Tag: Mark White

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Politics Politics Feature

Shelby Legislators in the Thick of It in Nashville

NASHVILLE — As the 2019 session of the Tennessee General Assembly concluded its first full week of activity last Friday, it became obvious that several Shelby County legislators are in the eye of the tiger. District 83 state Representative Mark White, a Republican, is chairman of the House Education Committee and, as such, is already riding that tiger.

During an introductory session of his committee last Wednesday, White scheduled two groups of presenters to testify before the committee. One group was a duo from SCORE (State Collaborative on Reforming Education), the organization founded by former U.S. Senator Bill Frist. The SCORE representatives talked about the group’s efforts to collaborate with the state’s professed educational goals and were able to cite several successes in the state’s educational achievement.

The second group, composed of two representatives from the state Department of Education, got a stormier response from committee members. The subject that dominated discussion was the “debacle” (that has been the operational term) of the state’s failure so far to implement a completely workable testing apparatus for teacher and student assessment under the TNReady formula. TNReady is the state-devised system that replaced the testing system existing beforehand under Common Core, the nationwide eductional initiative whose uniform standards became controversial for a variety of reasons, some of them frankly political.

Questar, the vendor that has the contract under TNReady — one worth $150 million over a projected five-year period — suffered a number of system breakdowns last year that made reliable testing impossible under the online methods adopted and caused the legislature to pass measures late in the 2018 session that, in effect, nullified the validity of the results.

In the course of an intense questioning by Education Committee members, the Department of Education representatives acknowledged that Questar was still due to be paid $26 million of the $30 million pro-rated annual payment called for under the state’s contract with the company and, further, was eligible to make a submission under a re-bidding process undertaken by the department. Moreover, until that process is completed, Questar remains the vendor of record.

That was too much for District 90 state Representative John DeBerry of Memphis, a Democrat. “I want to know why that company wasn’t fired on the spot,” he demanded. “The fact of the matter is that that system failed our children, failed our mission, failed the state of Tennessee. … I watched our teachers, our administrators, our students, including my own grandchild, in tears.”

The fact, explained the Department of Education representatives, was that federal regulations required that a contract be in place and that the testing debacle occurred too late to arrange a replacement company. Hence the new RFP (request for proposal) process.

In any case, chairman White will have his hands full dealing with the issue, as will the Senate Education Committee, chaired by Republican Dolores Gresham of Somerville, with two Shelby Countians, Republican Brian Kelsey and Democrat Raumesh Akbari, serving as co-chairs.

And so will Penny Schwinn, the Texan appointed by Governor Bill Lee to replace the departed Candace McQueen as commissioner of education. Schwinn was deputy education commissioner of education in Texas and — ironically (or appropriately) — experienced first-hand there the job of amending a failed assessment program that paralleled Tennessee’s experience.

• State Representative Antonio Parkinson has figured importantly both in the debates about marijuana legislation of the 2018 session and (so far, indirectly) in the general outcry over House Speaker Glen Casada‘s advice to committee chairs that they have the power to prevent broadcasting committee sessions online over social media. Parkinson was prominent in live-streaming such activities last year and his actions are regarded as one of the catalysts for Casada’s advisory.

The future effect of Casada’s edict is uncertain for several reasons, including the fact that questions have been raised as to whether the policy could be applied to citizen attendees or media members.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Shelby Countians in New Early Education Caucus

CREDIT: JB

JB

From left: Reps. DeBerry, Ragan, and White, and Senator Gresham

NASHVILLE —Three Memphis-area legislators are key members of an education-minded group that on Wednesday announced the formation of a new bipartisan, bicameral caucus focusing exclusively on early education policy — concentrating on pre-K through third grade — as a means of enhancing the state’s ongoing efforts to improve public education in Tennessee.

The three Shelby Countians are state Representatives Mark White and John DeBerry and state Senator Raumesh Akbari. A fourth co-founder, state Senator Dolores Gresham, hails from Somerville in Fayette County. Akbari and DeBerry are Democrats; the others are Republicans. White and Gresham are the chairs of the House and Senate education committees, respectively.

White and the others, joined by state Representative John Ragan (R, of Oak Ridge), Ron Gant (R-Rossville), and Dennis Powers (D-Jacksonville), unveiled their intentions at a press conference in the Cordell Hull Building.

The new caucus as yet has no specific agenda, White said, other than to gather as much information as possible on the strategies, new developments, and best practices of early education, from the best speakers and researchers available. He said the inspiration for forming the caucus came from DeBerry, a member of the House education caucus, who, in the face of studies showing that only 37 percent of Tennessee third-graders were reading at their grade level, opined, “We’ve got to go nuclear.”

The Early Education Caucus is open to all members of the House and Senate and will hold its first post-organizational meeting on Thursday of this week, following the week’s final floor sessions.

