Van Turner speaks at his
weekend HQ opening. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
We have reached a point in the mayoral contest that, if not yet the stretch drive itself, is about to get there.
The candidates with money are beginning to spend it on TV ads (Floyd Bonner, Paul Young, Van Turner, and J.W. Gibson all had fresh spots running last week) and yard signs (certain well-traveled thruways — think South Parkway and Walnut Grove, as two examples — are sprouting them like mushrooms). And, be advised, slickly printed mail-outs, in which the aspirants view themselves with pride and unlucky opponents with alarm, will soon be filling up your mailbox.
They’ve already gotten busy doing what, in athletic contexts, is called trash-talking. They’ve all done their calculations and have determined who among their adversaries can safely be ignored and who needs to be cut down to size.
Examples: Two weeks ago, when businessman Gibson opened his campaign headquarters, he not only boasted his own native-son credentials but was the beneficiary of a question voiced out loud by a key supporter, Reverend LaSimba Gray: “Mr. Gibson, you didn’t have to move to Memphis to run for mayor, did you?”
Gibson himself may or may not have been in on that one, but he certainly beamed to hear it said. The jibe was clearly aimed at two Gibson opponents, Bonner and Turner, both recently residents of the outer county, who had to weather a short-lived mandate from the Election Commission which, before being struck down in court, required of mayoral candidates a long-term presence within the city limits.
And on more than one occasion of late, candidate Michelle McKissack has called attention to the matter of what she — and various others — consider an undue number of inmate deaths in the county jail on Sheriff Bonner’s watch. The issue seems likely to keep on bedeviling Bonner, who, coincidentally or not, is widely considered a frontrunner in the race.
Candidate Turner, who until recently headed the local NAACP and is a former Democratic Party chair, has been making the most of his ideological convictions, and, at his weekend headquarters opening, publicly lamented what he saw as the apostasy of fellow Democrats Paul Young, the Downtown Memphis Commission CEO, and Bonner, both high-odds contenders with plenty of late-campaign cash.
“How you vote and what you’ve done in the past makes a difference,” said Turner. “We have one candidate who voted Republican at a time when we needed everybody in this country to support Hillary [Clinton]. Because we did not support Hillary we have a renegade Supreme Court. … I appreciate what Mr. Young has done in the city, but he was wrong on that. You have to be committed to this call and not work the other side and compromise.”
Turner’s reference was to Young’s past decision to vote in three Republican primaries, including the 2016 GOP presidential primary.
And Turner continued: “Another candidate, Mr. Floyd Bonner, has been supported by the Republican Party.” He likely was referencing the 2022 county election when Bonner, the Democratic nominee, was unopposed by the GOP and endorsed by key local Republicans.
The upshot, according to Turner: “We cannot allow this opportunity to take Memphis forward to take us back. We need progressives working for this city and working to make the city better.” “… And working to help me win,” was the unspoken quiet part.
Reverend Earle Fisher with mayoral candidates Van Turner and Paul Young at the People’s Convention (Photo: Facebook | People’s Convention)
As the recent nonstop turbulent weather subsided somewhat, last weekend saw the culmination of candidate endorsements by the People’s Convention, a citizens movement of some years’ standing, with roots in the inner city and among progressives. That turned out to be a mano a mano between NAACP president Van Turner, the early favorite of Democrats and progressives, and Paul Young, the Downtown Memphis Commission CEO who has undeniable momentum (and cash reserves) feeding his goal of across-the-board support.
Despite a stem-winding address to the 300 or so attendees by Turner in which the candidate recounted his many services in his NAACP work, as a county commissioner, as a Democrat, and as a prime mover in the removal of Confederate memorabilia Downtown, the win went to Young, the election season’s most unstinting mayoral aspirant, who focused his remarks on his past services as a workhorse in city and county government, which, he said, had garnered support for such community additives as the Memphis Sports and Events Center at Liberty Park itself, where the People’s Convention was being held this year under the direction of the Reverend Earle Fisher.
Fisher has in recent years revived the convention, which had first been held in 1991 and had been a force that year in the election of Willie Herenton as the city’s first Black mayor. Ironically, Fisher on last Saturday would chastise both Herenton, a mayoral candidate again, and Sheriff Floyd Bonner, another aspirant, for their no-shows this year at the People’s Convention.
Bonner had opted instead for a well-attended forum on women’s issues, being held simultaneously at the IBEW building on Madison under the auspices of the Democratic Women of Shelby County. Eight other mayoral contenders also participated in that event.
The mayoral-preference vote at the People’s Convention last Saturday was 224 for Young and 116 for Turner, and owed much to the disproportionate sizes of the supportive claque each brought with him.
