For many of us, chasing down the total eclipse of the sun on Monday was a bucket-list thing, and, like all such now-or-never matters, it exacted a cost.
Coming back to Memphis from Hardy, Arkansas, where my son Marcus and I went early on Monday to rendezvous with daughter Julia and friends to see the natural much-ballyhooed natural spectacle firsthand, turned into an eight-hour drive, beginning at 3 p.m. after a delightful Thai lunch at Hardy and ending at close to 11 p.m. at home.
I bring this up because it occurs to me that this is how it always goes with bucket-list things. Putting it simply, you pay a price for them.
For those in government, public progress is a bucket-list matter, it dawned on me, and I suddenly saw a speech I’d heard the previous week in exactly that light.
This was Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris addressing a group of Germantown Democrats about the things he is determined to accomplish in this, his second and final term in office. He was first elected in 2018, and the first term was something of a wrangle. As is so often the case, it takes a while to get the hang of the people and the problems.
Harris told the Democrats: “I’m going to show [that the] county mayor’s office and Shelby County government is a huge organization. And it does a variety of things. You know, it’s a $1.6 billion budget, thousands of employees, so many, many, many programs.”
Announcing he would focus on three areas — public safety, healthcare, and education — the mayor did a little recapping and quickly swung to his main point of the evening.
“One of the things that is important that I’m working on right now is a residential mental health facility. And so it’s the idea that we have a problem in Memphis and Shelby County. And the problem is, there’s not enough access to mental health care.
“One of the key problems right now is [that there are] about 2,000 people in detention right now. And more than half of them have a mental health care need. The DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] might want to move those cases; the judges might want to move those cases forward. But a lot of those cases can’t be moved forward until the individuals have 14 days of stabilization. So they’ve got to get access to healthcare; they’ve got to get their prescriptions. They’ve got to see a healthcare provider. … And so we’re a little bit behind in some ways, right?”
Harris went on to propose a new 60-bed facility for Shelby County. “And we will be able, upon arrest, to move individuals that need those services immediately to the mental health facility, and away from the traditional jail detention facility. One of the benefits of that is that it creates a lot of opportunities for collaboration among our criminal justice stakeholders.
“So the cost of doing all this is probably about $400 a day, right? Right now as a person in our jail or detention facilities it’s about $100 a day. By contrast, the cost for this kind of specialized care is dramatically more. But a portion of those individuals would be better served by getting treatment, and having their cases in advance, you move a few of those 508 cases. Our expectation is that over time, the county will save money.”
The bottom line: “So it costs us at least $20 million. But people have been talking about this for a very long time.“
So far, Mayor Harris has enjoyed a resourceful second term, working for the most part with a same-minded county commission. He has arranged for a long-needed expansion of the Regional One Health facility and the equally overdue creation of two new public schools.
The proposed new mental health facility, which he has since asked the commission to engage with, would raise things to the level of a perfecta.
Just to let you know he’s got that and more on his political bucket list, and he’s working on them.
It is a matter of record that Republican Governor Bill Lee easily won reelection in 2022, routing his Democratic opponent Jason Martin with 67 percent of the statewide point.
The under-financed, relatively unknown Martin, an emergency physician from Sumner County, was never really competitive, winning only two of Tennessee’s 95 counties — the state’s two remaining Democratic strongholds of Shelby (Memphis) and Davidson (Nashville).
But more to the point of this year’s state elections, Martin also came out ahead two years ago in state House District 97, site of a likely showdown this year between GOP incumbent John Gillespie and his probable Democratic challenger, businessman Jesse Huseth.
Gillespie was first elected in 2020, when he edged out Democrat Gabby Salinas at a time when District 97, which straddled the eastern boundary line of Memphis, was already evenly enough divided to make for a competitive race.
As Martin’s strong showing indicated, redistricting after the 2000 census shifted the district’s center of balance even more definitively into Memphis. But Gillespie was able to win reelection two years ago over unsung Democrat Toniko Harris.
During his first two terms, Gillespie maintained the kind of moderate political profile that was called for in a district that, in the current parlance, is neither red nor blue but purple. But, as was noted here two weeks ago, Gillespie has moved perceptibly to the right on party-line issues, those having to do with law enforcement, especially.
He has sponsored legislation that would nullify the Memphis City Council’s action, in the wake of the beating death of Tyre Nichols by an MPD unit, to prohibit police from making preemptive traffic stops for minor offenses. And Gillespie moved his bill to that effect onto the House floor (and to passage) after, his critics maintain (on the basis of conversation captured in a somewhat ambiguous cell phone video), he had assured Nichols’ parents he would hold it for later.
Democrat Huseth sees no ambiguity in the video, maintaining that Gillespie “lied to the family of Tyre Nichols after promising to postpone the vote one week to allow them to attend. This is life under the Republican Supermajority and it has to end.”
Gillespie can count on generous financing as an incumbent, but Huseth, who has a fundraiser scheduled for next week and more in mind, clearly intends to run tough, with assistance from campaign manager Jeff Ethridge, the able activist who is the newly elected president of the Germantown Democratic Club.
• As suspended Criminal Court Judge Melissa Boyd moves ever closer to being ejected from office altogether, Shelby County voters are looking forward to the prospect of two special judicial elections in the not too distant future.
