Was Your Vote Counted? Who Knows!

Election day is just a week away, and campaigns all over the state are ramping up their efforts to get voters to the polls. This isn’t unusual, in fact it happens every election cycle. What is unusual is that several campaigns have reported reluctance by some voters to participate in early voting here in Shelby County. It seems lack of confidence in the process after the problems experienced in August has caused many voters to not only question the process, but also fear that the security of their vote may be in jeopardy.

It’s been a difficult year for Tennesseans concerned about election transparency. The State Legislature both delayed and gutted the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (see the votes House | Senate) in early February. Most people had forgotten about the gutting of TVCA by the Statewide Primary election in August, but problems reported around the state, most notably in Shelby County, brought the issue of election transparency back to the forefront of many voters minds.

As a result of the problems experienced in Shelby County, followed by what appeared to casual observers as persistent hedging and unnecessary barriers to oversight by the Shelby County Election Commission, the six Democratic countywide candidates on the ballot initiated a lawsuit…well, actually a couple. Eventually it landed in court before Chancery Judge Arnold Goldin.

On Friday, October 1st, Judge Goldin told the Election Commission to turn over evidence requested by the plaintiff. This resulted in a Monday afternoon document dump that included 8.3 million pages of digital documents. Just two days later Judge Goldin dismissed the case stating

“the plaintiffs’ proofs certainly pointed out imperfections in this election,” they were unable to prove they “rise to the level of fraud or illegality” such that results should be thrown out.
Goldin said trustee candidate Regina Morrison Newman and her eight fellow plaintiffs, all of them Democrats, had not met “the burden of proving (that) fraud and illegality so permeated the election to make it incurably uncertain.”

While Goldin may not acknowledge the uncertainty that many voters feel in the wake of the August election, early voting numbers do.

Through October 23rd 57509 people out of 602793 registered voters have cast votes in Shelby County. However, looking at the graphs below, something is more than a little skewed.

So where are all the African American voters? Lots of people are asking that question. Heck, I’d like to know too.

Local pundits seem to think this is just a “wave” election coming to its natural conclusion. While that may fit the national narrative there’s more to it than that. Sure, the unusually high number of voters in largely Republican and white areas indicates a kind of “wave”, but by any measure there aren’t enough of them in the county to turn the tide. So just what is going on?

Over the past few days I’ve received several reports of people canvassing neighborhoods stating that the voters they spoke with distrusted Early Voting. Their rationale, the problems with the August elections that many feel were far worse than reported by the Election Commission. If confusion and lack of transparency breed distrust, here in Shelby County we’ve got that and more.

It doesn’t matter if their suspicions are true or not. Perception becomes reality and for many voters, the jury is still out on what happened in August. Despite the protestations of the Election Commission, the perception out there is that the last election was stolen. Furthermore, despite the Election Commission’s efforts to explain and answer charges, they have released next to nothing, other than a tersely worded response to charges that can be found here. In effect, the Election Commission has said, “you can’t prove we did anything wrong but this”, which does nothing but stoke fears and enflame prejudices.

In preparation for this post I asked Elections Administrator Richard Holden two questions:

1. If he had seen a surge in poll worker applications since this article published.

2. What additional steps the Election Commission has put in place to ensure the problems experienced in August don’t happen again.

Holden indicated that they had not seen a surge of qualified poll workers since the 10/13 article. To the second question Holden said the problems faced in August had been addressed and there were several other locally and nationally organized protections in place and the Election Commission was working on videos of the process to ensure the public better understands how an election is conducted.

All this is well and good, but the reality is the Election Commission is fighting a perception war and losing badly. Their decision to put up roadblocks early on in the investigation made it look like they were defending the County against releasing what should be public information. Add that to long-held questions about the security of electronic voting machines and you have a recipe for disaster.

Even the report released last night by Bill Gibbons notes:

The findings here are not intended to give shelter to those responsible for elections in Shelby County. Without having completed a thorough investigation of the entire election system, it is impossible to offer an opinion regarding the competence with which the August election or other elections have been handled in Shelby County. Nonetheless, facts discovered during this limited criminal investigation do make it clear that more than one method of performing more thorough testing of voter data prior to an election day was available to the SCEC for the August election. It is obvious that although electronic systems may have substantial benefits, they also expose the SCEC to the risk of system-wide errors caused by a simple, momentary lapse. With this in mind, it is incumbent upon all responsible officials to make the extraordinary efforts demanded by the citizenry to avoid such lapses.

I think a lot of people are still waiting for those extraordinary efforts.

So now the question is, what happens if the polls are overrun with voters on election day? We already know that the Election Commission is struggling to find qualified poll workers, which seems odd considering the rate of unemployment in the county. But maybe this too is an example of the norm in many government structures in Tennessee, which seem to have a “come ‘an get it” attitude rather than simply making their structures more transparent, which is what it will take to regain the confidence lost in the Aftermath of August.