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Politics Politics Feature

Nonpartisan Event Stirs Partisans

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

In politics, as in everything else (maybe more so in politics!), no good deed goes unpunished. When state Representative Mark White (R-Memphis) and Senator John Stephens (R-Huntington), co-chairs of the Tennessee legislature’s West Tennessee Economic Development Caucus (WTEDC), decided to schedule four nonpartisan events in the weeks prior to the November 6th election, they seem not to have anticipated negative feedback.

But they got some. Big-time.

When White aide Paul Marsh, on behalf of the two co-chairs, recently sent out a letter to a network of civic and governmental leaders announcing a series of four regional meetings of the WTEDC with the candidates for governor and U.S. senator, he conscientiously specified that all four — gubernatorial candidates Karl Dean (Democrat) and Bill Lee (Republican) would take part, sequentially. Ditto with the two candidates for Senate — Phil Bredesen (Democrat) and Marsha Blackburn (Republican).

Jackson Baker

GOP’s White and Democrat Craig Fitzhugh at WTEDC event

As planned, the schedule called for Dean on Monday of this week in Jackson; Bredesen on October 18th, also in Jackson; Lee on October 22nd in Martin; and Blackburn, back in Jackson on October 23rd. Monday’s meeting with Dean, the former mayor of Nashville, took place as scheduled at the offices of the Southwest Tennessee Economic District, which will be the site for the other Jackson meetings as well.

Members of both political parties and presumably some independents as well were on hand Monday, as, with White presiding, Dean and others discussed the status of the West Tennessee Megasite in Haywood County and other ongoing or potential development projects in the region. The group conversation was collegial, focused, and nonpartisan, a veritable object lesson in civic responsibiliity.

It remains to be seen, however, if that kind of comity holds up for the next go-round — the meeting with Bredesen. Upon receipt of Marsh’s original letter, at least two recipients — both Republicans — responded with curt and identical refusals: “No, thank you” regarding the Bredesen meeting. And it became clear that both decliners, Bartlett Mayor Keith McDonald and state Representative Jim Coley, represented the tip of an iceberg. Several other Republicans found ways of conveying their displeasure, apparently seeing the planned occasion as some sort of partisan disloyalty.

Undiscouraged, White took pains to reassure his party brethren that no such treason was afoot, that the series of meetings with contenders for statewide office were part of no political agenda but were merely intended to be disinterested occasions for sharing ideas and information.

On Wednesday of last week, however, The Tennessean of Nashville carried a report of a hostile reaction to the scheduled Bredesen appearance from the famously partisan and unbashful state Representative Andy Holt (R-Dresden), a legislator famous (or infamous) for such capers as an anti-whistleblower bill that Governor Bill Haslam vetoed as unconstitutional and for dumping hog waste into fresh-water streams, an offense that earned him a fine from the EPA.

Holt vaunts his position on the rightward fringe of the Republican Party, too, and was quoted by the Tennessean as denouncing the WTEDC’s plans to meet with Bredesen.

Said Holt: “I’m a member of this Caucus, but I want it to be VERY CLEAR, that I am not, and have no intention of EVER hosting Phil Bredesen at any event with which I’m associated!” Holt wondered, “Who’s [sic] idea was this?” He called the Bredesen scheduling and the public invitation to it  “egregious political miscalculations” and threatened to resign from the caucus. 

Several of the Republicans present at Monday’s WTEDC meeting with Dean expressed dismay at Holt’s attitude. State Representative Jimmy Eldridge, currently a candidate for mayor of Jackson, was particularly vexed. “Can you believe that? We’re trying to have a meeting of minds here. This is completely nonpartisan!” And Eldridge was seconded by several others.

Count it as a healthy omen, even a sign of potential redemption for state government, that such was the prevailing reaction toward a nonpartisan event in a highly charged political year among the Democrats and Republicans gathered in Jackson, all of whom practiced the most elaborate courtesies toward each other.

• As it happens, Bredesen has been the focus of attention in numerous other ways of late. The former governor, whose innate centrism and willingness to reach out across the political aisle had previously been serving him well, took a good deal of flack last week from his fellow Democrats, who judged him to be overdoing it.

Many Democrats expressed displeasure that Bredesen had reacted to taunts from GOP opponent Blackburn by publicly disowning Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York during the two Senate candidates’ recent televised debate. But that reaction was nothing compared to the outrage that greeted Bredesen’s statement endorsing President Donald Trump‘s designation of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court after an abbreviated FBI investigation of Kavanaugh for alleged sexual misconduct and before the final party-line vote in his favor in the Senate.

Meanwhile, whatever the reason for it, the polls, which had been showing Bredesen with a significant single-digit lead reversed course, and Blackburn began to top such samplings as were made public.