A legislative panel voted unanimously last week to recommend the removal from office of Boyd, who has been charged with various irregularities, including use of cocaine on the bench.
A successor will also be needed for Circuit Court Judge Mary Wagner, who has been named to the state Supreme Court.
Both circumstances will require a judicial panel to recommend potential successors to Governor Bill Lee, who may, at his discretion, select from the list or ask for additional names.
In both cases, whoever gets the governor’s nod would ordinarily serve until a special election can be arranged on the next August ballot that is scheduled at least 30 days from the date that the vacancies become official.
But the pending vacancies might not be filled at all if a bill advancing in the Assembly this week is passed. The bill by Rep. Andrew Farmer (R-Sevierville) and Sen. Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains) would realize what has been a long-discussed redistributionist goal in some quarters — by the expedient of transferring the two aforementioned judicial seats from Shelby County to districts elsewhere in the state.
Tennessee Republicans cannot stand the federal government telling them what to do — especially when a Democrat’s in the White House — but they do love telling Tennessee’s biggest cities what to do.
Republicans cry “overreach,” in general, when the feds “impose” rules that “overrule the will of the people of Tennessee.” (All of those quoted words came from just one statement on abortion from Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, who yells “overreach!” the loudest.) But they call it “preemption” when they do it to Memphis and Nashville — their favorite targets — leaving big-city locals to bemoan that same overreach.
When punching up at the federal government, Tennessee conservatives send angry letters to the president lamenting rules they have to follow to get big “seductive” tax dollars. But they don’t often win much in this process.
When they punch down at cities, the power struggle really comes down to rural conservatives exerting whatever influence they have to temper (squash) the sometimes “woke” ideas of urban progressives. They have a lot of power to do this, as state law does, usually, preempt local law.
So, Republicans do what they want in the Tennessee General Assembly and say, “See you in court,” because cities don’t typically give up their authority without a legal fist fight. (This happens so much state Democrats say Republicans pass lawsuits, not laws.)
But cities lose these fights often. Some of that is thanks to the powerful state AG’s office, who gets in the ring for state conservatives. That office has even more punching power with a brand-new $2.25 million, 10-member unit. It force-feeds conservative priorities in Tennessee cities and blocks D.C.’s liberal agenda.
Here’s an example of this double-edged subversion: Skrmetti, the Republican AG, cried “overreach” when a 2022 USDA rule said LGTBQ kids had to have access to lunch at school. But when Memphis and Nashville tried to decriminalize cannabis in 2016, a state Republican said, “You just can’t have cities creating their own criminal code, willy-nilly.”
Same coin. Two sides. Yes, state law rules most times, but the premise of the argument is the same. State citizens and city locals know what’s best for them and pick their leaders accordingly. Then, an outsider who, maybe, doesn’t share their values, swoops in to make locals comply with theirs. It’s like, “Hi, you don’t know me but you’re doing it wrong and are going to do it my way.”
In this game, Memphis has been on the ropes at the legislature this year. State Republicans want to take away some of the power from the Shelby County district attorney. They want to remove a Memphis City Council decision on when Memphis Police Department (MPD) officers make traffic stops. They also wanted to dilute local control of the Memphis-Shelby County School (MSCS) board with members appointed by the governor. But they decided against it. Details on many of these and some from the past are below.
Meanwhile, some Republican lawmakers have looked up, wondering if they could really cut ties with the federal government. They took a serious, hard look at giving up $1 billion in federal education funding for state schools. They wanted to do it “the Tennessee way.” Left to guess what that meant, many concluded they hoped to eschew national discrimination protections for LGBTQ students.
This year, a state Republican hopes to establish state sovereignty. He wants to draw a clear line between state and fed powers and to install a committee to watch that line. It’s not a new idea, but it’s always had “don’t tread on me” vibes.
The road from Memphis City Hall, to the State Capitol, to Congress and the White House is littered with complaints (usually court papers) about political subversion. All the hollering and legal fights along the way have to leave voters wondering, who’s got the power?
Steve Mulroy (Photo: Steve Mulroy | Facebook)
District Attorney Power Battle
A legal battle over who has the power to decide on some death penalty cases has been waged since Republicans passed a bill here last year.
That bill stripped local control of post-conviction proceedings from local district attorneys and gave it to Skrmetti, the state AG. In Memphis, the bill seemed largely aimed at Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, with some concerned he may be lenient for those facing the death penalty.
“This sudden move appears to be a response to the choices of voters in both Davidson County and Shelby County, who elected prosecutors to support more restorative and less punitive policies,” Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty said at the time.
Larry McKay, who received two death sentences for the murders of two store clerks in Shelby County in 1981, requested a court review of previously unexamined evidence in his case. Despite the new law, McKay’s attorney sought to disqualify Skremtti’s office from reviewing the case because he was not elected.
His attorney argued the new law infringes on the responsibilities of local district attorneys. The big changes made in the legislation also violated the state constitution, the attorney said.
Mulroy agreed.