What happens next? I have no idea, but here’s to hoping that people don’t give up on the process and not show up. That won’t solve anything. The solution is to participate in the process and demand transparency when problems occur. The solution is for appointed officials in charge of our elections to act like they’re elected, and directly responsible to the people, because ultimately, they are. In the end we have to have faith even when our faith has been shaken, and resolve that if it happens again there will be hell to pay.

Anything less is surrender.

That IS what it's all about

For over a year we’ve been hearing about the Tea Party and whatnot, as if that’s the only political movement that’s energized in the nation. Certainly there’s some evidence out there that shows conservatives are energized this year. That’s not particularly unexpected. When one party takes the White House, the other party typically gets fired up to wrest control. 2002 was a notable exception, primarily because of 9/11, but by and large, the rule holds true.

But is all this supposed energy really widespread support, or a refutation of the status quo articulated through voter outrage? That’s a question that likely won’t really be answered until November.

Chris Clizza at the Washington Post reported last week that voters don’t really like either party. From my perspective, both parties, particularly in the federal government, have become agents of the status quo, which, by the way, hasn’t been too kind to average folks, rather than advocates for their constituents. It’s no wonder people feel disillusioned.

In this environment, the reality is that people want reform more than they want “same” regardless of what the much more vocal opponents of reform would have you believe.

A recent AP poll on healthcare bears this fact out. By a 2-1 margin more Americans think the landmark healthcare reform should have gone further. While this particular issue may not resonate with Tennessee voters, chances are we can apply the same kind of benchmarks for voter dissatisfaction with “same” here as nationally.

There are other issues feeding into this feeling of a need for reform. Unemployment is SUPER HIGH and not likely to decrease that much for several years. This means that people are suffering far more than they were even in 2008. The fact is, income disparity is at the highest rate it’s been since the Great Depression. Furthermore, those heralded “Bush Tax Cuts” that Republicans are running on, turn out to have sucked about $2.7 TRILLION from total income in the US. For some point of reference, $2.7 trillion is about 21% of the total federal debt and about half the debt that the Bush administration ran up in it’s eight years in office.

So what do voters REALLY want? In 2008, Obama ran on “Hope” and “Change”, but neither of these things are necessarily what voters were really asking for…”REFORM”. However, Obama can’t be blamed for the lack of comprehensive reform on many issues, nor can he be held accountable for a recalcitrant US Senate, which is where progress goes to die it seems.

The largest burden Obama bears is that he hasn’t used his bully pulpit effectively to provide direction and reframe the debate in a way that serves his mission of “Hope” and “Change” which can manifest itself as “reform”. Until he learns this lesson and uses his political power to at least try to reframe the debate he’ll continue to see downward pressure on his job performance.

The other side of this is the people who are currently running for re-election, those congress-critters. It’s not really fair to paint all 535 of them with a broad brush as agents for “same”, but there are enough of these “same agents” out there that a whole bunch of them are going to suffer defeat.

This is not a “Pro-Republican” year, but an anti-incumbent year. People want to see clear distinctions and effective solutions, and when they don’t they disengage. In both Federal and State elections, the lack of clear contrasts between the various parties and real solutions on key issues that impact voters (jobs, economic development, education) will ultimately hurt members of the party which is perceived to hold the power. In Federal elections this means that Democrats will suffer. In State elections it SHOULD mean that Republicans, who hold majorities in both the State House and Senate will suffer. Unfortunately, this may not be the case for several reasons.

First, Democrats held solid majorities in the House and Senate until quite recently. Most Tennessee voters are relatively disengaged from state politics as they don’t dominate the media the same way national politics do. Taking that into account, I would wager that if you conducted a “convenience store poll”, which is unscientific, but I think, a good indicator of how engaged regular folks are, few would know that Republicans hold the majority in Tennessee.

Second, a Democrat has held the highest position in the land for the past 8 years in Tennessee. This further feeds the perception that Democrats have been in power even though they haven’t necessarily had control of the legislative agenda over the past two years. This isn’t Phil Bredesen’s fault. He didn’t create the national problems that are impacting us stateside, however, because people see executive power as ultimate control, it feeds the perception that Democrats are the problem.

Third, and this is something I’ve been preaching for years now, from a practical perspective, voters perceive little difference between many state Democrats and Republicans. The absence of these clear distinctions, as I’ve stated before, puts negative pressure on Democratic candidates which translates into what we saw in the August elections here in Shelby County… an energized right and an absent left.

With just 36 days to go until election day, if Democrats don’t get it together and start drawing clear distinctions between themselves and their Republican counterparts and providing solutions they’re going to suffer dire consequences that will likely result in decades of life living in the shadows of political power. This isn’t about “Hope” or “Change”, it’s about “reform”. Democrats have to re-form the way they do business with their constituents and re-connect with them to re-gain their trust, ultimately showing them they are not the agents of “same”.

