Time on Their Hands

… and maybe opponents, too, for the judges facing a newly extended filing deadline.

by Jackson Baker

he gods don’t give you everything. Having seen their main wish for the New Year come true (anti-primary legislation that was subsequently upheld in the federal courts), Shelby County’s incumbent judges are less pleased with one of the sequels to that victory: a decision by the Election Commission to extend the judicial filing deadline from February 19th to May 21st.
Several sitting jurists have been heard to grumble that the later deadline gives potential opponents time to gather support – and money – for a serious challenge. That rankles the incumbents, whose objections to partisan judicial primaries had consisted not only of high-minded motives but of self-serving ones as well.
Had they been forced to choose their party labels, many – perhaps most – incumbent judges would have been forced into one-on-one races against opponents of the other party. In Shelby County just now, there is a theoretical near-balance between Republicans and Democrats – enough of one, anyhow, to create scenarios in which an incumbent judge could be knocked off by an opponent, even an unknown, able to marshal significant turnout among party loyalists.
That danger to incumbency is now past, but the extended deadline creates the indicated new one. Those judges who had planned on maybe one modest passing of the hat among known supporters, if that, now realize that they may have to do some sustained fund-raising.
One such jurist is General Sessions Judge Sam Thompson, who hasn’t smelled out an opponent yet. “I can’t take any chances, though,” said Thompson, who recently suggested that he might hold a fund-raiser or two that stray from the beaten path – and follow the path of the beat. Thompson is a former bodyguard for the late Elvis Presley, and his sister Linda Thompson was a girlfriend of Elvis’ who later married, successively, Olympic decathlon star Bruce Jenner and singer/songwriter David Foster.
Between the two of them, the Thompsons are well acquainted with figures in the show-business world, and Judge Thompson figures that he might bring some of them in for a fund-raising affair or two. “I’d kinda like to do it just for fun, even if I don’t have an opponent,” Thompson said.
Various judges have already started their fund-raising, of course, and Thompson’s theatre-in-the-round concept is already in play. At his Monday evening fund-raiser at the Adams Avenue law office of Jim Blount, General Sessions Judge Lynn Cobb played the accordion and sang “Happy Birthday” for his host. (“I think I gotta go,” jested Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout, one of the attendees, as Cobb hoisted his instrument and got ready to play. Rout stayed put.)
Cobb doesn’t yet know who, if anybody, might choose to run against him. Some judges, however, already know where their opposition might be coming from.
Circuit Court Judge James Swearengen will likely face a challenge from Gene Gaerig, a lawyer who was one of the plaintiffs of record in the local GOP’s unsuccessful suit to strike down the law allowing judicial primaries to be prohibited in Shelby County.
Already singled out also is Criminal Court Judge Joe Brown, who has officiated in several controversial proceedings concerning efforts to gain a new trial for James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King. Brown will be opposed by Terry Harris, an assistant District Attorney General who has headed up anti-gang efforts in the D.A.’s office.
Circuit Court Judge Robert “Butch” Childers, who was prominent in organizing sentiment against judicial primaries among his fellow jurists, is said to be the likely target of an organized Republican effort to defeat him. But no opponent has yet materialized, and Childers is known to command a good deal of support across partisan lines.
So does General Sessions Judge Tim Dwyer, another outspoken primary foe. The beneficiary of a large – and politically diverse – turnout at his own fund-raiser last month, Dwyer was present Monday at Cobb’s reception, where he received some significant encouragement. “Judge, let me know if I can help you,” said longtime Republican eminence Lewis Donelson as he passed by Dwyer on his way out.
No doubt much help will be asked – and given – as the judicial phase of the 1998 election season proceeds. And indications so far are that, just as in 1990, the hands – both the beseeching ones and the helping ones – will be stretched fairly freely across party lines.