“The newly enacted statute is an unconstitutional effort to divest and diminish the authority granted to Tennessee’s district attorneys general by the Tennessee Constitution,” Mulroy said at the time. “The new statute violates the voting rights of such voters because it strips material discretion from district attorneys, who are elected by the qualified voters of the judicial district.”
But state attorneys did not agree.
“The General Assembly was entitled to take that statuary power away from the district attorneys and give it to the Attorney General in capital cases,” reads the court document. “They have done just that and their mandate must be followed.”
But in July Shelby County Judge Paula Skahan ruled the Republican legislation did violate the state constitution. New arguments on the case were heard by the Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals earlier this month. No ruling was issued as of press time. However, an appeal of that ruling seems inevitable, likely pushing the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
Pretextual Stops
State Republicans are actively trying to undermine a unanimous decision of the Memphis City Council to stop police from pulling over motorists for minor things like a broken taillight, a loose bumper, and more.
This council move came three months after MPD officers beat and killed Tyre Nichols, who was stopped for a minor traffic infraction. The local law is called the Driving Equality Act in Honor of Tyre Nichols.
Council members said police time could be better spent, that the stops expose more people to the criminal justice system, and, as in the Nichols’ case, could be dangerous. The stops also disproportionately affect Black people, who make up about 64 percent of Memphis’ population but receive 74 percent of its traffic tickets, according to Decarcerate Memphis.
The council’s decision made national headlines. But it found no favor with Republican lawmakers.
Rep. John Gillespie (R-Bartlett) introduced a controversial bill this year that would end that practice and reestablish state control over local decisions on criminal justice.
“We’re simply saying a state law that’s been on the books for decades is what we’re going by here,” Gillespie told Tennessee Lookout earlier this month. “And if there are people that have problems with what state law is, then maybe they should change state law instead of enacting local ordinances that are in conflict with state law.”
He initially cooled on the matter, promising to pause his bill for further review after Nichols’ parents spoke at a press conference.
“I am just appalled by what Republicans are trying to do in this state,” Nichols’ father, Rodney Wells, said at the event.
Gillespie promised Nichols’ family he’d hold the bill but surprised many earlier this month when he brought it to the House floor for a vote, which it won. Some said Gillespie acted in bad faith. State Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) said he straight-up lied to Nichols’ family and subverted local power to boot.
“You, as a person who lives in Shelby County, seek to undo the will of the people of Memphis and Shelby County,” Pearson said on the House floor. “The Wells family spoke with him briefly; he told them this bill wouldn’t come up until probably next Thursday.”
The Senate approved the bill last Thursday. It now heads to Gov. Lee for signature.
Six school board members for Memphis-Shelby County Schools met with three state lawmakers representing Memphis on Feb. 14, 2024, at the state Capitol. Their agenda included pending legislation from Rep. Mark White and Sen. Brent Taylor, both Republicans, to authorize Gov. Bill Lee to appoint additional members to the board. (Photo: Courtesy Memphis-Shelby County Schools | Chalkbeat)
MSCS School Board
State Republicans want to control schools here, too.
Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis), chair of the House Education Committee, filed a bill earlier this year that would add six governor-appointed members (read: more Republican influence) to the MSCS board. When he filed the legislation, he said he was unimpressed with the slate of those vying for the district’s superintendent job and concerned about students falling behind state standards on reading and math.
“I’m very concerned about the district’s direction, and I just can’t sit back any longer,” White told Chalkbeat Tennessee. “I think we’re at a critical juncture.”
However, MSCS board chair Althea Greene said at the time that White’s proposal was unnecessary.
“We may have had some challenges, but more interference from the General Assembly is not warranted at this time,” she said. “We have to stop experimenting with our children.”
Since then, the MSCS board chose Marie Feagins as the district’s superintendent and she got to work early, before her contract was supposed to start. Also, White paused his bill earlier this month to give board members a chance to submit an improvement plan. White said the plan should show how they’ll improve on literacy, truancy, graduation rates, teacher recruitment, underutilized school buildings, and a backlog of building maintenance needs, among other things, according to Chalkbeat.
While it’s the newest move in state “overreach” into schools here, it’s hardly the first. State Republicans once seized dozens of schools in Memphis and Nashville as laboratories for what they called “Achievement School Districts.” After more than a decade, these schools only angered locals, showed abysmal student performance, and now seem to be on their way out.
Cannabis
For six weeks back in 2016, Memphis City Council members debated a move that would have decriminalized possession of small amounts of cannabis in the city.
Hundreds were (and are) arrested each year on simple possession charges, and most of those arrested were (and are) Black. Council members didn’t want cannabis legalization; they wanted to steer folks away from the criminal justice system. They hoped to keep them out of jail and avoid a criminal record, which could hurt their chances at housing, employment, and more.
The city council — even though some had reservations about it — said yes to this. So did the Nashville Metropolitan Council. State Republicans said no.
Upon their return to the Capitol in 2017, they got to work ensuring their control over local decisions on the matter. A bill to strip this control easily won support in the legislature and was signed by then-Gov. Bill Haslam, who said he acted on the will of state lawmakers.
“You just can’t have cities creating their own criminal code, willy-nilly,” Rep. William Lamberth (R-Cottontown), the bill’s House sponsor, told The Tennessean at the time.
