Raumesh Akbari (Photo: Senator Raumesh Akbari | Facebook)
State Senator Raumesh Akbari (D-29), who has had several star turns since her election to the state House in 2013, including prominent speaking roles at two consecutive national Democratic conventions, begins the new year with two fresh accomplishments.
Early in December, Akbari was elected vice president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators. Later in the month, she was elected minority leader by her fellow Senate Democrats to succeed state Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville.
Other Memphis legislators also advanced in both organizations. State representatives Antonio Parkinson (D-98) and Torrey Harris (D-91) were elected to the National Black Caucus executive committee, and London Lamar of Memphis (D-33), a former state representative, was named the Democrats’ caucus chair in the state Senate.
Akbari’s accession to the Democrats’ top state Senate leadership post complements the re-election of Memphis state Rep. Karen Camper (D-87) as the party’s leader in the House, where another Memphian, state Rep. Larry Miller (D-88), was named leader pro tempore for the Democrats.
• An important deadline is looming for the growing cast of hopefuls who aspire to succeed the term-limited Jim Strickland as mayor of Memphis in this year’s city election. January 15th is the prescribed date for candidates to file their first financial reports, and the results will constitute a true test of who is likely to make the long haul to the October election and who is not.
With this in mind, and with their recognition that the holiday season was making its own financial demands of their possible support bases, several of the candidates made it a point to hold fundraisers in the week or so before Christmas.
On the 11th, Van Turner, the former county commissioner and local NAACP head, was the beneficiary of a $100-a-head fundraiser. On the 15th, one was held for state Rep. Karen Camper, the Democrats’ state House leader. The hosts’ invitation specified that all donations were welcome, but $1,000 was more or less pinpointed as the top dollar.
A more ambitious ask of $1,600, the personal max, was suggested for attendees at an affair for Downtown Memphis Commission CEO/President Paul Young on the 18th, and two days later, on the 20th, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner was the beneficiary of yet another event, with $1,000 as the recommended donation.
Meanwhile, well-heeled businessman and former County Commissioner J.W. Gibson, who brings a pre-existing bankroll of his own, weighed in with the announcement that he would be a likely candidate.
The aforementioned January date will allow all the foregoing and other possible candidates to make an estimate of where each of them stands in the financial sweepstakes. A lot of money will be raised and spent in the mayoral election, but the supply of funding is ultimately limited, and a strong showing early is a good way to shake more dollars loose later on and to discourage one’s rivals.
For purposes of comparison, on January 15, 2015, then incumbent Mayor AC Wharton reported $201,000, and City Councilman Strickland, who would later triumph in a multi-candidate race, was right on Wharton’s heels with reported receipts of $181,000.
• The so-called “3 Gs” schools — Germantown High School, Germantown Elementary, and Germantown Middle School — saw their status transformed again a decade after they became part of the Memphis Shelby County Schools system. A complicated nine-year timeline, returning the elementary and middle schools to the Germantown system and allowing MSCS the right to sell the high school as part of a plan to build a new high school in Cordova, was approved by the four entities involved — Germantown Schools, MSCS, the city of Germantown, and the Shelby County Commission, with the only real dissension occurring on the latter body, which voted 8-5 to approve the arrangement.
“Shame on us,” declared County Commissioner Britney Thornton, a nay-voter.
The real mover in the deal was the Tennessee General Assembly, whose Republican supermajority, in obvious solidarity with Germantown, had passed a law requiring the re-transfer by year’s end.
And just like that, it’s another year gone. With the snap of a finger, 12 months have flashed by and, gulp, is it the end of December already? Every year since 2020, we’ve wondered if maybe, just maybe, this upcoming year will be the one where we all shake off the doldrums of a post-Covid reality, rush out to the street en masse, and burst into glorious song and dance. Maybe not quite so much exuberance, but things are certainly ramping up. A completed Tom Lee Park is on the horizon, our local music scene is going strong, Memphis sports are gearing up for championship runs, and mayoral hopefuls are quietly slipping the gloves off. If that’s enough to get you giddy with anticipation, well, you’ve earned it. Prepare to take off the handbrake, and read on for our predictions for 2023.
(Top) Tom Lee Park (Photo: Memphis River Parks Partnership)
Breaking News
Tom Lee Park
Maybe the most anticipated opening of 2023 is the renovated, completely re-imagined Tom Lee Park.
The massive, $61 million project is expected to completely transform Memphis’ riverfront, drawing visitors — locals and tourists alike — to see it. Gone will be the flat, wide-open plain of grass between the Mississippi River and Riverside Drive. It will be replaced with low hills, native plants, lookouts, bathrooms, sports and recreation areas, play equipment, concessions, and more. When the project was announced back in 2019, the new design was described as “a blend of landscaping and architecture meant to mimic and restore some of the 30-acre river park’s natural ecology and better connect the city to the river.”
The anticipation of the park’s opening comes with both excited expectation and some anxiety. The new park design is expected to better connect the park with the rest of Downtown Memphis, to the delight of city leaders. All of those tourists will come at the delight of Downtown business owners.
However, the new design will bring growing pains for Memphis in May. The organization has already predicted a much smaller festival in the park and, maybe, higher prices for festival-goers to pay for the higher fees for using the park.
Memphis River Parks Partnership officials said in September that the project was halfway complete. The park has to at least be ready enough to host Memphis in May in a few short months. Officials said a grand opening of the park will be held after May’s events.
