Harris, Lenoir debate at NAACP forum
Shelby County mayoral candidates Lee Harris and David Lenoir faced off at a NAACP debate on Tuesday evening, with Harris saying he represents a dramatic break from the past and Lenoir touting his executive experience.
“We need safer neighborhoods and we need a growing economy here in Shelby County,” said Lenoir, a Republican and the Shelby County trustee. “But more than that, we need a proven leader who’s actually done it.”
“I’m running for county mayor and I think it’s time we change everything,” Democratic candidate Harris said in his closing statement.
More than once he said the primary issue the county faces is poverty and he cited improved public transit and better schools as ways to address it.
Harris, a former Memphis city council member, current state Senator and current University of Memphis law professor, cited his success in passing bills as a Democrat in the Republican-controlled legislature. “I have always shown I have worked extremely hard and I can work with anybody.”
The candidates agreed on many issues – for instance, both said they support programs to help ex-prisoners integrate into society. Both said local governments, not the state, should control decisions to take down Confederate monuments. Both said they want to improve local schools.
But differences emerged in a sometimes testy debate. The debate was on the second anniversary of the sudden shutdown of the Hernando DeSoto bridge by people demonstrating against police violence and a wide range of other issues, and the moderator asked candidates what they thought of the shutdown.
“I love when citizens engage, I love protests,” Harris said. He said he didn’t remember every detail of the bridge shutdown, but that the protests had to do with suspicions over officer-involved shootings, and that he’d supported legislation to open up records of the investigations.
Lenoir said protests are good, noting that the debate was held on the National Civil Rights Museum site that memorializes Martin Luther King Jr. and related movements. But he suggested the bridge shutdown went too far.
“That I-40 corridor. Think about Regional One (hospital) as our regional provider and a family that needed to get to Regional One ... But when lives become in danger, that’s where we really have to think about the protest.”
A woman in the audience shouted “Lives were in danger!” and someone else said that’s why they were protesting.
Another major difference had to do with immigration policy. The moderator asked about local cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that’s stepped up arrests under President Trump.
Lenoir said it’s primarily a federal issue that’s out of the county mayor’s control, but added, “What we’re talking about is folks who are here illegally.”
Harris said, “At this point I don’t think we should voluntarily work with ICE.” The audience applauded.
Around 150 people were present at the start of the debate, and more arrived as it continued. The new arrivals stood along the walls.
Lenoir had almost not shown up at all – he had pulled out of the debate in recent days, citing an ongoing NAACP lawsuit over early voting sites and concerns about moderator Wendi Thomas.
Thomas, a former columnist for The Commercial Appeal and recently the leader of the MLK50 journalism project, withdrew as moderator, and Karanja Ajanaku, executive editor of The New Tri-State Defender, stepped in.
Lenoir said at the debate he’d asked the NAACP to change the moderator due to Thomas’ “biased public statements after her selection as moderator.” He didn’t cite any specific statements.
Thomas watched the debate from the front row of the auditorium but didn’t speak. She said later that Lenoir hadn’t asked the NAACP to replace her, but she offered to step aside to allow the debate to go forward.
“It wasn’t about me, it was about the voters,” she said.
The election is scheduled for Aug. 2. Early voting starts Friday.
Ryan Poe and Daniel Connolly
Reach Ryan Poe at poe@commercialappeal.com and on Twitter at @ryanpoe.