Then-Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery issued an opinion that said, basically, cities can’t make laws that preempt state law. With that, Memphis resumed regular enforcement of cannabis laws.
Ranked Choice Voting
In two elections — 2008 and 2018 — Memphians chose how they wanted to pick their politicians, but they never got a chance to use it. State Republicans said no.
Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) would have allowed voters here to rank candidates on a ballot, doing away with the need for run-off elections that always see lower voter turnout. It was new and different but voters here “decided, over and over again, to give it a try,” reads a Commercial Appeal op-ed from 2022 by Mark Luttrell, former Shelby County mayor, and Erika Sugarmon, now a Shelby County commissioner.
However, state Republicans then-Sen. Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) and Rep. Nathan Vaughan (R-Collierville) filed a bill to upend the voters’ decision for good with a bill to end RCV in Tennessee. Kelsey said it was about voter clarity. Opponents said it was about more.
“If the bill passes, it will disrespect Memphis voters, make a mockery of local control,” Luttrell and Sugarmon said in the op-ed.
In the end, the state won. The bill passed and RCV was banned, with added support and sponsorship of Memphis Democrats Rep. Joe Towns Jr. and the late Rep. Barbara Cooper.
State Sovereignty
“So, you hoe in your little garden and stay out of our garden,” said Rep. Bud Hulsey (R-Kingsport).
He was explaining to the House Public Service Committee last year how the country’s founders designed the separation of powers between the state and the federal governments, how it was supposed to work, anyway.
But federal government agencies — not elected officials — issue rules pushed on to “we, the people,” he said. They tear families apart. They split marriages. They end lifelong friendships, he said. They bring bankruptcy and suicide. He gave no more details than that. But he was sick of it and said the bill he brought would fix it.
When some Republicans here aren’t busy in committee or court, rending control from local governments, they like to think about state sovereignty. They want to defend Tennessee from the feds, especially when a Democrat is in the White House. They want to know what the exact rules are and to tell D.C. “don’t tread on me.”
Since at least 1995, bills like these have been filed here and there in the state legislature. There’s a new one pending now. In them, “sovereignty” sometimes sounds like a preamble to “secession.”
Hulsey’s bill didn’t go that far. He really wanted to set out a way to nullify D.C. rules he didn’t like. Lee’s office was against it, though. Senate Republicans were, too. The idea failed to even get a review in the Republican-packed Senate State and Local Government Committee. Conservatives worried “nullification” could also nullify big federal tax dollars.
That 1995 bill demanded, “The federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of its constitutionally delegated powers.” Another Republican sovereignty bill later would have voided the powers of any representative of the United Nations once they entered the state.
One in 2014 (that was signed by the governor) simply expressed the state’s sovereignty to set educational standards. A 2016 bill said the feds “seduce” states to go along with their new rules with federal funds they treat as grants, not as tax funds for the state. Another in 2013 would have formed a committee to see what financial and legal troubles could be in store for Tennessee if it scaled back or quit the “state’s participation in the various federal programs.”
Ten years later, this idea is back. The “Tennessee State Sovereignty Act of 2024” would form a 10-person committee to watch and see if any federal rule violates the Tennessee State Constitution. If it does, “it is the duty of both the residents of this state and the General Assembly to resist.”
Now, if that don’t say “don’t tread on me” …
In the Senate, the bill was deferred until near the end of session (usually meaning they’ll get to it if they can). A House review of the idea was slated for this week, after press time.
Education Funding
Sovereignty bills rarely go anywhere but in talking points for reelection campaigns.
However, last year high-ranking Republicans took state sovereignty a step beyond rattling a saber. They announced a bold plan to have a serious look at if and how Tennessee could cut ties with the feds and their $1 billion in education funding. If it did, Tennessee would have been the first state in history to decline such funds.
“We as a state can lead the nation once again in telling the federal government that they can keep their money and we’ll just do things the Tennessee way,” House Speaker Rep. Cameron Sexton said at an event in February last year.
He didn’t outline what the “Tennessee way” entailed, though he complained about testing mandates and strings attached to funding. Many said the big federal string Republicans wanted to cut was the one attached to Title IX mandates. Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that get federal money. The Biden administration has promised an update to these that could strengthen protections for LGTBQ students.
Tennessee has passed more anti-LGBTQ laws than any other state, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The week of March 4th alone, 18 such bills were before state lawmakers and targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; made it easier to ban books; and attempted to legalize discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
State Republicans have passed bills to mandate transgender students only play on sports teams that match their gender at birth. They have mandated which bathrooms trans people have to use (a decision struck down by a federal judge). They’ve allowed teachers to go unpunished if they refuse to use pronouns that students identify with. They’ve wanted certain books with LGBTQ themes banned at school. They’ve wanted LGBTQ, especially gender identity, issues banned from discussion in sex-ed classes. This list goes on and on.
However, the precise motive for looking into cutting those federal education dollars was never stated. Some said it was always good to review the relationship between nation and state. In the end, Republicans spent a lot of time and money to research the idea but set it aside. They took the federal money and the strings attached anyway. But taking it so seriously was maybe that “don’t tread on me snake” just shaking its rattle.
