Tag: Steve Mulroy

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Mulroy to Read from New Book on Election Reform

Author, attorney, and founding father cosplayer, Steve Mulroy

Former Counrty Commissioner and mayoral candidate Steve Mulroy (here rocking a period wig and mugging the camera) is not a Founding Father. He just plays one (James Wilson, by name) in the  Tony-winning musical, 1776, now playing at Theatre Memphis though March 31. Mulroy, whose day job is that of law professor at the University of Memphis, is also the author of Unskewing the System: Rethinking U.S. Election Law, which he will read from and discuss at Novel Bookstore on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

As the title suggests, he book treats any number of proposals — including Instant Runoff Voting — for making the American electoral system fairer and more accessible.

Attendees will have the opportunity to acquire a volume by means of a special author’s discount.

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Book Features Books

Books from Memphians with a Message

“An nything you like about this book is due to me, and any errors are the fault of those listed above.”

Those words, following a list of acknowledgements, are in the author’s foreword from a new book — and a scholarly one, in fact — that political junkies and, really, all serious writers with an interest in the future of their society can profit from. The sense of humor in the sentence quoted above is a tip-off that the author, who knows his subject, well understands that famous maxim of Aristotle’s: “All art must both amuse and instruct.”

The book is Rethinking U.S. Election Law: Unskewing the System (Edward Elgar Publishing, Ltd). The author is one Steven Mulroy, professor at the University of Memphis and, of late, a member of the Shelby County Commission. Even more recently, Mulroy was the sparkplug and primary eminence of the local movement to reject a City Council-sponsored referendum that would have prohibited the use of Instant Runoff Voting.

Back in 2008, Mulroy was the Johnny Appleseed of the IRV process when the original referendum authorizing it was passed by Memphis voters. IRV, in brief, is a means of voting whereby voters, instead of just picking a single candidate, can rank several in order of preference, so that if no candidate succeeds in polling a majority, the voters’ secondary choices are weighted and factored into the results so that a majority winner can prevail.

The result: No plurality winner (as in the last presidential election). No expensive and ill-attended runoff or the anti-IRV referendum emanating from the Council. IRV is scheduled for use in the 2019 city election but still must maneuver its way past a couple of legal actions — one of them from the state Election Coordinator — attempting to block it.

“One common response to any argument for a national popular presidential vote [another cause preferred by the author] is, ‘we live in a republic, not a democracy.’ Indeed, that response comes up in just about any discussion of any significant electoral reform. It is, of course, a shibboleth rather than an argument. The U.S. is both a democracy (governed by the people) and, more specifically, a republic (governed by the people through elected representatives). … [B]oth terms are consistent with the Founders’ original understanding, and any purported distinction between the two” is irrelevant.

That about says it.

Equally rewarding to the lay reader and the political adept is Jocie (The Hillhelen Group LLC, $20 at Novel), a personal memoir by one of the most thoroughly committed citizens of Shelby County. In the course of this jaunty, passionate, and humble narrative, one encounters a being determined to fully experience the actual world she lives in and equally determined to improve it to the most ideal specifications she can imagine.

The author, Jocelyn Wurzburg, has used her life to graduate from the status of “good little girl” in 1950s Memphis to that of mover and shaker in almost every good big cause there has been in the rapidly changing social ferment of her adulthood.

The singularity and determination to be of her times and not just in them caused Wurzburg to ignore every barricade she encountered — religious, social, political, what-have-you.

She has been active, from the time of the 1968 sanitation strike crisis, in the cause of racial togetherness and civil rights, to the point that the Tennessee Human Rights Commission has not only taken note of her efforts, the THRC has named its highest honor the Jocelyn Wurzburg Civil Rights Legacy Award.

A lawyer, she became a pioneer in the art of domestic mediation once she realized that divorces for most people had become a zero-sum game. She has also been a force in women’s rights movements locally, statewide, and national.

For all her involvements and distinction, though, she remains as down-to-earth and gracious as the old cliche of Southern hospitality would suggest. She is famously colloquial in speech and, when circumstances call for it, deportment. If you don’t know her, you should. If you spend your time in the company of people trying to help Memphis find its best self, you will.

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Politics Politics Feature

Defining the Divide on the Shelby County Commission

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

In the month and a half that the current version of the Shelby County Commission — the one in office as of the August 2nd county general election — has been meeting, it has become clear that serious division of opinion exists on the body, more or less along party lines.

