luttrell, Michael, and Oldham seemed to have made good-faith efforts to raise the standards in effect at Juvenile Court.

But another nay vote came from 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, who noted in a prepared statement that he had supported the original intervention by the Justice Department and said, “While progress has been made since 2012, there are still reports of race playing a factor in court hearings and reports of the juvenile detention facilities becoming more dangerous.” 

As of Tuesday, Sessions had not formally responded to the officials’ request.

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Politics Politics Feature

Filling in the Blanks

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Shelby County Assessor Cheyenne Johnson, a Democrat, will not be running for reelection and instead will be supporting the candidacy of Shawn Lynch, a legal adviser in her office and the son of well-known local businessman and civic figure Terry Lynch.

Shelby County Commissioner Heidi Shafer, now in her second term, has not been bashful about proclaiming a desire to serve in the state legislature.

​During last year’s Republican primary for the then-open 8th District congressional seat, ultimately won by current Congressman David Kustoff, Shafer loyally and fully supported her employer, George Flinn, in whose medical office she serves. But, if state Senator Brian Kelsey had won instead and made it all the way to Washington, there was little doubt among those who know her that she would have been a definite contender to succeed him in the state Senate.

And there is little doubt, either, that the surprise victory last year of Democrat Dwayne Thompson over GOP incumbent Steve McManus in state House District 96 gives her a target to go after as soon as next year, when Thompson has to run for reelection.

​All Shafer will say for the record regarding such a contest is, “I’m looking at it.” But Thompson indicated Saturday at the annual Sidney Chism political picnic on Horn Lake Road that he is expecting a challenge from Shafer and is girding for it.

As has long been known, Chism himself will be back on the ballot in 2018, running for Shelby County mayor. The former Teamster leader and longtime Democratic political broker served an interim term in the state Senate and two full terms on the commission, chairing that body for two years running, until he was term-limited off.

​But he may have serious opposition in the Democratic primary for county mayor. Word going around the picnic grounds at his event on Saturday was that state Senator Lee Harris is getting strong encouragement to seek the office, which incumbent Republican Mark Luttrell, now in his second term, will have to vacate because of term-limit provisions in the county charter.

​Among those reportedly urging Harris to run for county mayor is University of Memphis associate law dean and former Democratic Commissioner Steve Mulroy, a former mayoral candidate who is himself considered a theoretical possibility to seek the office again.

​Harris, who serves as the leader of the five-member Senate Democratic Caucus, has meanwhile embarked on a series of “Senator Lee Harris on Your Street” events at which he promises “updates on the latest legislative bills and issues we tackled in Nashville this year.”   

The Republican side of next year’s mayoral race will feature a showdown between Commissioner Terry Roland, who has been openly running, in effect, for well more than a year, and County Trustee David Lenoir, whose intentions to be a candidate are equally well known.       

It will be interesting to see how Lenoir responds to a gauntlet thrown down by Roland at Monday’s regular meeting of the commission, a four-hour affair that was nearing its end when Roland made a point of notifying Luttrell and County CAO Harvey Kennedy that he intended to seek an amendment to the pending county budget to provide funding for an add-on position sought by Judge Tim Dwyer for the Shelby County General Sessions Drug Court.

To pay for the position, Roland announced that he would offer a resolution at the next commission meeting to strip $50,000 from the amount already allocated to the Trustee’s office. Roland says he can demonstrate that an equivalent sum is currently being paid to an employee of Lenoir’s office who isn’t “showing up for work” — a contention almost certain to bring a hot protest from Lenoir at next week’s committee sessions, where the resolution will get a preliminary vetting.

Roland will also seek to re-allocate $100,000 currently slated to the Juvenile Court Clerk’s office to provide funding for the Shelby County law library, which, he said, faces the threat of closure for financial reasons. He accused state Senator Kelsey of letting a funding bill for the library “sit on his desk” during the legislative session just concluded.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Luttrell Praises Press, Hints at Picking Successor

In remarks to a luncheon of the Rotary Club of Memphis on Tuesday, Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell made a strong statement in defense of the media’s role vis-à-vis the government, and the term-limited official, who is destined to leave office at the end of his current four-year term, indicated that he intends to intervene directly in next year’s Republican primary to determine his successor.

On the first score, the former Sheriff recounted for the Rotarians a recent case in which a formerly admired and respected sheriff in California had been convicted for instances of corruption uncovered by the media and said, to loud applause from the Rotarians, “That’s what our society should be about – the media holding public officials accountable.”