No doubt compounding the Democratic candidate’s discomfort was a series of hard-hitting TV attack ads from the Blackburn camp. Some of these were patently misleading — notably one which attempted to connect the former governor with the current opioid-addiction problem (apparently based on the fact that, among other things, his stock portfolio includes some shares of the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical group). That approach is a blatant attempt to do a turn-around on the fact that Blackburn was the author of Pharma-friendly legislation that 60 Minutes identified as a major factor in inhibiting the DEA’s ability to control the proliferation of opioids.

• The campaign of Democrat Gabby Salinas for the District 31 state Senate seat is calling foul on a mailer sent out by her opponent, Republican incumbent Brian Kelsey. Headed by a picture of Kelsey and his wife, Amanda, with a family dog and replete with other domestic themes and references, the mailer states, “Brian Kelsey’s Family Has Called Shelby County Home for Seven Generations. He’s From Here. He’s One of Us.”

Salinas is a cancer survivor whose family emigrated here from Colombia during her childhood to pursue treatment for her at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. A spokesman for her campaign maintains that the “nasty” mailer, a “not-so-subtle dog whistle” is “attempting to raise the question of Gabby’s heritage and background as an immigrant and naturalized citizen.”

Kelsey’s response (via Kelsey’s campaign manager, Jackson Darr): “It’s very simple. It means that Brian lives in Shelby County. Senator Kelsey has deep roots here. … Brian participates daily in Shelby County life. That’s what it means to be one of us.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Break in the Weather

The political situation, locally as well as statewide, might appear to be in something of a lull, but the apparent calm could well presage something of a storm.

That would certainly seem to be the case at this week’s committee meetings on Wednesday of the Shelby County Commission, where at least two of the agenda items are sure to generate sparks.

One is a referred-back-to-committee item on funding the Shelby County District attorney general’s office to deal with car and body cameras employed by law enforcement; the other is a Shelby County Schools audit report and a discussion of SCS’ capital improvement needs. 

The request by D.A. Amy Weirich‘s office for $143,378 to pay for “additional personnel and equipment to process in-car and body-worn cameras” got a turndown two weeks ago by what amounted to a skeleton crew of commission members meeting under the rubric of the commission’s law enforcement committee.

It fared little better when presented to the full commission at last Monday’s regular public meeting. Though there were advocates to go ahead with the funding matter, there was significant opposition as well, particularly relating to the body-cam issue, which turned out to have enough jurisdictional, philosophical, and fiscal overtones to justify a 10-1 vote for another committee go-over — this one sure to be more fully attended.

The SCS matters are sure also to generate some close attention as the commission swings into the initial stages of its budget season. This is especially so, given the school district’s emergency request for an additional $40 million to stave off Draconian cuts, accompanied by some heated exchanges back and forth between the commission and the SCS administration and board.

• The 2016 legislative session of the Tennessee General Assembly is formally over, but questions regarding what it did and didn’t do are still provoking serious — and, in some cases, heated — reactions.

Mary Mancini, the chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party, scheduled a press conference for Tuesday of this week “to discuss the recently ended legislative session and the upcoming elections.”

According to Spencer Bowers, the TNDP communications director, actions to be discussed (which is to say, deplored) at the event, scheduled for the steps of the War Memorial Building, include the passage of a bill allowing professional counselors to reject gay and transgendered clients on the basis of “sincerely held principles” and another allowing college and university employees to carry weapons on campus, along with Governor Bill Haslam‘s refusal to veto the bills. The agenda for the Democrats’ press conference also included mention of an expanded list of Democratic candidates running in congressional races and in legislative races across the state, to challenge the Republicans’ current super-majority status in the General Assembly.

On Wednesday, three prominent Shelby County Republican members of that selfsame General Assembly will present their own takes on the legislature’s deeds, misdeeds, actions, and omissions at a noon luncheon of the National Federation of Independent Business at Regents Bank on Poplar Avenue.

The legislators are state Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris of Collierville, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Brian Kelsey of Germantown, and House Education Committee chair Mark White of Memphis. The trio will surely have both satisfactions and disappointments in the wake of the late session. Their complaints are likely to be in an opposite direction from those of Mancini and the Democrats.

• There is, however, one lament in which the official statements of the two parties are close to being on the same page. This is in regards to the matter of Measurement, Inc., the North Carolina company entrusted with preparing and grading testing materials for the state’s new TNReady program of student/teacher evaluations.

Days after public statements by Haslam disparaging the performance of Measurement, Inc., the Tennessee Department of Education revoked its contract with the company, which failed to generate workable materials for online testing and then failed to deliver printed testing materials as well, for any but grades 9 through 12.

In a press conference at the Raleigh legislative office, state Representative Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis), state Senate Minority Leader Lee Harris (D-Memphis), and SCS School Board member Stephanie Love slammed the unreadiness of the TNReady program. Parkinson called for a three-year extension of the current moratorium on expansion of the state’s Achievement School District and for scrapping of any official testing procedure until a satisfactory one might be developed.

