Politics, Memphis Flyer

Haslam Cautions Fellow Republicans at Lincoln Day Dinner

Jackson Baker — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:21:00 -0500

Governor Haslam at Lincoln Day

After exciting a surprisingly less-than-overflow crowd at this year’s annual Lincoln Day dinner by recounting the Republican Party’s successes in Tennessee — including the possession of two U.S. Senate seats, 7 or 9 U.S. House seats, and super-majorities in the state legislature — Governor Bill Haslam cautioned his listeners with a qualifier, preceded by a warning.

The “national situation” was different, he noted.…

Just Saying No

Jackson Baker — Thu, 16 May 2013 04:00:00 -0500

With his “ag gag” veto, Haslam may be getting the hang of it. by Jackson Baker Governor Bill Haslam's veto this week of HB 1191/SB 1248, christened the "ag gag" bill by its opponents, is yet another indication that Haslam may be getting more comfortable in the role of chief executive and more able to act independently of the General Assembly and the key Republican figures there. Haslam's progress toward self-assertion has been an uneven one.…

John Willingham, Barbecue Maven and All-Around Achiever, Dies at 80

Jackson Baker — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:32:00 -0500

John Willingham, a man who made a name for himself in many worlds and will be mourned by a broad cross-section of people in Memphis and Shelby County, died Wednesday evening of complications from heart disease at St. Francis Hospital, where he was under treatment.

Willingham, who would have been 81 on Sunday, the day after the conclusion of this year’s Barbecue Festival, had looked forward to the event this year with special anticipation.…

Cohen Hits Passage of House Bill on Overtime

Jackson Baker — Thu, 09 May 2013 09:02:00 -0500

Billed by its sponsors as “The Working Families Flexibility Act” and characterized by opponents as “The Bosses Flexibility Act,” H.R. 1406 narrowly passed the majority-Republican U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday by a vote of 223 to 204.

The bill, technically an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, a New Deal measure, is given no chance of passage in the Senate, and it is also opposed by President Obama, who has indicated he would veto it if need be, and by organized labor.…

Fallout From GOP Falling-Out

Jackson Baker — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:00:00 -0500

Though it won’t help Democrats much, the schism dividing state Republicans widens. by Jackson Baker Fallout continues from the bitterness that flared up within Republican ranks at the close of the 2013 legislative session on Friday, April 19th, the date pre-ordained by Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville), speaker of the state Senate and, up until quite recently, the virtually unchallenged spokesperson for the Republican legislative supermajority. As was chronicled in the Flyer two weeks ago, GOP members of the state House of Representatives vented their anger at domination by the Senate (read: Ramsey) in the session's last week and made a point of soundly rejecting a judicial redistricting measure that had been personally shaped by Ramsey and was greatly prized by the Senate speaker.…

Two Days After Donating a Kidney, Mulroy is ‘Rarin’ to Go

Jackson Baker — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:28:00 -0500

As the Flyer first reported in March, Shelby County Commissioner Steve Mulroy had resolved to donate one of his kidneys to the National Kidney Registry through the UT-Methodist Transplant Institute, the Registry's sole medical partner in Tennessee.

That was then, this is now — mere days after the Institute’s famed director, Dr. James D. Eason, extracted the kidney via laparoscopic surgery on Tuesday.…

Accord at the Eleventh Hour (Literally)

Jackson Baker — Thu, 02 May 2013 04:01:00 -0500

Well into the sixth hour of a unified School Board meeting that had started at 5:30 Tuesday afternoon, Board member David Reaves cast his vote with the Board majority for a hybrid transportation plan, exulted, “This was a great meeting,” and promptly moved for immediate adjournment. Wilted and/or giddy, most of the 23 members of the crazy-quilt, mixed city-and-county Board probably agreed wiith his sense of the moment.…

Luttrell Slams Board

Jackson Baker — Thu, 02 May 2013 04:00:00 -0500

Mayor says board’s pace impacts county budget, might favor merger delay. by Jackson Baker "To say I'm frustrated with the school board is an understatement. They have done us a disservice," said Shelby County mayor Mark Luttrell on Tuesday, addressing the Memphis Rotary Club luncheon.…

Fincher: 2nd Amendment Aimed at Government

Jackson Baker — Wed, 01 May 2013 11:01:00 -0500

Fincher at Range USA

Amid the nonstop sound of gunfire from practice rounds in firing lanes on the other side of the wall from where he spoke, U.S. Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-8th District) delivered a ringing endorsement of gun rights Monday night, speaking to members of the Northeast Shelby Republican Club at Range USA.

