Tag: Paula Casey

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Politics Politics Feature

Discord and Unity

Memphis Suffrage Monument unveiled (Photo: Courtesy Downtown Memphis Commission)

With only days remaining before the financial disclosures of county candidates for the first quarter of 2022 will be made public, Shelby County Commissioner Brandon Morrison says she is satisfied with her fundraising efforts to date and is focusing on meet-the-public events.

Jordan Carpenter, her Republican primary opponent and a political unknown before this race, is meanwhile having as many fundraising events as he can manage. Addressing an audience at a Germantown residence on Sunday, he recalled asking “all the big names” to head up his financial efforts as he planned his race, “and they’re like no, no, we’re not gonna.” So he settled on Jason McCuistion, a banking attorney and his friend “since the eighth grade,” to be his treasurer.

L to r: GOP party chair Cary Vaughn, Jordan Carpenter, and County Commissioner Mick Wright (Photo: Jackson Baker)

The newcomer has the support of the current four Republicans on the commission, three of whom — Amber Mills, Mick Wright, and Mark Billingsley, who is term-limited and leaving office — were present on Sunday. David Bradford, the fourth GOP member, was absent. The newly reapportioned District 4, which Carpenter and Morrison are competing in, is a montage of East Memphis and Germantown precincts.

Contending that Morrison has “failed” to represent the district, Carpenter cited two issues he thought important to suburban Republicans. One was the lingering issue of support for MATA, something Morrison has expressed openness toward by reorienting present funding. “You don’t take county taxpayer money and send it to a Memphis city entity when they’re not using the money that they already have correctly,” he said.

And the challenger took issue with Morrison’s serving last year as vice chair of an ad hoc commission committee to examine a joint city-county proposal on future Metro consolidation. That, Carpenter said, was “an issue that people care about a lot … a forced marriage, where half the residents of the county don’t want to be in it.”

He continued: “And there are people that say that issue is dead. And I say, you shouldn’t believe those people while the political action committees are being formed. And the money is being given in the background. And the swords are being sharpened behind closed doors …”

Apprised of Carpenter’s statement, Morrison, back in Memphis late Monday after a trip to Nashville, where she presented the legislature with a commission’s wish list, said her opponent was “being divisive, and I’m not going to play that game. I’m looking forward.”

• Political acrimony was wholly absent from two other weekend events. One was the opening at Poplar and Highland on Saturday of Sheriff Floyd Bonner’s campaign headquarters. Inasmuch as Bonner is unopposed on the Democratic primary ballot and the Shelby County Republicans are offering no candidate for sheriff, the event was ready-made for a massive turnout, and an enormous number of candidates from both sides of the political aisle, as well as independents, showed up for a share of the dais.

Sheriff Floyd Bonner at HQ opening (Photo: Jackson Baker)

The other big event of the weekend, also crowded, was nonpartisan by design. It was the official unveiling on Sunday of the new Memphis Suffrage Monument on the riverfront in a space behind the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. The tribute to the women who worked to extend the ballot to womankind was the brainchild of Memphis activist Paula Casey, who labored 20 years to bring it into being. On hand for the unveiling was a virtual who’s who of local officials and civic figures.

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Politics Politics Feature

Memphis Political Intrigue Arises

Even as the year 2018 advances, with its plethora of county, state, and federal election contests, the city election of 2019 is throwing some hints of things to come. For one thing, Mike Williams, the Memphis Police Association president who drew a substantial cadre of voters in his race for Memphis mayor in 2015, is clearly preparing the way for another mayoral race in 2019.

On Saturday, Williams inaugurated a new Facebook page entitled “Michael R. Williams 2019,” and his initial text was a de facto announcement of another race next year:

“I am starting this page to allow more people to follow and for me to disseminate information. I needed a public figure page that allows more than 5,000. I have almost 1,000 additional friend requests that I can not add. I will start directing people to this page. Are we getting ready for 2019, yes we are. Let’s get started early this time. Thanks, and please direct people to this page as well.”

As of 8:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, the page had attracted 56 likes.

• And, as current Mayor Jim Strickland thereby learned the identity of one reelection opponent for next year, he reluctantly found himself at the center of a brewing controversy involving a candidate for the Shelby County Commission.

That would be Tami Sawyer, whose urgent activism last year as a leader in the “#TakeEmDown901” drive to remove the city’s Confederate statues often seemed to put her at odds with what Strickland regarded as a more moderate and methodical pathway to that end.

Sawyer is a candidate this year for Position 7 on the commission, and, among her opponents in the Democratic primary is former Shelby County Schools board member Stephanie Gatewood. Proponents of Sawyer have charged in online posts, in emails to their networks, and in other modes of an ongoing whispering campaign that Strickland is taking a behind-the-scenes role on behalf of Gatewood and against Sawyer.

When queried about the rumors, Strickland responded with a categorical “No,” and, focusing on the online rumors, expressed amazement that they could be taken seriously. That in this heyday of social media, he himself relies heavily on regular messages from his office circulated through the internet is clearly something he regards as being another matter altogether.