“Deep in my Soul”
Separation of powers is a doubled-edge sword. It’s that cartoon drawing of a big fish eating a small fish that is getting eaten by the even bigger fish. It’s a “layer cake” form of federalism.
Call it what you will, but it’s clear locals want to make their own decisions. For Hulsey, the Republican talking about who tends whose garden, the idea runs deep.
“I stood up on that House floor over there a few weeks ago and we raised our hand, and we swore to 7 million people in this state, we swore not that we would rake in all the federal money we could get,” Hulsey told committee members. “We swore that we would always defend the inalienable rights of Tennessee people by defending and upholding the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Tennessee.
“We should not be for sale. I want to tell you that deep in my soul, I have a conviction that is deep-seated. I believe that if state legislatures in this country do not stand up and hold the federal government to obey the Constitution of the United States, we could very easily lose this republic.”
Photo: Representative John Gillespie | Facebook
John Gillespie
John Gillespie, the Republican incumbent in state House District 97, has kept a relatively moderate profile in the two terms he’s served since winning his seat over Democrat Gabby Salinas in 2020, focusing on non-ideological matters like drag-racing bans and deviating from GOP orthodoxy on gun legislation.
But all that may be changing. Gillespie is now following the lead of the House Republican leadership and another Shelby County GOPer, state Senator Brent Taylor, in sponsoring hard-line crime legislation destined to strip away local law-enforcement prerogatives.
A controversy arose last week after a cell phone video was circulated of a conversation in Nashville in which Gillespie appeared to be assuring the visiting parents of the late Tyre Nichols that he would hold up on seeking an immediate vote on his bill to nullify city council restrictions on the kind of preemptive traffic stops that would end in the savage beating death of young Nichols by MPD officers who are now facing trial for murder.
Instead, Gillespie put the bill on the floor for a relatively quick party-line passage.
The incident may loom large in this year’s legislative elections, in which Gillespie will be opposed by businessman Jesse Huseth, a Democrat who has already released a statement deploring Gillespie’s conduct of the matter.
• Tami Sawyer, recent winner of the Democratic nomination for General Sessions Court clerk, is keeping her activist’s hand in, blogging her discontent with both a pending appearance at the University of Memphis by Kyle Rittenhouse, the youth acquitted of killing two people at a Kenosha, Wisconsin, protest event, and Rep. Gillespie’s short-circuiting whatever commitment he may have given on rolling his bill.
• A hat tip to my daughter Julia Baker of TheDaily Memphian for noting that the aforementioned Brent Taylor, notorious for his constant verbal and legislative targeting of local DA Steve Mulroy, is on the same page as Mulroy regarding the need for a new crime lab in Memphis.
• Veteran watchers of presidential State of the Union addresses over the years are used to seeing 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen ready on or near the aisle for banter or conversation as the president — of whatever year or whatever party, for that matter — is either headed to the podium or finishing up afterward and headed out.
Those aisle seats have to be staked out well in advance, and Cohen, using staffers early on to help hold down a place, is something of a master of the art.
Sometimes he shares local artifacts with the passing chief executive. In 2008, he was seen on national television handing George W. Bush a University of Memphis booster’s cap to be autographed. Watching at home, then Tiger basketball coach John Calipari saw it all and later got in touch with Cohen, putting in a bid for the cap and pledging to get it into the U of M Sports Hall of Fame. Cohen turned it over, but the cap never made it to its intended destination. Not long afterward, Coach Cal — cap presumably in tow — decamped to the University of Kentucky.
Always Cohen manages to have something to say. Last Thursday night, he caught Biden going in and took the time to encourage the president to pitch his remarks to the Democratic side of the assembled audience of lawmakers and to give the Republicans hell. Presumably Biden already had that strategy in mind. In any case, that’s what happened.
State Comptroller Jason Mumpower (Photo: State Comptroller’s
Office)
At a time when legitimate issues of state vs. local authority are proliferating — notably in proposed legislation regarding law enforcement and educational vouchers — the long, sad saga of Wanda Halbert is an embarrassing and parallel spectacle.
It is a case study, however, of the need for good-faith cooperation between state and local governments.
This week may see the beginnings of a resolution, through unavoidable state intervention, of the hot mess that is the Shelby County Clerk’s office.
On Monday, Jim Arnette, lead auditor in the state comptroller’s office and his chief deputy, Nathan Abbott, brought a contingent of six auditors to Memphis at the urgent request of Shelby County Trustee Regina Newman. Their task: to help straighten out the clerk’s fearfully tangled records so that the county can square its own accounts and prepare the way for its annual budget.
The problem, as Newman made clear in public alarms she raised last week, is that Clerk Halbert has failed in several belated tries to submit accurate figures regarding her office’s wheel tax receipts over the last several months — specifically failing to indicate the amount corresponding to a surcharge designated by the county commission last year to help pay for new schools and a multi-purpose center.
Once in town, Arnette, Abbott, and their six-person auditing team made a beeline for the county clerk’s office where they wasted little time combing through Halbert’s scrambled figures. At the end of the day, Arnette and Abbott departed, leaving behind the six other auditors to spend the week. Newman said she had every reason to hope that the team will generate an accurate compilation of the needed wheel tax figures.