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Politics Politics Feature

Roadblock

“It was a technical knockout, no contest. It was embarrassing,” said erstwhile Democratic primary candidate Tyson Pratcher about the first real debate Monday night between the three remaining candidates for the 9th District congressional seat — Democratic nominee Steve Cohen, Republican nominee Mark White, and independent Jake Ford.

In the judgment of Pratcher (and almost every other unbiased observer), Cohen, an experienced state legislator with a quarter-century’s worth of experience, was the “winner” of the hour-long encounter at the Central Library, sponsored by the League of Women Voters. And there was no doubt who the loser was, at least relatively speaking — first-time candidate Ford, who needed only a credible outing, on top of two prior strong performances, to be able to mount a serious challenge for the seat being vacated by his illustrious brother Harold Ford Jr.

The GOP’s White had his moments, especially at the close when he uttered a passionate call for partisans of all causes to dissolve their differences in a common effort to find solutions to basic problems — including, presumably, the educational deficiencies and high mortality rate of the district that White had been previously emphatic (and empathetic) about.

And there was no doubting White’s sincerity in expressing such home truths as “A country without borders is not a country” and “We need fathers in homes.”

But it was Cohen who best articulated specific answers, as when, in response to a question about Iraq, he deftly communicated a sense of domestic urgency: “We had shock and awe. … We destroyed their country, and now we’re spending our time rebuilding that country when our country needs rebuilding. … Memphis has places like New Orleans. They just haven’t been exposed by the awful hurricane that New Orleans suffered.”

There are two kinds of people, Cohen said. “There’s one kind, the ruling class, that sends people to war and another kind that goes to war, and the kind that sends people to war don’t seem to think about it or see and hear those people.”

The veteran state senator also made proposals for an uncompromising ethics code at the federal level and denounced both the Patriot Act and a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage as doing damage to the Constitution.

There were times Monday night when Jake Ford seemed the self-assured, even eloquent candidate who, in the preceding several days, had deftly fielded questions during a radio interview with friendly host Jennings Bernard and then later had seemed both knowledgeable and compassionate at a public seminar on health care.

He had even sounded worldly-wise, as he periodically did Monday night. Answering a question about ethics reform, Ford said, “As we all know, we live in a system that operates under capitalism. People are always going to find a way to advance their agenda.”

And Ford’s opening and closing remarks were fluent enough. It’s what came in between that was problematic. Here and there he was admirably to the point — expressing support for civil unions, for example, and for a timetable for extricating American forces from Iraq.

What was most dumbfounding about his performance Monday night was not just that, on three separate occasions, he was forced to confess that he had no answer to the rather basic question being asked but that one of those questions concerned itself, in the most general possible sense, with Medicare — a subject area clearly and directly related to things discussed in last week’s health-care forum, when the candidates (excluding Cohen, who was being feted by Cybill Shepherd at a fund-raiser) had been presented the questions ahead of time.

Ford’s response: “You would almost have to know a lot about the system itself, and at this time I do not have all of the answers here.”

Though that was a non-answer to the question at hand, it seemed a possible answer to something various observers had been speculating on last week: Were Jake Ford’s smooth performances on the radio and at the health-care forum dependent on his having foreknowledge of what he was going to be asked and time to prepare an answer?

In answer to another question Monday night, Ford said, “I don’t know the solution right now. I don’t have the answer right now. I want to go to Congress to learn.” More than once, he deferred answering something, promising in apparent good faith to research an issue so as to come to grips with it later in the campaign.

Well and good, but it didn’t square well with the candidate’s answer as to why it was he chose to run as an independent rather than competing in the Democratic primary.

Ford’s statement about that was complicated and hard to parse. If he hadn’t done so, he said at one point, “I don’t think this forum would even have been held.” That was either a truism or an attempt at denying that several comprehensive forums were held during the primary season. Bottom line, one that was ironic under the circumstances: His independent candidacy presented “an opportunity to discuss the issues in an informed way.”

The best-case scenario for Ford: He will have other opportunities to do so. His father, former Congressman Harold Ford Sr., was talking up his abilities over the weekend, making a case that his second son had been widely underestimated.

Meanwhile, Jake Ford’s celebrated older brother, the congressman whose job he now seeks, Harold Ford Jr., was having a big-time week, surging ahead of Republican rival Bob Corker in a couple of mainstream polls taken on their U.S. Senate race and reportedly opening up a 46-to-39 gap in one of his own.

Tracking the congressman on Sunday, it was easy to see why. His first public appearance that day was at Centenary United Methodist Church, where he functioned as a de facto preacher, bringing a sermon on public stewardship that neatly walked the line between the secular and the divine, yet was rousing enough to draw frequent “Amen” choruses from the congregation.