But, so far, no open antagonism has manifested itself. That fact would distinguish this commission from its two immediate predecessors — the commission of 2010-2014, which saw animosities flare between members, and the one of 2014-2018, which saw open warfare between a bipartisan contingent on the commission and the county mayor’s office.

Two key votes at the commission’s Monday meeting indicated the divides of this commission. One vote was to approve a vote of no confidence in the recent decision by the U.S. Department of Justice to terminate a Memorandum of Agreement with Shelby County providing continued DOJ oversight of problems with Juvenile Court.

Jackson Baker

As Democrat Tami Sawyer (right) speaks to a no-confidence resolution on end of DOJ oversight of Juvenile Court, Republican Brandon Morrison looks on disapprovingly.

Both a commission majority and County Mayor Lee Harris have publicly disapproved of the decision to end oversight, and on Monday the vote on the no-confidence resolution, co-sponsored by Commissioner Tami Sawyer and Commission Chair Van Turner, both Democrats, passed by a 7-4-1 vote, with the four opponents being four of the commission’s five Republicans — Brandon Morrison, Amber Mills, David Bradford, and Mark Billingsley — while the fifth GOP member, Mick Wright, abstained.

A second resolution, this one co-sponsored by Sawyer and Edmund Ford Jr., requested that the Memorandum of Understanding between four major law-enforcement branches — the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, the Memphis Police Department, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and the Shelby County District Attorney General — be amended “to include TBI’s investigation of critical injuries” resulting from law enforcement shootings.

The resolution’s essential point was to enlarge TBI oversight of such incidents. The vote was similar, another 7-4-1 vote, with Wright joining the dissenters this time and Bradford abstaining.

This basic divide, along party lines, is likely to continue, especially on issues of social significance.

• Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, made a stop in Memphis on Saturday at the National Civil Rights Museum for an installment of the DNC’s “Seat at the Table” tour, designed to galvanize the involvement of African-American women in the party.

In his farewell message to attendees, Perez took note of one of the major issues on the November 6th ballot — the referendum for Memphis voters on repeal of Ranked Choice Voting, a method for determining winners, sans runoffs, in multi-candidate races in which no candidate has a majority.

“I’ve spent a lot of time on that issue,” said Perez, after giving a hat-tip to Steve Mulroy, the University of Memphis law professor and former county commissioner who has been a major proponent of RCV (aka Instant Runoff Voting), scheduled to be employed in the 2019 city election, unless repealed.

Perez suggested that “the Republicans” were “trying to take it away,” though in fact it was incumbents of the nonpartisan Memphis City Council who implanted the repeal referendum on the ballot.

“If I were living here, I’d vote no on that referendum, because you’ve already voted for it,” said Perez, who referred to a previous referendum, in 2008, when Memphis voters approved the process by a 70 percent majority. “It forces candidates to talk to everyone, instead of just that one base. It fosters civility because you can’t ignore 70 percent of the people.”

Perez went on: “Talk to them! What a radical concept. That’s why y’all voted for it, and that’s why they don’t want it.”

• Three weeks after Mike Stewart of Nashville, the Democrats’ caucus chairman in the Tennessee House of Representatives, came to Memphis to investigate Republican House candidate Scott McCormick, Stewart returned to reveal his findings.

What he’d been looking for was the absentee record from Shelby County Schools board meetings of McCormick, who is trying to unseat Democrat Dwayne Thompson, the upset winner in 2016 of the District 96 House seat.

Back on October 10th, Stewart and fellow Democrat Marjorie Pomeroy-Wallace spent an afternoon in the county Board of Education building waiting in vain for McCormick’s attendance records.

That was then. On Monday, Stewart and Wallace were back in front of the Board of Education building — but this time with a large standing chart showing, line by line, the apparent actual record of McCormick’s attendance on the board committees he has belonged to.

The chart purported to show that McCormick had missed “at least 72 of 94 committee meetings,” which translates into an absentee rate of 76 percent. “It is a record of chronic absenteeism,” said Stewart. “He consistently missed critical meetings on critical subjects.” Stewart gave as an example the issue of academic performance, which has been the focus of much concern in regard to Shelby County Schools.

“Of 25 meetings on academic performance, Scott McCormick attended just five. What can we expect when he gets into the legislature and nobody’s watching? He was AWOL and obviously should not be promoted to a new assignment. What are you going to do in Nashville when nobody’s supervising you?”

Stewart said the SCS office had not furnished him with written attendance records, but only with recordings, from which he and others had determined McCormick’s attendance record from listening to roll calls. “We had to listen laboriously to every one of them,” he said.

