Tag: Raumesh Akbari

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Politics Politics Feature

Democrats Doubling Up in Primary Races

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Tennessee may be a certifiably red (i.e., Republican) state, and, indeed election results in recent years, even in Shelby County, which has a theoretical Democratic majority, have generally been disappointments to the once-dominant Democratic Party.

And the official Party itself has only been reconstituted in the county for a few months after various internal fissures and dissensions caused it to be decertified by the state party in mid-2016.

But none of that has stopped a veritable flood of would-be Democratic office-holders from declaring their candidacies for election year 2018 as the filing season gets going in earnest. Most unusually for a minority party, in fact, many of the races on the ballot this year are being contested by multiple Democratic entries.

That starts at the top of the ballot, as two name Democrats — former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and current state House minority leader Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley — are vying for the office of governor. (Even more Republicans are running: six gubernatorial candidates in all, most of them with serious networks and campaign funding at their disposal.)

Jackson Baker

Forrest fan Jenna Bernstein taking her leave

It seemed for a while that there might be a Democratic primary contest for U.S. Senator as well, until the well-backed entry of former two-term Governor Phil Bredesen convinced a promising newcomer, Nashville lawyer James Mackler, to withdraw in favor of Bredesen, whose second gubernatorial win in 2006 was his party’s most recent statewide hurrah. (At least two name Republicans — 7th District U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn and former 8th District congressman Stephen Fincher are vying for the GOP nomination.)

In any case, Democrats are also doubling up — and not just in the marquee races. There are competitive Democratic primary races at virtually every election level.

Take the case of state Senator Brian Kelsey‘s reelection bid in Senate District 31. The long-serving Germantown Republican sent out several S.O.S. emails to supporters this week informing them that he has a Democratic challenger and asking for campaign donations.

The opponent Kelsey had in mind was Democratic activist Gabriela “Gabby” Salinas, who did indeed announce her availability last week as a Democratic candidate in District 31. And she has a backstory that gives Kelsey reason for his concern. Salinas, who survived childhood cancer as a patient at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and went on to do research work herself at St. Jude, was also a survivor later on of an automobile accident that took the lives of family members.

Nor is Salinas the only Democrat seeking to unseat Kelsey. Another declared candidate for the seat is David Weatherspoon, one of several first-time office-seekers on the Democratic side.

On Monday, one of the Democratic Party’s recognized stars in Nashville, state Representative Raumesh Akbari, announced she would seek to fill the state Senate seat left vacant by Lee Harris, who is running for Shelby County mayor. And Akbari has a Democratic opponent in the primary, her House colleague, Joe Towns.

There are numerous other races on the ballot in which Democrats are competing with each other for the honor or capturing an open seat or one currently held by a Republican. One such case is the Shelby County Commission District 13 seat, a swing seat now occupied by Republican Steve Basar.

Both former Election Commissioner George Monger and political newcomer Charles Belenky are competing for that one. Monger, a former boy wonder who became a music manager at 15 and ran for the City Council at 18, declared his candidacy over the weekend, while Belenky turned up as a citizen critic of a purchasing contract at the commission’s regular public meeting.

And where a seat is traditionally considered Democratic, the infighting can be brisk indeed; two Democrats — Eric Dunn and Tami Sawyer — are vying for the Commission District 7 seat; four seek the seat in Commission District 8: David Vinciarelli, Daryl Lewis, J.B. Smiley Jr., and Mickell Lowery; while Commission District 9, vacated this year by the term-limited Justin Ford, is being sought by no fewer than five Democrats — Edmund Ford Jr., Ian Jeffries, Jonathan L. Smith, Jonathan M. Lewis, and Rosalyn R. Nichols.

• Monday’s first county commission meeting of the year was an abbreviated affair, starting at the late hour of 4 p.m. to accommodate attendees at the well-attended funeral at Idlewild Presbyterian church of the late public figure, Lewis Donelson.