The park’s opening was one major reason travel magazine Condé NastTraveler named Memphis one of the top places to visit in 2023, one of only two places in the U.S. — Toby Sells
Memphis Sports & Events Center (Photo: Frank Murtaugh)
Memphis Sports & Events Center
Expect to (probably) see the inside of the brand-new and newly opened Memphis Sports & Events Center (MSEC) in 2023. The $60 million facility was built in 18 months and will be the centerpiece of the new sports tourism hook for Liberty Park (or the Mid-South Fairgrounds if you’re old-timey).
At 227,000 square feet, the MSEC has a footprint the size of four football fields. Each of two wings features eight basketball courts that can convert into as many as 32 volleyball courts. The north wing includes stadium seating to accommodate 3,500 spectators, along with four VIP suites and boxes for media and recruiters.
The center is a gamble by city leaders that it will attract new visitors to Memphis via youth sports travel teams for indoor sports like basketball, volleyball, and more. Funding for the center, though, is expected to come from tax revenues generated from a zone around the facility, presumably enough to pay for itself. — TS
Moth Moth Moth (Photo: Moth Moth Moth)
Outlawing Drag
The state of Tennessee saw numerous controversies regarding drag shows in 2022. In September, what was advertised as a “family-friendly” drag show at the Museum of Science and History (MoSH) was canceled after a group of Proud Boys showed up to the event armed. The Jackson Pride drag show was limited to participants aged 18 and older after weeks of battling between event organizers and lawmakers in Jackson, Tennessee.
Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) recently filed legislation for the 113th Tennessee General Assembly that could potentially make drag performances in Tennessee a crime. This legislation would define drag shows as “adult cabaret” and would prohibit these performances in public places.
The bill also goes on to make performing in “adult cabaret performance” on public property or “in a location where the adult cabaret performance could be viewed by a person who is not an adult” a Class A misdemeanor. Repeat offenders face a Class E felony.
Local LGBTQ+ activists in Memphis such as Moth Moth Moth (Mothie for short) have voiced their concerns over social media and are actively working to raise awareness and fight back.
“This is a slippery slope that aims to force drag artists into our homes and LGBTQIA+ people out of public sight,” said Mothie in a Facebook post. “How can you fight this? Call your reps. And scream at them.”
It might be a while before this sticks, as the legislature does not reconvene until January. If passed, the law would take effect in July 2023. — Kailynn Johnson
Jim Strickland (Photo: City of Memphis)
On the Political Horizon
Much of the New Year will be devoted to the selection of a new mayor and city council by Memphis voters. The quadrennial process, which actually got under way in the late months of 2022, will formally conclude on Thursday, October 5, 2023. Long before the resolution of that contest, however, the actual first election of the year, a special election for the state House District 86 seat, will have already occurred. The primary date for the special election, which was called to decide a successor to the late Barbara Cooper, who died in October, is January 24th, with the general election scheduled for March 14th.
A referendum on the November 8th ballot allowing for a third term for the Memphis mayor and members of the city council was rejected by the city’s voters, thereby foreclosing on a possible re-election bid by Mayor Jim Strickland and ensuring that a new face would be at the helm of city government, come October 5th. The reality of an open seat also made it likely that the mayoral field would swell to include numerous challengers, several of whom had announced in late fall and early winter, with more expected after the turn of the year.
The first gauge of true candidate viability will come on or around January 15th, when end-of-the-year financial disclosures will be required of the mayoral hopefuls, with information on their campaign war chests to be made publicly available. Several of the so-far announced candidates — notably Sheriff Floyd Bonner, former County Commissioner and NAACP head Van Turner, and president/CEO of the Downtown Memphis Commission Paul Young — are thought to have good fundraising prospects, with the potential to scare off rivals. Race is unlikely to be a factor, since all the actual or rumored candidates to date have been African Americans — a development consistent with the city’s demographic profile. Gender could be important, however, especially if either school board chair Michelle McKissack or state House Democratic leader Karen Camper stay in the race and get up a good head of steam. A few long-odds candidates, already in or thinking about it, include former TV judge Joe Brown and former County Commissioner Justin Ford.
In Nashville, the Republican legislative supermajority, somewhat further entrenched after redistricting, remains in charge, and two bills that are aimed at the state’s LGBTQ+ community have already been filed, and, with administration acquiescence if not outright support, will doubtless go to the head of the class. One would prohibit gender-affirmation surgery on behalf of transgender youth; another would place serious restrictions on public drag shows. Legislation to update the revenue sources undergirding the IMPROVE transportation act sponsored by former Governor Bill Haslam in 2017 is considered urgently necessary, especially in anticipation of the forthcoming needs of Ford’s BlueOval project at the West Tennessee megasite. Governor Bill Lee has made it clear, however, that further increases in the state’s gasoline tax are off the table.
Meanwhile, the version of the Shelby County Commission elected in August is Democratic-controlled (nine Democrats vs. four Republicans) and conspicuously more liberal (in every sense of the word) than the GOP establishment in the state Capitol. In a meeting just before Christmas, the commissioners put together a wish list of financial favors it wants from the state that may have hard going with the parsimonious Lee and his legislative leadership.
The commissioners’ list includes millions for Regional One Health (long known as The Med and, now as then, regarded as financially ailing) and more millions for new schools, a new jail, sewer expansion, mental health, and broadband improvements. All in all, the requests add up to $1.2 billion.
