Sundquist, who retired with wife Martha to a home in Townsend in East Tennessee after leaving office, now serves as co-chairman, with former governor Angus King of Maine, of the federal Medicaid Commission, charged with making proposals for Medicaid reform.

Friday night’s affair, sponsored by the Shelby County Republican Women and organized by SCRW president Jeanette Watkins, also brought out another recent GOP luminary, former Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout, who served as emcee for the ceremony.

Attendance, which was generous and across the board politically, included both the previously declared Republican candidates for clerk in next year’s election – current Creson aide Debbie Stamson and Shelby County Commissioner Marilyn Loeffel.

On Saturday morning, Sundquist returned to East Tennessee and attended Saturday’s football game between the Tennessee Volunteers and the South Carolina Gamecocks in Knoxville.,/p>

Hanging With Sidney: Former Teamster leader (and ex-state Senator) Sidney Chism, now a candidate for the Shelby County Commission seat being vacated by veteran Cleo Kirk was the host/beneficiary of a meet-the-candidate picnic at the park grounds on Horn Lake Road Saturday. Among those attending were Chism’s long-time political ally, Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton and various other candidates and officials, including county clerk hopeful Janis Fullilove and sitting judges Arnold Goldin, Walter Evans, and Russell Sugarmon.

Serving as “deejay” for the affair was AM680 Air America radio talkshow host Leon Gray, who is currently under fire (See Flyer blog, “Let It Fly,” for entries) for on-air commentaries that some of his Democratic listeners regard as suspect. (The unapologetic Gray defended some of his controversial commentaries (q.v. , on blog) , saying, “’There is something called ‘the Christian Left.’”)

Ford Rallies: 9th District congressman Harold Ford was the beneficiary of a $75-a-head fundraiser Sunday afternoon at Felicia Suzette’s Restaurant downtown hosted by “a group of young professionals.”

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Nor does Kurita mention by name the three discrete and quarrelsome factions – Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds -- that now inhabit Iraq and are trying to settle the occupied post-Saddam country’s future and its constitutional future this side of civil war. The candidate’s audience, a group of potential supporters gathered at a condominium in Midtown over the weekend, are the kind of activists who read the papers and watch the news and would know this.

But she is at pains to go beyond the obvious and the known. “Why are we obsessed with having these groups of people who don’t like each other live in the same country?” she asks. “What’s wrong with telling these three groups: Okay, control your own destiny? They don’t have to be one country!”

She pauses, then sums up the import of what she’s said “Now there’s a creative thought!” And comes close to winking.

But Kurita isn’t playing. This weekend foray into Memphis, home town of her much better-known (and better-financed) Democratic primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. -- whose positions so far on Iraq, and much else, are more conventional -- is dead serious.

What is the essential difference between herself and Ford?, Kurita is asked. She repeats the answer she says she gave the editorial board of The Commercial Appeal during a meeting earlier that day: “I’ve worked for a living!” says the former nurse.

And further: “I don’t make it a practice to go back and forth. I don’t balance my votes one way and then the other way.” She goes on, incidentally ticking off some key congressional votes that she feels her opponent was in the wrong on: “I am who I say I am. I can accomplish what needs to be done. By not voting for an energy policy that the oil companies wrote. By not supporting a bankruptcy bill that the credit card companies wrote.”

Ford is not her only point of self-comparison, however. She mentions having attended a recent forum in Williamson County, part of Nashville’s suburban hinterland, along with Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary. The two former congressmen, along with ex-Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker, are Republican candidates for the same U.S. Senate seat, the one current Majority Leader Bill Frist will be vacating, that she and Ford are seeking.

Now her talk is not of different countries but of “two different planets.”  Former Gulf War veteran Hilleary, she maintains, kept insisting that the only solution in Iraq was to “kill people,” while both he and Bryant harped on their opposition to “abortion and gay rights” as the main issues of the Senate campaign, she says.

This assertion, from an audience that has its share of advocates for women’s and gay rights, draws derisive moans, which Kurita converts into cheers when she segues on, “Haven’t they heard of education? Jobs? The environment?”

The diminutive state senator continues to play her audience adroitly, talking of how she, wife of an Asian American herself, worked against “oppressive” legislation that would have mandated an English-only driver’s license exam. “I’ve got military families that are Korean-born,” says this legislator from a district adjoining the Ft. Campbell army base. “How are they supposed to get around when the husband’s over there in Iraq?”