On a day when the city was visited by groups of protesters partial to the now-removed statue of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the commission was the site of one such protest — from one Jenna Bernstein of Tampa, who said she had come all the way from Florida to call for the expulsion from the commission of Van Turner, head of Memphis Greenspace Inc., which purchased two parks from the city prior to removing their Confederate monuments.

Bernstein’s mission received fairly short shrift, resulting only in a brief debate between Commission chair Heidi Shafer (nay) and Commissioner Walter Bailey (yea) as to the right of a non-resident to be heard. Shafer’s view prevailed.

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Opinion Viewpoint

“Fed Up” Falls Short

The issue of violent crime here in Memphis, particularly that of gun crime, has once again given birth to another “approach” aimed at reducing the numbers of Memphians killed on our city’s streets.

The “Fed Up” campaign, with its message of intense investigations and tough prosecution, as well as its promise of longer and stiffer sentences, has been introduced as a way to curtail violence and to put into place measures that will let the world know we are “anti-crime” here in the Bluff City.

Raumesh Akbari

Mayor Jim Strickland, District Attorney General Amy Weirich, and the Crime Commission here in Shelby County are supporting this campaign and have plans to promote it heavily in weeks to come.

Will it work? This campaign follows a bill passed by the General Assembly that, among other things, calls for enhanced punishment with longer sentencing. Will the infusion of $15 million of taxpayers’ money (the legislation’s fiscal note) in order to put people behind bars for longer periods of time actually bring about the anticipated decrease in crime?

Does this equation — Increased Incarceration = Decrease in Crime — reflect the result we’re looking to get in the interest of public safety?
 
I believe our leaders are being responsible in their efforts to rid our communities of guns and the carnage that results from the violent use of these weapons. I believe that if you commit a crime with a weapon, that should mean jail time. Definitely.

However, I see two fallacies in this latest approach. One, it does nothing for the underlying issues that cause criminal behavior — issues based on social deviances, a lack of conflict-resolution skills, a resistance to education and training, and familial problems. Data has shown that honing reasoning skills among children at an early age, especially when those skills are reinforced as they grow older, has a lasting effect throughout their lives.

Many crimes occur when people know each other, from arguments and retaliatory moves. Training in social skills, through education and programs, could get at the problem early in life, helping to stifle the violent reactions displayed by many of our young people today.

Two, under the Fed-Up approach, the nonviolent offense of possession of a weapon by a person with a previous felony conviction could qualify that person for a longer, extended sentence. Mere possession, not perpetration of a crime in these cases, could land a person behind bars for years. How many people will this affect? And do the funds expended for this possession show “best use” of the money?

Then there is another factor: societal re-entry, the process of putting able-bodied, formerly incarcerated persons back to work. My assistant at the legislature tells me that more than half of the calls we receive at our office deal with persons wanting to clear their records so that they can work to feed their families, support themselves, and re-enter their communities as contributing citizens.

One of the bills I passed during the first half of this Assembly reduced the amount of money needed to expunge criminal records of qualified individuals. Putting people back to work is a solid move toward crime reduction. But it cannot work unless we also focus on creating more full-employment opportunities for our citizens, not the temporary, minimum-wage jobs many employers offer.

I represent much of South Memphis and parts of East Memphis and Midtown. I want to see my district with safer streets and neighborhoods. I want to see children be able to grow up in their communities without the fear of gunshots and violence due to the proliferation of guns and other deadly weapons.

To make this happen, we cannot rely merely on the prison system to solve the problem. Certainly, there are those for whom incarceration is the only justifiable answer, but we must also work hard to reduce the numbers of weapons on the streets, weapons that are too easily acquired and accessible. To work this equation from start to finish, we must understand that it must also take policies of education, training, employment, and social programs to make this work.

The equation that will work is this one: Early Intervention + Employment + Vigilance + Gun Reduction = Decrease in Crime.

We must make this happen.