For some decades now, tension has developed between spokespersons for Shelby County and the state political establishment (regardless of political-party issues). Especially in view of the state’s apparently ever-mounting efforts to limit local options, the coming session should underscore these further. — Jackson Baker
Artina McCain (Photo: Courtesy Artina McCain)
Rock On: Live Music in 2023
With in-person performances roaring back to life over the past year, there are plenty of concerts to look forward to in 2023, though the various viral hazards still at large may still yet cause cancellations. For starters, of course, New Year’s Eve shows are just around the corner, including Blind Mississippi Morris and band at Blues City Cafe, Louder Than Bombs at B-Side, the Memphis Funk-N-Horns at Neil’s Music Room, and a double header of Formerly Known As and Twin Soul at Lafayette’s Music Room. With Jerry Lee Lewis’ recent death, many will likely flock to Hernando’s Hide-a-Way as they ring in 2023 with Jason D. Williams, who carries the Jerry Lee torch in his own inimitable way.
As January rolls on, local venues are bringing the entertainment without a pause. Lafayette’s general manager Julien Salley Jr. says, “It’s pretty exciting to see our ticketed shows return to full speed after what Covid did to us. Beyond a heavy schedule of the best local artists in Memphis, we also have incoming: Geoff Tate of Queensrÿche, Samantha Fish, Tab Benoit, Marc Broussard, Adelitas Way, Smile Empty Soul, and a ton of other exciting acts.”
Meanwhile, even more exquisite concerts will grace Memphis concert halls. The Germantown Performing Arts Center (GPAC) already has the likes of Tommy Emmanuel, Stacey Kent, and The Milk Carton Kids in January; Neko Case, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Pilobolus, and Samara Joy in February; and Step Afrika!, Marie-Stéphane Bernard, and Anthony Wilson in March.
Crosstown Arts will host more classical concerts than ever in the new year, including the Mahogany Chamber Music Series, three shows curated by Artina McCain that spotlight Black and other underrepresented composers and performers. There’s also the intriguingly titled “Mozart and Electric Guitar Concerto” by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and Iris Collective’s “Spacetime.” But it’s the jazz curation that should win Crosstown medals, as they begin with guitarist Jimmy Bruno, then go deep in March when Crosstown’s “jazz month” will include another guitar giant, Peter Bernstein, as well as Marc Ribot, The Bad Plus, Deepstaria Enigmatica, singer Morgan James, and James Sexton’s The Otis Mission.
Of course, the rock world choogles on, so keep checking the offerings at Hernando’s, Growlers, Hi Tone, Bar DKDC, Young Avenue Deli, Railgarten, the Cove, Lamplighter Lounge, and B-Side. If you’re thinking big, Graceland Live will keep bringing the national touring acts — like Cinderella’s Tom Keifer and Mr. “Pretty Little Poison,” Warren Zeiders, in February. The Orpheum and Halloran theaters have even more on deck, from the Black Love Live soul concert to Don Bryant and the Bo-Keys, not to mention Mark Edgar Stuart’s ongoing songwriter series, Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros., the McCrary Sisters in February, and a smashing lineup of Buddy Guy, Patti Labelle, Van Duren, and John Mellencamp in the months to follow. — Alex Greene
Timothée Chalamet returns in Dune: Part Two.
Future Film
There was much kvetching about the future of the theater business in 2022, as box office returns ranged from extraordinary (Top Gun: Maverick made $1.5 billion) to job-killing (Disney’s $100 million loss on Strange World cost CEO Bob Chapek his career). But 2023’s release calendar looks a little more stacked, money-wise, than 2022’s pandemic-ravaged offerings. January starts strong with M3GAN, a creepy doll robot horror movie, and a reboot of the ’90s hip-hop classic House Party. February has Soderbergh sprinkling stripper fairy dust with Magic Mike’s Last Dance, the year’s first Marvel movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and a true story whose name says it all, Cocaine Bear.
In March, star Michael B. Jordan takes to the ring as director of Creed III. Memphian Henry Gayden returns as writer for the sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Keanu Reeves kicks all kinds of ass in John Wick: Chapter 4, and Chris Pine leads an attempt to translate Dungeons & Dragons to the big screen with Honor Among Thieves. April dawns with The Super Mario Brothers Movie, featuring the other, lesser Chris — Pratt — as the Italian plumber, for some reason. Chris McKay helms Renfield, starring Nicolas Cage as freakin’ Dracula and Nicholas Hoult as the vampire’s thrall. Later, a new crew takes on the Deadites in Evil Dead Rise, and the beloved Judy Blume novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret finally gets an adaptation.
The big guns come out in May, when James Gunn takes his final bow as a Marvel director with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and Fast X brings all the family back together to drive fast some more. In June, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse will test if Marvel can keep its Spider-streak alive. The next week, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will no doubt supply me with fodder for an entertaining pan. June 16th, everyone who’s anyone (Swinton! Cranston! Hanks! Goldblum!) will be in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, while walking PR crisis Ezra Miller tanks The Flash. The month ends with Harrison Ford’s swan song as the world’s favorite archeologist in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
In July, Tom Cruise hopes to repeat 2022’s box office triumph with Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One. July 21st brings the strangest pairing of any weekend, with Christopher Nolan’s biopic of the man who invented the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer, and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. For the record, I’m up for both. August slows down with a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles flick, Disney’s long-delayed Haunted Mansion, and Blue Beetle. In a September with The Equalizer 2, The Nun 2, and The Expendables 4, the only potential bright spot is the latest installment of Branagh’s Agatha Christie kick, A Haunting in Venice. Kraven The Hunter leads October, and Saw X rounds out Halloween weekend. Return to Arrakis on November 3rd with Dune: Part Two (if you thought the first one was a snoozer, this is where all the good stuff happens). Was anyone asking for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes? At least DreamWorks’ windfall from Trolls 3 will help pad Justin Timberlake’s retirement account. Currently scheduled for December is Timothée Chalamet in Wonka, a remake of The Color Purple, and a currently untitled Ghostbusters sequel, before the year squishes to a close with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. — Chris McCoy
Penny Hardaway (Photo: Larry Kuzniewski)
2023 Tip-off: Memphis Sports
It’s the Sweet 16 or bust for Coach Penny Hardaway and his Memphis Tigers basketball team. This is especially the case for the nine(!) seniors that make up virtually the entire rotation for the fifth-year coach. New arrival Kendric Davis — a transfer from SMU — could pull off the rare feat of winning his league’s Player of the Year honors two years in a row for different teams. If Davis stays healthy and continues to excel, and supporting veterans like DeAndre Williams and Alex Lomax make the right kind of impact, reaching the NCAA tournament’s second weekend for the first time since (gulp) 2009 is within reach.