If so, a ray of light will at last have penetrated Halbert’s murky corner of local government, one which has badly needed sunshine.
Also this week, Halbert has been summoned for a come-to-Jesus meeting on Wednesday with the county commission — the latest in many such encounters with that body during her tenure, now in a second term. Both the commission and the office of Mayor Lee Harris have been persistently thwarted in good-faith efforts to get the clerk’s office on the right track.
Halbert, a former member of the city council, where financial compensation is minimal, was first elected to her much more lucrative clerkship in 2018 and was re-elected in 2022, a “blue wave” year in which having a “D” (for “Democratic”) by her name on the ballot was helpful.
She was already floundering, however, as was indicated by long lines of desperate people seeking auto-tag renewal at the several county clerk offices. Worse, the number of those offices was shrinking, as Halbert, it developed, had failed either to renew the leases at several of them or had defaulted on the rent, incurring eviction.
Her slipshod auditing procedures had meanwhile attracted negative attention both elsewhere in local government, where concerns arose over the county’s credit rating, and from state Comptroller Jason Mumpower, who has pronounced on Halbert’s “incompetence and willful neglect.” Auto dealers complained that they could not get services, business licenses proved impossible to procure, and so forth and so on.
The list of Halbert’s failings is too numerous to detail in this space but is exhaustively contained in a lengthy document submitted by County Commissioner Mick Wright to Hamilton County DA Coty Wamp, who has been charged with the duty of investigating Halbert’s performance preparatory to possible ouster proceedings.
Whatever the ultimate result of those proceedings, and if Trustee Newman’s optimism over the potential outcome of this week’s state intervention proves to be justified, a degree of trust between local and state governments may have been achieved.
Perhaps, we are entitled to hope that will help to allay the current atmosphere of mutual suspicion prevailing elsewhere between the two spheres. That’s what you call a silver lining.
The original “One Memphis” logo on a vintage souvenir umbrella from an A C Wharton mayoral campaign. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Talk about déjà vu!
When Memphis Mayor Paul Young — still, some 50-odd days into his new administration, working on organizational matters — brought forth his latest innovation, involving the slogan “One Memphis” to denote a series of community meetings to come, echoes were generated in the minds and memories of numerous Memphians.
After all, it was only 15 years ago that A C Wharton used the identical phrase “One Memphis” as a campaign slogan in the 2009 special election that first landed Wharton in the mayor’s office to succeed the retiring Willie Herenton.
“There is absolutely nothing we cannot overcome if we work toward that goal as One Memphis,” Wharton would intone in his speeches, reinforcing the idea in an ad campaign that would sign off with the initials “A C” (familiar to his audiences then and later as the preferred shorthand for his uniquely accessible persona), followed by the words “One Memphis.”
It was Wharton’s way of distinguishing himself from the more volatile and divisive 16-year tenure of his predecessor.
No doubt Paul Young means something similarly comforting, coupling the two-word slogan with the phrase “Empowering Voices/Building Bridges” in a published logo announcing his forthcoming “One Memphis Tour,” which was to have its inaugural session at Whitehaven High School this week.
Another new venture by Young was embodied in his recent announcement of his intent to appoint someone to a newly created office, that of public safety director, which would have hierarchical dibs over that of police chief.
Overall, the idea was greeted with a positive public reaction, particularly in those circles where there is a desire to locate the duties of law enforcement within a larger, more holistic context of social reform.
That would seem to be Young’s purpose, though this is one of those cases where the devil (the angel, rather?) will be in the details.
Young, who has experienced some difficulty in getting off the mark, might have fared even better, reception-wise, had he been able to make the announcement of the new office in January, when his cabinet was first being assembled, and better still if he could have had the appointment in hand of some credibly credentialed appointee.
That might well have obviated the awkwardness and still unresolved discord which arose from his reappointment of C.J. Davis as police chief (as of now an interim position). Her continuation in office as a clear subordinate would have raised fewer hackles, if any at all, with the city council and with the general public.
Better late than never, even if the sequence seems a bit backwards.
• Gale Jones Carson, a longtime presence in the community as spokesperson for MLGW, was named last week as interim CEO of the local chapter of Urban League.
Carson’s successor as MLGW’S vice president of corporate communications, Ursula Madden Lund, meanwhile is having to wait for a reluctant city council to approve her $200,000 salary. The matter is up for discussion again next week.
• A proposed measure to provide lifetime healthcare benefits to veterans of at least two city council terms took an abrupt nosedive last week, being rejected on third reading virtually unanimously by the new city council after the previous council had approved it without a dissenting vote.
Yep, another election is coming up, and this one, a primary election scheduled for Tuesday, March 5th, involves just two offices — one of them being the presidency of the United States, the other being the clerkship of Shelby County’s General Sessions Court. (Note, early voting has already begun and ends on February 27th.)
Where the presidential primaries are concerned, there is not much suspense. Those voters selecting a Republican ballot will have eight choices, and that old saw about the value of a name being high up on the ballot list can safely be discarded.
Of the eight available GOP alternatives, one Donald J. Trump is last on the list. Those preceding the former president, in alphabetical order, are Ryan Binkley, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy, and David Stuckenberg.