Luttrell touted the “healthy relationship” whereby “we rely on the media to get out message out, and they depend on us….to keep the community informed.” He took note of the ongoing shrinkage of media staff and coverage and said, “We should mourn, we should genuinely mourn for the status of The Commercial Appeal.”

On the subject of partisanship in politics, Luttrell appealed for a situation “where Ds and Rs are secondary and declared, “We used to see it in Washington, we used to see it in Nashville,” but that things had become “so partisan and so divided that it’s increasingly difficult to deal with issues that need to get addressed.”
Asked if we had misgivings about the conduct of “the current Republican leadership in Washington,” Luttrell answer, “Yes…I am disturbed about it —the shrillness of thee rhetoric. I have seen a lack of civil discourse that is very disturbing.”

Asked about the forthcoming 2018 race to succeed him, Luttrell said, “Every incumbent wants to leave a legacy….I am not opposed to endorsing in the primary. I’ll do it if I can find a candidate embracing the same general values and principles that this administration has.”

Luttrell did not name names, but the Republican primary for County Mayor in 2018 is expected to be between County Trustee David Lenoir and County Commissioner Terry Roland, with whom the current mayor has been involved in an off-and-on power struggle. (Luttrell had praised Democratic Commissioner Van Turner, who had introduced him to the Rotariqans and encouraged Turner to run but he said afterward than he would probably restrict any endorsement he gave to the GOP primary.)

On other matters, Luttrell:

*Said he “never felt comfortable” with the erstwhile slogan of “every child college bound” and made a point of endorsing the revival of interest in vo-tech offerings;

*Praised the creative instincts and construction projects of “millennials” and said Memphis’ progress in educational innovations had made it a “Teachertown.”

*Declared that the proposed city “rightsizing” formula for de-annexation posed no threat to county government but said massive de-annexation would create a burden county law enforcement.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Gubernatorial Hopeful Boyd, an East Tennessean, Has Roots in These Parts

CREDIT: JB

JB

GOP gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd with Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell in the Mayor’s office this week

Former state Commissioner of Economic Development Randy Boyd of Knoxville, an early-bird candidate for Governor in 2018, was making the rounds of West Tennessee this past week to show the flag — and in the process to divulge some local roots.

Some of them were even more local — and more personal — than he knew, as he discovered from a stop at the Vasco Smith Shelby County administrative building on Wednesday morning. Boyd had a dual purpose there, to sit down for an interview with the Flyer in the11th floor conference room of County Mayor Mark Luttrell and to overlap that with a courtesy call on the Mayor.

In the Flyer interview, Boyd, the founder of Radio Systems, Inc., which manufactures and distributes a line of electronic pet-related products (“Invisible Fence” being one well-known example) had disclosed the fact that he had been the first member of his family line to be born and raised in East Tennessee and that seven generations of his immediate forebears had resided in the West Tennessee counties of Madison, Obion, and Crockett.

“You’re from Fruitvale?”

In fact, said Boyd, he had made a point of paying homage to his family connections by including as a stop on his announcement tour last month the Crockett County hamlet of Fruitvale (population 64), where he spoke from the stoop of J.O. Boyd’s General Store, which had belonged to one of his relations.

“I believe I set a record for the smallest place to make an announcement from,” Boyd said.

Later, when Luttrell, having disposed of some pre-scheduled mayoral business elsewhere, entered the conference room and joined the conversation, he, too, was apprised of Boyd’s West Tennessee pedigree.

“You’re from Fruitvale?” exclaimed the delighted Luttrell, who went on to explain that he himself had spent some growing-up time in nearby Bells, (population 2,437), also in Crockett County. “Bells is a city, compared to Fruitvale!”


Some reminiscences were swapped back and forth, until it got to the point that both men were fondly recalling individuals from the area that they jointly knew. At one point Luttrell mentioned a lady named Myrtle Rose Emerson. “Aunt Myrtle!” Boyd responded.

All of that may have been a revelation of sorts, but Boyd and Luttrell could already claim a longstanding relationship in their official capacities. As Boyd had noted to the Flyer, he had worked with both Luttrell and the current Mayor’s predecessor, A C Wharton, in developing a program of community-college tuition aid called “Shelby Achieves,” which, along with “Knox Achieves,” in Boyd’s home environs, had been the precursors of the statewide Tennessee Promise program that Governor Bill Haslam has credited Boyd with developing.

For “High Quality Jobs” and “More Local Control”

As Economic Development Commissioner, Boyd had a hand in several of Haslam’s better-known major programs, including Drive to 55 and  Tennessee Reconnect, and he made it clear in the interview that, as Governor, his intent would be to keep on keeping on with such initiatives.