Three questions will follow the Memphis Grizzlies into 2023. Can Ja Morant win the MVP award (would be a franchise first)? Yes. Can the Griz win the freakin’ NBA championship? Yes. The third question is the most problematic: Can the Memphis Grizzlies ever play at full strength? The team has climbed to the top of the Western Conference standings without playing a solitary game featuring Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Desmond Bane all in uniform. Should the team be able to unleash their big-three on the rest of the NBA for a sustained stretch — preferably into May and June — there may be a large parade this summer on Beale Street.
The Memphis Redbirds will take the field for their 25th season in a refurbished AutoZone Park, a brand-new playing surface complemented by a brand-new video board. And the St. Louis Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate may feature two of the top prospects in all of minor-league baseball. Slugger Jordan Walker — a third-baseman and outfielder — could make the club’s big-league roster out of spring training despite his tender age (20). Shortstop Masyn Winn is another elite young talent, with an arm that makes many pitchers blush. The Redbirds are looking to make their first playoff appearance since joining the International League in 2022. — Frank Murtaugh
Memphis 901 FC are coming off their best-ever season after making it to the USL Eastern Conference semifinals. With titans in defense, midfield, and attack, coach Ben Pirmann unlocked the full potential of this squad, who were a penalty kick away from the conference finals. Pirmann will unfortunately no longer lead the team next season, having accepted an offer from USL rival Charleston Battery FC. Next year it’s Scotsman Stephen Glass, who has previous coaching experience in America with MLS side Atlanta United and its USL affiliate Atlanta United 2. And crucially, the organization has gone to great lengths to retain key players. Rather than building from scratch, star striker Phillip Goodrum (21 goals last season), midfielders Aaron Molloy and Laurent Kissiedou, defender Graham Smith, and captain Leston Paul, among others, will all return. Memphis came close to reaching the conference finals. For the following year, taking that next step is a distinct possibility. — Samuel X. Cicci
Steve Mulroy (Photo: Shelby County District Attorney, Steve Mulroy Campaign | Facebook)
The year just passed saw some decisive developments in the politics of Memphis and Shelby County — the continuing effects of which will be reflected in the course of this year’s city elections. As of this writing, despite many advance rumors to the contrary, there has, as yet, been no sign of a viable white presence in the Memphis mayor’s race — much less of a candidate identifiably Republican.
The outgoing incumbent mayor, the term-limited Jim Strickland, is certainly white but is technically a Democrat, having once chaired the Shelby County Democratic Party, though in his two successful mayoral races of 2015 and 2019, Strickland had virtually unanimous support from the local Republican constituency — as well, to be sure, a healthy share of the city’s African-American vote.
The demographics of the local voting population are such that “Republican” normally equates as white and “Democratic” as Black, though there are certainly limits to this fact of fungibility. In the county election of 2022, for example, the most dramatic and widely followed race was that for district attorney general, won by University of Memphis law professor and former County Commissioner Steve Mulroy, a certifiable white Democrat.
Mulroy’s support base had its bipartisan as well as biracial aspects, and the contest between him and the candidate he dethroned, Republican Amy Weirich, teemed with issues that in theory crossed the frontiers of race and party, but his winning vote totals were remarkably similar to those of County Mayor Lee Harris and the victorious candidate for Juvenile Court Judge, Tarik Sugarmon, two African Americans who defeated prominent whites.
Sugarmon’s victory in the judicial race over incumbent Dan Michael involved no formal party label, but Harris’ mayoral challenger, the well-heeled Worth Morgan, was the official Republican nominee. Mulroy, Sugarmon, and Harris ran more or less as a ticket, and a Venn diagram would show the support for all three to lie substantially within the intersecting bulges of Black votes and Democratic ones.
This year’s Memphis city election is nonpartisan, of course, but the aforementioned absence early on of a white candidate — especially the much-anticipated “white Republican” — owes as much to a decline in the GOP voter base as to any purely demographic factor. Even more revealing than the 2022 outcomes mentioned above is the fact that the Shelby County Republican Party opted not even to offer a candidate for sheriff, instead officially endorsing the popular Democratic incumbent Floyd Bonner.
Bonner, now a candidate for Memphis mayor, may once again have a decent shot at Memphis Republicans’ votes, there being no Caucasian conservative à la Strickland for like-minded white GOP residents of the city to fall back on.
The year 2022 saw the end of a 30-year cycle, which began with an off-year vote in 1992 for two county positions. That was the year after the landmark victory of Willie Herenton, an African American, in the Memphis mayor’s race, and the Shelby County Republican Party, no doubt seeing an opportunity to consolidate what was still a white majority in the county at large, petitioned to conduct the first party primary in the county’s history. Their candidates won, and when the county’s Democrats eventually followed suit, the era of partisan local elections was begun.