During a question-and-answer period following his brief prepared remarks, Fincher was asked for his views on gun issues by Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland, whose “Second Amendment Preservation Resolution,” intended to “prevent Federal infringement on the right to keep and bear arms,” will be voted on by the Commission at its Monday night meeting.

Fincher responded, “You saw a couple of weeks ago gun control could not get passed through the Senate?…

Luttrell, Search Firm Both Talk Up Delays in School Merger Process

Jackson Baker — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:07:00 -0500

Simultaneous with published reports that the search firm hired by the unified School Board wants a delay in looking for superintendency candidates, Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell has said he thinks a year-long delay in school merger itself would be helpful.

Luttrell told members of the Memphis Rotary Club Tuesday that the likelihood of multiple school systems in Shelby County’s suburbs and the complications stemming from that process would make such a delay desirable. Luttrell also expressed frustration with the efforts of the unified Board in resolving matters that impinge on its own budget — and consequently on that of the county at large.

“We still don’t know what the schools will cost.…

Maxine Smith, Civil Rights Icon, Dead at 83

Jackson Baker — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:00:00 -0500

Maxine Smith, the longtime executive secretary of the Memphis NAACP and a pivotal local figure in virtually every important aspect of the civil rights era, has died at 83.

Smith’s slipping of the mortal coil is sure to be formally recognized and her life commemorated by local, state, and national legislative bodies, for there is hardly as aspect of the times she lived in that she didn’t do much to transform.…

It's the County Commission’s Turn on Gun Rights

Jackson Baker — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:20:00 -0500

Kenny Crenshaw was speaking earnestly — the look on his face familiar to most of his onlookers, who had seen it numerous times on a host of billboards and TV screens. Only this time the easily recognized local lawn services proprietor wasn’t pleading to be allowed to “kill your weeds.…

Bunker Pulls Petition To Run for Lakeland Mayor

Jackson Baker — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 06:19:00 -0500

Shelby County Commissioner Wyatt Bunker — who previously served six years on the old Shelby County Schools board, following years of service by his father, Homer Bunker, on that board — now aspires to become Lakeland’s mayor as the city prepares to establish its own independent school district.

Bunker drew a petition from the Election Commisson on Wednesday, immediately following the Commission’s schedule of committee meetings . Incumbent Mayor Scott Carmichael has also drawn a petition.…

Houses Divided

Jackson Baker — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0500

with VIDEO clips from last day of session by Jackson Baker Back in the days of the old Solid Democratic South (roughly, the 100-year period from the end of the Civil War to the civil rights revolution), such political disputes as existed below the Mason-Dixon line were either factional within Democratic ranks or were based on local or personal or occasionally ideological rivalries. This was especially the case in border-state Tennessee, where the switch-over from Democratic to Republican control was later in coming than in the Deep South (though ultimately just as profound and sweeping).…

Judge Joe Brown, Ousted from his CBS Courtroom, Could Run for the Senate

Jackson Baker — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 17:02:00 -0500

Remember “Send Brown Downtown?” No, probably not. Most of you weren’t fixated on the lengthy ballot that confronted Shelby Countians in the steamy summer of 1990.

The Brown in question was Joe Brown, candidate for Shelby County Criminal Court and, after he won that race, just plain Judge Joe Brown later on.…

On Eve of Budget Talks, Strickland Warns against Property Tax Increase

Jackson Baker — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 07:28:00 -0500

That proposal made by City Councilmen Jim Strickland and Shea Flinn for a sales tax referendum, coupled with a reduction in the city’s property tax rate? It’s on indefinite hold, destined to remain there permanently if Mayor A C Wharton is able to convince the City Council to raise the property tax rate in budget negotiations about to get under way.…

BULLETIN: Strife Between Speakers and Chambers Kills Two Key Bills in Tennessee Legislature

Jackson Baker — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:22:00 -0500

BULLETIN: Strife between legislature’s two chambers and two speakers spells doom for two key bills.