Indeed, in discussing the era of technological and economic progress that he would like to oversee as Governor, Boyd’s very manner of speaking, a rapid-fire but highly focused and by no means off-putting stream-of-consciousness style bespoke an obvious intensity of purpose transcending ambition.

Boyd said that, upon entering government at Haslam’s invitation “my goal was to create a mission for the state. He struck an almost Trump-like note when, in speaking of entrepreneurs, he praised “people who would be disrupters, coming in with new ideas.” His three “key goals” he enumerated as completing the Drive to 55 program (the number representing an ideal minimum of Tennesseans with college degrees or certificates), bringing in “high quality jobs,” and creating a “rural task force [to] take care of people left behind.”

“The state cannot reach its goals unless Memphis reaches its,” said Boyd, who extrapolated a bright future for this area from the fact that Memphis was “Number One in the country” last year in FAFSA filings (applications for federal student aid to attend college).

Boyd sounded one note that would surely be of comfort to Memphians who see state government, at least the legislative part of it, as having increasingly overriden the prerogatives of local government. “I prefer having more local control,” he said, conferring his disapproval of “occasions when people in Nashville think they know better.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Getting Out the Vote

The tradition of presidential-election years holds that the American electorate really doesn’t begin to pay serious attention to the candidates’ campaigns until Labor Day has come and gone. That holiday happens this weekend, and the local branches of the two major parties got a running start on things with events held last week.

The Republicans brought out some of their leading lights Tuesday night at the annual Master Meal banquet of the East Shelby Republican Club, the county’s largest. First up on the dais at the Great Hall in Germantown was David Kustoff, who recently won the GOP nomination for the 8th District congressional seat and, given the Republican propensities of that district these days, has every expectation of serving in Washington next year.

Kustoff made it clear that he hopes to do so in tandem with a President Donald J. Trump, to whose candidacy he gave unstinting verbal support. Though the brash New York billionaire has had highly publicized trouble gaining traction, even in pockets of his own Republican base, Kustoff said predictions of a Trump defeat by Hillary Clinton were the results, essentially, of myopia on the part of an unsympathetic media, and he called the roll of candidates, ranging from Ronald Reagan to current Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, who, he said, had won out despite negative forecasts in the press.

Kustoff’s commitment to the cause of Trump was further embodied in the opening on Wednesday night of this week of a “combined election headquarters” at 1755 Kirby Parkway, housing the “Kustoff for Congress” campaign as well as Trump’s Memphis-area efforts and the campaigns of other local GOP candidates.

Also toeing the line for a top-to-bottom Republican effort at the Master Meal were state Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell, and visiting state GOP executive director Brent Leatherwood, although Luttrell, who had also sought the GOP nomination in the 8th, gallantly focused most of his praise on Kustoff.

Perhaps the most telling commentary Tuesday night came from Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland of Millington, who earned a Trump-like shoot-from-the-mouth reputation of his own during his rise as a political figure. Against all expectations, Roland, who has already launched a campaign to be elected county mayor in 2018, became something of a conciliator — enough so that, as he neared the formal end of his one-year term as chairman on Monday of this week, he received standing ovations from his commission colleagues at each of the legislative body’s last two public meetings. By way of suggesting that Trump’s own rough edges might smooth out during a term as president, Roland, who is West Tennessee chairman of the Republican nominee’s campaign, said of Trump, “Folks, six years ago, that was me!”

• For their part, a sizeable swath of the county’s Hillary Clinton supporters turned out last Wednesday night at a standing-room-only meeting of the Germantown Democratic Club that required the opening of a partition to combine two separate meeting rooms at Coletta’s Restaurant on Appling Road.

Among those present for the occasion were Tyler Yount of Chattanooga, a statewide organizer for the Clinton campaign, and Rickey Hobson of Somerville, the Democratic nominee in the 8th District congressional race. Although attendees of the recent Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia were there to recount their experiences at the convention, the main focus of the meeting was that of organizing a get-out-the-vote effort in Shelby County.

Although the long-troubled Shelby County Democratic Party organization is temporarily defunct after its decertification week before last by state Democratic chair Mary Mancini, and apparently won’t be reconstructed until a local party convention can be held in March, various informal Democratic groups — the Germantown Democrats, the Democratic Women of Shelby County, and the county’s Young Democrats among them — seem intent on organizing a significant GOTV effort.

According to Germantown Democratic Club president Dave Cambron, a headquarters to house a coordinated local Democratic campaign will be opened on Poplar soon.