Memphis Council shrugs off democracy
In an age when democracy is so readily shrugged off, maybe it’s unsurprising that three Memphis City Council members decided voters shouldn’t have a voice on the council.
Council members Bill Morrison, Edmund Ford Jr. and Janis Fullilove — who all won elections to county positions in August — did not resign their council seats in time to have a special election Nov. 6, Election Administrator Linda Phillips told me today.
That means the council will appoint three interim members — almost half the votes needed to approve any ordinance — who will serve until next year’s Oct. 3 city election. If Morrison, Ford and Fullilove run out the clock on their 90-day deadline to resign, they’ll exit their seats at the end of October, pushing the appointments into November.
Meanwhile, the three council members will collect two paychecks.
When asked, Fullilove said she was too busy preparing for her new job to resign, according to The New Tri-State Defender. Morrison said he had unfinished business.
The council’s most articulate defense has come from former member Shea Flinn, who argues in a tweet that a hurried election favors candidates with wealth and name recognition.
“All the idealist fig leafs, don’t change the practical realities. And also let’s not pretend that other than name ID, the only hope would be a party endorsement, which is even more back room than lobbying council members.”
I see his point. Maybe new candidates wouldn’t have time to get their names and messages out. Maybe voters would be too apathetic to do the research. Maybe.
But if we’re committed to the idea that voters should elect their own representatives, all of that is moot.
The point of democracy is not that voters choose representatives you or I think of as worthy; the point is that voters choose representatives they think are worthy.
Unfortunately, the three council members didn’t give their constituents a choice. And that’s a blemish on their reputations for putting their constituents first.
Harris announces second appointment: Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris on Wednesday named his second appointment: County Attorney Marlinee Clark Iverson.
Iverson, currently juvenile court magistrate and an adjunct faculty member at Christian Brothers University, takes over Sept. 12 from Kathryn Pascover, our Katherine Burgess reports.
Also Wednesday, Harris’ first appointment — Chief Administrative Officer Patrice Thomas — passed muster before a County Commission committee, the first committee day for eight new commissioners. The confirmation vote is slated for 3 p.m. Monday.
Will Memphis turn out for Big & Rich?
If you were planning to see Big & Rich at the Memphis Botanic Garden tomorrow, chances are you’re still going — regardless of his controversial stance against Nike making Colin Kaepernick the face of its “Just Do It” campaign. The garden and its sponsor show no signs of pulling the plug.
Tonyaa Weathersbee had a good roundup of millennial opinion on the ad, which includes this, from Danielle Inez, special assistant to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris:
“It was a brilliant marketing strategy, but it was also a nod to being informed, and being courageous and being yourself,” Inez said.
“What Nike did was encourage us to be courageous, because we had a generation that told us to be conservative in pushing for what we want. Now we have a major corporation that is putting this kind of activism on a pedestal. “We love it.” Should the Garden cancel the event, scheduled long ago, over an artist’s reaction to an ad? Probably not. But if you want to make a statement, don’t go.