Raumesh Akbari is a state Representative from District 91 in Memphis and a member of the General Assembly’s Criminal Justice Committee.

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Politics Politics Feature

Suburban Showdowns in Germantown and District 96

Dwayne Thompson on the stump. Photo: Jackson Baker

Even if, as is currently being assumed by observers in both major political parties, Democrat Hillary Clinton should win the presidency over Republican nominee Donald Trump, and win in a landslide, how might that affect down-ballot races in Tennessee, where the GOP, almost everywhere, remains in the ascendant?

One test case might be the race in District 96 of the state House of Representatives between incumbent Republican Steve McManus and Democratic challenger Dwayne Thompson. The district, a suburban one incorporating parts of Cordova and Germantown, is considered safely Republican by most observers.

Thompson, a self-described “human resources professional,” disputes that, citing what he says are significant turnouts for Democrats in past statewide and presidential races in the district, as well as  a mix of upscale, middle-class, and working-class populations that he thinks is ready for change.

Among other things, Thompson hopes for a backlash against legislative Republicans for their opposition to Governor Bill Haslam‘s Insure Tennessee proposal for Medicaid expansion. At a recent forum sponsored by the Tennessee Nurses Association, Thompson accused opponent McManus, an investment counselor and chairman of the House Insurance and Banking Committee, of having “bottled up” consideration of Insure Tennessee in the special legislative session of 2015.

McManus’ committee, which did hold an abbreviated hearing on Insure Tennessee in which McManus’ skeptical views on the proposal were obvious, did not administer the proposal’s coup de gras, however; that came from the Senate Health Committee, which had been specially expanded for the purpose by GOP Speaker Ron Ramsey.

McManus subsequently was named by Republican House Speaker Beth Harwell to a special task force on health-care which met several times this year and emerged with a scaled-down health insurance proposal, called the “3-Star Health Insurance Pilot,” that would expand TennCare for uninsured veterans and mental health patients as a prelude to possible general expansion in the future.

Thompson dismisses that plan as too little, too late, and says he will, if elected, continue to push for Insure Tennessee or some close variant.

McManus has more financial resources at his command, by far — $155,7543.59 in campaign cash as of the third-quarter filing, compared to a mere $5,088.20 for Thompson. But Thompson, whose ads — stressing that he is both a veteran and a cancer survivor — have begun to appear here and there, especially online, with a frequency unusual for a Democrat running in the Memphis suburbs.

And, in fact, Thompson’s campaign expenditures for the third quarter of 2016 come close to matching McManus’, with outlays of $9,524.83, compared to $11,871.61 for the incumbent. He is also working hard at outreach to independent voters, like members of the nonpartisan Asian-Americans for Tennessee, who showed up en masse last week at a meet-and-greet for Thompson sponsored by state Representative Raumesh Akbari (D-District 91) at her family’s hair research facilities in East Memphis.

JB

Dwayne Thompson on the stump

Thompson is giving McManus  a run for his money, but the GOP incumbent, no slouch himself at campaigning and possessed of those aforesaid financial advantages as well as help from the Shelby County Republican Party’s vaunted Get-Out-the-Vote network, is sure to be heard from in the campaign’s home stretch.

• Apropos that home stretch: As of Tuesday morning, turnout in Shelby County had been higher than usual for early voting, which began last Wednesday and will end on Thursday, November 3rd. Much of the increase was due to the fact of the ongoing presidential election, of course, but, even allowing for that fact, voter interest seems to be unusually high.

Totals for Wednesday were 16,655; for Thursday, 14,892; for Friday, 15,249; and for Saturday, 9,819. In all cases, the turnout outstripped previous early-voting records, set in 2008, the year of President Barack Obama’s first election.

• Several of the Shelby County suburbs are having spirited local campaigns. In Germantown, there are races for the city’s board of aldermen as well as its school board, which, in both cases, come down to pitched battles between organized slates of incumbents and challengers — the Ins versus the Outs, as it were.