Asked for a reaction, McCormick said Stewart’s figures were misleading. “First of all, committee meetings on the school board aren’t like those in the legislature, which conform to a fixed, predictable schedule.” The School Board meetings were arranged around members’ convenience and availability according to ad hoc questionnaires, he said.

Moreover, said McCormick, “no action is taken at the committee meetings, nothing is voted on,” and any material developed in them is made available to board members in the monthly work sessions that precede by a week the board’s public business sessions. McCormick claimed an attendance rate of 22 out of 23 public business meetings at which votes were taken. And, he said, his attendance record at the evaluations committee, which he heads, was 100 percent.

McCormick said, in effect, that the focus on his attendance record was a red herring and that the main issue of the House race should be the matter of who best could benefit Shelby County in pushing for advances in education and economic development. He said that, as a member of the legislature’s majority party, he was better poised than Thompson to be effective in those regards.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

DNC Head Talks Up Ranked Choice Voting in Memphis

DNC chair Tom Perez at the National Civil Rights Museum on Saturday.

Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, paid a stop in Memphis on Saturday, at the National Civil Rights Museum for an installment of the DNC’s “Seat at the Table” tour, designed to galvanize the involvement of African-American women in the party.

In his farewell message to attendees, Perez took note of one of the major issues on the November 6th ballot — the referendum for Memphis voters on repeal of Ranked Choice Voting, a method for determining winners, sans runoffs, in multi-candidate races in which no candidate has a majority.

“I’ve spent a lot of time on that issue,” said Perez, after giving a hat-tip to Steve Mulroy, the University of Memphis law professor and former county commissioner who has been a major proponent of RCV (aka Instant Runoff Voting), scheduled to be employed in the 2019 city election, unless repealed.

Perez suggested that “the Republicans” were “trying to take it away,” though in fact it was incumbents of the nonpartisan Memphis City Council who implanted the repeal referendum on the ballot.

“If I were living here, I’d vote no on that referendum, because you’ve already voted for it,” said Perez, who referred to a previous referendum, in 2008, when Memphis voters approved the process by a 70 percent majority. “It forces candidates to talk to everyone, instead of just that one base. It fosters civility because you can’t ignore 70 percent of the people.

Perez went on: “Talk to them! What a radical concept. That’s why y’all voted for it, and that’s why they don’t want it.”

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Opinion Viewpoint

Don’t Be Misled by Ballot Referenda. Just Vote No.

There’s an old story about Reagan and Gorbachev in a footrace. Reagan wins. The next day, Pravda reports that “Gorbachev and Reagan in international leader footrace; Gorbachev comes in second; Reagan comes in next to last.”

You can be literally true but misleading. You can defraud through omission.

That’s what the Memphis City Council did when it drafted the three ballot measures on the November 6th ballot. It’s the subject of a pending lawsuit challenging the misleading referenda language. A quick look shows that they are fatally deceptive in a variety of ways.

Each of the three referenda seeks to undo election reforms which Memphis voters passed overwhelmingly in 2008 — but which haven’t yet been tried, thanks in part to official obstructionism by protectors of the status quo.

One is a two-term limit for city officials. The others involve Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which lets voters rank their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices; if no one gets a majority, you use the rankings to determine a majority winner, without the hassle, expense, ridiculously low turnout, and minority vote suppression involved with holding a separate “runoff” election later. IRV has a proven track record of success over decades in a dozen other U.S. cities.

Term limits force incumbents to resign after serving a proscribed length of time, and IRV makes elections more competitive. City Council incumbents want to kill both measures to make it easier to stay in power. This is bad enough, but the tricky language they’ve employed makes it worse.

The first referendum asks voters if they’d like to adopt a three-term limit for city officials — without informing voters that they have already adopted a two-term limit. It’s written in such a way to make voters think that if they want term limits, they should vote Yes, when, in truth, those who favor term-limits would likely want to vote No and keep the shorter term limit in place.

The second referendum would repeal IRV and go back to the way things were before its adoption, which would mean separate runoff elections for some council districts. But the ordinance fails to inform voters that doing so would cost the taxpayers more than $100,000 per year. This is a problem because a state statute says that the city is supposed to include an accurate estimate of the fiscal impact of such a ballot measure.

Indeed, in 2008, when voters first overwhelmingly passed IRV, the city complied with the statute and informed voters on the ballot that adopting IRV would save taxpayers $250,000 per year. This year, rather than informing voters that repealing IRV would cost $250,000 per year (or something in that range), the ballot says it’s impossible to estimate. It was possible in 2008, but impossible in 2018?