Of these, only Haley, a former UN ambassador and the ex-governor of South Carolina, is still an active candidate opposing Trump, and she may be the only person in America or anywhere else who believes she has a ghost of a chance.
(It’s not against the law to believe in ghosts, but it’s certainly against the oddsboard.)
On the Democratic primary ballot, there is only one name — that of the incumbent president, Joe Biden.
Of course, voters who don’t cotton to the idea of a Biden-Trump repeat in the November 5th general election are free to fantasize and write in whomever they please on whichever ballot they choose.
Now, for the General Sessions clerk’s race: The two party candidates selected on March 5th will vie for the position in a general election on Thursday, August 8th. The same date holds for various elections in the county’s suburban municipalities and for primaries for state and federal positions on the November ballot.
Lisa Arnold, a former employee with the clerk’s office, is the only Republican on the March 5th GOP ballot, while Democratic voters have four candidates to choose from.
The Democrats are: Rheunte Benson, who is currently serving as criminal administrator with the clerk’s office and is making her second race for the clerk’s position, having run for it four years ago; Shelandra Ford, who served as Shelby County register of deeds from 2018-22 and was defeated in a reelection bid for that office four years ago by current register Willie Brooks; Joe Brown, the incumbent Criminal Court clerk, who previously served several terms as a member of the city council and who won out in a crowded primary for the clerk’s office four years ago.
And there is Tami Sawyer, the former activiste par excellence, county commissioner, and 2019 candidate for mayor. This is not the same Tami Sawyer who could “not wait” to seek the city’s highest office in what seems, in retrospect, to have been a premature move.
This is a new Sawyer, inclusive rather than confrontational, a solid organizer, and backed by an impressive chorus of Establishment Democrats while maintaining her woke base.
Her main obstacle to election might be the ritual name-ID advantages of opponents Ford (not a member of the well-known political clan but possessor of the same surname) and Brown (whose election in the first place was probably due to voters’ familiarity with his TV-judge namesake).
Sawyer is, in any case, widely regarded as the favorite, and she is expected, if elected, to use the new perch not as a sinecure but as the springboard for further political action.
As various MAGA spokespersons made clear, the partisans of former president Donald Trump have nursed dark suspicions that the highly public romance between songstress Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is but a cover for coming propaganda in favor of Democratic president Joe Biden, whom Swift is reliably known to favor.
Those conspiracy-mongers should have been at a local Super Bowl party hosted by Criminal Court clerk aide Barry Ford, a Democrat, and attended by several other prominent Democrats, including DA Steve Mulroy, Shelby County diversity official Shep Wilbun (a veritable encyclopedia of NFL history), and state Representative Joe Towns.
Ford, a diehard fan of the San Francisco 49ers, had decked out his house with 49er paraphernalia and, joined by several others present, arguably a majority, made his 49er partisanship obvious.
Alternatingly, he kept up a running lament that Biden, whom he enthusiastically supports, hasn’t been making enough public appearances to maximize his reelection chances.
For Ford, anyhow, what Biden does clearly loomed larger than whether Swift and Kelce say “I do” or don’t.
And, like most Americans, he has no trouble keeping his politics and his sports fandom separate.
Perhaps, too, those concerned Trump partisans should just have some patience. Taylor Swift’s song litany largely consists of spirited “gotcha last” rebukes of her erstwhile and subsequently discarded boyfriends.
• Meanwhile, two matters dealt with in this space last week drew clarifying responses. First was a pair of statements from City Hall regarding our disclosure of prospects that Memphis native Maura Black Sullivan might be in line to become the city’s chief operating officer. (These responses arrived in time to be posted in the online version of our report but not in time for the print edition.)
“I can confirm that we had early talks with Maura Sullivan about a different position with the Young administration, not the COO/CAO position. We have a strong leader currently acting in the COO role who has my full faith and confidence.” — Mayor Paul Young
“The role we initially discussed was a high level position on the Mayor’s cabinet. And while talks about that position haven’t continued, we do have an ongoing dialogue with her and many others who we consider allies in the work of creating a stronger Memphis.” — Chief Communications Officer Penelope Huston.
One is left to wonder: What other “high level” position has been the subject of discussions with Sullivan, who is currently employed as COO of Metro Nashville Public Schools and who had previously served as COO for Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke and, before that, as deputy COO for former Memphis Mayor AC Wharton?
But so be it. It is certainly to be hoped that Mayor Young, who has had his problems so far squaring things with the city council, ultimately succeeds in getting the staff he wants.
• Also in our mailbag this week is the following clarifying statement from DA Steve Mulroy concerning the County Commission’s passage, reported here last week, of a measure desired by the DA that equalizes the pay scale for county and state employees on his staff.
“I’m a state employee, so I’ve always been at the top. So parity was never a concern for me.
“Using county dollars, the county gave a salary supplement to supervisors of all stripes, even state employees who were supervisors. I took those supplements away from the state supervisors, on the rationale that county money shouldn’t be going to state employees who were already getting paid way more than comparably experienced county counterparts.
“Out of fairness, I included myself in that, and took away my county-funded supplement, forswearing all county funds, and relying only on my state salary.
“A TV reporter the other day asked me if I was going to restore that supplement to myself, now that the County Commission has acted. I said, no, my pay cut stands.”