NASHVILLE: The state Senate will shortly adjourn for the year without passing the Charter Authorizer bill (HB702/SB830) that easily cleared the state House on Thursday.

The reason?…

Authorizer Bill Enlarging State’s Power Over New Charter Schools Advances

Jackson Baker — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:34:00 -0500

For diehard determination in the face of intractable and hostile and inevitable fate, General Custer had nothing on the few Democrats, mainly from Nashville, who spent a futile but valiant hour in the state House of Representatives on Thursday, the next to last day of the 2013 legislative session, trying to turn back, or at least amend, a charter-authorizer bill that basically gives state government unlimited veto power over local school boards.

In the end every stratagem to blunt the bill and every amendment to deflect or redefine its purpose fell victim to a party-line vote from the top-heavily Republican membership of the House.…

Mike Ritz: It Ain’t Over Yet

Jackson Baker — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0500

Commission chairman sees more to come on Memphis-Shelby County school front. by Jackson Baker Shelby County Commission chairman Mike Ritz, the man who has been at the center of the school-merger crisis for the last two years and has been the driving force behind ongoing litigation, assayed the situation in the wake of Monday's passage of municipal-schools legislation in Nashville and saw some complications remaining. At some point, a few of the six suburban municipalities may find the independent school districts they establish vulnerable to legal challenge, Ritz said.…

Corinth Man Arrested as Mayor Wharton Expresses Concern about Memphis Postmark on Ricin Letters

Jackson Baker — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:17:00 -0500

News sources were reporting late Wednesday that Paul Kevin Curtis of Corinth, Mississippi (mis-identified in first reports as having a similar name and being from Tupelo) has been arrested in connection with the sending of suspicious mail to Justice Court in Tupelo and possible involvement in the mailing of two letters — one to President Obama, the other to U.S. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi — containing what FBI labs had identified as traces of the deadly poison ricin.

Earlier Wednesday, Memphis Mayor A C Wharton had responded to published reports that Memphis had been the point of origin for the letters to Obama and Wicker.…

The Case for a Local Memorial to U.S. Grant: Exhibit One

Jackson Baker — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 07:38:00 -0500

As the city’s Parks Naming Committee gets ready to resume its deliberations (next Monday, April 22), its members could do worse than consider for honors a onetime resident of some distinction. I mean, as long as generals on horseback are in fashion....…

The Municipal-Schools Bill, 2013 Version, Passes Both Houses of Tennessee General Assembly

Jackson Baker — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:11:00 -0500

With little more than perfunctory debate, this year’s version of a municipal-schools bill (SB1353/hb1288) passed both chambers of the Republican-dominated Tennessee General Assembly with comfortable margins Monday, thereby allowing the de facto secession from Shelby County’s soon-to-be “unified” school district that six suburban municipalities in the county have been seeking for at least two years.

Mayors and other representatives of those suburbs — Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Lakeland, Arlington, and Millington — were on hand for the occasion and were introduced in the state House of Representatives by suburban GOP members before Monday’s vote in that chamber.…

Richard Fields, a Socratic Gadfly, Gone Too Soon

Jackson Baker — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 07:50:00 -0500

I was stunned and saddened to learn on Saturday night of the death of Richard Fields, a pedigreed civil rights attorney who had toiled relentlessly for many years to bring the two major races of these parts into some kind of parity to make up for eons of official and unofficial injustice perpetrated by one upon the other.

My grief, if that’s the right word for it, was not because I ever considered myself a friend of Fields.…

On the Latest Tweet Crisis Starring Rep. Steve Cohen

Jackson Baker — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:58:00 -0500

When I lived in Washington for a while in the early ‘80s, working on Capitol Hill there, I was convinced that The Washington Post was the greatest newspaper in the world — bar none, including the vaunted New York Times, itself not too shabby.

Part of that, of course, was that the Post covered politics — national, international, even local — like nobody’s business.…

A (Verbal) Shoot-Out at the AgriCenter Gun Show

Jackson Baker — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 20:43:00 -0500

Periodically, there is a gun show in Memphis at the AgriCenter on the eastern fringe of Shelby Farms, and it never lacks for customers. On Saturday, December 22, last year, there was one there that prompted a visit from 58-year-old Mary Loveless, a former writer for Memphis magazine, one of the Flyer's sibling publications.…