Here and there in her remarks and during the subsequent Q-and –A, Kurita mentions other themes and pushes other buttons: the Living Wage, child care, health-care delivery systems, Roe-v-Wade (“That’s critical”), the need for alternative fuels. A propos this last point, she declares, “The single most important change we have to make is: We need to get off those fossil fuel!”

She talks up the “renewable energy” alternatives:  “solar power, wind, biomass, geothermal, bio-diesel,” and brings all that back to Iraq: “It’s all about oil,” she states flatly.

It has been a good show, and Kurita has covered many of the bases that are important to this group of Democrats, most of whom are rather publicly disenchanted with what they see as Ford’s over-cautious, even “Republican-lite” proclivities.

But she doesn’t get a free pass. Kurita proves relatively evasive when asked about such subjects as her position on the currently raging “Intelligent Design” controversy and about yet another recent Ford vote that is unpopular with this audience -- one to exempt gun manufacturers from liability for crimes committed with the weapons they produce.

"I really need to sit down and see exactly what’s in that bill,” she says.

Which is to say, there are questions that Rosalind Kurita treads light around. A champion skeet-shooter in her own right and a politician well aware of Al Gore’s 2000 difficulties with the gun-rights advocates and the National Rifle Association in Tennessee, she observes mildly, “The NRA pushes.”

With or without a grade of 100 on the catechism of progressive Democrats, Rosalind Kurita pushes on herself. She trails opponent Ford in most of the usual indices – fundraising, poll results (though a survey of her own shows her ahead, she says), and name recognition.

"I’m not a household name around here," she jests to the Memphians. “Number one: I’ve not been indicted. And number two: this is not my media market, as they say in the biz.”

The plain fact is, Kurita is in catch-up mode, here as at most other places in Tennessee. But she still insists she can win. Why? “Because I’m a real Democrat,” she says. On that, occasional equivocations aside, she rests her case.

Another potential candidate for statewide office, state Senator Steve Cohen, a Democrat, continues to take issue with his titular party head, Governor Phil Bredesen. In separate conversations with reporters last week, Cohen, the recognized father of the Tennessee lottery, cited the continued success of the lottery (one heightened by widespread attention to a Powerball jackpot that had risen to $340 million) and said the governor was taking a “Marie Antoinette-like” attitude to applicants for lottery scholarships.

"There are $200 million in lottery monies that have not been spent,” Cohen said, more than enough to raise lottery scholarships from $3,000 to $4,000, a step Bredesen has resisted, as well as to provide the governor with the pre-Kindergarten reserve fund he has insisted on.

Cohen said he would continue to press for the scholarship increase in next year’s legislative session. Looking somewhat further down the road, he said that both the governor’s race and that for the U.S. Senate needed “stronger” Democrats than were currently running (Bredesen for the former; Ford and Kurita for the latter). He said he’d thought about doing one or the other himself. “But I doubt I will.”

One other race Cohen said he’d been sounded out about was that for District Attorney General, one in which he’d be matched against the Republican incumbent, Bill Gibbons, who was the beneficiary last week of the latest in a series of well-attended big-ticket fundraisers, at the home of Dr. John Shea and Linda Shea.

But this race, too, was unlikely, Cohen said, adding a “but” clause. “Now, if I win the Powerball….”

Making his way back into political activity after a period of relative withdrawal is Bartlett banker Harold Byrd, who declared early for Shelby County mayor in the 2001/2002 election cycle but left that race after current incumbent A C Wharton’s entry.

Byrd was one of the hosts for a fundraiser scheduled this week at the Bank of Bartlett on behalf of his longtime political ally, Sidney Chism, the former interim state senator who now seeks a county commission seat.

Dutch Treat Luncheon host Bill Wood said last week he intends to be a candidate for appointment to the commission seat of Michael Hooks should Hooks, indicted in the Tennessee Waltz affair, resign his seat.

Last week’s MPACT-sponsored forum on “government ethics and accountability” drew a good audience at the Neighborhood Christian Center on Jackson to hear a panel including city school board member Tomeka Hart, former state Supreme Court Justice Lyle Reid; state Representative Brian Kelsey; former U.S. Attorney Veronica Coleman-Davis; Dr. JoeAnn Ballard, director of tee Center; and Larry Jensen, president of Memphis Tomorrow.