Last year’s election transformed the landscape, and, despite remaining challenges and obstacles, the way seemed clear for whatever reforms the victors — especially the triad of Harris, Mulroy, and Sugarmon — might have in mind. Partisanship of a sort will persist, but not in the same way as before. That era is closed.
In Democratic circles, especially progressive ones, it has become something close to axiomatic that the long-running state cycle of Democratic primary presidential preference votes is obsolete and needs to be updated.
Indeed, a preliminary panel of the Democratic National Committee, prodded by President Biden, has now taken preliminary steps to revise the order of early preference votes for 2024, ousting the Iowa caucus altogether, dropping the New Hampshire primary from second to third in the order, and beginning the preference-vote series with South Carolina.
Although the DNC’s reason for dropping Iowa could be blamed on the confusion in determining vote counts that followed the 2020 caucus there, the real reason for discontinuing it and demoting New Hampshire is that both states have virtually homogeneous white populations and as such are alleged to be poor barometers for adjudging the mood of the nation’s highly diverse Democratic constituency.
That’s the reason given for the proposed switch, but it’s a poor reason, and it misses the point of recent history badly. Recall only the Iowa caucus of 2008, which saw Democratic favorite Hillary Clinton overlooked in favor of the party’s unanticipated new sensation, Barack Obama. It is hardly irrelevant that Obama, an African American, was the choice of the nearly all-white Iowa voting population.
He might well have triumphed in South Carolina that year had the Palmetto State, with its large Black vote, gone first, as Biden and the DNC wish it to in 2024. (Obama did win South Carolina in its accustomed down-the-line vote in 2008.) But such a first-shot win in 2008 would have merely conformed to local demographics, it would not have signaled, as Iowa did, that Barack Obama’s appeal as a presidential candidate overrode matters of race — the real (and truly progressive) underlying basis for his ultimate victory.
As it happened, Hillary Clinton’s credentials no doubt entitled her to a second look, and she got it a week later, upsetting Obama via an electorate in New Hampshire, famously a swing state, that presumably evaluated both candidates for other than demographic reasons.
The either-or conundrum of Obama vs. Clinton held for much of the 2008 primary year. Tennessee was one of several states that opted for Clinton, helping keep the nation’s deliberative mind open for a profitably longish while.
As a matter of historical interest, it should be noted that two of the state’s Democratic legislators — Rep. Jason Powell of Nashville and Memphis’ own state Senator Raumesh Akbari — introduced a bill in 2020 that would have put Tennessee first in the list for subsequent primary years, but the bill went nowhere, probably due to pressures from the national party.
There is and was no clear case for letting Tennessee kick off a presidential primary year — at least not for the Democratic race. The state’s Democratic infrastructure is in a shambles and is virtually nonexistent except in Memphis and Nashville, both of which are urban areas that still have Democratic majorities. A GOP primary here might be another story, but even there it would be hard to make a case for Tennessee, no longer a swing state or a suitable harbinger for a national outcome.
Tennessee’s role in the scheme of things envisioned by the DNC for 2024 would seem to be unchanged, with the Volunteer State once again presumably to be scheduled in mid-March or so, along with a whole passel of other “Super Tuesday” states.
But the state will probably not, as it arguably did in 2008, have an influence on the ultimate presidential choice. The proposed new order of Democratic presidential primaries will almost certainly have long since predetermined a candidate acceptable to the party’s established interest groups, and there will likely be no contest to speak of by the time Tennessee votes.
Crucially, whatever preference might be harbored by the nation’s Independents could well remain obscure or unknown until the decisive November election.
The name “Tom Jones” is well known to students of literature (as that of a picaresque hero in a pathfinding 18th-century novel by Henry Fielding) and to popular music fans (as that of a formidably talented 20th century cabaret singer). It is also familiar locally to followers of politics and journalism.
This latter Tom Jones is an author, a veteran of local government, and a highly respected watchdog of media and politics in Shelby County and, for that matter, in Tennessee at large. Jones is the proprietor of “All News is Local,” a well-read Facebook page that keeps tabs (and score) on the aforementioned subjects.
In an age in which journalism is demonstrably diminishing, quantity-wise, Jones makes it his business to evaluate such quality as remains. He posts daily reminders — and sometimes whole essays — regarding which subjects and which writers are worth attending to.
Jones’ range is impressive, but, by and large, he is looking for, and recommending, cases of serious and detailed journalism about important subjects — as well as noting examples that fall short of the mark.
To be honest, he hasn’t had a whole lot to say about me personally of late. His last reference was, in fact, to a boo-boo of mine earlier this year when I carelessly quoted some lines of a playground jingle that, in one erstwhile version, has an overtly racist line. My quote was based on a sanitized version that involved “catch[ing] a tiger by the toe.” But still, shame on me.
My daughter Julia Baker, who toils for the Daily Memphian and whose coverage of criminal justice matters often gets noted by Jones, reminded me of a Jones post, not too long ago, that referred to me as an “encyclopedia.” That’s good, I guess. What I best remember is a “To Whom It May Concern” letter he issued in 1991, during the first full year of this column, in which Tom cited my coverage of the then ongoing mayoral election of that year as exemplary.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that’s kept me going these 30-odd years since. That letter was long since framed and attached to my home office wall.
Tom has worked in harness with such other local lights as Carol Coletta (with Smart City) and Susan Thorp. In his government years he served as a right arm for three consecutive Shelby County mayors — Bill Morris, Jim Rout, and AC Wharton.
Check out “All News is Local.” You won’t regret it.