Three alderman seats are up in Germantown. Incumbents Dave Klevan (Position 3) and Rocky Janda (Position 5) are opposed by Dean Massey and David Nischwitz, respectively, while incumbent Forrest Owens has a free ride in Position 4.

Three of the seven school board seats are also on the ballot. Incumbents Linda Fisher (Position 1) and Natalie Williams (Position 3) are opposed by Laura Meanwell and Suzanne Jones, respectively, while Amy Eoff and Mindy Fischer are vying for the Position 5 seat vacated by outgoing member Ken Hoover.

All five incumbents, as well as Fischer, are being supported by current Germantown Mayor Mike Palazzolo, who spoke on their behalf at a meet-and-greet affair on Sunday at the home of Naser and Shila Fazlullah.

• For the first time since the Democratic gubernatorial field melted down in 2010 to a single serious candidate, Mike McWherter of Dresden, the state’s Democrats seem able and determined to up the ante and make a valid run for governor in 2018 against the now-dominant Tennessee Republican Party.  

• Bill Freeman, well-known Nashville businessman, former mayoral candidate, and prominent donor and activist in Democratic circles, will be the special guest and principal speaker at what is being billed as a “Reception for Senator Lee Harris & Rally for Our West Tennessee Candidates,” to be held in Memphis at the home of Democrat Linda Sowell on November 3rd.

The current co-chair of Hillary for Tennessee and a member of Democratic presidential candidate Clinton’s national finance committee, Freeman is scouting support for a possible race for governor in 2018. Former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean has also been criss-crossing the state as a prelude to a governor’s race.

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Politics Politics Feature

Shelby Democrats Make Do on GOTV

CREDIT: JB

Both local political parties held semi-official TV viewing parties for Monday night’s first presidential debate between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The GOP group convened at Tony’s Trophy Room in Collierville, and the Democrats met at the Trolley Stop Market in the Edge district.

The Democrats have been acting  under the handicap of having no official local party organization, inasmuch as the long-troubled Shelby County Democratic Party was formally decertified recently by state Democratic chair Mary Mancini of Nashville. But they seem to be compensating for that fact reasonably well, operating under the auspices of other ad hoc party groups in mounting a get-out-the-vote operation for the November 8th election.

Two events boosting Clinton’s presidential campaign were held in the run-up to the debate. On Saturday, there was a rally in conjunction with the opening of Hillary-for-President headquarters on Poplar. Ninth District congressman Steve Cohen was the keynote speaker for the affair, and he dutifully paid tribute to both candidate Clinton and President Obama, while roasting Republican contender Trump, whom he saw, among other things, as being in a working relationship with Russia, “a foreign nation that is one of our most powerful enemies, or the antithesis of what America is about.”

Cohen was a speaker also at another pro-Clinton event on Sunday night. This was organized by state Representative Raumesh Akbari (D-District 91) and billed as an “African-American Rally for Hillary Clinton.” 

Held at Christ Missionary Baptist Church on South Parkway, the event drew a decent-sized crowd and was addressed by a number of local notables, including — besides Cohen and Akbari — state Representatives Joe Towns, Larry Miller, and Johnnie Turner; state Democratic Party secretary Gale Jones Carson; Shelby County Commissioner Walter Bailey; city council members Martavius Jones and Janis Fullilove; Pastor J. Lawrence Turner of the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church; and Young Democrat president Alvin Crook. Moderating the event was TaJuan Stout Mitchell.

JB

Commissioner Walter Bailey was one of several speakers at Sunday night rally.

In addition to party-oriented GOTV appeals, the affair was notable for the extent to which the speakers drew connections between the pending outcome of the current presidential campaign and safeguarding the legacy of the civil rights movement. “It is imperative that we vote, not just for our future, but to honor our past,” said Rev. Turner while chronicling African-American heroes from Medgar Evers and Fannie Lou Hamer to President Obama. 