The third referendum would kill IRV by providing for plurality elections in all council districts, outlawing runoffs of any kind, “instant” or otherwise. Using this system, a candidate in a crowded field could win with only 25 percent of the vote, even if he is the least-preferred candidate of the majority of a district’s voters. Music to an incumbent’s ears.

This referendum directly contradicts the second referendum: Either we are using runoffs or we aren’t. It is fatally confusing.

We pointed out wording problems with the referenda as far back as last December, and we have been pointing out the fiscal-note problem repeatedly. Yet no corrective action was taken. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the fix is in, that our leaders are either indifferent to — or hoping for — the voter confusion their language will cause.

Voters already complain that such ballot questions are worded in incomprehensible legalese. This is true and unnecessary: Neutral “plain language” explanations are required in other jurisdictions. These three referenda are even worse than normal.

What can you do about it? Vote No on all three, for one thing. Support “Save IRV,” for another, so we can get the word out. You can find out more at saveirvmemphis.com, as well as donate, volunteer, and get a yard sign.

There are sound policy reasons for voting No on all three referenda, starting with the simple observation that the people voted for term limits and IRV 10 years ago and neither has been implemented yet. But the misleading text is yet another reason. Supporting these referenda is rewarding bad behavior by the Memphis City Council.

Don’t let them get away with it.

Steve Mulroy is a law professor at the University of Memphis and a former Shelby County commissioner.

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Politics Politics Feature

TV Talking Heads from Memphis

Most political junkies spend a lot of time watching talk-show television — the Sunday-morning network shows on the major networks, but also the regular feeds from the cable news stations: CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News.

Memphians watching those latter networks may occasionally experience a twinge of deja vu. It is axiomatic, of course, that people you see regularly on television become as familiar to you as your own neighbors. That’s certainly true of the on-air personalities of local television stations. It can be true as well of the aforementioned national television broadcasts, where the face you see on TV may actually be that of a neighbor.

In fact, it is probably impossible for an inveterate channel-surfer of cable news stations to avoid seeing locally resident talking heads Ben Ferguson, Philip Mudd, and Steve Mulroy.

l to r: Ben Ferguson, Philip Mudd, Steve Mulroy

Ferguson, 36, has had the longest on-air career of the three. He began his radio broadcast career at 13 and progressed through stints on various Memphis stations to become a regular presence on TV as well, via Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox Business, CNN, and CNN Headline News. An inveterate conservative, he is the author of the 2004 book, It’s My America, Too.

Mudd is an author of two books: Inside the Hunt for Al Qa’ida and The Head Game: High Efficiency Analytic Decision-Making and the Art of Solving Complex Problems Quickly. The first of these reflects Mudd’s lengthy career at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he served, post-9/11, as second-in-command of counter-terrorism analysis. The second title is more in keeping with Mudd’s day job as director of enterprise risk at SouthernSun Asset Management in Memphis.

Mudd is a consistent presence at CNN, where he is called upon to discuss the ramifications of spycraft, foreign policy, or any crisis of consequence within the Beltway. It helps that he once served as deputy director of the FBI’s National Security Branch under one Robert Mueller.

Then there’s Mulroy, the University of Memphis law professor who ran for Shelby County mayor in 2014 and served two terms as county commissioner. Like the others, Mulroy doesn’t just talk, he writes. He is the author of a plethora of scholarly articles on the law. His recently completed first book, Rethinking U.S. Election Law, is shortly to be published.
Mulroy appears frequently on local television; nationally, he divides his time between MSNBC, the news network whose liberal attitude toward politics most closely parallels Mulroy’s own, and Fox News. Ironically, Mulroy is probably called upon more often by Fox to discuss matters of law and politics.

“It usually makes little difference,” says Mulroy, explaining that he is generally asked not to advocate but merely to supply a competent analysis of legal issues. He no doubt speaks for his fellow talking heads when he discusses both the excitement and the perils of being summoned to a local broadcast studio, there to be interrogated remotely about important issues before audiences numbering in the millions — often without much advance coaching as to the direction of the questioning.

On MSNBC, recently, Mulroy was asked to explain the background and legal import of the arrest of Maria Valeryevna Butina, a Russian national accused of spying. Butina had just been nabbed, and the details of her work were as yet undisclosed. Mulroy, caught cold by the question, managed to do a creditable job of reading between the lines, but the moment was typical of the high-wire act a TV talking head can sometimes encounter.