• Van Turner, the former Shelby County commissioner and local NAACP head who is one of several declared candidates in the 2023 Memphis mayor’s race, has several declared supporters among other well-known political figures, but one of them, the recently elected District Attorney Steve Mulroy, has become something of a doppelganger, appearing as a co-occupant of automobiles bearing his name along with Turner’s in formal parades in Orange Mound and Whitehaven.
“I don’t know if I have bootstraps, but I want it known that I do support Van wholeheartedly, and to the extent that it helps him, so much the better,” avers the reform-minded Mulroy, who may be getting some useful long-term community support himself from onlookers, who greet him, he says, with shouts of “Hey, Mr. DA!”
• The Flyer has not been able to confirm an interest in running for mayor on the part of J.W. Gibson, but the well-known businessman and former county commissioner is known to have discussed the race with friends and confidantes.
There is a general feeling among pol-watchers that the field of candidates, which so far includes Turner, Sheriff Floyd Bonner, Downtown Memphis Commission President/CEO Paul Young, school board chair Michelle McKissack, state House minority leader Karen Camper, and former TV Judge Joe Brown, isn’t done yet.
Karen Camper as a freshman legislator in 2008 (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Depending on how one interprets the recent announcement by Michelle McKissack as to her political intentions, there are either one or two women in the running for Memphis mayor. There are still those who regard McKissack, the school board chair and former TV anchor, as having been equivocal or hypothetical in her formal announcement. Did she say she was running or merely indicate she was thinking about it?
There was no such ambiguity about Karen Camper’s intentions. The minority leader, declaring her candidacy from a position next to her grandmother’s front porch in South Memphis, proclaimed herself “ready” and reinforced the immediacy of her candidacy with some striking words: “From the front porch, we can see the conditions of our streets. We can see whether it is littered with potholes. We can hear the engines of cars roaring out of control. We can hear street racing. We can hear gunshots.”
She declared, “Memphis needs a mayor that’s willing to meet with you on your front porch.”
In so dramatizing her effort, positioning herself as having sprung right from the grassroots of inner city Memphis, Camper was ingeniously minimizing one of the potential shortcomings of her position — that her basic governmental experience, however renowned, has taken place at something of a remove from home.
Camper’s race can usefully be compared to that of a previous mayoral aspirant, Carol Chumney, who sought the office in 2007, against then incumbent Mayor Willie Herenton and MLGW CEO Herman Morris.
Like Camper, Chumney, now a Civil Court judge, had served for many years in the Tennessee state House. She did not become her party’s leader, as has Camper, but Chumney was an influential legislator, particularly in the field of children’s services, which she turned into a major public concern, and she held several leadership positions in the Democratic hierarchy, which in those days actually controlled the House.
Chumney had credentials, but they were, like those of Camper today, amassed primarily in an environment, Capitol Hill in Nashville, that was physically distant from the constituency of greater Memphis and not nearly as familiar to its voters as the governmental arenas for those public officials who had served closer to home.
Had Chumney chanced a mayoral race on the basis of her legislative qualifications, she would likely have had far greater difficulty than she did in the 2007 race, where she was a major contender from beginning to end. Indeed, she had made a Democratic primary race for Shelby County mayor in 2002, while still a legislator, and had run respectably, but well behind, against eventual winner AC Wharton, then the county’s public defender.
In 2003, though, Chumney had said goodbye to the General Assembly and run for a seat on the Memphis City Council against fellow hopefuls George Flinn and Jim Strickland. She won that race and wasted no time in broadening her acquaintance with the city’s voters and theirs with her.
In the four years leading up to the 2007 mayor’s race, Chumney was the most visible member of the council, posing challenge after challenge not only to the more questionable actions of Mayor Willie Herenton but to the good-ol’-boy presumptions of a council where pork was ladled about by members like so many reciprocated scratchings of each other’s back.
In so doing, Chumney ruffled some feathers in city hall, but she got the attention of the voters, enough so that she finished a close second to Herenton in the three-cornered mayor’s race, leading to speculation that she might have won in a one-on-one.
Karen Camper doesn’t have the advantage that Chumney had of recent and close-up tangles with the powers-that-be, but, to judge by her unusual mode of announcement, she has good grassroots instincts. And, of all the contestants, she may be most familiar with the ongoing threats to home rule posed by today’s state government. Which may be more of an issue than it may seem.
Anyone attending a meeting of the Shelby County Commission is bound to notice Michael Whaley, the Democrat who represents the newly reconfigured District 13, which slices through several sections of central and northeast Memphis.
Whaley is chairman of the commission’s budget and audit committees and has the vaguely clerkish look you might associate with such concerns. He does his homework on pretty much everything that comes before the commission, however, and can always be counted on to take part in discussions, whatever the subject, and often in great detail.
By profession, Whaley is an organizer of educational programs and institutions, and is principal of Memphis College Prep, a fact which gives him a solid continuing interest in all school matters.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, which would provide an observer a hint as to Whaley’s chief motivations as a private individual. He happens to be an adventurer par excellence, with ambitions and accomplishments far in advance of your average weekend outdoorsman.
Whaley has climbed to the top of a still-active volcano in the Congo to smell the sulfur in the world’s largest lava lake and has made his way into the interior of that country’s vast jungle in order to find and “get up close and personal” with the last remaining mountain gorillas there.
Like Tom Cochrane, he believes that “life is a highway” and intends to experience it “from Mozambique” — where he has scuba dived — to “Memphis nights” to wherever else he can find the out-of-the-way and unusual, the “unique destinations and alternative cultures of the earth.” He has explored the remotest places he can find, from Madagascar to New Zealand to the outbacks of South Africa.