Other Convention preferences were for Jerri Green in council District 2; Pearl Walker in District 3; Meggan Kiel in District 5; Michalyn Easter-Thomas in District 7; JB Smiley Jr. in Super District 8, Position 1; Janika White in Super District 8, Position 2; Jerred Price in Super District 8, Position 3; and Benji Smith in Super District 9, Position 1.
• Later last Saturday night (actually early Sunday morning), a massive and unruly crowd materialized in Downtown Memphis, resulting in shots being fired. Eight victims were injured, and an MPD officer was roughed up by out-of-control youths.
The event illuminated the issue of crime as a dominant motif in this year’s election. Mayoral candidates Bonner and Herenton especially have emphasized the importance of the issue and their determination to deal with it.
Fisher would also weigh in on the matter, condemning the violence but calling for long-term community-based alternatives to repressive-suppressive techniques for crime control. (Of note to Flyer readers: This week’s cover story by Chris McCoy also considers such alternatives.)
As a kind of footnote to things, the Shelby County Commission last Monday considered, but deferred for two weeks, action on proposals for restrictions on preemptive traffic stops and use of specialized units by the Sheriff’s Department.
Similar curbs were recently imposed on the MPD by the city council.
You are about to enter a column with math, which I’m not usually great at, but this is important stuff. According to a recent Tufts University study, there were an estimated 8.3 million voters who were newly eligible for the 2022 midterm elections — “newly eligible,” meaning those who had turned 18 since the previous general election in November 2020. They are members of what’s commonly referenced as Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012).
The newly eligible voters — approximately 4.5 million of them white and 3.8 million people of color — turned out in historically high numbers, and voted overwhelmingly (by 27 percent) for Democrats in the 2022 midterms. Tufts reported that young voters swung results in Georgia and Nevada, and tilted races toward Democrats in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Another report, published by NPR in February, polled Gen Z-ers about their political concerns. They ranked “protecting abortion access” at a higher level than any other age group. It’s worth noting that Gen Z voters will be the most educated group in our history, statistically, and the higher a voter’s education level, the more likely they are to vote. And the majority of Gen Z college graduates are female.
Using this data, you could predict that women and young people are going to have an increasing say in electoral outcomes in the U.S. Or you could just look at recent statewide elections, where it’s already happening. Start with the abortion referendum in 2022 in blood-red Kansas, where abortion rights prevailed by a nearly 60 percent to 40 percent margin, thanks to an unprecedented turnout by women and young people. There were similar results in Michigan a few months later, where abortion rights prevailed 57 to 43 percent, and last week in Ohio, where pro-choice voters also won by a 57 to 43 percent margin.
Along with abortion rights, Gen Z voters cited racism, the environment, gun violence, and LGBTQ/gender issues among their top concerns. They are the least traditionally religious generation in our history.
It’s almost as if the Republican Party read that NPR report, saw the recent state election returns, and said, “You know what? Let’s see what we can do to really piss off young voters. Maybe we should start something like ‘a War on Woke,’ where we force women to have babies against their will and demand open-carry laws and suppress LGBTQ rights and drill for oil in baby seal habitats. That’ll show ’em we mean business!” I don’t know how else you explain what appears to be a GOP death-wish agenda for 2024.
It’s enough to make a logical person think that the upcoming election will be a walkover for the Democrats, but these coots ain’t made for walkin’. In the midst of this epic demographic swing toward youth, the Democrats are stuck ridin’ with Biden, an 80-year-old who Republicans are painting as a barely sentient geezer who can’t tie his own shoes. It’s ageist, unfair, and unfortunate, but it’s where we are.
Fortunately for the Democrats, in addition to the genius strategy of going against every policy favored by young people and women, the GOP seems hellbent on renominating a multiple-indicted 77-year-old loon with a Grateful Dead-like following of cosplaying cultists. He’ll be running for president in between court appearances and possible jail time for witness tampering. The media will consume and regurgitate Trump and his lies ad nauseam. Orange will be the new gack.
Frankly, given mortality tables, the odds of both of these Boomers getting through a stressful, yearlong presidential campaign without a health crisis seem slim. It seems more likely that we’ve got 14 months of chaos of one kind or another looming ahead.
This is when it helps to remember that even though the candidates might look the same as four years ago, the electorate will not. In the four years between the 2020 and 2024 elections, the country will have gained another 16 million young eligible voters. And in each of those four years, 2.5 million older Americans will have died, meaning there will be 10 million fewer older voters. That’s a net swing of 26 million younger eligible voters. I may not be good at math, but I know how to count change when I see it.