Still, Mulroy says, “I like it because it provides a national profile for the University.” And? “Sure, it’s personally gratifying.”

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Instant Runoff Advocate Reacts to Council Vote for Anti-Runoff Referendum

The following is an exchange between Allan Wade, counsel for the Memphis City Council, and Steve Mulroy, a University of Memphis law professor, former Shelby County Commissioner, and leading advocate of instant runoff voting for local elections. The exchange relates to an ordinance — passed 11-2 by the Council on Tuesday — establishing a referendum that could eliminate all runoff voting in city elections. Mulroy’s reference to being “out of the country” refers to a sabbatical law fellowship of his, now ongoing in Canberra, Australia.

From: Allan Wade
Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2018 11:07:27 AM
To: Steven John Mulroy (smulroy); Boyd, Berlin; Bibbs, Carlos; jim.strickland@memphistn.gov; Alan Crone
Cc: Edmund.Fordjr@memphistn.gov
Subject: RE: Text Of Ballot For IRV
Good morning—I have been requested to inquire whether your organization, Fair Vote, has a position on the referendum ordinance eliminating run-offs in Council district races? And, if Fair Vote is supportive will it contribute to an information campaign for that Item?

Mr. Wade:

Steve Mulroy

I’m out of the country. It was early morning when I first saw your email. I decided to wait til I got to my office and pen a proper response on a desktop rather than try to use my iPhone. I was unaware from your message that this was time sensitive, or that the Council was actively debating the plurality measure as you wrote.

I’ve since been told that you informed the Council that I was unresponsive to your email, or gave you the cold shoulder, or the like. If this is so, this is an unfair characterization, and I hope that you will convey this response to the Council before they vote. Since the sponsor asked for my position, it is only fair that you timely and accurately convey it.

My organization is not Fairvote. It is Save Instant Runoff Memphis, made up of scores of Memphis residents who favor IRV for the unique conditions of Memphis. Fairvote is a national organization that we consult with, just as Councilman Ford consulted extensively with a California-based national opponent of IRV (who often prefers to remain anonymous).
I very much appreciate Councilwoman Swearengen inquiring as to our position and inviting us to participate in a public education campaign. Please thank her for that courtesy.
Respectfully, though, we oppose the plurality ordinance. The reasons were spelled out in “Respect the Voters,” a guest editorial I published in the Memphis Flyer last month.

In a nutshell, plurality creates the “spoiler” effect—i.e., if too many candidates representing the majority view enter the race, their vote is split, and a candidate squeaks by with 39% of the vote who actually is the LEAST-PREFERRED candidate of the majority. This is how Donald Trump became the Republican nominee in 2016, even though most Republican primary voters ranked him pretty far down the list. Plurality is fraught with problems from a minority vote dilution perspective in a city or district with a black majority. Plurality also is subject to manipulation; an established candidate can recruit another candidate to enter the race and split the vote of the other side. We have all seen examples of both phenomena in Memphis elections in the last few decades.
IRV eliminates both these problems, and ensures the majority’s will in a given district, while also avoiding the problems of 5% participation, minority vote dilution, and disadvantage to lesser-funded candidates present with regular runoffs in Memphis—arguments familiar to those who listened to the December debate on Councilman Ford’s ordinance.
Most important, Memphis voters voted for IRV at a 71% rate in 2008, and only obstructionism by those in power has prevented its implementation. IRV should be given a chance to succeed or fail before we consider replacing it with a plurality for all system.
Finally, it should be noted that the plurality ordinance directly conflicts with Councilman Ford’s ordinance. Having both on the November referendum ballot will cause voter confusion. If both were to pass in November, there would be legal uncertainty. At a minimum, the Council should decide on one or the other and stick with one in November.
Again, we appreciate the Council seeking our views. If the plurality ordinance gets on the ballot, Save Instant Runoff Voting Memphis will urge the public to vote “NO,” just as it will with Councilman Ford’s December ordinance.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Respect the Voters

In 2008, in a series of referendum votes, Memphis voters made clear how they wanted Memphis City Council elections to work. This year, the city council is systematically disrespecting the voters’ preferences through a series of votes for referendum do-overs this November. The result will be voter confusion at best and, at worst, the entrenchment of incumbents in an undemocratic system.

Currently, the council consists of seven members elected from single-member districts, and six members elected from “Super Districts” electing three members each. In the single-member districts, if no one candidate gets a majority, the top two vote-getters advance to a separate runoff round six weeks later. As described by John Marek in these pages last December, these expensive runoffs typically have only 5 percent turnout, a turnout that is disproportionately white and affluent.