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The Tennessean who once upon a time symbolized the moderate wing of the national Republican Party told members of Memphis' downtown Rotary Club last week that moderation was alive and well in the GOP, despite one worried Rotarian's description of the party as being dominated by "the neocon philosophy and the far religious right."

Former U.S. senator Howard Baker, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency in 1980, reassured questioner Jocelyn Wurzburg that the Republican Party "will right itself." He said of what she saw as the party's current ultra-conservative tilt, "That's not permanent. The party system's going to survive it." The "genius of the American system" was that the two-party system managed to accommodate "a wide variety of viewpoints and opinions," said the former senator, who predicted that a cyclical change would prevent any permanent pattern of extremism.

"Back in the '30s, it was thought that Republicans would never win again and that the nation was on a course that would ultimately lead to socialism. It didn't happen then and it won't happen here either," Baker maintained. Change "may seem far off, but it's always just around the corner," he said.

The former senator, now 80, is retired and living in Huntsville in East Tennessee with his wife, former Kansas senator Nancy Kassebaum, who wasn't with him last week, he said, because she was back in Kansas "moving the cattle from the summer pasture" on a farm she owns there.

Baker rose to national prominence as a member of the Senate Watergate panel in 1973, and his recurrent question, "What did the president know, and when did he know it?" became a catchphrase for the investigations that led to the resignation of former President Richard Nixon.

Though the celebrity gained by Baker during his service on the Watergate committee was a spur to his presidential ambitions, it also served to make him a suspect figure among GOP conservatives, and he lost the Republican nomination to Ronald Reagan, whom he later served as chief of staff. Earlier in the Reagan administration, he had also been Senate majority leader.

Of the failure of his presidential bid, Baker joked, "Both the country and I were better off."

On the eve of Governor Phil Bredesen's trade mission to Japan, Baker, whose most recent government service was as U.S. ambassador to that Far Eastern nation, told the Rotarians that he had been "surprised" by the "genuine friendship and warmth" evinced by the Japanese toward the United States and said, "They're the most reliable support we have on most issues."

Despite the continuing economic upsurge of the Chinese, the former ambassador said China's GNP would not approach that of Japan for at least 14 years. Baker pointed out that Japan's annual gross national product was second only to that of the United States and said the two nations together accounted for 40 percent of the world's GNP. "The Japanese are still the big dog in the hunt, still the major player in the area. They're our ally, our partner in business transactions and our ally militarily. Our whole strategy in East Asia is cornered on our relationship with Japan."

On other subjects, Baker called for renewed efforts to develop a "civilized, socially acceptable, environmentally sound" form of nuclear energy. "Energy is the coin of the realm these days -- the true measure of the wealth of a nation," he said.

In answer to a question about President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, Baker paid tribute to a member of his audience, U.S. district judge Julia Gibbons, who, he said, "would have been my choice." He added: "And Julia would have been a better choice."

Baker also offered some stroking for another audience member, the Rev. Ben Hooks, whom he praised as a "longtime friend." He recalled once being deputized by President Reagan to speak to the annual conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during the time of Hooks' service as national chairman of the NAACP.

Having inquired as to his possible reception by the NAACP members, Baker chuckled ruefully and said the answer from Hooks was, "Would you settle for silence?"

•Jim Henry to declare for governor? That's the word from some Republican Party sources who have grown weary of waiting for state representative Beth Halteman Harwell of Nashville to declare -- leaving the way open for Henry, a former legislator himself, to become the approved GOP opponent for Democratic incumbent Bredesen next year.

"Whichever one of them goes first will be the candidate," said one well-placed Republican activist, having just heard some positive rumblings from Henry, who hails from Kingston in East Tennessee and once upon a time was the House Republican leader. Henry reportedly confided his intentions to seek the governorship and to make his announcement "within a week or two."

Of course, Harwell, who at one time was considered a candidate for U.S. senator, has for some weeks been passing on such hints about a possible gubernatorial race and hasn't yet delivered on them.

