A Party of Several Parts Republicans suddenly find much to disagree about as the August 6th election approaches. by Jackson Baker kay, so the Republican Party of Shelby County obliterated the county's Democrats in the general election of 1994, and the GOP has been so awesome a force this year that few name Democrats even considered challenging the Republican incumbents for the major countywide offices. It's all over but the shouting, right? PHOTO BY JOHN LANDRIGAN Washed Up and Gone to the Dogs Some of the participants on hand for Sunday’s rainy- day version of the annual St. Peter’s picnic didn’t mind hazarding some inclement weather to boost their favorites. The problem for the Republicans clearly, if barely, the majority party of Shelby County is that, with the August 6th election rapidly approaching, much of the shouting is coming from their own ranks, from inside a party whose seams are beginning to show, and where feuding factions are beginning to be the rule and not the exception. Consider: · The party's chairman, David Kustoff, is the target of a pesky challenge for his District 31 state executive committee position from a veteran GOP journeyman with a record of hard, never-say-die campaigning. The challenger? None other than Kustoff's own second cousin, former county steering committee member Arnold Weiner. Weiner is the warrant-and-process server who, along with partner Richard Heen, ran afoul of the county's criminal judges last year when Weiner circulated a letter boasting that the private probation service run by the two enjoyed special favor with Republican judges. Then, presiding county judge Chris Craft promptly issued an order effectively shutting the probation service down, and Kustoff acted decisively to force the resignation of Weiner and Steen from the local GOP steering committee. Weiner, a semi-inveterate writer of letters-to-the-editor, pronounces his name "Wine-er," but his critics prefer to say, somewhat derisively, "Ween-er." One such is State Representative Joe Kent, who blames Weiner's intervention for the presence of Kent opponent Bill Patterson on the August 6th GOP primary ballot. Friends of the GOP chairman say he is determined not only to beat Weiner handily but to eliminate his cousin as a potential source of future disruption in the Republican Party. Weiner is an indefatigable activist type who has won several awards in the past for his ticket sales to Republican events. The presence of his blue-and-white signs in a number of yards this year signifies his usual hard work. For his part, Kustoff has begun a mass mail-out to district voters of a flyer listing as his supporters virtually everybody who is anybody within the local GOP. · Then, and perhaps more crucially, there is the "Election Day Reminder" endorsement ballot now being circulated to likely Republican voters by former County Commissioner Ed Williams. In a number of races, the choices made by Williams, still an influential party figure, contrast with those on the GOP's glossily printed official ballot, which is about to be circulated en masse. Notably, the Williams list deviates from the official party list in three General Sessions judges' races. The GOP steering committee had chosen, and the official ballot lists, Gary Wilkinson in the Division 6 open race, incumbent Tony Johnson in Division 10, and challenger Jim Robinson in Division 11. Williams opts for veteran lawyer James Lawrence in Division 6, challenger Tim Beacham in Division 10, and incumbent Charles Gallagher in Division 11. The difference in opinion especially complicates the Division 6 race, where Lonnie Thompson confronts Wilkinson and Lawrence, and the race for Division 11, which pits Mischelle Alexander-Best against Robinson and Gallagher. Thompson and Best are African Americans, who stand to benefit from demographic voting habits which favor blacks running against multiple white candidates. Williams' choices in county school board races also differ from those of the official party ballot. In District 1, Williams eschews a choice; the official Republican endorsee is newspaperman Rick Wells; Williams goes for Lynn Smith in District 3, while the GOP's official choice is Ann Edmiston. And Williams makes choices in some races that go unmentioned on the official GOP ballot. In state Republican executive committee races, for example, he opts for Kustoff over Weiner, for Annabel Woodall over Glenda Crawford in District 30, and for Paul Stanley over Charles Griffin and John Wilkerson in District 32. He also endorses Kent over Patterson in State House District 83, Curry Todd over opponents Danny Davila and Rickey Sulcer in