Same ain’t working for anyone right now. It’s past time we recognized that and acted on it. Old habits die hard, and barring some divine intervention, so will a lot of longtime legislative careers.

I, and many other people, have been preaching this since the after 2008 state legislative losses that gave Republicans the State House and solid majorities in the State Senate, but few have actually listened. I’m not sure why I’ve gone to all the trouble to put this out there again, but here it is. Same will give you a more devastating repeat of 2008.

While many current elected officials won’t be around in 20 years to feel the effects of this election, I (God willing) will. This isn’t about running to the left, or right or anything like that. In fact, I think we need to stop quantifying things in this manner. It’s about being trusted advocates for the people rather than trustees that assume to know what’s best. It’s about educating your voters instead of trying to justify your votes. It’s about flipping the relationship between representative and constituent around from the plantation mentality scenario that currently exists between many elected officials from both parties and their constituents.

Voters don’t need their current representatives as badly as those representatives need the voters. That’s reality. If something doesn’t give, a lot of people are going to find this out the hard way come November.

Ok, I think I’ve stepped in it good enough for a Monday morning. On to the Coffee!

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I can’t wait to see someone try and sneak up on the “Stealth Tax”. Since when was closing a loophole a bad thing? Since the world went mad.

Bill Haslam’s pick for President in 2008 famously said, “Bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb, Iran.” Tom Humphrey reports on Haslam’s Iran Connection and other developments in the Tennessee Gubernatorial race.

With all the racket about the Murfreesboro Mosque, it’s good to see some sanity brought into the conversation. And right here in Memphis, no less.

The City Paper in Nashville looks at the race for State House District 60.

Southern Beale on privatizing libraries, and Andy Meek on Shelby County libraries that are privatized.

Who left West Tennessee out of the electric car?

Finally, the debate over Metro Government rages on in Shelby County. In this episode, black political power is the topic of the day.

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Have a great day out there. Not sure if I’ll be able to do this daily, but I promise to try and get at least a couple a week until my schedule calms down.

There are a lot of reasons real, lasting change takes so long. First and foremost, as I noted yesterday, its a lot easier to change laws than it is minds. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 changed the law, but minds were lagging. From a purely political perspective, this change turned the Solid South from a Democratic enclave to a huge toss-up in the wake of this change. But despite this political condition, I think there are few people who would do it differently now.

From my perspective, it was more important to be right than to genuflect to a group who sought to maintain an unequal status quo. Its interesting that even though the Republican Party employed the Southern Strategy to gain favor with Southern whites in the wake of these landmark legislative moves, they never really overturned either the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act. To do so would have rendered their successful strategy moot.

It took nearly 145 years from the signing of the Declaration of Independence and over 70 years from the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 to gain enough momentum for the 19th Amendment to pass. But through dedication and resolve, pass it did, thanks to the vote of the Tennessee Legislature 90 years ago. While many saw the potential for women’s suffrage as an end to the white male dominated power structure of the past, this hasn’t really come to pass.

Currently, only 17% of the seats in Congress are held by women, despite being over 50% of the population. And while women have made great strides in the years since the passage of the 19th Amendment, the United States still lags behind our European counterparts when looking at the percentage of women in elected positions in government.

Laws do change faster than minds.

Today, at the Memphis City Hall, there will be a celebration of the passage of the 19th Amendment at 4pm. If you have some time, stop by and honor the women and men that worked hard to gain women the right to vote. Even if you don’t have time, take a moment to think about the next big change and the challenges that this change brings. Then resolve yourself to stay vigilant and fight for that change. As Mahatma Gandhi noted, “Justice does not help those who slumber but helps only those who are vigilant.”

On to the Coffee…

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We reported yesterday on the challenge to the August 5th elections here in Shelby County. Here’s news coverage of that suit.

Speaking of courage, Wendi Thomas has some thoughts on the subject.

Jackson Baker talks to Jim Kyle on partisanship and primaries.

The Tennessee Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the Memphis v. Memphis City Schools funding case. Here’s coverage from the Memphis Daily News, the Commercial Appeal, and our very own LeftWingCracker.

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Ok, have fun out there. Looks like it’s gonna be a nice day for a celebration.

In our spiritual lives, the faith in a loving God gives people of many traditions the hope of better things to come.

In politics, there are many levels of faith from many different positions, but perhaps the most fundamental is that our elections will be carried out in such a way that there are few, if any questions about the outcome.

Certainly, every election has problems. The fact is, we’re human, even though some seem loath of acknowledge that, and humans make mistakes more often than not. But mistakes alone don’t shake one’s faith in elections. There are many other contributing factors that ultimately lead to a shaken faith in the system that go far beyond mistakes.