Yet a third GOP prospect is the party's leader in the Senate, Ron Ramsey of Blountville, who, like Harwell, has seemed to grow progressively more reluctant to challenge Bredesen. The governor may have arrested what has been a dip in his once lofty approval ratings. Bredesen had lost ground in recent polling due to apparent dissatisfaction with his budget-driven cuts in the TennCare rolls.

Henry ran second to then-Congressman Van Hilleary in the 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary. He subsequently had a bout with cancer but has been disease-free for the last two years.

• Hilleary, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate, was scheduled for a Memphis visit this week. Having reported fund-raising receipts of $337,880 in the third quarter of 2005 versus $283,529 reported for Republican rival Ed Bryant, Hilleary is trumpeting the fact in press releases in the evident -- but unlikely -- hope that Bryant, who in most polls is running nip-and-tuck with him, might drop out. That would give Hilleary a clear one-on-one shot at ex-Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker, who has consistently raised more money than both his fellow Republicans.

Corker, perceived as a relative moderate compared to Bryant and Hilleary, has raised $3.87 million, compared to Hilleary's $1.05 million and Bryant's $1.02 million.

Among Democratic Senate candidates, 9th District congressman Harold Ford's total of $2.1 million puts him well ahead of state senator Rosalind Kurita, who has raised $432,031.

Former U.S. Senator Howard Baker, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency in 1980, reassured questioner Jocelyn Wurzburg that the Republican Party “will right itself.” He said of what she saw as the party’s current ultra-conservative tilt, “”That’s not permanent. The party system’s going to survive it.” The “genius of the American system” was that the two-party system managed to accommodate “a wide variety of viewpoints and opinions,” said the former senator, who predicted that a cyclical change would prevent any permanent pattern of extremism .

“Back in the ‘30s, it was thought that Republicans would never win again and that the nation was on a course that would ultimately lead to Socialism. It didn’t happen and it won’t happen here either,” Baker maintained. Change “may seem far off, but it’s always just around the corner,” he said.

The former senator, now 80, is retired and living in Huntsville in East Tennessee with his wife, former Kansas Senator Nancy Kassebaum, who wasn’t with him last week, he said, because she was back in Kansas “moving the cattle from the summer pasture” on a farm she owned there.

Baker rose to national prominence as a member of the Senate Watergate panel in 1973 and his recurrent question, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” became a catchphrase for the several investigations that ultimately led to the resignation of former president Richard Nixon.

Though the celebrity gained by Baker during his service on the Watergate committee was a spur to his presidential ambitions, it also served to make him a suspect figure among GOP conservatives, and he would lose the Republican nomination to Ronald Reagan, whom he later served as chief of staff during Reagan’s presidency. Earlier in that administration, he had also been Senate Majority Leader.

Of the failure of his presidential bid, Baker joked, “Both the country and I were better off.”

On the eve of Governor Phil Bredesen’s weekend trade mission to Japan, Baker, whose most recent government service was as U.S. Ambassador to that Far Eastern nation, told the Rotarians that the former World War II adversary had become and remained “our best friend” in the world.

Baker said he had been “surprised” by the “genuine friendship and warmth’ evinced by the Japanese toward the United States and said, “They’re the most reliable support we have on most issues.”

Despite the continuing economic upsurge of the Chinese, the former ambassador said, China’s own GNP could not approach that of Japan for at least 14 years. Baker pointed out that Japan’s annual Gross National Product was second only to that of the United States and said the two nations together accounted for 40 percent of the world’s GNP. “The Japanese are still the big dog in the hunt, still the major player in the area, They’re our ally, our partner in business transactions and our ally militarily. Our whole strategy in East Asia is cornered on our relationship with Japan.”

On other subjects, Baker called for renewed efforts to develop a “civilized, socially acceptable, environmentally sound” form of nuclear energy. “Energy is the coin of the realm these days – the true measure of the wealth of a nation,” he said.

In answer to a question about President Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, Baker paid tribute to a member of his audience, U.S. District Judge Julia Gibbons, who, he said, “would have been my choice.” He added, “And Julia would have been a better choice.”

Baker also offered some stroking for another audience member, the Rev. Ben Hooks, whom he praised as a “longtime friend.” He recalled once being deputized by President Reagan to speak to the annual conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during the time of Hooks’ service as national chairman of the NAACP.