And Gatewood herself took note of the rumors, contending in a Facebook post that they were “inaccurate” and saying specifically, “Mayor Strickland has not donated a dime to my campaign nor have I had a conversation with him regarding him having a fund-raiser on my behalf.”

Addressing the same matter of online credibility that seemed to astound Strickland, she would conclude her post by acknowledging “What’s funny is that perception is reality to most.”

In an effort to rebut such a perception, one supporter of the mayor maintained in an online message that Strickland had gone out of his way during a presentation to the state Heritage Commission in Athens last year to cite the role of “people of grass roots” in the struggle to remove the statues, and, in so doing, had bade Sawyer to rise.

Sawyer herself, when asked about the Gatewood matter, was somewhat guarded. She acknowledged that she was conversant with the rumors but declined to comment further on them except to say, “The mayor has a right to support anybody he chooses for public office.”

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Serendipity and Synchronicity: Simultaneous Homages to Racial Harmony, 3-30-17

CREDIT: JB

JB

“We must embody the character and teachings of Dr. King and demonstrate that no one has a corner on the market of the principles of patriotism, compassion, and equality. There are times in our lives that we cannot change the direction of the wind, but there are always opportunities to adjust ourselves for a more just America. And let us pray that we can proclaim that it is through the peace that comes with understanding that we should, we must, and we shall overcome.”

— Peggy Wallace Kennedy, daughter of the late Governor George Wallace of Alabama, speaking to the Academy of Professional Family Mediators National Conference at the downtown Doubletree Hotel, Thursday, March 30. (Kennedy, center, is pictured here with Paula Casey (left) and Jocelyn Wurzburg, hostess for the event.)

Kennedy, a teen at the time of her father’s ill-fated 1962 pronouncement of “Segregation Today, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever” from a doorway of the University of Alabama, disagreed intensely with her father’s position, but, as she said in an interview with the Flyer, “I had no power to speak in my family.” She speaks now, frequently and powerfully, on the theme of racial equality, and has  joined U.S. Representative John Lewis, a hero of the 1965 Selma march, in a symbolic re-enactment of the crossing of the Edmund Pettus bridge there.

She believes that her father, who, late in life, after being wounded by an assassin, began trying to make amends, came to sincerely regret actions that he took, she said, not for reasons of the heart but for reasons of political expediency.,

JB

“It was in this particular Clayborn Temple, I was speaking on the Martin Luther King Celebration on this stage [in 1991], and Congressman Harold Ford walked in from this entrance here and what the audience was talking about was, they wanted Mayor Hackett out, and they wanted a black mayor. I really didn’t want to be the Mayor. Harold Ford walked in and I said…”Harold, you heard the people. Take leadership!”….That was the genesis of the People’s Convention. I did not seek the Mayor’s office…They said, “Dr. Herenton, we want you to be the Mayor. That would give it credibility.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to be the Mayor.’ I was selected on the first round, 70-something percent, and all of a sudden, I said, I’ve got to run!”

— Willie Herenton, former five-times-elected Mayor of Memphis, speaking simultaneously in historic Clayborn Temple in Memphis on Thursday, March 30, on how he came to be a candidate and became the first black mayor of Memphis in 1991. (The occasion was the unveiling of Otis Sanford’s book, From Boss Crump to King Willie: How Race Changed Memphis Politics.)

Sanford (right, below), was interviewed on stage at Clayborn by Susan Thorp. The author, former managing editor of The Commercial Appeal and current holder of the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Economic/Managerial Journalism at the University of Memphis, was scheduled to appear also at Square Books in Oxford, MS, at 5 p.m., Monday, 4-3-17.

JB

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Opinion Viewpoint

Vote No to Misogyny!

When people have asked for our recommendations in prior election cycles, we have always prided ourselves on supporting candidates regardless of party, gender, race, or ethnic background. We look for the most qualified candidates to serve the public. We study the issues and the candidates’ backgrounds and qualifications.

This year, we have been appalled that the most unqualified, vile, misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist candidate to ever seek the presidency continues to receive support from local Republicans. We were also appalled that no local Republican state legislators sought to oust the despicable State Representative Jeremy Durham before the state attorney general’s report revealed the depths of Durham’s depravity.

These two sexual predators do not deserve to be in elective office. Thank goodness the GOP finally grew a spine and ousted Durham. It should have happened much sooner. They only did it after there was a public outcry. Republicans running for state and federal office continue to state their support for the unqualified and embarrassing GOP presidential nominee, Donald Trump. Shameful.

Jeremy Durham

In response, we are recommending that this year you vote only for Democrats. It is the only way to show disgust with what the Republicans have done. We think they deserve to be defeated for their support of two sexual predators. The legislature wouldn’t have ousted Durham if they hadn’t had to do so in order to keep him from receiving a legislative pension. Lots of people knew about his antics and turned a blind eye, including our local GOP legislators.

