Old school-new school candidates face off in Democratic mayoral primary
Sidney Lee Chism has been a labor leader, money raiser, political confidante and Shelby County commissioner.
At age 78, he has been a political force for almost half a century in Memphis and Shelby County, but he’s still not done. He’s running for Shelby County mayor.
“If I can find any Scripture that says you have to retire, than I’ll retire. But I still have the desire to do major changes within the confines of this city,” Chism said. “We have to do something about crime first. Once we do, we can begin to create middle-class jobs and living wages.”
Voters will choose between Chism and Lee Harris in the Democratic primary. Early voting will begin April 11 ahead of the May 1 primary election. The winner will face a Republican candidate in the Aug. 2 general election. Term limits bar present Mayor Mark Luttrell from seeking a third term.
Chism and Harris are lifelong Memphians. Both say they are intent on improving economic development. At the same time, they draw on far different life experiences.
“That race is fascinating because it’s a classic old school-new school race,” said Memphis political analyst John Ryder, a lawyer in the city and general counsel of the Republican National Committee.
“Chism is the archetypical old-line union Democrat. He’s held office for decades,” Ryder said. “Lee Harris is very much a new Democrat.”
Chism and Harris, a state senator, have known one another since they each attended Mt. Joyner Missionary Baptist Church in southwest corner of Whitehaven in the 1980s.
“I think he’s a decent kid. I think he’s an opportunist,” Chism said of Harris, ticking off political steps since 2011 by the 39-year-old Yale law school graduate – Memphis City Council, state senate, now the mayoral race.
Chism, by contrast, has followed a blue-collar path. In the early 1960s, he studied two years at a University of Tennessee campus in Memphis, found work at the big brewery, then owned by Schlitz, and went up the union ladder, becoming Teamsters Local 1196 president.
By the late 1980s, he was instrumental in Willie Herenton’s progression from Memphis City Schools superintendent to election as Memphis’ first black mayor. Chism urged Herenton to run for mayor, put the considerable resources of Local 1196 behind the candidate, and after Herenton won election, Chism became head of the Democratic Party in Shelby County, a position he held into the mid-1990s.
At the time, Chism ranked among the city’s highest-salaried residents, earning over $115,000 annually as a Teamsters’ leader. Local 1196 represented more than 1,600 brewery workers and employees of beverage wholesalers.
By the late 1990s he had crossed swords with the influential Ford political family and let go of the Democratic Party leadership to focus both on Herenton’s election campaigns and on his own businesses.
Chism and wife Lillie Chism years ago formed S&L Inc., which owns a car wash, apartments, a coin laundry, a beauty shop and Horn Lake Road Learning Center, a day care that prospered as the state expanded Head Start funding in the 1990s.
When Herenton developed Banneker Estates, Chism built a 6,800-squarefoot house he lives in today in the upscale subdivision off Horn Lake Road not far from the Tennessee-Mississippi border.
Chism points out his own wealth sets him apart from many politicians. Indeed, he said he’s buffered from much of the political influence corporate interests can exert in Memphis on black officials. And this in turn lets him focus on matters important to everyday Memphians.
“You don’t have to be rich, but at least I know how my living is made,” Chism said.
Many everyday Memphians, particularly African-American households, struggle to rise above poverty, a quandary he said can be addressed with more robust economic development efforts.
“We have to go out of this city and entice companies to come here,” Chism said, noting this could stymie the city’s brain drain and bring college graduates who grew up here back to the city. “We need to bring in the right kind of industry, and we need to train people for the jobs.”
That could entail a new emphasis on the county mayor actively recruiting companies in Asia and Europe.
Chism identifies a difference between himself and Herenton, who was city mayor from 1992 into 2009. Toward the end of that span the economy here slowed.
Herenton “opened the door to opportunity’’ but “the jobs were never there,” Chism said. “I want to make sure black folks have the opportunity to enter the workforce free of restrictions.”
Chism said he favors $15-per-hour minimum wages, though rather than require $15 by law, he said he’d encourage employers to lift their pay scales and aid impoverished Memphians.
“Corporate Memphis doesn’t have to take so much profit out at the expense of people at the bottom,” Chism said.
He also said he might revisit the question of casino gaming in the city to harness the tax revenue now flowing to Arkansas and Mississippi when Memphians gamble in West Memphis and Tunica County. In 2004, Chism was employed as a consultant by the Oklahoma-based Cherokee Nation, which sought a Native American-owned casino in Memphis. The petition drive failed then.
Before economic development can reach stride, he said, Memphis has to address crime. Among the tactics he favors: Sheriff’s deputies walking police beats within the city limits in an effort to tone down violence. Said Chism: “Police on the streets would change the attitude of the people living in these neighborhoods.”
Chism’s website https://www.sidneychismforcounty mayor.com/ is