Having inquired as to his possible reception by the NAACP members, Baker chuckled ruefully and said the answer from Hooks was, “Would you settle for silence?”

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Despite having received an abundant amount of advance fanfare, the departure of lawyer Richard Fields from the Shelby County Democratic Party came to pass Thursday night of last week with minimum ceremony.

It was announced almost matter-of-factly to the members of the party's executive committee, gathered for their regular monthly meeting at the IBEW Union Hall on Madison, by one Bob Tuke, the state Democratic chairman visiting from Nashville.

In as calm a manner as could be imagined, the lawyer and ex-Marine rhapsodized for a minute or two about the graces of the Shelby County party, then segued into his point: "I am pleased to tell you ... that the situation that you thought you were going to have to deal with has been resolved. Richard Fields has been gracious enough to offer his resignation as an executive committee member, which we appreciate very much. He will continue to pursue the case that he has now, that he feels strongly about. When that case is resolved, one way or the other, it doesn't matter which way, he's welcome to run for that seat again."

All this, which was followed by other amenities on Tuke's part, drew relieved applause from an audience of Democrats who had been divided on the Fields matter for more than a week. Even though word of the ultimate settlement had gotten out before the meeting began, there were still a few zealots on either side of the issue who had proclaimed themselves ready either to denounce Fields for representing defeated Republican state Senate candidate Terry Roland in his election appeal against his victorious Democratic opponent, Ophelia Ford, or to defend him to the rhetorical death.

The understated manner of Tuke, who had planned to be in town anyhow to attend an earlier party fund-raiser, was enough to quell in advance any such heroics, while it also complemented the equally measured style of local chairman Matt Kuhn, who had begun to take brickbats from assorted bloggers for reputed "weakness" in dealing with the crisis but came off instead as simply being properly restrained.

The center of all this controversy, Fields, seemed to understand that any words from him would be anticlimactic and departed quietly shortly thereafter, as the meeting went on to other matters.

Before he too left, Tuke granted a few press interviews, during which he made it clear that, in telephone conversations that morning, he had told Fields he had to go, and that, however praiseworthy his pro bono legal concerns might be in the abstract, it was inappropriate for him to continue litigating for the GOP's Roland while serving as a Democratic Party official.

How long did it take to get this point across? "Five or 10 minutes," Tuke said mildly. Once again the understatement.

The hard-core defenders of Fields on the committee -- several of whom were prepared to speak on his behalf if the expulsion issue had come to a vote -- represented him, correctly enough, as a veteran public-issues attorney of conviction and courage and suggested that efforts to purge him came down to some kind of witch-hunt.

Some thought that a tad disingenuous, given that Fields had a history vis-à-vis the Ford family and the state Senate seat that was the subject of his current litigation. He had in fact run against Ophelia Ford's brother John Ford in the 2002 Democratic primary -- though not as diligently or as successfully as Roland did this year.

Even more to the point, it was a fact that Fields had been recruited for the Roland appeal by Memphis lawyer John Ryder, the longtime state Republican national committeeman who remains one of the GOP's major strategists. Ryder not only scouted out Fields for his availability but touted him as a likely team member to state Republican chairman Bob Davis and Lang Wiseman, a lawyer and party activist who was already on the case.

Fields appeared with Wiseman and Roland at last Saturday's Dutch Treat Luncheon at the Piccadilly restaurant in southeast Memphis. Looking and sounding somewhat subdued, Fields recapped the position of the Roland legal team as designed merely to ensure that the election process, which culminated on September 15th with a 13-vote victory for Ford over Roland, was fairly conducted.

Both he and Wiseman conceded that their Chancery Court suit was likely to be dismissed and that the ultimate verdict will come when the state Senate convenes in January. The Senate will then be presented with evidence sifted through previously by a six-member bipartisan committee of Senate leaders from both parties.

Said Wiseman: "The Senate is the final authority. They can do what they want to. They can make one of three choices: seat Ms. Ford, void the election and call for a new one, or seat Terry. Obviously seating Terry is a much taller task than voiding the election."

Added Fields: "I think the most they will do is void the election and not seat anyone."

Ironically enough, Fields used his joint appearance with Roland and Wiseman to tout a proposed new election-machine technology called "voter verified paper audit trail" as a means of making post-election recounts more reliable.