Later in the day, Representative Ford presided over a well-attended, near-ecstatic rally at his headquarters, one in which he cited new polls showing his edge over Corker growing and noted that Newsweek magazine had elevated the Ford-Corker race to “number one” in the nation. The congressman invoked the spirit of Democratic solidarity, saying of Corker, “If you want somebody who votes with Bush all the time, then he’s your man!”

At one point earlier Sunday, Ford had also dropped in on an NAACP forum that was being held at Mt. Olive CME Church for candidates in various races. Brother Jake was not there, but White and Cohen were, and the latter, in answer to a question, made a point of yoking it to his support for “my candidate for the U.S. Senate, Harold Ford Jr.” Pointedly, the congressman did not respond in kind.

A question that has vexed any number of Democrats in the weeks since the August 3rd primary is this: What has prevented a joint embrace of support between Democratic nominees Cohen and Harold Ford Jr.?

Former Congressman Ford was candid about some of the reasons on Sunday. “What kind of father wouldn’t support his own son?” he said at one point. At another, he acknowledged a further reason: Memphis mayor Willie Herenton’s combination of public support for Cohen with derogatory remarks about Jake Ford and the Ford clan at large.

But, maintained the senior Ford in something of a revelation, he had, immediately after the primary, sent the victorious Cohen a message through Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, who would later join Herenton in a public endorsement ceremony for Cohen.

“I said let’s all get together and do this thing,” Ford said, evidently meaning a unity proclamation. “I gave it 36 hours, and I never heard anything back from Cohen.” The implication was that the newly nominated Cohen had not answered the feeler by touching base with him.

For the record, Cohen — who had gone so far on election night as to suggest that his defeat in the 1996 9th District race by Harold Ford Jr., “a great charismatic congressman,” might have been a good thing — denies having received any such communication.

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Cover Feature News

The Big One

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Early voting for the August 3rd Shelby County election ballot has been brisk, and the news has been good for some candidates — for example, state senator Steve Cohen, whose 9th District congressional candidacy is surely profiting from a disproportionate turnout of white Democrats at Poplar Corridor and East Memphis sites (See also Politics, p. 15). The same figures may not be so comforting to other candidates — like Division 5 General Sessions judge Betty Thomas, a vigorous campaigner who, as a first-time judicial candidate, won her seat on the bench eight years ago in a multi-candidate field. She now finds herself matched one-on-one against newcomer Evan Nahmias, who could well draw heavily from the same precincts.

Many a presumed sure-thing outcome could be imperiled if the demographics of that early-voting trend continue to and through Election Day, which will still be the occasion for most of the voting. Rarely has so much advance fear and trembling attended an election as is the case with the mammoth August 3rd ballot, with its well-over-100 races to decide no matter where one lives in Shelby County. Everybody, it seems, has heard the horror stories about misadventures, delays, and errors connected with the new Diebold machines that are being employed for the first time (see “Vote Early and Often,” p. 25). Such problems, along with long lines at the polls, could well be a disincentive for working-class voters who don’t have the available time to vote at odd hours or endure lengthy delays.

Other factors that could affect the voting include two big races of transcendent interest. One is the 9th District congressional race where presumed leader Cohen faces a field of 14 other Democrats, four or five considered capable of catching up or coming close with a final spurt. The other is the Republican U.S. Senate primary, in which both local longtime favorite Ed Bryant, a former 7th District congressman, and newly ascendant Bob Corker, the deep-pocketed former mayor of Chattanooga, will be working at revving up their strength in Shelby County. (A third candidate, former 4th District congressman Van Hilleary, was largely confining his efforts to Middle and East Tennessee.)

Local Republicans had been at least as grateful as was Democrat Harold Ford Jr. in April for the last-minute withdrawal of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rosalind Kurita, a state senator from Clarksville. The departing 9th District congressman thereby became this party’s de facto nominee and could husband his resources for the fall instead of working overtime to boost primary turnout.

That fact meant that Republicans, who have predominated among local countywide officeholders since the advent of partisan elections in the mid-’90s, had a fighting chance to hold on to their gains against what has been proclaimed for two full decades as an inevitable demographic tide favoring Democrats. To be sure, a steady out-migration of the white (and black) middle class had, at least in theory, diluted the Republican share of the total Shelby County vote. But the GOP has so far managed to prevail, at least in countywide elections, by superior turnout on Election Day.

It won’t be so this year, insists veteran Democratic activist David Upton, who points to a contrary trend that has seen black inner-city turnout rise somewhat disproportionately in city-wide and presidential elections.

Jackson Baker

Happily locked in a Wharton sandwich recently was judicial candidate Janet Lansky Shipman, endorsed by the county mayor and his wife, lawyer Ruby Wharton

“[D]isgraceful and shameful disgraces … ”

Turnout is only one factor to reckon with. A number of races seem unusually responsive to the nature of the coattails that this or that candidate happens to be attached to. This is especially the case with the ostensibly nonpartisan judicial races.