Mayoral candidate J.W. Gibson with wife Kathy at headquarters opening (Photo: Jackson Baker)
In opening his headquarters on Quince Road in East Memphis last Saturday, J.W. Gibson — who is variously described as a businessman, as a developer, and as a philanthropist — sought to remedy one of the problems of his mayoral campaign.
The problem has been that, in a field overflowing with candidates of one stripe or another — a lawman, a local government veteran, a former mayor, a school board member, et al. — Gibson has lacked the focus that a single easy-to-digest descriptor might provide to distinguish him from his competitors.
He attempted to deal with that issue last Saturday by presenting a “six-point” plan and characterizing himself as a man of multiple dimensions, experienced in meeting a wide array of challenges.
“I’m a native Memphian, born in Dixie Homes, raised in South Memphis. I’m a Navy veteran, owner of three businesses, a wholesale distributorship, real estate development, and commercial printing.”
He proudly owned up to being the printer of the state’s lottery coupons. “Did y’all know that they were all printed here in Memphis?”
He identified himself with Memphis yet further by the very distinctive nature of his experiences — including, he pointedly noted, a successful, long-term “interracial marriage.” On hand last Saturday and prominently introduced were his wife Kathy and their two daughters, Savannah and Alicia.
Kathy Gibson is the president of Buckman Laboratories, one of the true ornaments of local industry. Buckman is a global specialty chemical company that conducts business in over 90 countries and employs approximately 1,700 associates.
Both the senior Gibsons are well known for the range of their contributions to numerous local arts programs and other causes.
Gibson’s six-point platform was unabashedly multiplicitous, as well. Among the points of it was the crime issue, the resolution of which depended on the coordinated activity of the entire community, he said, promising to invest in new crime-control technology and to hold a massive “crime summit” if elected.
Other platform points were economic and workforce development. Gibson lamented that the city had — some eight years ago, he said — divested itself of a workforce development program as such. (Others maintain that the city’s program was shifted over to the county under state mandate.)
Still another platform point was early childhood and youth development, apropos which Gibson proposed the restoration of direct city aid to Shelby County Schools — though not in the same measure as existed prior to the 2013 merger of city and county systems, followed by the creation of suburban municipal systems.
Gibson pledged to “bring back home” MLGW, which he called a “city division” but has enjoyed a partial autonomy of action. And he promised to create an annual showcase of Memphis music talent.
Last Saturday’s self-introduction was in the wake of a flurry of new yard signs advocating Gibson’s candidacy, and it will be followed up this week by ads on local TV.
Also hitting the tube this week was Sheriff Floyd Bonner with a 30-second biographical ad on all local stations pointing out that Bonner was the first African American to head the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department.
New TV ads were also purportedly imminent from candidates Paul Young and Van Turner, the latter of whom previewed one this week in online form.
Floyd Bonner, here receiving Sheriff of the Year award last week from Tennessee Sheriffs’
Association, is one of several mayoral candidates hopeful of getting GOP votes in October. (Photo: Courtesy Floyd Bonner)
UPDATED: As is generally known, Memphis city elections are not subject to partisan voting. There are no primaries allowing our local Republicans and Democrats to nominate a candidate to carry the party banner.
Nor, in the case of citywide office (mayor or council super districts 8 and 9), does there exist machinery for a runoff election when no candidate for those offices commands a majority of the general election vote.
There are runoff circumstances for districts 1 through 7, each of them a single district contributing to the pastiche of city government, by electing, in effect, a council member to serve a smaller geographical area or neighborhood.
The aforementioned super districts encompass the entire city. Each of them, in theory, represents a half of the city’s population — the western half being predominantly Black, as of 1991, when the first super-district lines were drawn, the eastern half being largely white. (Though population has meanwhile shifted, those distinctions are still more or less accurate.)
Runoffs are prohibited in the super districts as well as in mayoral elections in the city at large because, in the Solomonic judgment of the late U.S. District Judge Jerome Turner, who devised this electoral system in response to citizen litigation, that’s how things should be divided in order to recognize demographic realities while at the same time discouraging efforts to exploit them.
Each citizen of Memphis gets to vote for four council members, one representing the single district of their residence, the other three representing the half of the city in which their race is predominant. Runoffs are permitted in the smaller single districts, where racial factors do not loom either divisive or decisive, while they are prohibited in the larger areas, where, in theory, voters of one race could rather easily league together to elect one of their own (as whites commonly did in the historic past).
Mayoral elections are winner-takes-all, and Willie Herenton’s victory in 1991 as the first elected Black mayor is regarded as having been a vindication of the system.
Got all that?
Yes, it’s a hodgepodge, but it’s what we’ve still got, even though Blacks, a minority then, are a majority now. And, in fact, race is irrelevant in the 2023 mayor’s race, there being no white candidate still participating with even a ghost of a chance of winning.