This is the same technology that was viewed with alarm by local Republican chairman Bill Giannini, appearing at a pre-election meeting with Roland, as potentially allowing Democratic political bosses to "check up" on their minions "to see if they voted right."

Okay, the race for Shelby County sheriff may be considered as good as begun. Consider: The incumbent, Republican Mark Luttrell, is already running hard for reelection, touching all the media bases with personal visits and burnishing his vault with the occasional well-attended fund-raiser. Adept at public presentations, the personable Luttrell has, among current officeholders, a grasp of P.R. rivaled only by that of district attorney general Bill Gibbons (who last week was endorsed by both of Shelby County's ranking mayors).

Given that the job of county mayor is probably a gimme for Democrat A C Wharton next year, that makes Luttrell the county's ranking Republican, a reputation enhanced by the fact that the sheriff is a dependable presence at most GOP outings held in the county and can be found at a goodly number of nonpartisan public events as well.

So who is John Harvey, and why is he bothering to compete so hard for the job of sheriff in next year's Republican primary?

Well, Harvey is, as he outlines on his intricately itemized campaign Web site (shelbynet.com/dotnetnuke/), a lieutenant in the Sheriff's Department, and his case against incumbent Luttrell, while detailed, can be summarized in one of Harvey's statements: "It has become clear to me that he [former county Corrections Center director Luttrell] doesn't have a basis of understanding of law enforcement. He has been a career warden, and now occupies the position of Sheriff without the experience for the job."

Harvey buttresses that case with a pageful of statistics and anecdotes purporting to show that Shelby County is the "second-most dangerous" of 320 metropolitan localities.

Meanwhile, the sheriff has made enemies among the jailers by pruning their ranks in the interests of economy. And, though he, like Wharton, has backed off from what now seems an abortive effort to outsource the county's corrections system, that issue continues to simmer as well.

Luttrell will be the odds-on favorite to prevail in the GOP primary against the little-known and underfinanced Harvey -- though the latter has one interesting hole card. Harvey is best buds with the Shelby County Republican Party's latest public hero, erstwhile District 29 state Senate candidate Terry Roland, with whose campaign Web site Harvey's is indexed.

Roland, who continues to contest the 13-vote victory in that special election by Democrat Ophelia Ford, was asked about Harvey on his return from a brief respite with his wife in Jamaica. "He's great," Roland said unreservedly in a telephone conversation on Monday. At first, he sounded determined to offer Harvey his full support. However, Roland called back later to say that, as a member and vice chair of the Shelby County Republican steering committee, it would be inappropriate for him to take sides in a party primary.

And Democratic sheriff's candidates are sure to be heard from. One of them, in fact, stepped forth this week. This was Reginald French, a longtime aide to Memphis mayor Willie Herenton, who planned to file his official papers with the Election Commission on Wednesday.

French, whose credits include a stint as Herenton's executive assistant and another as chairman of the Memphis Alcohol Commission, has been talking up a sheriff's race for some months. French has been out of the public eye for some time, but, aside from his public jobs and his service as a campaign aide to Herenton and other candidates, he has had his share of controversy too.

Some years ago French was involved in an altercation with a neighbor which resulted in his being charged with slashing her tires -- a circumstance that was highlighted when she fell to her death shortly thereafter in an unrelated accident. French also figured somewhat mysteriously in an FBI investigation of corruption in Atlanta, wearing a wire to record his conversations with city officials. He was also revealed to have been a go-between in passing money from a lobbyist to one of those officials.

Still, French has been a key figure in the Herenton era, and, failing a declaration of candidacy by other Democrats, he will have to be reckoned with.

Roland vs. Ford (cont'd.): Roland continues his effort to offset the now officially certified results of his contest with Ophelia Ford -- both in a Chancery Court suit alleging irregularities in the voting (including multiple voting by individuals and illegal enfranchisements of felons) and in a challenge before the state Senate itself, which has final authority over seating its members.

To deal with the matter, Lieutenant Governor John Wilder, the Senate speaker, appointed a blue-chip committee of leadership members, three from each party. They are: speaker pro tem Mike Williams (R-Maynardville), chairman; Senate Democratic leader Jim Kyle (D-Memphis); Senate Republican leader Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville); Democratic Caucus chairman Joe Haynes (D-Nashville); Republican Caucus chairman Jeff Miller (R-Cleveland); and Roy Herron (D-Dresden).