That seems to be where we are now in the ongoing saga of the Shelby County August 2010 elections. As Jackson Baker reported over the weekend, when you add mistakes to a lack of transparency and openness, along with a dash of what appears to be stalling tactics, people lose faith in the process.

As Jackson notes in his article, the Election Commission tweeted on Saturday morning the phrase:

Our silence is us protecting your votes & voting rights while following strong advice from attorneys.

On the face of it, that may seem all well and good, but silence ≠ protection. More often than not, silence = hiding something. Adding that silence to the mistakes, lack of transparency, and stalling tactics, and you’ve got a recipe for ongoing questions, which runs counter to anything requiring faith.

Hopefully things will be different this week. Hopefully, the system, and the people charged with administering the system will be able to withstand scrutiny and faith in our system will be restored. But based on early reports, that’s not likely to happen, leaving faith in our system of elections in limbo or worse.

The hard thing about faith is that once its gone, its difficult to restore. Regardless of your political affiliations, we should all want to have faith in our election system. In order for that faith to either be restored or maintained, some unnecessary barriers must be removed. Hopefully that will happen soon, so those of us with questions will have answers.

At the end of the day, if you have nothing to hide then you have no reason to try an hide anything. The system probably can hold up to scrutiny on its own, if the people in charge will let it.

On to the Coffee…

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Haslam runs to the left in a new ad. One of his great governors says he’s overstating the challenges the state faces. And look, here’s another conflict of interest for the Knoxville Mayor.

Republicans are thinking sweep, but can they do it without the 11th Commandment?

Kyle v. Campfield

Looking at the challenges facing rural west Tennessee.

Joe Powell looks at a TDOT contractor’s employment practices.

Wendi goes for TEA.

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Alright, that’s all for now. More later as time permits.

Willie W. Herenton
via His Campaign Website

Over the weekend, The Memphis Flyer’s intrepid political reporter, Jackson Baker, had the opportunity to see the Herenton campaign in action. His report gives some insight into the attitude of the campaign. The verdict, they’re measuring for drapes.

From the article:

He began moderately but with a promise, appropriately cheered, “that we are going to win this election.” In its dire projections as to his electoral fate, the disbelieving media, he said, is confusing likely countywide totals with those of the9th District, which, “always remember…is a subset of the county.” And thus all those reports of higher-than-usual turnouts from white and Republican voters should be disregarded.

He promised to release the details of a poll on Tuesday, which would show, “data-wise with high predictability value of how large our margin will be.” That putative margin over Cohen could be estimated as between 3 to 1 and 4 to 1, Herenton said, “I’d like to beat him so bad I like the 4 to 1.”

Cohen’s well-documented financial edge? “I’ve never seen a dollar vote.” Nor could President Obama and the members of the Congressional Black Caucus who’ve endorsed Cohen vote. “But you can vote. And you’re going to vote.” Another cheer. “The black voters are going to determine who’s going to Congress.”

The win ratio that Herenton is talking about would mean that he expects to beat Cohen by the same margin that Cohen beat Tinker in the 2008 primary. That would be something. But Herenton wasn’t done. Here’s some more from Jackson’s report.

“To even make this race comfortably close,” Herenton said, Cohen would have to get “six out of ten of us.” And with “our folks …voting like mad,” that was not going to happen. “You got to watch these white folks,” he warned, speaking of alleged “irregularities” that occurred during the 2006 election. “Anything goes down, you got to watch white folks counting.” That was one of the lessons learned on the slave ships, Herenton said, somewhat incongruously.

“It will not be close. Look at the demographics of the 9th Congressional District,” Herenton said. Those Democratic candidates who stayed away from him, “the same way Gore stayed away from Clinton” were going to be in trouble. “The way they win is heavily dependent on the black vote. [But] they treat me like I’ve got a plague. But see, I don’t need them. All I need is you.”

Again, he promised to release a poll with “factual information” on the probable outcome on August 5. He ridiculed pollsters “Yacoubian, Ethridge, and Bakke,” and said, “Put all of them together, and they won’t come up with one good poll.”

I did some research of the voter participation list and found that 43039 people have voted in the 9th district Democratic primary during the early voting period. Sorting that data by the State House District that has the highest number of votes in the Democratic Primary shows that five predominantly African-American House districts are the most active participants in the Democratic primary. Who those votes are going to, however, is in question.

Three of the House Districts with the greatest participation have active primaries against the incumbent. This could account for some the higher turnout. Still, even this doesn’t give us a picture of who these folks are voting for, unless you count race as the only determining factor. If voters are heading out to the polls and voting along racial lines, there’s a good chance that it will be a long night for Congressman Cohen.