“Just as many of us rose before dawn in 2008 to make history by electing the first African-American president, we, too, must rise in 2016 to make sure that his legacy lives on,” Turner said. He scoffed at Trump’s attempts at moralistic criticism of the Clintons. “He himself had five children by three different women. If he was African-American, they wouldn’t even sell him a ticket to let him tour the White House!”

Fullilove recalled teaching at Southwest Community College in 2008 and requiring her students to go vote or risk losing a letter grade on the semester. She also contended that in 1968, when she was an 18-year-old student at Booker T. Washington High School and participated in a march after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, she was shot at by a Memphis police officer, with the bullet passing through the knotted pony-tail of her hairdo. [See also “Janis Fullilove: Shot at and Downed by a Memphis Policeman in 1968?”

In his remarks, Cohen repeated some of his prior criticisms of Trump as self-serving rather than public-spirited, and, in warning of future consequences if Trump should be elected, the Congressman spent considerable time on the issue of the current inheritance tax, which, he said, Republicans call the “death tax” and seek to eliminate, though it affects only a tiny portion of the electorate, whose assets run well into the millions.

• The Shelby County Commission, whose members in recent months have been involved in an on-again, off-again power struggle with the administration of County Mayor Mark Luttrell, have returned to that theme with a passion.

In heated discussions during last week’s meeting of the commission’s general government committee and this Monday’s regular public meeting, various commissioners alternately tangled with and bargained with county CAO Harvey Kennedy regarding two proposed ordinances that would essentially increase commission control over the county mayor’s hiring and firing authority.

One ordinance would establish time limits on the administration’s ability to employ interim employees; the other would in effect give the commission veto power over the administration’s ability to discharge any member of the county legal staff. Both are works in progress and are discussed in this week’s Flyer Viewpoint (p. 13) by Commissioner Van Turner, a co-author of the ordinances.

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News News Feature

Panhandled

There is no social concern that a new law can’t solve. So in the absence of public policies to help the poor, Tennessee lawmakers created a new class of criminal: the aggressive panhandler.

A law went into effect July 1st that prohibits behavior already covered by other state laws, such as following someone who doesn’t want to be followed (stalking) or touching someone who doesn’t want to be touched (assault).

If you think this law is about anything other than protecting business interests in trendy areas, listen to what the sponsors said as the bill moved through the legislature.

“We have an interest in promoting tourism,” said the Senate sponsor, Republican Brian Kelsey of Germantown. “If individuals fear harm to their person because of aggressive panhandling, then they will no longer come here for tourist events and we will lose those state tax dollars associated with those events.”

House sponsor Raumesh Akbari was more direct. “What we’re really trying to get to … there are certain areas in Memphis that are on the upswing,” said the Memphis Democrat, mentioning downtown specifically. “I actually had a constituent who was punched by a panhandler,” Akbari said.

Anecdotes should not be the basis for public policy. But when it comes to ways to punish the poor and prioritize profits over people, if one law is good, then more are better.

In the Senate judicial committee, Memphis Democrat Sara Kyle was the lone voice of concern. “This seems awfully subjective,” Kyle said, wondering how the law would be enforced. “Isn’t this ‘he said, she said’?”

Kelsey had no such qualms. “At the end of the day, that’s going to be an issue for the prosecutor to prove,” he said.

The first violation is a Class C misdemeanor. A second violation is a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days in jail.

To her credit, Akbari toned down Kelsey’s bill with two amendments.

“If I’m standing still and you walk past me and I kindly ask you to give me a dollar, that’s not aggressive,” she said in a House criminal justice subcommittee. “If someone happens to be intoxicated and says, ‘Please, sir, do you have a dollar to spare,’ that’s not aggressive, just because they happen to be intoxicated while doing it,” she said.

In the end, the bill passed with only one no vote.

Peter Gathje, who helps run the homeless ministry Manna House, had harsh words for the law’s supporters. “Most people’s discomfort around panhandlers is that panhandlers are visible and sometimes verbal reminders that our society is messed up,” he wrote on Facebook.