It all began for Whaley when, 10 years ago, he went with his mother, a teacher, and father, a college administrator, to Burma (Myanmar) where his mother had been born. “It opened my eyes,” he recalls. The experience not only nourished his curiosity; it was a leading reason for his own choice of education as a career.
Whaley’s first serious climbing challenge came in 2006 when he and his then roommate went to Montana and climbed Mt. Helena. His most recent experience was hiking and fly-fishing in Colorado, which he concluded just before the convening of the new commission session.
Whaley makes it a point to travel to a different place every year. Newly married, he intends to take a Caribbean jaunt with his wife Lauren next. After that, he has in mind solo trips to such places as Tasmania and Antarctica. Those places will have to wait, though. First, Whaley will go to Tibet to take a shot at Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.
That is scheduled for the spring, when he will take a leave to join the Highland Expedition, the next organized assault on the summit of that famous edifice, all of 18,000 feet up. That’s well more than three miles high.
Whaley is sensible enough to realize that the summit itself may represent an insuperable challenge for him at this point, but he plans to go as high as he can. His climb will start with a trek in the company of Sherpas (Tibetan natives who assist climbers) to the mountain’s base camp, which is a high destination in itself.
From there? “The toughest part is in getting through the glacier,” says Whaley, who has researched the matter in some depth. One of the ordeals to come will involve tipping a ladder horizontally across an abyss, a mile or two up, and walking across it to safety wearing spiked shoes.
Merely consider that for a moment or two. And consider what it must be like to be Michael Whaley and routinely take on such challenges in his spare time. Not for him the easy chair and a soft season of watching the NFL on TV.
It’s enough to make the commission work, with all of its demanding obligations, seemingly endless six-hour sessions, spirited and sometimes baleful exchanges, and not inconsiderable arcana, pale into relative insignificance by comparison.
Complications have already set in regarding next year’s race for Memphis mayor, inasmuch as a ruling by Federal Judge John Fowlkes about a residential requirement in the city of Mason could affect the legality of races in Memphis, which has similar residential requirements. Neither would-be contestants Van Turner or Floyd Bonner at the moment has a Memphis residence.
And sexist talk by candidate Joe Brown at a weekend forum would seem to make it necessary that either Karen Camper or Michelle McKissack or both follow through with their mayoral plans.
Meanwhile, not the least interesting item on the November 8th election ballot is an amendment removing a restriction against ministers of the cloth holding office in the legislature. Given long-standing sentiment for dividing church and state, this one will doubtless require of voters some serious meditation — prayer, even.
Three other amendments are of more-than-usual interest. One, the “Right-to-Work” amendment would enshrine in the Tennessee Constitution the state’s existing bar against mandatory union membership. Business wants it. Labor doesn’t. Another amendment provides for the house speaker to assume the office of governor temporarily during an emergency. And another amendment abolishes explicitly the practice of slavery in any form.
Other matters of interest on the ballot include a governor’s race pitting GOP incumbent Bill Lee against Democratic hopeful Jason B. Martin and a whole squadron of Independents.
Of other competitive races, 8th District Republican Congressman David Kustoff and 9th District Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen face Lynnette Williams (D) and Charlotte Bergmann (R), respectively, plus a bevy of Independents in each case.
The state Senate District 31 seat is contested by well-heeled Republican Brent Taylor and Democrat Ruby Powell-Dennis. The district is heavily Republican but has been run close by Democrats.
Democrat London Lamar is favored in state Senate District 33 over Republican Frederick Tappan and Independent Hastina Robinson.
A special circumstance prevails in state House District 86, where Democrat Barbara Cooper, recently deceased, is pitted against Independent Michael Porter. If Porter should finish first, he wins the seat. If Cooper ends up ahead, the Election Commission will call a special election and permit new candidates to file.
State House District 95 sees GOP incumbent Kevin Vaughan challenged by Democrat Patricia Causey, and in state House District 97 incumbent Republican John Gillespie also has a Democratic challenger, Toniko S. Harris.
Memphis has a special election for City Council, District 4. Contestants are LaTonia Blankenship, Barry Ford, DeWayne Jackson, and Jana Swearengen-Washington. A vacancy exists for Municipal Court judge, as well. Vying for that position are Patience “Missy” Branham, Latonya Sue Burrow, John Cameron, Varonica R. Cooper, Lynnette Hall-Lewis, Latrena Davis Ingram, William “Bill” Larsha, Christine Stephens, and Carolyn Watkins.
Bartlett has a full slate of candidates in that city’s municipal election. For mayor: Steven Brent Hammonds, John Lackey, David Parsons, and Kevin Quinn. For alderman, position 1: Casper Briggs, Harold Brad King, Jimmy D. Norman, and Victor Read. For alderman, position 2: Robert Griffin, Stephen Spencer, Thomas Stephen Jr., and Brandon S. Weise. Paul Kaiser and David Reaves vie for position 3. Aislinn McEwen and Bryan Woodruff are contesting school board, position 4.
Collierville has aldermanic races, too. In position 1, William Boone vies with Maureen J. Fraser. In position 2, Jewel Jordan and Billy Patton compete. In position 4, the contestants are Emily Fulmer and Missy Marshall. Wanda Chism and Alissa Fowler are competing for school board, position 2. Position 4 on the board is sought by Keri Blair, Chelsea Glass, Heath Hudspeth, and Jeremy Smith.
Contested positions in Germantown are for alderman, position 1, with Manjit Kaur and Scott Sanders running. Daniel Chatham and Jeffrey Chipman are competing for school board, position 2, and Angela Rickman Griffith and Carrie Schween are vying for school board, position 4.