Political party is the major remaining “it” factor, and the failure of either party to call for primary voting in city elections has more or less nullified it as a direct determinant of the outcome.
But, with the withdrawal last week from the mayoral race of white Republican candidates Frank Colvett and George Flinn, speculation has become rampant as to who, among the nominal Democrats still in the race, might inherit the vote of the city’s Republicans.
Sheriff Floyd Bonner, whose law-and-order posture is expected to appeal to the city’s conservatives?
Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, who has several prior Republican primary votes on his record in non-city elections?
Businessman J.W. Gibson, who once was a member of the local Republican steering committee?
Only NAACP president Van Turner and former Mayor Herenton, among serious candidates, are exempt from such speculation, both regarded as being dyed-in-the-wool Democrats.
In a close election, the disposition of the Republican vote, estimated to be 24 percent of the total, could be crucial.
Several polls of varying reliability have been circulated so far on the subject of the 2023 Memphis mayor’s race. The latest one surfaced last week in the form of an online video released by ex-Memphian Josh Thomas, now a Nashville consultant working on behalf of the mayoral race of Memphis City Councilman Frank Colvett Jr.
The results of that poll, available for examination on Colvett’s Facebook page, are somewhat startling and out of sync with several other surveys conducted earlier by avowedly neutral sources.
The new poll shows former Mayor Willie Herenton leading with 17 percent approval from those polled and Colvett, along with Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, tied for second with 14 percent, with no other results indicated for any other candidates.
In previously circulated polls, Colvett had been buried in the single digits along with several other also-rans. To be sure, candidate Young, generally acknowledged these days to have a strong and possibly surging campaign, had also been in the lower digits in those early polls. And Herenton’s numbers are consistent with those reported for him elsewhere.
On the street, Colvett’s reported numbers were greeted with a fair amount of skepticism. Can they be taken seriously? No ancillary information (number surveyed, breakdown of sample, etc.) was released with the poll, which, says Thomas in the video, was taken on July 6th and 7th. The poll was administered by Cygnal, a company described by Thomas as “the most accurate private pollster in the country.”
How private? The company says of itself: “Cygnal serves GOP campaigns, committees, caucuses, and center-right public affairs issue efforts with forward-thinking polling, analytics & targeting.” That would tie in with Colvett’s known prominence in local Republican circles. Indeed, it is generally acknowledged that his starter base is heavily Republican, and the questions have been: Can he hold that base, which is a distinct minority of the whole? And can he, as a political moderate, expand on it?
According to Thomas, those surveyed were asked, quite simply: “If the election were held today, who would you vote for?”
But a key acknowledgement by Thomas is that the question was asked after those surveyed were given “biographies” of the various candidates.
Anyone familiar with political polling would be inclined to associate that procedure with what is called a “push poll” — one which builds a desired outcome into the very form of the questioning. The idea is simple: The better the “biography,” the better the poll numbers. And the skimpier or less positive the bio, the lower would be the numbers.
If the poll is to be taken seriously, its meta-message is obvious. Just as former Mayor Herenton has an impressively locked-in base of support, there also is known to be a significant number of voters who, for fair reasons or foul, have a built-in resistance to the prospect of Herenton’s returning to power.
The Cygnal poll results imply rather directly that, if it’s Herenton you fear, Frank Colvett could be your man. Colvett himself, known to be fair-minded, and, as previously indicated, moderate, would never venture a sentiment like that directly.
Depending on how one looks at it, the 2023 Memphis city election, which concludes on October 5th, has been underway for at least a year, is gathering steam, or is just getting started.
There are 14 positions at stake — 13 for the Memphis City Council, and one for the city mayor. What had seemed to be a 15th race — that for city court clerk — will apparently be resolved via council appointment instead on the advice of council attorney Allan Wade.
The most immediate deadline for candidates to keep in mind is July 20th at noon. That’s the filing deadline for the aforementioned 14 positions. The last day for withdrawing a filing will be one week later, on July 27th, also at noon.
There’s a deadline for voter registration, too. That’ll be September 5th, and, as they say, it’ll get here before you know it. Close upon the heels — or cartwheels, if you’d rather — of that date will be the start of early voting on September 15th, and election day itself, again, will be October 5th.
There had been serious efforts by both council members and members of the public to redraw the district lines on the election map, but in the end the council resolved to keep the old district map, circa 2022.
The Election Commission began issuing candidate petitions back on May 22nd, and a provisional field of sorts can be divined from a scan of the list so far.
MAYOR’S RACE
As of July 4th, there were 16 would-be candidates for mayor, of whom a relative handful can be taken seriously — meaning that they possess a convincing mix of credentials, supporter network, financial status, and campaign preparedness.