It has been extremely disappointing to see the Grand Old Party and all of our elected Republican officials, with the exception of Governor Bill Haslam, twist themselves into knots to support their presidential nominee. They want to have it both ways. They think they can disavow what Trump says and still endorse him, so as to keep his supporters voting for them. The Republican nominee’s campaign has normalized the abnormal.

These are troubling times, politically. The history of the Republican Party was once a proud one. It was the first party to support abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage. The grandfather of Alice Paul, a prominent suffragist, helped found the GOP in New Jersey. U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican who represented Maine for 24 years in the Senate, believed in compromise and governing. She also called out Republicans when they were wrong.

Senator Smith’s “Declaration of Conscience” in 1950 condemned Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy. Smith stated she didn’t “want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny — Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.” Those words are just as important to heed now as they were back then.

Two of the three of us whose bylines are above — Happy and Jocie — were once active Republicans. We all now see Donald Trump’s nomination and support as a culmination of racist overtures dating back to the late Lee Atwater’s Southern strategy. It was appalling back then, and the GOP deserves the meltdown it is experiencing now.

There used to be liberal and conservative ways to solve problems. Now we are seeing a complete failure by the GOP to even acknowledge a problem exists or that government has a role to help solve it. We grieve this turn of events and hope the Republican Party can reconstitute itself and its legitimate role in our democracy. They don’t need another sham “autopsy,” such as the one written after the 2012 election. They also need to stop the obstructionism and begin to participate in governing again. We believe in robust debate among the parties. We also believe reasonable people can disagree without being disagreeable.

The November 8th sample ballot is posted online at shelbyvote.com. Read it and learn more about who is running, and for which offices. Early voting starts October 19th and runs through November 3rd. Election Day is November 8th. Please vote. It’s never been more important.
Happy Jones is a retired family therapist; Jocelyn Wurzburg is a professional mediator; and Paula Casey is a speaker/writer/editor. An original, shorter version of this column appeared on MemphisFlyer.com.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Breaking the Lull

The period from mid-August to Labor Day has, in Memphis as elsewhere, traditionally been a lull time, politically, and so it is this year, after the conclusion of the latest vote cycle, the county general election and state and federal primaries of August 4th.

Even in an election year, public attention to politics generally goes on siesta for a few weeks before kicking up again in the stretch run of a fall election, to be held this year on November 8th.

clay maquette of suffrage statue

This is not to say that events of significance don’t happen in the meantime. Here are a few:

A labor of many years will finally be on view in its final form next Friday, August 26th, which has been designated as Women’s Equality Day, with the unveiling in Nashville of sculptor Alan LeQuire’s monument to Tennessee’s role in the ratification of the 19th, or Women’s Suffrage, Amendment.

The statue, which depicts five Tennessee suffragists involved in the effort to gain the vote for women, will be unveiled in Nashville’s Centennial Park. It is the result of years of private fund-raising efforts overseen by the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monument, Inc., a foundation whose president is Paula Casey, of Memphis. 

Casey, who has long been involved in efforts to memorialize the Tennessee suffrage movement, was editorial coordinator for The Perfect 36, a 1998 commemorative history of the Tennessee suffragist movement co-written by Janann Sherman and the late Carol Lynn Yellin, also of Memphis. 

The unveiling will take place at 11 a.m. Participants will include Mayors Jim Strickland of Memphis, Megan Barry of Nashville, Kim McMillan of Clarksville, and Madeline Rogero of Knoxville.

In addition to the unveiling, the ceremony will include special recognition of three contemporary “Tennessee Trailblazers,” the late state Representative Lois DeBerry, of Memphis, the first woman to be elected Speaker Pro Tempore and the longest-serving member of the House at the time of her death in 2013; the late Jane Eskind, the first woman elected to statewide office; and state Representative Beth Halteman Harwell, the first woman to be elected Speaker of the state House of Representatives.

• The most extended discussion at Monday’s regular meeting of the Shelby County Commission concerned the merits of allowing a new gravel pit to be dug by Standard Construction Company near a neighborhood area in unincorporated Shelby County. That issue was stoutly resisted by residents of the area and was eventually referred back to the commission’s land use, planning, transportation, and codes committee.

But, for the first time in recent memory, the commission managed to elect a new chairman — Melvin Burgess Jr. — by acclamation. Usually these annual transfers of the gavel involve multi-layered power struggles and require multiple ballotings before a winner is decided. Not this trip.

In fact, kumbaya was the order of the day. Outgoing chairman Terry Roland, a Republican, got a standing ovation from his colleagues and a verbal tribute from Walter Bailey, the commission’s longest-serving Democrat. In his turn, Roland, who is given to bear hugs anyway, bestowed a full-fledged embrace on successor Burgess, also a Democrat.

• The executive committee of the Shelby County Democratic Party and state party chair Mary Mancini of Nashville disagree again. The local party committee voted last week to deny former chairman Bryan Carson — accused by some of bad fiscal management, and by others of outright embezzlement — the right to claim bona fides as a Democrat. 

Mancini, who has insisted that the local party accept a modest payback agreement with Carson, countered that the party bona fides can only be lifted if one is a would-be candidate and has failed to vote in three of the five previous party primary elections.