From Gridlock To Deadlock

n unfunny thing happened on the way to an agreement ending the month-old County Commission boycott: It broke down. And, as was the case during most of last year, the burden of dissent was borne by two African-American Democrats, Commissioners Julian Bolton and Shep Wilbun.

The draft agreement -- involving a compromise on the key issue of partisan judicial primaries -- collapsed between a mid-morning press conference announcing it and Monday afternoon's regularly scheduled commission meeting. Monday's meeting was the first held since the commission's six black Democrats, claiming insensitivity to their concerns on the part of the body's seven white Republicans, began a boycott on July 21st.

Speaking for himself and Wilbun -- who were joined by Commissioner James Ford in expressing last-minute reservations on the agreement -- Bolton accepted responsibility for the scuttling of an accord promised earlier Monday by commission chairman Mark Norris, boycott leader Walter Bailey, and Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout.

"We never really signed off on it," Bolton said of the agreement, which would put the commission on record as favoring a short-term cutback in the scope of local judicial primaries and a long-term endorsement of a modified Missouri plan, whereby Shelby County judges would be subject to yes/no retention votes every eight years. The accord also pledged the commission to sponsor an August 1998 referendum on the issue of partisan judicial primaries.

Proponents of the plan, including Norris, suggested that it would amount to a de facto abolition of judicial primaries, since the local Republican steering committee -- which would be asked, like its Democratic counterpart, to scale back its proposed 1998 primary to a few appointed judges and open seats -- has indicated that it could not go along with so stringent a reduction in its plans. "Most of our members are prepared to go all-or-nothing," GOP chairman David Kustoff had said.

But such assurances meant little to Bolton. "We don't need the Republican Party to dictate policy to the commission. The commission, all by itself, could have repudiated primaries at [Monday's] meeting," he said. Bolton -- who served as commission chairman during its stormy showdown year of 1996 -- also expressed his opposition to adoption of the Missouri plan for local judges. "The people need to elect judges, and they need a choice," he insisted.

"He thrives on chaos," was Norris' angry reaction to Bolton's role in scuttling the provisional agreement, which Rout, Norris, and Bailey had revealed at a 10:30 a.m. press conference in the county mayor's conference room. Commissioner Cleo Kirk, who had hosted a Monday-night meeting of the commission Democrats and who had thought the compromise deal had been agreed to, was also concerned at its breakdown, which he discovered shortly before the scheduled 1:30 p.m. meeting.

"Julian and Shep may be trying too hard to get an ideal. In politics, you have to compromise. You have to get the best that you can," said Kirk, who said, however, that he -- like fellow Democrats Michael Hooks and Bailey -- felt obliged, though reluctantly, to honor the solidarity of the boycott and therefore did not appear for the meeting.

One Republican commissioner, Pete Sisson, had a more disdainful view of the boycott, which he regarded as "illegal." Sisson, who has said he will not run for reelection next year, advised reporters and fellow commissioners that he had asked chairman Norris to consult with the county attorney's office about invoking a state law which would allow the boycotting commissioners to be formally ousted, on the grounds that they were "impeding" official business.

Norris indicated that he would honor Sisson's request to draft a letter to the six Democrats advising them of their susceptibility to ouster. Bolton, however, remained adamant. "The act does not apply to us," he insisted. "We did not prevent a quorum on Monday. They can proceed without us."

And, indeed, the seven Republican commissioners who went ahead with Monday's meeting did rush through what Norris said was a "record" 110 proposals and resolutions of various kinds. Deferred, however, were several that called for the recusal of Commissioner Clair VanderSchaaf, a developer, as well as one -- needing a two-thirds vote of the full body -- giving Mayor Rout a $35,000 annual pay raise.

The seven GOP commissioners made a point of recording themselves as voting down a companion $2,000 pay raise. And Norris later said it would probably prove necessary to address concerns -- expressed of late on radio talk shows and in other public forums -- about the continuation of biweekly pay to the boycotting commissioners.

Although Rout would say later Monday that he planned to back off from any further effort to negotiate a settlement of the boycott, his involvement in the agreement announced Monday morning had been substantial, involving repeated conversations with virtually every one of the 13 commissioners. And he was on hand throughout Monday's meeting -- at various times passing word to reporters that two or three of the boycotting commissioners might yet appear.

Hope for a partial end to the boycott continued virtually to the end of the Monday meeting, as Rout and various commissioners worked behind the scenes -- but in vain --to allay concerns about the depth of commitment by the GOP commissioners to the staged abolition of judicial primaries.

Earlier, when he thought the accord was holding, Norris had conceded that it probably spelled the end of judicial primaries. The draft agreement released at the mid-morning press conference -- called a "consensus memorandum" and signed by Rout, Norris, Bailey, and Sisson -- specified:

That "all commissioners" would attend Monday afternoon's meeting;

That the July 7th resolution to nullify judicial primaries -- which had failed by one vote to get the requisite two-thirds majority -- would be formally reconsidered;

That the body would move the Republican and Democratic executive committees to modify their earlier calls for judicial primaries, restricting them to four seats -- two in General Sessions, two in Circuit Court -- whose appointed holders have not yet been subject to election and to any seat vacated next year by a judicial retirement;

That the commission would commit itself to nullifying primaries altogether, should the parties not agree;

That the commission would support "special legislation" to implement a "yes/no retention system" for judges, beginning in 1998;

That the commission "would take all action necessary" to secure an August 1998 referendum on public wishes concerning future judicial primaries.

At the Monday-morning press conference, Bailey conceded that his role in the boycott might have been partially motivated by a "subliminal" wish to support his brother, Circuit Court Judge D'Army Bailey. "But I actually have more dealings with other judges, and I was moved by their wishes, too," he said. Bailey also acknowledged that the agreement might be "skewed" towards the issue of incumbent protection, rather than directed to opposing partisan involvement in judicial affairs.

The judicial primary issue has been immersed in controversy for most of the past year, ever since both parties -- the GOP aggressively, the Shelby County Democrats defensively -- called for primaries for judicial candidates in 1998. Most local judges and various citizens' groups made clear their opposition, and, in the 1997 General Assembly, State Rep. Kathryn Bowers was able to get a bill passed giving the commission authority, by a two-thirds vote, to overrule the parties.

Two Republicans -- Buck Wellford and Morris Fair -- joined the six commission Democrats in the failed effort on July 7th. But sentiment had been moving steadily against the primary idea, even among organization Republicans, in the wake of a recent incident involving two GOP probation contractors, Arnold Weiner and Richard Heen, who tried to use their clout with Republican judges to get clients. Subsequently banned from doing business by Shelby County administrative judge Chris Craft, the two were asked to withdraw from the GOP steering committee, but have not yet done so. "That did it for me," said Norris.

The primary issue had galvanized the boycott effort, and, by consensus of all principals, it remains the key issue -- although concerns about educational funding, fairness in county procurement, city involvement in county school-board elections, and the current annexation-incorporation controversy were also listed by the boycotting commissioners.

"But if we get the primary issue settled, we can do the rest of it in session," said Bolton, who resolved meanwhile to go on a "communications tour" of his district to inform voters of the reason why he chose to continue the boycott.

"It looks to me like they [the Democratic commissioners] are locked in their own power struggle," said Norris, who saw Bailey as having lost his leadership role to Bolton.