In the Super Districts, no majority is required. A candidate can win with 38 percent of the vote if she has more votes than the other five candidates. This “plurality” system can allow the majority to split its votes among several similar candidates, allowing the least-preferred candidate of the majority to squeak by with 38 percent of the vote.  That’s how Donald Trump, who polling showed would have lost in head-to-head contests against candidates like Mario Rubio and Ted Cruz, won the early primaries to become the front-runner and eventual Republican nominee. 

It’s a system subject to manipulation and collusion. An established candidate can recruit a “shill” candidate to enter the race and split the opposition’s voting bloc, allowing him to prevail with a bare plurality. The plurality system is arguably an even worse system than regular runoffs.

The solution to both problems, overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2008, is Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), where voters rank their first, second, and third choices. This ensures a majority winner, without the need for an expensive, low-turnout second election. It saves time and money, boosts participation, makes the electorate more representative of the district as a whole, and discourages negative campaigning (because candidates want to be the second choice of their opponents’ base and will be loathe to alienate them with mudslinging). IRV is slated to be phased in for single-member districts in the next city council election in 2019, with eventual implementation in all city council districts thereafter.

Last December, before IRV even had a chance to be tried once, the council voted to place a repeal of IRV on the November referendum ballot. Now, the council is about to add another competing referendum on the ballot: a proposal  to use plurality voting for all city council elections, even the single-member districts that have used regular runoffs. Both measures would kill IRV if approved by voters in November. 

Currently, there is no announced plan to withdraw the December “regular runoff” referendum measure in deference to the plurality plan (though that, of course, could change).

If you’re confused about how two contradictory measures can be on the ballot side by side, you won’t be alone. It will cause needless voter confusion in November. Some local commentators have suggested that if both are on the ballot, and they both pass, the plurality measure would make the regular runoff measure moot. That’s not at all clear: The language of the two measures is directly in conflict. Passing both would cause legal uncertainty.

The mess underscores how desperate some council incumbents are to eliminate Instant Runoff Voting, which opens up opportunities for lesser-known, lesser-funded candidates to enter the system.

Also illustrative of the incumbency protection is yet another referendum measure about to pass, which would undo another 2008 referendum result: In 2008, referendum voters said they wanted council members limited to two terms. Again, before there’s even been a chance to put that into effect, council members are pushing a referendum measure which would extend that from two terms to three terms. Conveniently, it applies to current council members.

The consistent theme here is that many city council members don’t care what the voters decided in 2008. They know better, and they’re going to push through referenda to craft a council election system most congenial to them.

We should reject all these proposals, give IRV a chance, and respect what the voters said in 2008.

Steve Mulroy is a University of Memphis law professor and a former Shelby County Commissioner.

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Politics Politics Feature

On the “Mr. Drysdale Effect” and Other Political Doings

In the same way that subtle changes in the color of leaves signal the onset of a new physical season, the increased number of fund-raisers in Shelby County — several each week and sometimes overlapping — are a reliable harbinger of the approaching 2018 election season.

A case in point was the fact that Shelby County Republican rank-and-filers had to choose Thursday of the week before last between paying homage to county sheriff candidate Dale Lane, beneficiary of a fund-raiser in Whitehaven, and rendering an ear (plus coin of the realm) to mayoral candidate Terry Roland at Southwind Country Club.

To be sure, neither candidate is yet assured of being the Republican nominee next year, although the chances of Lane, who has no name GOP opponent on the horizon yet, are better in that respect than those of Roland, who knows he has a serious race for county mayor, with fellow Republicans David Lenoir and Joy Touliatos as primary opponents, and very likely a name Democrat if he gets to the general.

But there are some card-carrying Republicans who want to support both Lane and Roland, and, unless they could clone themselves on Thursday, there was no way they could do both — not in person, anyhow. Both are looking not just for an audience and a vote, but for the fund-raising dollar.

As Roland said in his pitch to the crowd at Southwind: “I need the money, the money to get our message out. The people I’m running against are some very wealthy people.”

And, lest that appeal come off as too abject, Roland rephrased it with a cultural allusion: “I didn’t know I was going to be running against Mr. Drysdale, but I guess I am.”  

The “Mr. Drysdale” in question would be the wealthy banker/bankroller played by actor Raymond Bailey in the vintage ’60s TV sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. That many members of Roland’s fund-raiser crowd guffawed in appreciation is some indication perhaps of one of the demographics he is counting on for support.