nShelby County Mayor Rout may not go unopposed, after all, despite the dropout last week of State Senator Jim Kyle as a potential Democratic opponent for the heavily favored GOP incumbent. So far two possible adversaries have picked up nominating petitions at the Election Commission: Kenneth Van Buren, who would run as a Republican, and the eternal Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges, the sometime restaurateur who is – in more than one sense – an independent.
Still mulling over a possible county mayor’s race is State Senator Steve Cohen, who said last week that he might consider running if local Democrats – including those who were on other sides during his 1994 gubernatorial run and a 1996 race for Congress – could unify around his candidacy.
Last year’s Democratic primary, in particular, was the occasion of some vigorous rhetoric on both Cohen’s part and that of the eventual winner in the 9th congressional district race, U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. Over the past weekend Cohen offered further explanation for the bitter election-night outburst in which he said, “This is a bad day for Memphis,” and complained about racial patterns in the voting.
“I wasn’t all that upset that most African Americans voted for Ford,” Cohen said. “What got to me was that so many votes went to Tommie Edwards.” The relatively unknown Edwards, backed by the Ford organization, opposed Cohen’s simultaneous race for reelection to the state senate, and got 30 percent of the total vote, most of it coming from African-American voters.
That was more, Cohen felt, than an opponent should have received, given what he said was his demonstrable service to his black constituents. “But I’m not defending what I said back then. I handled it wrong,” said the senator, who commended, as the right way to take defeat, boxer George Foreman’s non-recriminatory response to what was widely seen as a bum decision by ringside judges in the fight which recently ended Foreman’s career.
It remains to be seen whether Cohen’s efforts to be conciliatory bear fruit with Rep. Ford. “It’s not just a matter of Cohen’s sincerity. The fact is that if he got elected he’d be another rival political force for the Fords, who already have [Memphis Mayor Willie] Herenton to deal with,” said one observer.
nRout says, by the way, that he’s received “maybe 35” invitations to help people light their Christmas trees since the revelation, in last week’s Flyer and, subsequently, in The Commercial Appeal, that Mayor Herenton had blocked his participation in the lighting of the official Memphis tree.
nU.S. Rep. Steve Largent (R-Oklahoma), said in Memphis Friday that the current issue of Sports Illustrated, which raises the issue of possible black supremacy in professional and amateur sports, presents the case credibly and deserves to be taken seriously.
Largent, who was in town to appear at a fund-raiser at the Adam’s Mark Hotel for 7th District U.S. Rep. Ed Bryant, is a member of the National Football League Hall of Fame and a former wide receiver for the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks.
For years Largent, who is white, held career reception records at a position which, as the SI article pointed out, is normally a province of African-American athletes these days.
nState Young Democrat president Joseph Kyles of Memphis has been asked by President Clinton to take part in the president’s “One America in the 21st Century” initiative on race, and Kyles, a political-science instructor at Shelby State Community College, has proposed to complete a dramatic project for presentation in Tennessee schools in 1998.
The project, titled “Read,” involves two fictional protagonists, Rebecca Read and Joseph Book, and is being developed in conjunction with co-authors Carolyn Bell and Rashana Moore, Kyles said. It will be presented next year in schools in Memphis, Jackson, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga.
“The play will combat homophobia and xenophobia and promote cultural diversity,” said Kyles, who hopes to get input and in-kind aid from community centers and churches and is soliciting financing from both public and private sources.
Kyles also served notice that he is looking hard at a race next year for the Whitehaven-area legislative seat now held by State Representative Joe Towns.
nTwo corrections: State Representative Tre Hargett (R-Bartlett), referred to here recently as a former Young Democrat president, was of course president of the Shelby County Young Republicans. (If that slip of the computer keys results in crossover votes for Hargett, he says he’ll be happy to have them); Bill Wood, a recent Republican opponent of the now defunct Chapter 98 legislation allowing easy suburban incorporation, was referred to as “Bill Woods.” We regret assigning the extra letter. n

What Goes Around Comes Around – Again

Paul Shanklin, the Cordova businessman whose political impressions have for several years been featured on Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated radio show and in other venues, has brought out – just in time for the holiday trade – his third album.
Titled “This Land Was Your Land,” the current venture, like its two predecessors, satirizes current political events and personalities, mainly those having to do with the Clinton administration. Such selections as “Livingstone, Susan, and Huang” (sung to the tune of “Abraham, Martin, and John”) and “Algore Paradise” (a rendering of “Gangsta’s Paradise”) will give you the idea. Available from Narodniki Records at 1-800-955-9188, the CD is $15.98 and the cassette is $12.98. Add $3.75 for shipping and handling. n