District 95, and incumbent Larry Scroggs over David Shirley in District 94. In the battle of the ballots, the advantage, of course, will likely go to the official GOP version, which will shortly go out to some 90,000 households. · Scroggs is the beneficiary of support from yet another veteran Republican Governor Don Sundquist, the highest of the high in the ranks of the state GOP. In what is likely, said a spokesman, to be his only intervention in a Republican legislative primary race this year, Sundquist not only pumped hard for protege Scroggs at a fund-raiser Saturday at the home of Germantown alderman Frank Uhlhorn, but the governor went on to denounce Shirley as a potential "disaster." Noting that he had helped Scroggs unseat former incumbent Shirley from the Southeast Shelby County seat two years ago, Sundquist called Shirley "only a nominal Republican," who "spent all his time working against everything I did," voting consistently against the annual budget presented by the governor. "There's not a clearer choice anywhere, and if it look like [the race] is tough, I'll be back again and again and again," vowed Sundquist. Scroggs also got the endorsement of veteran State Senator Curtis Person Jr., who praised Scroggs as an "outstanding" first-term legislator. Person enumerated several bills that he and Scroggs had co-sponsored successfully in the 1998 General Assembly. A Traveler’s Caution The most up-front line lately delivered by a politician was probably uttered by U.S. Representative Mike Parker (R-Miss.), the keynoter at Friday night's "Elephant Stampede" unity rally for Shelby County Republicans at the Racquet Club. As he began his remarks to the banquet crowd, Parker observed, "There are some politicians in Mississippi who run into trouble coming to Memphis for dinner and then trying to get back home." The reference, which drew appreciative groans and laughter from Parker's audience, was to Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordyce, who suffered a serious traffic injury on his way back to Mississippi from a never-quite-explained dinner rendezvous in Memphis with a woman friend on election night in November 1994. The Merger and the Mood After The rather restrained Willie Herenton who announced the city of Memphis' annexation agreement with Hickory Hill at a City Hall ceremony on Monday was a far cry from the Willie Herenton who responded with exuberance even boastfulness last year to the state Supreme Court ruling striking down the Chapter 98 "toy town" law. But the two Herentons were, after all, the same man: the triumphant mayor of a still expansionist urban area that has now seen two major roadblocks to its further development removed from the landscape. "This action brings to a close 12 years of litigation and conflict and ushers in an era of cooperation and harmony," said Herenton about the consent agreement entered into by the city and by representatives of Hickory Hill. The mayor and city CAO Rick Masson both pointed out that the $150 million worth of services and new infrastructure (schools, parks, fire stations, etc.) to be supplied Hickory Hill over the next five years would be offset both by an expected $28 million in annual new tax revenue and by the issuance of bonds. Hence, no operating deficit. Even so, the mayor was noncommittal about the value of the Hickory Hill settlement as a precedent for future expansion into other as-yet-unincorporated areas. Nor would Herenton commit himself to the likelihood of a city property-tax rate increase in the near future. "What you folks in the media say is, 'He didn't rule it out.' Just say I'm noncommittal," said the mayor, not ruling it out. And pointing out, as an aside, that next year would be an election year in the city a fact which normally would breed caution in an office-holder. (Yes, he was noncommittal about his plans for next year, too.) While professing optimism about the oncoming merger with Memphis, Hickory Hill resident Tom Jeanette (a lead petitioner last year for the area's independent incorporation) did point out what he saw as one anomaly in the annexation agreement. "We've been promised six police personnel for Hickory Ridge. That's the same number the mayor has assigned to himself. We know we have something of a crime rate. What kind of crime rate does he have?" said Jeanette. At Monday's ceremony, the two city councilmen Jerome Rubin and Brent Taylor who will represent separate ends of the newly annexed area were introduced. No word yet from the Election Commission as to how the merger agreement will affect the county school board district elections scheduled now for August 6th.