County Trustee Lenoir was being cast by Roland as someone in league with the county’s political/financial establishment. Nor did the commissioner overlook his other GOP opponent, Juvenile Court Clerk Touliatos, about whom he said this, clearly tailoring his remarks to a suburban constituency:

“The other one that I’m running against, if you look at the people that’s supporting her, it’s the people you’re fighting right now; it’s the pro-consolidation people, okay? And Jim Strickland is one of her lead dogs. Let me tell you this: If she gets to be the mayor, then you might as well say that Jim Strickland will have free run of the whole county.”

This attempt at drawing a connection between city Mayor Strickland and a candidate running for county mayor foreshadows what could become a serious leitmotif in the politics of 2018. On Monday of this week, Roland, in his guise as county commissioner, had no difficulty persuading fellow commissioners to hold off on approving an interlocal agreement with the city on financing a new sports arena.

Right now, as it happens, the city and county are at loggerheads on several issues — that of de-annexation, for one (a co-speaker at the Roland fund-raiser was Patty Possel, an activist in that movement and a forthcoming GOP candidate for the District 96 state House seat now held by Democrat Dwayne Thompson). Another is the recent decision announced by Strickland shutting off any new taps on the city sewer line by county developments.

• Across town, on the same day that week, in Whitehaven, a former county commissioner, James Harvey, was hosting an event for Lane, the county director of homeland security, who is the odds-on favorite to be the Republican nominee for sheriff next year.

At least half the crowd was African American, a good sign for a Republican candidate, especially one likely to be facing a credentialed black candidate, Chief Deputy Floyd Bonner, as the Democratic nominee for sheriff. And Bonner, let us remember, drew an appreciable number of white folks to his recent kickoff at the Racquet Club, among them current Sheriff Bill Oldham, who was elected eight years ago as a Republican and who made a point of endorsing Bonner.

While clearly we are not yet in a post-racial political environment — and may never be — both candidates will be pitching in all directions. A good thing, that.

Incidentally, Harvey, who was elected to two terms as a commissioner as a Democrat, spoke at some length in his introduction of Lane, making the point that he himself had crossed the party line and was now a Republican. Make of that what you will.

In his remarks, Lane, as usual, stressed his intention to focus on combatting youth violence.

 

• Another recent fund-raiser was the one held last week at the Donati law office on Union for County Commissioner Van Turner, who is unlikely to attract any serious opponents of his reelection next year but is taking no chances.

A goodly crowd showed up for that one, and, as is fairly often the case, much of the drama lay in who was there to see and be seen. In the case of the Turner event, it was Bank of Bartlett president Harold Byrd, a former state representative and Democratic congressional candidate who, as was noted recently by the Flyer, has signaled an interest in re-entering active political life as a candidate for county mayor.

More show-and-tell is due this week, with Germantown Democrats awaiting an appearance at their monthly meeting on Wednesday night by state Senator Lee Harris, who is also floating a possible mayoral bid (actually co-floating one with his University Memphis law school colleague and former County Commissioner Steve Mulroy; don’t ask).

And, apropos that aforementioned city/county dichotomy, two potential cross-overs are in play: City Councilman Ed Ford has a fund-raiser Wednesday night for his bid for county commission District 9 (now held by the term-limited Justin Ford). And conjecture continues about a possible Democratic primary race for county mayor by former council stalwart, now Chamber of Commerce veep Shea Flinn.

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Politics Politics Feature

Byrd and Flinn Looking to County Mayor’s Race?

UPDATED to correct the order of finish in the 2014 Democratic primary for Shelby County Mayor.

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Last week, Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland, speaking at a fund-raiser in his honor at Southwind Country Club, let loose with typically strenuous blasts against his two major Republican opponents in the forthcoming 2018 race for Shelby County mayor — characterizing County Trustee David Lenoir as basically a tool of the political/financial establishment and questioning Juvenile Court Clerk Joy Touliatos‘ bona fides on de-annexation matters.

The Republican three-way battle royal is an open and settled proposition. It is on the Democratic side that intrigue (in every sense of that word) and potential surprise are major factors behind the scenes. 

Sidney Chism, the ex-Teamster leader, former local party chairman, two-time county commission chairman, interim state senator, and political broker nonpareil, has long advertised his availability for the office, but, though Chism continues to preside over a well-attended annual political picnic, it is an open question whether and to what degree the major clout he once enjoyed in Democratic circles has been diminished. 