These senators will present recommendations to the full body when the Senate convenes in January, and there has been some speculation that, if enough circumstantial evidence and reasonable doubt accrue to the process, a party-line vote could end with the now-majority Republicans (17-16) forcing a new election.

But one key Republican, Judiciary chairman Curtis Person (R-Memphis) said last week he would need to see hard evidence of irregularities to overturn an officially certified election contest.

Ford was certified as the winner of the September 15th special election by a 3-2 party-line vote of the Shelby County Election Commission, but all five commissioners eventually signed the official election document, and Ford was formally sworn in last week in Nashville.

Richard Fields, who is serving as counsel to Roland, said this week that the final form of both the Chancery complaint and the appeal to the state Senate has not yet been determined. "It takes awhile to sift through all the particulars, but we had only a 10-day window to challenge the results," he said.

Gill et al. vs. Fields (cont'd.): Fields had a challenge of his own, of course, with the Shelby County Democratic Party scheduled to deal with a resolution concerning him at the monthly meeting of its executive committee this Thursday night.

The resolution, presented by committee member Del Gill, charges Fields, a committee member himself, with giving improper aid to a Republican opponent of a Democratic candidate in violation of local party bylaws. It proposed three remedies: a) Fields' resignation from the Roland case; b) his resignation from the committee; or c) a vote on his expulsion from the committee.

On the eve of the meeting, Fields was giving no quarter. "The state party bylaws have no such provision, and they supercede local bylaws," he said. "Further, I am doing the party a service by making sure the election process was fair. We've just had a chairman and a former chairman indicted, and three state senators have been indicted." Some of those supporting the challenge to his credentials are "the people who have gotten the party in trouble," he said.

Percy Harvey, longtime attorney and lobbyist for the Memphis school board, died Monday at Methodist Hospital in Germantown. Harvey, who succumbed to cancer, handled school construction negotiations in Memphis and in Nashville. Funeral services will be held Saturday. Details were unavailable at presstime.

Okay, the race for Shelby County sheriff may be considered as good as begun. Consider:

 The incumbent, Republican Mark Luttrell, is already running hard for reelection, touching all the media bases with personal visits and burnishing his vault with the occasional well-attended fund-raiser. Adept at public presentations, the personable Luttrell has, among current office-holders, a grasp of P.R. rivaled only by that of District Attorney General Bill Gibbons (who last week was endorsed by both of Shelby County’s ranking mayors.)

            Given that the job of Shelby county mayor is probably a gimme for Democrat A C Wharton next year, that makes Luttrell the county’s ranking Republican, a reputation enhanced by the fact that the sheriff is a dependable presence at most GOP outings held in the county – large, small, and in between – and can be found at a goodly number of non-partisan public events as well.

So who is John Harvey, and why is he bothering to compete so hard for the job of sheriff in next year’s Republican primary?  

            Well, Harvey is, as he outlines on his intricately itemized campaign Web site (http://www.shelbynet.com/dotnetnuke/), a lieutenant in the Sheriff’s Department, and his case against incumbent Luttrell, while detailed, can be summarized in one of Harvey’s statements: “It has become clear to me that he [former county Corrections Center director Luttrell] doesn't have a basis of understanding of law enforcement.  He has been a career warden, and now occupies the position of Sheriff without the experience for the job.”

            Harvey buttresses that case with a pageful of statistics and anecdotes purporting to show that Shelby County is the second “most dangerous” of 320 metropolitan localities. He represents a second front of sorts on the jailer issue, attacking Luttrell from one side as preoccupied with the custody issue vis-à-vis that of law enforcement per se.   

            Meanwhile, the sheriff has made enemies among the jailers by pruning their ranks in the interests of economy. And, though he, like Wharton, has backed off from what now seems an abortive effort to out-source the county’s corrections system, that issue continues to simmer as well.

            Luttrell will be the odds-on favorite to prevail in the GOP primary against the little-known and under-financed Harvey – though the latter has one interesting hole card. Harvey is best buds with the Shelby County Republican Party’s latest public hero, erstwhile District 29 state Senate candidate Terry Roland, with whose own campaign Web site Harvey’s is indexed.