However, no demographic division votes monolithically. I know white people who support Herenton, and black people who support Cohen. So what does all this tell us? In the end, not much. Many assumptions have to be made, based on the data I have, to get to the 3:1 or 4:1 ratio that Herenton is talking about. Because the voter participating list that I have doesn’t include race, there’s no way to know for sure who or how many of any demographic division are showing up to the polls outside of the probability based on voter registrations. That probability is the fatal flaw in any guestimation of who wins or loses.

Either way, it’s going to be an interesting election night. So far, only 13% of registered voters in the 9th district have shown up to the polls and only 10% have pulled a Democratic ballot. There’s still plenty of opportunity for this election to swing wildly on election day. Believe me, I’ll be watching.

The Innards of Fireworks Revealed
Via How Stuff Works

Now, two days later, the only real indication this weekend was different than any other is burned places on the pavement from the fireworks that were shot, the strange absence of antacid from the shelves of stores, and piles of trash bags that grace just about every dumpster on the block.

About two blocks from the party I was attending, a garage caught on fire and burned to the ground. Several of us watched in amazement as the Memphis Fire Department worked to save what was left of the structure, and prevent the fire from spreading to other buildings. The garage didn’t make it, but from what we could tell, no one was hurt.

Thank goodness.

I haven’t really taken time to reflect on the weekend, or the events that transpired. In all, it was a good weekend. I actually gave myself permission to sleep more than my normal 6 hours a night, something that rarely if ever really happens. I also gave myself permission to completely and totally ignore everything that was going on in the rest of the world, which is also something that I almost never do.

Its important to sometimes unplug and just focus on the micro, especially when the macro often feels well beyond your reach.

I won’t say that the weekend gave me a new perspective, but I will say that taking time to disengage now and again can leave you refreshed and renewed, ready for the tasks ahead of you.

I hope that all of you were able to find some time for you and yours. Most importantly, I hope that regardless of what your long weekend held you were able to recharge your batteries. The next several weeks on the way to November are going to be the back half of a marathon.

On to the coffee!

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Today is the last day to get your voter registration forms in if you want to vote in the August Election. You can download the form here, then mail it to your election commission. Not sure where to mail it? Use this handy online search tool. All registration forms postmarked by today will be accepted for the August election and voters will be eligible to vote in August.

Tom Humphrey is talking aboutFederal money to the states and the looming State House and Senate elections.

The TEP is also looking at the upcoming elections in a couple of posts.

Fayette County is realizing it must be the master of it’s own destiny when it comes to development.

There were a couple of articles about Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Ron Ramsey this weekend.

An Op-Ed in the Jackson Sun talks about the price of partisanship for the unemployed.

And finally, Steffens over at LWC sounds the alarm about an appearance in Shelby County by Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Mike McWherter. The CA has the coverage.

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Hope you had a great weekend. Here’s to an abbreviated week!

The Pet Rock Was Once A Trend Too.

Cuppa Joe breaks down the trendy lack of trends in this week’s primaries across the country.

For my money, the moral of the story is that there is no moral to the story. On the same day, in different parts of the country, we saw completely contradictory trends. It may be unsatisfying for those looking for trends, but it’s true anyway.

The Davidson County Primary Elections, originally scheduled for May 4th, were rescheduled due to the floods that left much of the city underwater. You can see who’s on the ballot here.

Also, if you’re not so sure about who all those clerks are and what they do, check out yesterday’s Liberadio Cirlce of Clerks Podcast.

The Polls are open from 7 am to 7pm. You can find your polling location here.

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Two neighboring states are also having primaries today, Arkansas and Kentucky, and even though Tennesseans don’t have a say in the vote, what happens in these elections could impact people here in the Volunteer state.

Over in Arkansas the big primary is between two term Senator Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Governor Bill Halter.

Lincoln is the current Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and has been a frequent speaker at events I’ve worked around the nation by agricultural lobbying groups.

Halter brought the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery to a referendum a few years ago. The system is similar to what we have here in Tennessee. Arkansas has been trying to do something like this for years, but State Supreme Court rulings have typically removed these referenda items from the ballot.

This race has been getting national play for some time. Halter’s announcement earlier this year brought an immediate pledge of two million dollars from labor and progressive groups in his effort to unseat Lincoln.

This has been a bruising campaign that has seen more business for the Arkansas print industry and the USPS than perhaps any other single race in the history of the state. This weekend while I visited my mother in Little Rock, she received at least 10 political advertisements in the mail about the Arkansas Senate race, none of which were from the candidates themselves.

Check out Max Brantley at the Arkansas Blog for some detailed coverage of the race. Chances are, there will be a statewide runoff, if that happens it’s only going to get uglier.

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Up in Kentucky the primary battle has been on the GOP side. Current Secretary of State Trey Grayson the closest thing to a GOP standard-bearer is battling with Tea Party candidate Rand Paul, son of former Presidential candidate .