Now employed by Sheriff Bill Oldham, Chism has had to weather criticism from party purists for his past electoral support of Oldham, who ran for office as Republican, and though he was eventually cleared by an ethics panel, had to withstand formal conflict-of-interest charges from then commission colleague Roland for having voted on appropriations measures that contained wraparound benefits for his day-care operation.

Meanwhile, other Democrats continue to ponder the idea of running. Two possibilities are University of Memphis law professors Steve Mulroy and Lee Harris, who have long been supportive of each other’s political careers. 

A liberal’s liberal in the manner of Memphis congressman Steve Cohen, Mulroy served two terms on the county commission and was a candidate for county mayor in the 2014 Democratic primary, finishing third a three-way race involving eventual nominee Deidre Malone and the Rev. Kenneth Whalum Jr. , who finished second despite being out of the country during the latter part of the race).

Until the surprise election of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump last year drastically altered his prospects, at least for the immediate future, Mulroy’s chief ambitions concerned the possibility of an appointment to the federal judiciary. Now Mulroy’s options have once again become more expressly political.

Harris has always leaned in the direction of political office. As a political unknown in 2006, Harris was one of the also-rans in the 9th District congressional primary of that year, won eventually by Cohen. By 2011, he had enough name recognition to run for, and narrowly win, a Memphis City Council race against Kemba Ford.

Harold Byrd and Shea Flinn

Nor did Harris’ ambitions end there. He was active in pursuit of cutting-edge issues and was the chief sponsor of an ordinance prohibiting job discrimination against members of the LGBTQ commmunity. In 2014, he ran in the Democratic primary against another member of the Ford political clan, state Senator Ophelia Ford, and was able to unseat her.

Harris got himself elected leader of the shrunken five-member Democratic corps in the state Senate and made the most of his position, becoming an active spokesman for the party’s issues, and meanwhile working across the aisle with Republicans like state Senator Brian Kelsey on nonpartisan matters.

Ever on the move, Harris meditated seriously on another race for Congress against incumbent Cohen but thought better of it, publicly dropping the idea in early 2016. His latest initiative, the Tennessee Voter Project, serves the dual purpose of revving up Democratic energy in general and keeping his name before the public.

And now opportunity beckons once more with the county mayor’s race. It seems almost inevitable that either he or Mulroy, still functioning as a mutually supportive duo, will make the race, and that coin flip will likely happen fairly soon.

Nor does the guessing game end there. The latest rumors in Democratic Party circles concern the possible mayoral candidacies of two other big names — Harold Byrd and Shea Flinn. 

A core member of the politically active Byrd family, Byrd is president of the Bank of Bartlett, essentially a family enterprise. A longtime state Representative and a political broker in his own right, Byrd was the Democratic nominee for Congress in the 7th District in 1994, losing that year to Republican Ed Bryant.

He prepared a race for county mayor in 2002 but reluctantly withdrew when then Public Defender A C Wharton became a candidate for the nomination, transforming that year’s Democratic primary into a three-way affair that also included then state Representative Carol Chumney.

By 2010, Byrd’s reputation and popularity, both in Democratic circles and across the party line, were such as to make him an odds-on favorite to be elected county mayor that year. Pointedly, Mark Luttrell, the ultimate winner as a Republican nominee, had let it be known that he would eschew the mayoral race and seek reelection as sheriff if Byrd ran for mayor. But a combination of a personal illness and a post-recession duty to see to the needs of the family banking business kept Byrd from running that year.

Now, the word is that Byrd, with both his own and the bank’s health in seemingly good order, is looking at one last chance at gaining the office.

Then there is the chance of a candidacy for the office by Shea Flinn, yet another former political figure with a high profile, both in Democratic Party ranks and in bipartisan circles. A prominent member of the city council after his election in 2007, Flinn resigned his seat in 2015 to become senior vice president for the Greater Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce.

That Flinn was considering a re-entry into political ranks was first signaled recently when his name was prominently featured in a telephone robo-poll of potential candidates for county mayor. That was amid rampant speculation that Flinn had a hand in the sponsorship of the poll.

If Flinn should become a candidate he is sure to have the full support of his father, wealthy radiologist/broadcast executive George Flinn, whose resources are such as to have paid for numerous political races by the senior Flinn himself, a one-time member of the County Commission but a so-far unsuccessful aspirant for a variety of other offices.

That George Flinn is a conservative Republican and Shea Flinn is known as a progressive Democrat is an anomaly of the James Carville-Mary Matalin sort that troubles neither father nor son.