“If I’m downtown enjoying myself, going out for dinner and drinks, I don’t want to feel like I am that well-dressed and well-fed rich guy in the Bible who went to hell because poor Lazarus didn’t even get the scraps from my table,” he wrote.

Gathje quotes Matthew 5:42, in which Jesus says: “‘Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.’ But then downtown merchants, political leaders, and even a few clergy say, ‘If you give to panhandlers you’re just enabling drug abuse or alcoholism or laziness.'”

Said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose last mission was to unite people across racial lines in pursuit of economic justice: “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

Pay attention to King’s choice of words. Panhandlers are produced. They are the creation of a nation in which most of the jobs being created pay less than a living wage. They testify of cities where mental health counseling is scarce, substance abuse treatment is nonexistent, and a night at the city’s largest shelter costs more than $5.

They speak to the nose-chopping, face-spiting cruelty of the Republican legislators who, despite the pleas of thousands of constituents, refused to accept federal dollars to expand Medicaid, costing lives and billions in forfeited revenue.

“In the absence of housing or even shelter, we pass laws stigmatizing those who stand and ask for money,” Gathje wrote.

Take comfort in this: If there is divine reckoning at the end of our days, legislators who turned their backs on the poor will themselves have to beg — for forgiveness and for mercy.

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Politics Politics Feature

Outliers and Insiders

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

The history of American politics demonstrates that positions that seem unconventional, even outrageous, when first broached have a way of becoming the norm with the passage of time — and sometimes not much time at all.

Think “Defense of Marriage Act,” now blink your eyes and think “Marriage Equality Act.” Even simpler: Think “Bruce,” don’t waste time with blinking and now think “Caitlyn.”

Though there was a time when the political left was responsible for most innovations (think 1960s, sit-ins, or even Social Security), the initiative where change is concerned seems to have shifted over to the right. Or at least to some mutating middle.

On the urban scene — and not just in problem-plagued Memphis city government — the idea of de-annexation may be finding its time. A bill to that effect got a trial run in the General Assembly last year, and it’s sure to take another bow in 2016.

Now you find the phenomenon of three city council candidates running as a ticket on that idea — which seemingly originated with suburban conservatives, but coupling it with such street-populist and Mempho-centric ideas as saving the Mid-South Coliseum and restoring pension and benefit levels for city police and firefighters.

The three are Jim Tomasik, a veteran of Libertarian Party politics; Lynn Moss, who admits to being Republican; and Robin Spielberger, whose politics are more amorphous. The trio of council candidates (Moss, Super-District 9, Position 2; Tomasik, District 2; and Spielberger, Super-District 9, Position 1) held an open-air meet-and-greet/fund-raiser Saturday at Lost Pizza Company on Poplar (site of the old Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant).

Their slogan (on a sign alongside a downtown-skyline graphic) indicates the ambivalent appeal of their position. “Right for Memphis/Cordova,” it says, and the fact is, sentiment for de-annexation seems to have just such a divided appeal. Recently annexed suburbanites (Moss and Tomasik are Cordovans) want independence (though they might settle for autonomy); meanwhile, a growing number of Memphians, like Spielberger, are concerned about the high costs of providing services to the sprawling outer areas annexed in recent years.

Maybe these three are wasting their time (competing with well-financed traditional candidates is going to be a problem), and maybe they are pathfinders, and maybe they’ll even run competitive races. All that remains to be seen, and how it works out may tell us something about our future.

• The developing matchup in council District 5 involves more conventional candidates and enough conservatives and liberals to allow for intramural contests within the larger race itself.

Of the nine potential candidates who have so far drawn petitions, five have drawn the most attention, and, though the nonpartisan nature of city elections allows for a certain flow across party preference and ideological lines, those five divide into two groups, basically.