As an example, former prosecutor and current county personnel director Janet Lansky Shipman, one of four unusually qualified candidates in the race for the open Division 7 Criminal Court seat, was boosted by an unusual twofer. Hers was the only radio ad of the political season that could legitimately summon up the spirit of the King, Elvis Presley himself, who had famously purchased his threads at the Lansky family’s Beale St. clothing store. And she also claimed support from the mayor — Shelby County chief executive A C Wharton, who pointedly endorsed her late in the campaign.

Not bad, although rival Lee Coffee, an assistant district attorney, also has a number of high-profile endorsements, and the two other candidates, attorney Larry H. Nance and federal public defender Doris Holt, also are well regarded.

This year’s judicial races were unusually dependent on other people’s say-so, with two bar associations, two political parties, innumerable ad hoc groups, and several private individuals offering up a confusing mélange of slates and endorsement tickets.

In previous years, judicial contests, conducted according to official canons that would have put the Marquis of Queensberry to sleep, had been staid, formal, and not terribly revealing. But this year’s have been characterized by an unprecedented degree of invective, involving not only quarreling blocs of backers but intramural animosities within political organizations and occasional name-calling between the competing candidates. The most glaring instance of the latter came early on when Deep Throat-era prosecutor Larry Parrish decided that his political comeback effort required a full-scale verbal assault on his opponent, Division 8 Circuit Court judge D’Army Bailey, a former Berkeley radical turned establishmentarian.

Parrish contrived to append to a routine legal pleading a direct attack on Bailey, an occasional actor in movies (including The People v. Larry Flynt, a biopic about the publisher of Hustler magazine). “As part of my campaign,” Parrish suggested in a confusing (and perhaps confused) passage of his affidavit, a link was made from Bailey to the pimp/hustler problem manifested in another Memphis-made movie (apparently last year’s Hustle & Flow, which the thespian/judge had in fact not appeared in). Said Parrish: “I will reiterate how disappointed I was in being told that in May 2006 Judge Bailey appeared in public (at a Memphis In May event) wearing a T-shirt on which the word ‘Mafia’ was printed and garbed in flashy jewelry typical of Memphis pimps, giving dignity and legitimacy to two of the more disgraceful and shameful disgraces this city must bear.”

Yes, this really happened. Bailey’s only recorded response at the time was to say, “This guy is going to make the lawyers love me.” And, sure enough, the incumbent, who had always taken his lumps in annual Bar Association ratings, easily outdid Parrish in this year’s published evaluation of candidates by members of the Memphis bar.

But nonfederal judges in Shelby County are elected, and it clearly would take more than approbation by lawyers, official or otherwise, to put a candidate over in this year’s highly politicized atmosphere (For a commentary on judges and politics in the context of the election process, see retired Judge Robert Lanier‘s Viewpoint column, “Judging the Justices,” p. 17). Politics being politics, personal characteristics count for something. One of the most closely watched races is that for Chancellor, Part 2, which matches incumbent Arnold Goldin, well-regarded across partisan lines, against newcomer Carlee McCullough, currently a contract-compliance officer for the city of Memphis. Both contenders possess more than their share of charm, but Goldin is more heavily credentialed.

Gale Jones Carson, head of this year’s Democratic countywide coordinated campaign, discounts the importance of credentials, noting that many of the judges now officiating in Shelby County lacked a lengthy resume but have performed well once on the bench. It’s the ultimate learn-by-doing job, she maintains.

Credentials were certainly not the only issue back in June, when a lawyer-dominated screening committee proposed a slate of judicial endorsees to the Shelby County Democratic Party’s executive committee. That meeting descended into chaos as epithets were exchanged and several of the screening committee’s recommendations were undone.

In many cases, race was suspected as a motive. Committee members and onlookers at the rowdy Democratic endorsement meeting resorted frequently to accusations of that sort — and that debate continued in the public prints, or at least in the blog portion of it, where the debate continues to rage.

Jackson Baker

Judicial-race rivals Deborah Henderson (left) and Regina Morrison Newman (right) flank Charter Commission candidate Sharon Webb.

Blog Warfare, Internal Threats, and a Showdown or Two

An intriguing footnote to that Democratic meeting: One of the interested bystanders was lawyer Richard Fields, who was overheard observing to longstanding party man (and fellow lawyer) David Cocke: “Y’all ought to get rid of Del Gill.” Gill is the professionally obstreperous party gadfly whose sting usually ends up being turned on himself. At that moment, he was interrupting proceedings every 30 seconds with this or that motion or complaint. When Cocke merely shrugged and said, “He keeps getting elected!” Fields persisted. “Y’all ought to kick him off the committee.” What made that exchange both interesting and ironic was that Fields, a maverick in his own right, had been the only committee member kicked off in recent memory — for having been one of Republican Terry Roland‘s litigators in legal actions opposing Democrat Ophelia Ford‘s election last year in a special state Senate race.