I haven’t been keeping up with this one too closely, but it is entertaining to see the internal battle for the soul of the GOP unfold right before my very eyes. Page One Kentucky among others, has been on the case.

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Of course, there are other primary contests going on in other far away places, but I won’t get into all that. If there’s a primary in your area (I’m talking to you Davidson County) get out and vote!

That may not SEEM like that big of a deal, but when you consider that we’re already seeing some questionable purging of the rolls in Benton County, well, it makes you wonder why the Republican led legislature would leave that open to interpretation.

Humphrey has the story, but here are some choice quotes:

“What we’re doing is allowing the election administrator to reject as to some and accept as to others,” said Sen. Doug Jackson, D-Dickson. “This is unbridled, undirected discretion… What is ‘satisfactory evidence?’… It could be one thing in one county, something else in another.”

Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle noted that voter registration drives are sometimes organized by candidates or political parties. He said the bill would allow a registrar to demand citizenship proof from voters signed up by one candidate; not from another. If the new forms were turned in on the deadline for registering, he said they could effectively be denied the right to vote.

The bill has already passed the House, though there are some differences between the House and Senate versions.

These guys have to get on the same page if they want to successfully exclude people who have every right to vote on the mere suspicion of their citizenship status.

I think my new rallying cry for idiotic bills like this will be, “Remember Christine Borchert!”

At a time when the public longs for leaders with courage and who can find the common ground and find the mainstream where all sides can unite, these are the kinds of politicians who seemingly care about nothing except themselves and staying in office.

That became blindingly apparent when the House Republican Caucus invited the NRA’s lobbyist into a meeting so she could threaten anyone who might put reason over rifles. It was contrary to tradition and practice, but it graphically underscored the hold that the NRA has too many of our legislators.

The NRA stays in a constant state of outrage and bullying over any risk that the legislators it owns might lapse into a moment of logic. Apparently, that’s why NRA lobbyist Heidi Keesling was dispatched post-haste to Nashville because a handful of legislators were thinking for themselves, always a grievous offense in the parallel universe that the gun lobby has created.

The sin: An amendment that would have said that people couldn’t carry guns into bars. If that had happened, people could only have been able to carry their guns into restaurants

– Snip

…What makes all of this so unbelievable – not to mention unforgivable – is that they passed the bill in the face of the opposition of the people who have to enforce it – the state sheriffs and police chiefs – and the people who know their industry best – the restaurateurs.

Their disregard for the experts in the face of overwhelming logic is testament to the phenomenon that invades government too much these days.

It’s all about winning and losing. It’s all about political pandering. It’s all about the objective that trumps public safety and sound public policy – getting elected.

I think I’m starting to see a theme here.

I don't think this is what Cole Porter intended...

In an editorial published Sunday the Memphis daily takes a look at some of the crazy that flows through the lege in an election year.

Voters should look at every vote with skepticism. Some representatives are doing their best to show that they will do anything, however illogical, meaningless or wrong, to keep from offending anyone or any organization that might affect re-election plans.

Quotes can be revealing. Did Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, who’s running for governor, support the new hospital bed tax described as a lifeline for the struggling Regional Medical Center at Memphis?

He said he did, until it came to a vote in the Senate, and Ramsey voted no. “I thought you were OK with that,” a reporter said. “What happened?”

“I just don’t think the timing was right for me to vote on that right now,” Ramsey replied. Translation: He’s afraid of what opponents Zach Wamp and Bill Haslam would say about him in their TV ads.

Dang! Go read the whole thing. It’s a blast.

House Minority Leader Gary Odom, D-Nashville, asked the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation in a letter to probe what he later called a “witch hunt.”

“I know firsthand that some of these voters have been registered to vote in Tennessee for more than 48 years,” wrote Rep. Odom, who said he has also been told that 70,000 Memphis voters and 50,000 Nashville voters have been purged.

…

During the hearing, Benton County Election Administrator Mark Ward, a Republican, said his mailings were aimed at rectifying incomplete records he discovered when he took over from his Democratic predecessor.

House Assistant Republican Leader Gerald McCormick, of Chattanooga, charged that Rep. Odom was insinuating wrongdoing without having facts, calling it “the kind of thing McCarthy did in the ’50s.”

Despite the flareup, the bill passed.

An eastern Missouri lawmaker is facing an election challenge from her own husband, whom she accuses him of physical violence. He denies the allegations.

Democratic Rep. Linda Fischer obtained a protection order against John Fischer last week. Three days later, he filed as a Republican candidate for his wife’s state House seat, becoming her only challenger in the November election a day before the filing deadline passed.

Linda Fischer said Wednesday that she was not going to question her husband’s motives, refusing to say whether she believed he filed as retaliation.

If you think the Donna Rowland story is gonna make for some awkward scenarios, this one will likely trump it 10 fold.