Such polls as have been circulated — all of them helpful, none of them definitive — suggest that the leading contenders at this point are Sheriff Floyd Bonner, Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, NAACP president and former County Commissioner Van Turner, and former Mayor Willie Herenton.
A little sugar and a few grains of salt regarding each:
Floyd Bonner may have begun the race last year as something of a favorite, based on his having been the leading vote-getter in the last two county elections. He soaked up a lot of early fundraising cash to go with his holdover stash from those earlier elections. (Both he and rival Young have cash on hand at the moment in the half-million-dollar range.) And his standing as a law enforcement figure looms large in a voter environment anxious about crime.
But he has started the race cautiously, holding back both on public appearances and on his spending in anticipation of the stretch to come. And, though he is a teddy bear personally, he can anticipate some degree of flak from protesters on the left who would challenge his jail policies and exploit the fallout of several incidents involving harm or death to suspects.
Paul Young (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Paul Young is leading all comers in fundraising and rarely if ever takes any time off from campaigning. He has abundant support from the city’s business elite and the managerial nexus of city government, having served astride the seam of development policy in both city and county jobs.
He has all kinds of momentum. He professes a disinterest in politics as such and a desire merely “to do the work.”
It is an open question, however, whether — as someone who, to the general public, had been largely an unknown — Young has yet reached the plateau of name recognition necessary to achieve his goal. He certainly has the funding on hand for a late-campaign blitz to get there.
Van Turner (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Van Turner has been regarded for years as a potential candidate for mayor, and, as a former Democratic chairman, has a standing among that party’s activists that is unequaled by any other candidates.
Moreover, his NAACP credentials and his highly visible involvement in the public response to the Tyre Nichols tragedy and other such incidents, as well as his still remembered role in the liquidation of the city’s Confederate memorials, helps to undergird his stature.
Turner has been polling well and hopes to garner a significant share of the city’s majority Black vote — which, however, will be targeted by (and split with) several other candidates.
His major concern has to be that reality, as well as the fact that his fundraising (in the general vicinity of $200,000, tops) has lagged relative to that of Bonner and Young.
Willie Herenton (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Willie Herenton is iconic in the true sense of that term. He embodies one of the signal African-American triumphs of modern times via his 1991 upset victory to become Memphis’ first elected Black mayor. And his subsequent reelections — at four-year intervals, 1995 through 2007 — both enhanced and tarnished his aura.
Now 83, he is making a seventh race for mayor (he finished second to Jim Strickland in his sixth one, in 2019). No one expects him to win; toward the end of his long tenure, he had alienated too many voters through his arrogance and through increasingly indifferent administrative oversight. But he was never a patsy, and his hold on a large bloc of African-American voters remains impressive. Never mind that he eschews both forums and fundraising. He still polls well, and he’ll influence this election one way or another, especially given his vow to apply “tough love” to youthful criminals.
That’s the list your winner is likely to come from, but others persist in long-shot hopes.
Foremost among these is probably philanthropist/developer J.W. Gibson, who has made little headway so far, but has pockets deep enough to improve his scenario to some extent. Newly aboard to assist him is longtime consultant Susan Adler Thorp, whose first task is surely to help Gibson find a persuasive message.
Also still alive and kicking (if barely) is City Councilman Frank Colvett, a GOP moderate who began the race with support from a minority of the available Republican vote, and, despite a valiant effort at scantily-attended local forums, hasn’t improved it enough to boost his chances, even as a spoiler.
School Board member Michelle McKissack was a theoretical dark-horse prospect back in the day and has had a couple of decent fundraising flurries, but she, too, has not managed to escape the second tier.
Karen Camper, the Democrats’ minority leader in the state House, was doomed from the start. Her considerable abilities were obvious only to those few voters who pay itemized attention to legislative matters, and she was prohibited as a legislator from raising any money while the General Assembly was in session.
Another lost cause is James Harvey, an eccentric but an able one who, as a former Democrat pitching to hard-line Republicans on the crime issue, simply doesn’t have a viable audience.
And there’s Joe Brown, the former judge and syndicated TV personality who lost his audience and whose unstable campaign is guaranteed to self-destruct at some point.
And what would appear to be the last mayoral petition pulled last week was by the wealthy radiologist/broadcaster George Shea Flinn, who has by now run for congressional, mayoral, and U.S. Senate seats. Could he have found the magic formula this time?
The Spinosas — l to r, son Bradford, wife Sarah, Philip, son Graham (Photo: Courtesy Philip Spinosa)
CITY COUNCIL
As we approach the aforementioned late-July filing/withdrawal deadlines, the lineups for council positions are still very much in flux.