            Roland, who continues to contest the 13-vote victory in that special election of Democrat Ophelia Ford, was asked about Harvey on his return from a brief respite with his wife in Jamaica. “He’s great,” Roland said unreservedly in a telephone conversation on Monday and at first sounded determined to offer Harvey his full support.

            Having reflected on things, however, Roland called back later to say that, as a member and vice chair of the Shelby County Republican steering committee, it would be inappropriate for him to take sides in a party primary.

            And Democratic sheriff’s candidates are sure to be heard from. One of them, in fact, stepped forth this week. This was Reginald French, a longtime aide to Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, who planned to file his official papers with the Election Commission on Wednesday.

            French, whose credits include a stint as Herenton’s executive assistant and another as chairman of the Memphis Alcohol Commission, has been talking up a sheriff’s race for some months. French has been out of the public eye for some time, but, aside from his public jobs and his service as a campaign aide to Herenton and other candidates, he has had his share of controversy, too.

            Some years ago French was involved in an altercation with a neighbor which resulted in his being charged with slashing her tires – a circumstance that was highlighted when she fell to her death shortly thereafter in an unrelated accident. French also figured somewhat mysteriously in an FBI investigation of corruption in Atlanta, wearing a wire to record his conversations with city officials. He was also revealed to have been a go-between in passing money from a lobbyist to one of those officials.

            Still and all, French has been a key figure in the Herenton era, and, failing a declaration of candidacy by other Democrats, will have to be reckoned with.

Roland v. Ford (cont’d): Roland continues his effort to offset the now officially certified results of his contest with Ophelia Ford – both in a Chancery Court suit alleging irregularities in the voting (including multiple voting by individuals and illegal enfranchisements of felons), and in a challenge before the state Senate itself, which has final authority over seating its members.

            To deal with the matter, Lt. Gov. John Wilder, the Senate speaker, appointed a blue-chip committee of leadership members, three from each party. They are: Speaker Pro Tem Mike Williams (R-Maynardville), chairman; Senate Democratic leader Jim Kyle (D-Memphis); Senate Republican leader Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville); Democratic Caucus chairman Joe Haynes (D-Nashville); Republican Caucus chairman Jeff Miller (R-Cleveland); and Roy Herron (D-Dresden).

            These senators will present recommendations to the full body when the Senate convenes in January, and there has been some speculation that, if enough circumstantial evidence and reasonable doubt accrue to the process, a party-line vote could end with the now-majority Republicans (17-16) forcing a new election.

            But one key Republican, Judiciary chairman Curtis Person (R-Memphis) said last week he would need to see hard evidence of irregularities to overturn an officially certified election contest.
            Ford was certified as the winner of the September 15 special election by a 3-2 party-line vote of the Shelby County Election Commission, but all five commissioners eventually signed the official election document, and Ford was formally sworn in last week in Nashville.

            Richard Fields, who is serving as counsel to Roland, said this week that the final form of both the Chancery complaint and the appeal to the state Senate has not yet been determined. “We’re still gathering information,” he said. “It takes a while to sift through all the particulars, but we had only a 10-day window to challenge the results.”

Gill et al vs. Fields (cont’d): Fields had a challenge of his own to deal with, of course, with the Shelby County Democratic Party scheduled to deal with a resolution concerning him at the regular monthly meeting of its executive committee this Thursday night.

            The resolution, presented by committee member Del Gill, charges Fields, a committee member himself, with giving improper aid to a Republican opponent of a Democratic candidate in violation of local party bylaws. It proposed three remedies: (a) Fields’ resignation from the Roland case; (b) his resignation from the committee; or (c) a vote on his expulsion from the committee.

           On the eve of the meeting, Fields was giving no quarter. “The state party bylaws have no such provision, and they supercede local bylaws,” he said. “Further, I am doing the party a service by making sure the election process was fair. We’ve just had a chairman and a former chairman indicted, and three state senators have been indicted.” Some of those supporting the challenge to his credentials are “the people who have gotten the party in trouble,” he said.

Crossroad Politics (cont’d): Mutual opposition to the Bush administration’s trade policies were on the factors that accounted for an unusual meeting of the twain two weekends ago, when several members of the local John Birch Society chapter attended a pizza party for Democratic state Representative Mike Kernell at Garibaldi’s restaurant.