State Rep. Chad Faulkner, R-Luttrell, said Tuesday he will seek re-election to another term representing House District 36 rather than run for Union County sheriff.

“My heart tells me I need to be here (at the Legislature),” said Faulkner. “I prayed and prayed over this.”

While considering entering the race for Union County sheriff, Faulkner requested an attorney general’s opinion on whether a deputy sheriff could legally run for the office of sheriff in a non-partisan race. Faulkner is a deputy in Knox County, though he has been on unpaid leave of absence, and the sheriff’s race in Union County is non-partisan.

According to the article, the State Attorney General also raised questions as to whether a sheriff deputy could run in a partisan race at all, something that has implications for Faulkner, as well as some candidates for Shelby County Sheriff.

Faulkner is also sponsoring legislation requiring written copies of complaints against Law Enforcement officers, and Firemen, signed by the complainant, be provided to the officers in question.

The list of people who have pulled petitions for the seat include: Johnny Chad Faulkner, Keith Clotfelter, Brian S. Whitson, Stanley Marlow, Dennis Powers, and J.C. White. Unfortunately, the Union County Election Commission site doesn’t list the party these petitions are pulled under.

Tomorrow is the filing deadline for all state and federal candidates. I’m sure we’ll have more clarity on this and other races by then.

Marine Capt. Ben Leming of Murfreesboro has filed a petition to run as a Democrat for the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Bart Gordon.

Adviser Jeff Clark told The Associated Press on Monday that Leming, 34, got permission from the secretary of the Navy to file his candidacy, but can’t actively campaign until his active duty ends May 1.

Gordon, a Democrat, is retiring after 13 terms in the seat that represents 15 counties ranging east from Nashville’s fast-growing suburbs to the Cumberland Plateau.

The race for TN-06 is going to be hard for any Democrat this year. Having a candidate with military credentials will definitely help, but it doesn’t guarantee a win.

Leming is getting a late start, made even later by the restrictions of his active duty status. Still, with no primary opponent, this gives him a good bit of time to get ready for the general election. Hopefully he can build a campaign team quickly and get to the business of getting elected.

Good luck Captain. I’m sure we’ll be writing more about this as the campaign continues.

Madison County Democrats introduced their candidates for county office at a press conference this morning that included searing comments from party Chairman T. Robert Hill about the County Commission’s performance in recent years.

“(The commission) is most often seen as a place to draw $300 (a month) and stay at home because you know what’s going to happen anyway,” Hill sad. “That will change hopefully after this August.”

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“We don’t want to ask people to elect (a candidate) if they don’t serve,” he said. “… If you can’t give the service, you should step aside and let someone else fill the gap.”

An overwhelmingly Republican majority has been locked in control of the commission and much of the county’s other elected leadership. Hill said he is trying to make the local Democratic Party more of a presence in Madison County politics.

Good for your Chairman Hill! Acknowledging that people want responsive government, even when it sometimes means calling out your own members, may not be the way to keep everyone happy, but it is the way to motivate voters and increase awareness and involvement in the electoral process.

Go check out the Madison County Democratic Party.

Todd Mrozek at Jackson Day

Mrozek, a Johnson City resident who works in radio advertising sales, said he wants the job because he’s interested in education.

“I’m not one of these people who is going to be yelling about how bad our public education system is … (but) we can always make it better and bring new ideas to the marketplace,” Mrozek said before his downtown Jonesborough campaign announcement. “I will stand and make education a high priority. Creating jobs is not the business of government but of the market, but government should get off the backs of business. … I will stand up for workers and make sure they are protected.”

Sounds good to me. Here’s a map of the 7th House District.

Go follow him on the Twitters or join his Facebook Fan page.

In an article in this morning’s Commercial Appeal Carpenter takes Interim Mayor Joe Ford to task:

“The consequence to delaying the budget will be to provide political cover for those of us on the ballot on May 4,” Carpenter wrote in a letter that he distributed through his Twitter account. He argues the budget process takes weeks and the county should start right away.

Ford says he has no political motives. He says the administration can’t finish the budget until property tax revenue reports from the 2009 reappraisal year become available.

“We can’t balance it unless we know how much tax revenue’s coming in,” he said.

The dispute over the budget takes place amid fierce political competition. Carpenter is running for re-election to his County Commission seat and is also backing Sheriff Mark Luttrell, a Republican, in the county mayor’s race.

I have no way of knowing if this is, as the Mayor says, an issue of not having all the information, a consequence of having a relatively newly appointed administration in place, or, as Carpenter states, a political move.

I do know that the people of Shelby County want to know what the future holds for their County government. Addressing this issue, and doing everything possible to ensure that there is no appearance of political motives is in the best interest of the people, and all the candidates who seek the Mayor’s Office. Delay only undermines the office and the public trust in the person occupying that office. From that perspective, delay doesn’t make much sense.