When Judge Jayne Chandler (r) swore in Councilman Jeff Warren in early January, host and witness for the special ceremony was the iconic late former school board member Sara Lewis. It was her final official act. (Photo: Courtesy Jeff Warren)
The forced reaction of Mayor Paul Young in his interim appointment of Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis, coupled with the city council’s action this past Tuesday to defer action on reappointing Public Works Director Robert Knecht, suggests an emergent balkanization of power in the affairs of the newly installed city government.
Council chair JB Smiley has made it clear that he intends to position the council — and himself — as a counterbalance to mayoral authority. Smiley, who had taken the lead in the first deferral of action on Davis three weeks ago, reinforced his assertiveness last Tuesday in dressing down Knecht for “attitude” and alleged insularity and leading the council to postpone a vote on Knecht’s reappointment for two more weeks.
“Make sure you respond when we come calling on you,” was the thrust of Smiley’s message to Knecht. The contrast between Smiley’s firmness and Knecht’s docility was instructive.
And individual council members have their own axes to grind.
Councilman Jeff Warren, sponsor of the imminent council resolution that Young had to preempt and emulate in his interim appointment of Davis, has affirmed his position at the nexus of authority. Newcomer Jerri Green’s strong questioning of Davis underscored her determination to be a voice to reckon with.
Another new council member, previously seen as an unknown quantity, is Yolanda Cooper-Sutton, who has made a point of her intention to base her votes on her own independent researches. Yet another first-termed, Pearl Eva Walker, has to be regarded as a potential exponent of an abundant number of activist causes, including a reexamination of Memphis’ issues with TVA.
And so forth and so on. As the old saw goes: All have won, and all must have prizes. Young, who has yet to get his legs fully down, will be hard put to maintain the strong-mayor authority the city charter entitles him to — especially given a belated air of pushback against the relatively free hand enjoyed by former mayor Jim Strickland.
Not to be ignored, either, is the likely enhancement of self-interested power groups in the community. A key moment in the (temporary) resolution of the Davis matter was a come-to-Jesus meeting between Mayor Young and members of the Memphis Police Association on the Monday before the last council session.
The gathered police folk made it clear that they wanted more attention to their concerns that they had been used to in law-enforcement matters.
The bottom line is that rosy rhetoric does not apply to Davis’ case. Nor to her boss’. One noted pundit has hailed the interim appointment as a salvific opportunity for all the sides to get together in constructive kumbaya. The fact is, to employ the right existential terminology, Davis is in a form of purgatory and has, at best, an opportunity to expurgate herself. Meanwhile, she has to bear the ill-defined stigmata of public doubt. And so, sadly, must the mayor, as he still struggles to launch his mayoralty.
Some are already suggesting that Chief Davis might make her best contribution to the city’s welfare — and to her boss’ and to her own — by arranging for a graceful, voluntary withdrawal.
Brent Taylor (Photo: Senator Brent Taylor | Facebook)
State Senator Brent Taylor, who is functioning as a sort of self-appointed scourge of Shelby County’s existing law-enforcement infrastructure, is at it again — attempting to prod state government into intervening against “the slow movement of cases” through the county’s criminal justice system.
“Crime in Memphis has risen to a level that requires immediate action to save the city,” Taylor proclaimed in a newly released letter to Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. He cites figures appearing to show that processing of criminal cases in the county dropped to a level of 40 cases last year, down from “approximately 200 per year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Taylor’s letter poses four questions to the attorney general:
“(1) Does the Governor of Tennessee have the authority to assign judges from one or more judicial districts to other judicial districts for purposes of trying criminal cases?
“(2) Does the Governor of Tennessee have the authority to temporarily assign judges from a certain judicial district to try criminal cases in that same judicial district?
“(3) Does the Governor of Tennessee have the authority to require Shelby County Circuit Court Judges to handle criminal matters in Shelby County?
“(4) Who has the authority to require certain Shelby County Circuit Court Judges to assist with and/or try criminal cases?”
Taylor, who represents state Senate District 31, said in the letter that, if the governor is deemed to have such authority to assign judges — whether from other judicial districts or from other courts within the same district — to help process criminal cases in Shelby County, then he would request the governor do so immediately.
“By prosecuting criminal cases quickly, we will remove violent and repeat criminal offenders from the streets of Memphis so that the law-abiding can raise their families in peace and safety,” he wrote in the letter.
Taylor, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote, “I am determined to pursue any legal avenue available to tackle our serious violent crime problem.”
This new letter is the latest in a series of public statements in which the senator, who was elected to his first term just last year, has inquired of other state officials about the possibility of extending state power into areas that have previously been reserved for local authorities.
In previous missives to the governor, to House Speaker Cameron Sexton, and to the state board of professional responsibility, he has proposed such actions as sending the National Guard into Memphis and reducing the supervisory power of Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy.
The senator has introduced a legislative package in Nashville that, among other things, would change bail laws, require law enforcement to report undocumented immigrants, and reclassify stolen gun charges.
Another of his proposals would exempt Memphis police from having to uphold a city council prohibition against preemptive traffic stops for suspected minor infractions. At the moment, this matter has achieved hot-button status in city government.