In any case, Fields was not through with the matter. He promptly circulated copies of a letter to members of the Memphis bar containing his own judicial endorsements — as well as embarrassing information about the professional and personal affairs of candidates he disapproved of. (This exhibit, too, may be perused atMemphisFlyer.com.) Fields’ letter galvanized blogger Thaddeus Matthews into turning the tables on several of Fields’ picks, outing some of their own previously closeted skeletons. Nor did Fields himself escape retribution, as Matthews’ blog went on to charge the lawyer himself with grievous private misdeeds. (In this Google-happy age, readers interested in the further details of this and related controversies will have no trouble locating them on the Internet.)

Republicans, meanwhile, experienced their own internal frets. One of them concerned the activities of one Angelo Cobrasci (see “Right of Right,” p. 21), who has displaced longtime party maverick Jerry Cobb as the chief irritant to the local GOP establishment. But whereas Cobb has long been considered a nitpicker, Cobrasci was suspected of wanting to turn a blowtorch on the party’s thin-skinned sensibilities. Not only was he a campaign manager for the independent gubernatorial candidacy of Minuteman leader Carl “Two Feathers” Whitaker (whose earlier effort to run as a Republican had been cold-shouldered by the party brass), but Cobrasci, as impresario of the Shelby County Coalition of Conservative Republicans, saw fit to put out his own sample ballot of endorsement choices in competition with the official Republican one.

Although there are big-ticket races for governor, senator, and Congress on the ballot, an unusual amount of attention has been focused on the District 5 race for the Shelby County Commission. That race, for the seat being vacated by Republican Bruce Thompson, features Democrat Steve Mulroy versus Republican Jane Pierotti, and it is regarded as decisive in the matter of which party controls the commission. (Republicans have predominated over Democrats by a 7-6 majority for the last several terms.) A victory for Mulroy would reverse that ratio.

In a year’s time, Mulroy, a law professor at the University of Memphis, has become widely known for his involvement in the cause of voting-machine reform, in local attempts to salvage the Libertyland amusement park, and on behalf of Ophelia Ford in her attempt to hang on to the District 29 state Senate seat. Pierotti has the advantage of a notable last name (hers by virtue of a since-dissolved marriage), and she is known as a successful business consultant. Turnout will clearly loom large in the outcome in a district which voted 63 percent for Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004.

Jackson Baker

Henri Brooks is wearing more than one candidate hat this year.

One other commission race of interest is that for Position 2, in District 2, between Democrat Henri Brooks and Republican Novella Smith Arnold. This race was reviewed in last week’s Politics column, which (mea culpa) omitted the salient fact that Brooks is simultaneously running for reelection to her District 92 seat in the state House of Representatives (See Editorial, p. 16). Though clearly an underdog, Arnold is well known as a longtime social activist and former broadcaster and has some degree of support among Democrats. Her chances were further boosted over the last week by endorsements ranging from The Commercial Appeal to the Stonewall Democrats, a gay/lesbian activist group.

Other Important Races

Governor — In theory, both parties have gubernatorial primaries on the ballot, but for the Democrats that’s really just a figure of speech. And the Republican race, too, is largely pro forma.

The GOP party brass didn’t get down on their knees and plead with first-term state senator Jim Bryson of Franklin to forgo his reelection race and run for governor without making sure he would have such support as can be mustered up. (Lawyer Mark Albertini somehow didn’t grasp this. Chattanoogan Albertini, who was arrested at a Knoxville intersection last weekend for campaigning while intoxicated, has been the most active of six other Republicans who are at least nominal opponents for Bryson.)

Jackson Baker

GOP gubernatorial candidate Jim Bryson greets a small band of the faithful

But one had to wonder about Bryson’s establishment support when he came to town on a fly-around a couple of weeks ago and the only press that was at the Wilson Air terminal to greet him was … moi. And the only reason I was there was because someone from the state Democratic Party in Nashville called me up with an advance retort to Bryson. Nobody acting on Bryson’s behalf ever got around to notifying the Memphis media he was going to be here.

Governor Phil Bredesen, on the other hand, is always well advanced and attended to by Democrats when he comes to town, and not just because he’s an incumbent. The last Zogby poll showed him up over Bryson, 58 percent to 22 percent. For the record, the old warhorse John Jay Hooker is one of three nominal primary opponents for the governor.

Estimated financial resources on hand show $4.5 million for Bredesen, $500,000 for Bryson, and zilch for anybody else.

U.S. Senate — Hooker has his (somewhat frayed) hat in the Democratic Senate primary, too, along with four others. But only one of those four, Memphis congressman Ford, is really in the race. For all practical purposes, Ford has the nomination in hand.

There are enough Republican candidates to make a foursome at bridge, but the unknown Tate Harrison will just have to be the dummy. Active hands are held by former Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker and former congressmen Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary. The well-heeled Corker probably has most of the trumps. (See recent Flyer story, “Senate 2006: It’s Crunch Time!” in “Political Beat” at MemphisFlyer.com.)