Dan Springer, a still-youthful veteran of government service and Republican politics, and Worth Morgan, an even more youthful insurance executive with family ties to elite Memphis business circles, are regarded as battling it out for the loyalty of conventional conservatives. (Morgan’s first-quarter financial disclosure showed upwards of $150,000 on hand; my friend Kyle Veazey of the Commercial Appeal may not like the term, but that’s a war chest.)

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, Mary Wilder, Charles “Chooch” Pickard, and John Marek, will be competing for the support of those voters who see themselves as progressives (a designation that has largely replaced “liberal” as a self-signifier).

All three have overlapping interests and platforms, with Wilder noted for neighborhood advocacy, Pickard for preservationist activity, and Marek for campaign management. Wilder and Pickard have been in the field for some time, while Marek, a longtime advocate of police reform and loosening of restrictions on marijuana, is poised to begin a serious effort.

Expectations are that a runoff is inevitable, with no candidate able to get an absolute majority as of October 8th. It seems almost certain that either Springer or Morgan will make the runoff, to vie against whoever predominates among the progressive trio. But it is not impossible that the two perceived conservatives, given the depth of their anticipated resources, will end up opposing each other.

It is less likely that the runoff will be drawn exclusively from the Wilder-Pickard-Marek aggregation, but that is possible.

The Rev. Kenneth Whalum drew a petition for a District 5 race, along with petitions for Super-District 9, Position 2, and mayor, but it’s now being taken for granted that he will end up in the mayoral field.

Colonel Gene Billingsley, Jimmie Franklin, and Jennifer James Williams, all of whom have drawn petitions for District 5 (Franklin has actually filed), have to be regarded as outliers, on the basis of the name-identification factor alone.

• At its meeting of June 3rd in Nashville, the Tennessee Ethics Commission met to consider several new penalties for alleged campaign-finance offenders and to reconsider several already assessed. One of the latter was a $1,000 fine imposed on then Shelby County Democratic Party chairman Bryan Carson last September.

As the commission recapped the situation last week: “Mr. Carson was assessed $1,000 at the September 17, 2014, meeting for failure to file the Statement of Interests. Mr. Carson has subsequently filed and appeared before the commission to explain the tardiness of his filing. After the discussion, Mr. [Jim] Stranch made the motion to reconsider and to waive the penalty as it was Mr. Carson’s first time filing. Mr. [Greg] Hardeman seconded and the motion passed 5-0.”

Carson — who ran afoul of his executive committee and the state Election Registry for his accounting procedures a few months ago and subsequently resigned his chairmanship — offered this explanation: “A few months ago, I learned that each candidate running for public must file a Statement of Interest and submit it to the Tennessee Ethics Commission. I ran for the Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee last August 2014 and did not know that I needed to complete a Statement of Interest which was due in September 2014. 

“All candidates were required to complete another statement in January 2015, of which I completed and filed on time. Running to serve on the TNDP was my first time running for public office, therefore, that weighed heavily on the final decision of the Tennessee Ethics Commission.”

• Fresh from serving as host for a “Memphis for Hillary” rally held on Saturday in a Southeast Memphis storefront owned by her family, state Representative Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) is in Canada this week, guest of the Embassy of Canada, which selected her and seven other legislators from the United States for a week-long “Rising State Leaders Program.”

The program began in 2006 with the goal of facilitating understanding between the two neighbor countries on business, trade, and cultural matters. The 2015 program, focusing on eastern Canada, will take legislators to Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. It began on Sunday and will continue through Saturday.

Following the death of longtime legislative eminence Lois DeBerry in 2013, Akbari won a special election to represent DeBerry’s District 91 House seat in the Tennessee General Assembly. She was easily reelected to full term last year.

A member of the House Criminal Justice Committee and Subcommittee, Akbari also serves on the House Education Instruction and Program Committee, where she closely monitors the effect on Memphis public schools of various state programs. She has sponsored several pieces of legislation designed to safeguard the structure of Memphis schools during a period of rapidly imposed innovations at the state level.