In Lakeland, Michele Dial and Connie McCarter are competing for commissioner, and Keith Acton, Laura Harrison, and Deborah Thomas are running for school board.
Millington has competitive races for alderman, position 3, with Chris Ford and Tom Stephens; school board, position 3, with Brian McGovern and Gregory L. Ritter; and school board, position 6, with Mandy Compton and Larry C. Jackson.
We were all reminded this past week of how freakishly and without warning the weather can change, but unless there are unexpected changes in the political weather, this week is due to see the advent of the second consecutive three-way contest in a Memphis mayoral race. And a hot one it could be.
Already out there getting campaigns in gear were local NAACP head and former County Commissioner Van Turner and Memphis Downtown Commission CEO/president Paul Young. Barring an unlikely last-minute change of mind, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner is about to challenge these two previously declared worthies.
Bonner’s entry, scheduled for a Tuesday afternoon press announcement, could change the race from a conflict of credentialed challengers to one in which the city’s priorities are in for the same kind of seismic policy shifts Shelby County experienced just months ago.
This time, like last time, will see a contest between rival views of government — call it progressive versus traditional — but will see the direction of attack reversed and progressivism, triumphant in August but not yet firmly entrenched locally, faces the prospect of a new and powerful coalition, conventional in attitude but encompassing constituencies overlapping the usual boundaries.
It is Bonner’s persona, coupled with his breadth of appeal and success in electoral politics, that makes this possible. Clearly, he has political gifts.The sheriff polled more votes than all contenders in all other countywide races, both in 2018 and in his 2022 re-election race. The last time around, while running as a Democrat, he ended up on the endorsement list of the Shelby County Republicans as well. To the population at large, he seems to inspire confidence. Yet he is not menacing. On the stump and in person, he comes across as something of a Teddy Bear.
Many a candidate tries to run on the bromide that “my friends have urged me to run.” In most cases, this is a semi-fiction at best, a cloak for the candidate’s personal ambition. But, uniquely, Bonner seems to have been the subject of a genuine draft. His aforementioned appeal across party lines is replicated in the racial sphere as well, and going into the mayor’s race, addressing an electorate that is considerably less conservative politically than that of the county population as a whole and is made freshly apprehensive by an outbreak of violent crime, that is no mean advantage.
Bonner will remind the African-American community early and often that he is a native of Orange Mound, the son of one of the first waves of Blacks to be allowed to join the Memphis Police Department. Some have noted the sheriff’s current residence in unincorporated Shelby County. He has explained that he moved there from Whitehaven at a time when he was doing undercover work in that area’s drug trade, to reduce his family’s potential vulnerability. Bonner is reportedly seeking a new residence in the city.
There are no Ds and no Rs on the city’s political ballot, a fact that makes Bonner’s attempt at being a unity candidate considerably easier than was that of, say, former District Attorney Amy Weirich, who tried to run as “our DA” in a demographically divided community but was weighed down, among other factors, by her Republican label.
Can Bonner compete in such policy areas as that of economic development? He vows to pay special attention to that matter and says he will appoint a ranking city official to attend to it.
All that having been said, neither of Bonner’s declared mayoral rivals is exactly a slouch. Turner is a skilled political veteran with ties to various factions. He will have the particular support of those members of the political left who rallied in August to the support of current DA Steve Mulroy (who has endowed Turner) and who formed a hard core also for Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon and County Mayor Lee Harris.
Young, who scheduled a fundraiser the same day as Bonner’s announcement, can count on powerful support from members of the city’s commercial and industrial elite.
Money counts in political races and Bonner will have an early chance to demonstrate his own strength. He begins the race with a leftover political kitty amounting to a hundred thousand dollars, and his backers proclaim an optimism that this sum will grow to several hundred thousand by January 15th when the candidates’ first financial disclosures will be made known.
In the meantime, Bonner’s entry will, at the very least, be a strong dissuader to other potential candidates who have considered running.
Sidney Chism, overseeing his annual picnic with grandson Sidney
As an antique bard once said, “sumer is icumen in.” In fact, it’s been here for a while, well ahead of the official calendar date. And summer means outdoor festivals of various kinds, many of them politically oriented.
The most recent one, hosted by well-known political figure Sidney Chism, was held on Saturday on the same picnic grounds on Horn Lake Road where this annual event has always been held in recent years — except for 2020 and 2021, when concerns about the Covid pandemic intervened.
Chism, accompanied by his grandson — named Sidney, what else? — traversed the grounds in an open-air motor vehicle, keeping an eye on the politicians on hand and the activities at various booths and recreation sites for children.
The politicians and other public figures were invited to make brief remarks from an event stage. One of the first was Memphis Police Department director Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis, who advised attendees to get the free hot dogs that were partly burnt and gave a “shout-out to the Sheriff’s Department, though we have bonuses and they don’t.”
Circuit Court Judge Valerie Smith and Trustee Regina Morrison NewmanAssessor candidate Steve Cross and wife Renee Crossjuvenile Court Judge candidate Tarik Sugarmon passes out lollipopsCharles Alton, with cockatoo Stevie, at tent of Pearl Walker,where a guest holds cockatoo LeahDara Hall and judicial candidate Kenya HooksJudicial candidate Lee Wilson stumping.Fred Dorse and Judge Loyce Lambert Ryan
On the previous weekend, another stout assemblage of political types attended the annual crawsfih boil, sponsored by judicial candidate David Pool on ancestral Pool St. in North Memphis.
Judge Betty Moore and husband Alvin MooreDavid Pool and Thaddeus MatthewsSohelia Kail and Juvenile Court Judge Dan MichaelDavid Pool as host/troubador