Shepard said this week that he’s ready for a new test in Nashville. Before he was elected mayor in 2006, Shepard was sheriff for 20 years.

“I’ve worked closely with people (in Nashville) when I was president of the Sheriffs Association and think I can get a lot of things done for (District 79),” he said.

Shepard said he’s started meeting with residents, and next week, he will visit Carroll County.

“I want to talk to the public and let them know they’ll be a part of this district,” he said. “I want them to know that if I do run for state representative and get elected, that I will include them in all the decisions that I make.”

HD-79 covers all of Gibson and about half of Carroll Counties in West Tennessee. It is currently represented by first termer Curtis Halford of Dyer.

During the show, the discussion turned to the 9th District race between Herenton and Cohen. In the course of that discussion, Thaddeus said something that the Herenton campaign has been saying since he announced his intention to enter the race. I can’t quote him directly but the crux of it was that the 9th District was designed to be represented by an African American.

Now, no one can look at the demographics for Shelby County and deny that we have a majority African American population. So, if you look only at that statistic, I suppose, that yes, the 9th was “designed” to be represented by and African American.

But that raises another question; was the 9th district designed to EXCLUDE a Caucasian, or any other racial background from representing the district? Clearly, the answer to this is no, otherwise we wouldn’t have had Cohen in Washington since the 2007.

If we look at all of Tennessee’s Congressional Districts we see at least three that are highly, and suspiciously gerrymandered. The 7th and 3rd being the most obvious, though the 4th is pretty bizarrely drawn too.

By contrast, the 9th is drawn in a relatively straightforward manner covering the majority of Shelby County.

So while demographically, the 9th may have a majority African American population, the notion that an African American is the ONLY one that SHOULD represent it, is purposefully divisive and exclusionary.

For me, I want the best PERSON for the job, regardless of race, sex, orientation or any other criteria that would be used to separate one from another. Who that is, is up to the voters. Hopefully, the voters of the 9th will not rely solely on race as a determining factor, but the legislative vision of the candidate that best suits the needs of the district.

More importantly, I hope the rhetoric of the campaign shifts to THAT discussion rather than what we’ve seen thus far. We can’t come together if we keep dividing ourselves. We can’t work for progress if we continue to regress into exclusionary attitudes. In doing these things, we’re selling ourselves short. Personally, I think we’re better than that.

I’m not super schooled up on the finer points of Madison County politics, but there sure do seem to be a lot of Republicans that will basically be elected to office after the primary. 13 of the 25 seats will be held by Republicans after the primary. 5 are assured Democratic wins. That leaves 7 up in the air.

Something I noticed when I was working on the Madison County resource page is the strange set up of the districts. Some have 3 members, other have 2. Kinda curious about the rationale. So, if anyone over in Madison County has some insight, drop a comment or email me at the contact page.

We’ll check back on this next week after the withdrawal deadline if anything changes.

Q=Qualified for the Ballot, P=Pulled Petition but not yet filed

Shelby County Mayor

Joe Ford – D – Pending
Deidre Malone – D – Q
Ernest Lunati – R – Q
Mark Luttrell – R – Q
Tom Guelff – R – P
Lew Agowhat – I – Q
Thaddeus Matthews – I – P
Sandra Sullivan – I – P

Shelby County Commission District 1

District 1 Position 1	District 1 Position 2	District 1 Position 3
Mike Ritz – R – Q	Albert Maduska – R – Q Steve Basar – D – P David Winston – D – P Heidi Schafer – R – P John Willingham – R – P	Mike Carpenter – R – Q
District 2 Position 1	District 2 Position 2	District 2 Position 3
Walter Bailey – D – Q Berlin Boyd – D – P	Henri Brooks – D – P David Vinciarelli – D – P	Norma Lester – D – Q Reginald Milton – D – Q Eric Dunn – D – P Freddie Thomas – D – P Kimberly Strong – D – P Russell Jones – D – P Melvin Burgess – D – P
District 3 Position 1	District 3 Position 2	District 3 Position 3
James Harvey – D – Q James O. Cathings – D – Q	Sidney Chism – D – Q	Justin Ford – D – Q Edith Moore – D – P
District 4 Position 1	District 4 Position 2	District 4 Position 3
Chris Thomas – R – Q John Pellicciotti – R – Q Jim Bomprezzi – R – P John Wilkerson – R – P	Wyatt Bunker – R – Q John Wilkerson – R – P Ron Fittes – R – P	Terry Roland – R – Q John Bogan – R – P George Chism – R – P Jim Bomprezzi – R – P Edgar Babian – R – P
District 5
Jennings Bernard – D – Q Steve Mulroy – D – Q Rolando Toyos – R – P

We’ll be updating this post with more information and the rest of the offices throughout the day.