Although several of the emerging lineups have been openly declared, several of them, too, are highly provisional, with more than a few would-be candidates having drawn multiple petitions in several different races.
In council District 1, encompassing Raleigh and much of northeastern Memphis, incumbent Rhonda Logan has two apparent challengers at this point — Kymberly Kelley, about whom little is known, and Michael R. Williams, a longtime police union representative with good name recognition. A genuine race could develop here.
In council District 2, an open seat in a majority white East Memphis area held at present by mayoral candidate Colvett, who was term-limited, at least 10 candidates have pulled petitions so far. Of these, former Probate Clerk Paul Boyd and erstwhile district candidate Marvin White have name recognition. So do former Councilman Scott McCormick, aiming at a comeback, and Jerri Mauldin Green, policy advisor to County Mayor Lee Harris and a recent candidate for the legislature.
In council District 3 (Whitehaven, Hickory Hill), where incumbent Patrice Robinson is term-limited, there are seven entries so far, with most attention going to three candidates — Ricky Dixon, Rev. James Kirkwood (a former ranking MPD officer), and environmentalist/activist Pearl Walker.
Council District 4 (Central Memphis, including Central Gardens and Orange Mound) pits the two most recent holders of the seat against each other — Teri Dockery, who was briefly an appointed council member following former incumbent Jamita Swearengen’s departure to become Circuit Court Clerk, and current incumbent Jana Swearengen-Washington, winner of a special election to succeed her sister. Dockery faced council discipline during her brief tenure.
Council District 5 (Midtown, East Memphis) presents what will by all odds be the most intensely contested and costly race on this year’s council ballot.
The Kiels — l to r, son Ben, Meggan, daughter Sadie, husband Daniel (Photo: Courtesy Meggan Kiel)
Although a novice candidate, Luke Hatler, has also picked up a petition, the race for this important swing district will be between two formidable candidates, former Councilman Philip Spinosa and much ballyhooed newcomer Meggan Wurzburg Kiel. Spinosa shades moderate Republican, and Kiel, a veteran of MICAH (Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope), represents a progressive constituency. Both are amply endowed with financial and network support.
District 6 (South Memphis westward) is a longtime Ford-family bailiwick, and current incumbent Edmund Ford Sr. should have an easy time of it. Once again, among those opposing him is LGBTQ figure Davin Clemons, an ex-MPD officer who enjoyed support in 2019 from County Mayor Lee Harris and may again.
In District 7 (Downtown, Frayser, North Memphis) incumbent Michalyn Easter-Thomas finds her legal underpinning being questioned by those (reportedly including council attorney Allan Wade) who see a likely conflict of interest between her council position and her new position with the Memphis River Parks Partnership, a city affiliate.
Hoping something comes of this are several potential opponents already, and there may be more to come.
Berlin Boyd (Photo: Courtesy Berlin Boyd)
THE SUPER-DISTRICTS
The result of a judicial compromise decreed back in the early ’90s by the late Judge Jerome Turner, the two super-districts, incorporating three seats apiece, each represent roughly half the city’s population — one, to the east, predominantly white in population, the other, on the west side, predominantly Black. That was the original idea, anyhow; the population ratio is persistently shifting in both districts, with African Americans gaining in both spheres, at least marginally.
As is the case with the mayoralty, winner-take-all is the rule with these seats, there being no runoff allowed.
District 8-1 is held by the ever-voluble, front-foot-forward JB Smiley Jr., and there are no takers against him so far.
There’s a different story in District 8-2, where incumbent Cheyenne Johnson has drawn a petition for reelection but has given almost everyone the impression that she intends ultimately to withdraw.
Tentative petitions have been drawn by the likes of businessman and former Councilman Berlin Boyd, the aforesaid Davin Clemons, and entertainer/activist Jerred Price, but all these candidates are considered more likely to run in District 8-3, where they have also drawn petitions.
A strong rumor has it that former district attorney candidate Janika White is ready to run in 8-2 as soon as Johnson withdraws, if indeed that should occur.
In District 8-3, several people have drawn petitions — but the race is expected to come down to former Councilman Boyd, Price, and Brian Harris, an “omni channel director” with Best Buy.
In District 9-1, incumbent Chase Carlisle seems to have acquired an opponent in one Benjamin Smith, a dance-hall entrepreneur, but remains heavily favored.
At this point (though things could definitely change), both Ford Canale in District 9-2 and Dr. Jeff Warren in District 9-3 remain unopposed.