Shelby County Mayor — The simple facts of the matter are that Democrat A C Wharton is the closest thing to an invincible candidate in Shelby County government, and though mayoral opponent John Willingham, the Republican nominee, can make a substantial case for mismanagement and duplicity by a generation of “good ole boys,” the simple arithmetic of politics (as well as a charm quotient that is unexcelled by anybody else running locally) weighs heavily in favor of Wharton, who has been dexterous in distancing himself from Willingham’s bill of particulars.

Sheriff — Incumbent Mark Luttrell is a smooth customer and a genius at public relations. The former chief of county corrections, who seems to attend every available political venue, makes a convincing case that he has rendered both the county jail and the corrections center more efficient at less cost and has removed the jail from federal supervision. He is also quick enough on his feet to have disengaged himself from the contentious issue of privatization.

Surprisingly smooth in his own right, Democrat Reginald French makes a plausible criticism that Luttrell is concerned more with “locking them up” than with crime-prevention per se or with intervention programs. It remains a fact that Luttrell has very serious crossover support from influential Democrats and that French has some baggage he hasn’t quite disposed of — notably a tire-slashing incident several years ago. Deputy John Harvey, who has uncovered beaucoup voting abuses, is running as a write-in and could make waves.

District Attorney General — Even more so than Luttrell, incumbent Republican Bill Gibbons has across-the-board support that includes several prominent Democrats. Gail Mathes, the Democratic nominee, is making a spirited challenge, however — one based on what she sees as ineffective law enforcement behind a public-relations facade.

Juvenile Court Clerk — One of the most watched races features a rematch between Republican incumbent Steve Stamson and Democratic challenger Shep Wilbun, a former clerk who was defeated by Stamson four years ago.

Stamson is well liked and respected, and his claims of running an efficient, less costly operation ring true, but Wilbun acquired a martyr’s mantle, especially in the African-American community, after a 2002 election-year prosecution for “official misconduct” was dropped, presumably for lack of evidence. Stamson has to hope that a recent burst of Tennessee Waltz publicity about malfeasance by some of Wilbun’s former employees will curb some of the Democrat’s momentum.

Shelby County Clerk — Republican Debbie Stamson, wife of the aforementioned Steve Stamson and a longtime deputy administrator under outgoing clerk Jayne Creson, has Creson’s blessing and a presumed edge over gracious Democrat Otis Jackson, who has promised, if elected, to consider re-employing Stamson.

Circuit Court Clerk — Another Republican with an apparent leg up is incumbent clerk Jimmy Moore, who has the support of the Democratic Ford clan (county commissioner Joe Ford Sr. is his campaign chairman!) against one Roderic Ford (no relation), who is widely regarded as little more than a stand-in for maverick Democrat Del Gill‘s personal ambitions.

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Criminal Court Clerk — The issue between GOP incumbent Bill Key and Democratic challenger Vernon Johnson Sr. will be resolved by turnout numbers, pure and simple.

Probate Court Clerk — Turnout will also be a key factor in this race between longtime antagonists (who have had issues both in the courts and at the ballot box). Republican incumbent Chris Thomas‘ incumbency will be weighed against Sondra Becton‘s lengthy former experience as an assistant in the office.

Register — This nondescript (if, like other clerkships, well-paying) job will most likely come down to turnout, though incumbent Republican Tom Leatherwood, who is opposed by Democrat Coleman Thompson, boasts that he has reduced overhead in an office that is, in any case, run on the basis of fees collected, not out of the county’s general fund.

Juvenile Court Judge — This race has been a dogfight between four of the five candidates. City judge Jayne Chandler has been largely a no-show (though she did pick up the endorsement of TV judge Joe Brown, a former Criminal Court judge). The favorite is outgoing Republican state senator Curtis Person, who has served for some years as a chief aide to retiring Judge Kenneth Turner. Person, whose friendships range across party lines, is backed by Turner and has the local GOP’s endorsement, as well. His chief competition may come from Democratic endorsee Veronica Coleman, the former U.S. attorney who has crossover potential herself, although another city judge, Earnestine Hunt Dorse, aided by the capable campaign efforts of her husband, longtime activist Fred Dorse, has significant support, too — especially in the black community. Not to be overlooked either is lawyer William Winchester, who, along with African-Americans Coleman and Dorse, has levied reasoned complaints about several issues that all these candidates perceive as incompletely addressed by the court, like its recent tendency to remand more and more juvenile cases to one of the county’s criminal courts.

Jackson Baker

Juvenile Court judicial candidate Earnestine Hunt Dorse (left) with friends

(Note: For more complete information on these and other races on the August 3rd ballot — including those for the Charter Commission — consult “Political Beat” at

MemphisFlyer.com, where updates will appear until Election Day.)