A CHANCE FOR CHANGE
There were will definitely be a new look to city government as of the election aftermath — beginning with the next executive and whomever he or she chooses to appoint to leadership roles. And there are differences that the times have brought to the auditioning process. But there is no indication yet that the mainstream of city government will shift in some unimaginable new direction. There will still be an acceptably biracial dimension to the city council, for example, though arguments will continue as to what the right proportion should be.
But change is notoriously unpredictable (think only of the recent pandemic, of the havoc it wreaked and the unforeseen adaptations that ensued in its wake). The issues that candidates run on may not be the ones that confront us in the future.
In any case, the chance to remake will soon be upon us, and the opportunity to choose should not be passed up.
We Need Your Help!
As Memphis prepares to elect a new mayor Oct. 5th, public safety — defined not just as crime and police violence, but feeling secure in your home and the city — is on everyone’s mind. The Memphis Flyer and MLK50: Justice Through Journalism are partnering on a series of stories examining the state of public safety in our city, and we want to know what’s important to you. Follow this link to MLK50.com to fill out a short survey letting us know what questions you have for the candidates. We’ll get the answers you need to make an informed decision in this election.
Nashville versus Memphis? (Photo: Rod Gimenez | Dreamstime)
There are eight candidates recognized as viable in the city’s race for mayor this year. Some are well-known to the public, with records of achievement in governmental and other public spheres. Others, not so well-known, have money to pour into their races to rectify that problem.
The field ranges across metrics of gender, race, and political party. Individually and collectively, the candidates exude a sense of optimism about the city and its future, though their evident pride at its impressive recent successes is balanced by a concern about maintaining various kinds of equilibrium, including fiscal, going forward.
These candidates are nothing if not transparent. Most of them have been appearing regularly at a series of televised and in-person events, and …
At this point it may have become obvious to sentient readers that the city whose mayoral race we are describing is not Memphis. It is Nashville, the sister city and state capital a three-hour drive from here up I-40.
Pride? Optimism? Transparency? Not so much in the 2023 Memphis mayor’s race, where the modest number of public forums has been spottily attended, both by candidates and by audiences, and focused on the doldrums of public life — poverty, economic stagnation, educational failure, inequities and fallings-short of various kinds, and crime, crime, crime.
Nashville has its problems, also, including aspects of those just mentioned, which rage in the Bluff City like out-of-control dumpster fires. But, with their August 3rd city election looming, the essential problem that Nashville’s mayoral candidates are vexed by can be summed up in such conundrum as: “What else can we afford to pay for out of our tourist bounty?”
Dig it: The Nashville City Council has already agreed to spring for the city’s share of a fancy new enclosed $2.1 billion football stadium to house the NFL’s Titans. Now, the city is also meditating on developing an in-city state-of-the-art driving track suitable for prime events on the NASCAR circuit.
To be sure, there are Nashvillians (and mayoral candidates) who wonder if the city is overextending itself. An ad hoc group called CARE (Citizens Against Racetrack Expansion) says via a public petition — “We respectfully ask: How does spending millions of dollars to bring in bigger, louder NASCAR races solve the most pressing concerns of Nashville? Doubling down on turning Nashville into a Las Vegas-style destination for tourists ignores the desires and needs of a vast majority of our city residents.”
CARE goes so far as to say that “pressing issues like increasing affordable housing, fixing decaying infrastructure and public transit, and approaching the problems of homelessness and crime need our attention and funding urgently.”
Now we’re talking. So, in some ways Nashville, for all its plethora of building cranes and new skyscrapers and ongoing city projects and point-of-origin TV spectaculars, may still have some major issues in common with the struggling city to the west on the banks of the Mississippi?
We know that it does. Both cities inhabit home-rule counties and, as such, have another concern in common: that of maintaining local options in education, health, social policy, what-have-you in the face of an ever-encroaching state government. More on this anon.
Prospective council candidate Jerri Green (Photo: Community Legal Center)
As of last week, the City Council — after lengthy deliberations that ran way past the May 22nd date for pulling candidate petitions — finally mustered enough votes to declare district lines for the forthcoming city election.
And, basically, it’s a case of Meet the New Lines, Same as the Old Lines.
Which is to say, the council districts for the October 5th election conform to the same map that was redrawn for a special election in District 4 last November. Then-incumbent Councilwoman Jamita Swearengen had resigned the District 4 seat after winning election as Shelby County Circuit Court Clerk. She was succeeded by her sister, Jana Swearengen-Washington, who won the special election.
Shot down during the council’s regular meeting last week was a proposed new map that had garnered significant support and would have made major alterations, especially on the city’s eastern perimeter, where District 5, an area largely white in population that bridges Midtown and East Memphis, would have been reshaped to become even more accommodating to whites, including conservatives, while adjoining District 2 would have become Cordova-based and majority-Black.
The new plan was put forth by Darrick Harris, a community member of the council’s ad hoc reapportionment committee. A late-breaking shift of previously undecided council members against it left the old map in place when Councilman Chase Carlisle subsequently moved for “same night minutes,” a parliamentary device which sped up the process of formalizing the vote.
Some supporters of the defeated new map were outraged by the outcome. One of them was Lexie Carter, chair of the Shelby County Democratic Party. Carter had anticipated the creation of a specifically Cordova district in the manner of last year’s County Commission reapportionment. She indicated that she intended to file a protest at the council’s meeting next week, when, reportedly, the body will consider a final tweaking of boundaries.
Carter also defended her action and that of the local Democratic executive committee in recently withdrawing from what had been the party’s long-running litigation against several proprietors of sample ballots at election time, especially those who used the word “Democratic” or party images on their products.
“Let’s face it, that has always been part of the process,” she said of the balloters, who traditionally have charged fees of candidates wishing positions on their sample ballots, which were widely distributed, especially in the inner city.
• Meanwhile, the list of claimants to the District 2 seat continues to grow. Former Councilman Scott McCormick has drawn a petition for it, and Jerri Green, senior policy advisor to County Mayor Lee Harris, has confirmed her interest in the seat. Green, a Democrat, gave Republican state Representative Mark White a close run in 2020 for the District 83 state House seat.
Davin Clemons, a former Memphis policeman and the co-founder of Tri-State Black Pride, will apparently once again be an opponent of incumbent Councilman Edmund Ford Sr., having drawn a petition for Ford’s District 6 seat. Clemons ran against Ford in 2019 with the endorsement of Harris and said this week he hopes to have the county mayor’s support again this year.
As was the case four years ago, that race will likely reflect to some degree the ever-simmering antagonism between Mayor Harris and County Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr., the councilman’s son.
Mayoral candidate
J.W. Gibson at last weekend’s Sidney Chism picnic (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Businessman J.W. Gibson is reportedly getting ready to retool his mayoral campaign with help from veteran political consultant Susan Adler Thorp. Polls indicate that Gibson’s campaign has never really gotten off the ground. Nor has his initial slogan suggesting that Memphis needs a “new tune.”
And the professional respect Gibson enjoys as a result of his long-term philanthropic and developmental activities has not been general enough to have earned him much name recognition with the public. Despite a distinguished and vaguely mayoral appearance, he has also struggled to stand out at the many collective forums and meet-and-greets he has been a presence at.
With just under four months left before election day, Gibson, who has abundant private resources, could still make an impact, but only if he finds a viable message and can popularize it. Almost uniquely in the crowded mayoral field, he has expressed openness to the idea of a possible property tax increase.
• Among observers who are closely following the mayoral race, there is a difference of opinion as to whether there are three main contenders so far — Sheriff Floyd Bonner, Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, and NAACP president and former County Commissioner Van Turner — or four —those three, plus former longtime Mayor Willie Herenton.
Everyone acknowledges that Herenton, who has led at least one unofficial poll, has a dependable voting bloc, based on his long mayoral tenure and, especially, his precedent-establishing 1991 victory as the city’s first elected Black chief executive. Some wonder if his budget, expected to be minimal, will allow for a serious stretch run.
Bonner and Young won’t have such worries. Both have cash-on-hand holdings in the vicinity of half a million dollars. And Turner, whose purse at this point is roughly a third of that amount, has a long-established base of dependable supporters.
• As has long been expected, former City Councilman Berlin Boyd has pulled a petition to run for the open Super District 8, Position 3, seat held for the past two terms by Council Chairman Martavius Jones, who is term-limited.
Boyd’s name had also turned up on the petition list for Super District 8, Position 1 — something the once and possibly future councilman attributes to an error by one of his staff members. Boyd says he never had any intention of running against the 8-1 incumbent, JB Smiley, a friend, and he has done the paperwork to nullify that prospect. (He also denies a previously published report that he might take another crack at District 7, currently occupied by Michalyn Easter-Thomas, who in 2019 ousted then-incumbent Boyd in a runoff.)
Boyd has, however, considered the “back-up” idea of running for Super District 8, Position 2, a seat being eyed by several others, who take seriously a rumor that incumbent Cheyenne Johnson will not end up being a candidate for re-election. But, he says, “I’m 99 percent sure I’ll be running for Position 3.” Eight other people have so far pulled petitions for Position 3.
• The aforementioned Smiley is one of four current holders of super district seats who, as of early this week, did not yet have declared opposition. The other fortunate ones were Chase Carlisle in Super District 9, Position 1, Ford Canale in 9-2, and Jeff Warren in 9-3.
