WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (HOST): Memphis voters may not have had much say-so in the presidential election this week, but they did make their voices heard in local government. With us again to talk about some of that is political analyst Otis Sanford. Welcome back.
OTIS SANFORD: Thank you, Chris, good to be back.
BLANK: Otis, one of the referendums we voted on as a city was bringing back runoff elections for Memphis mayor, and the Daily Memphian's Samuel Hardiman wrote an interesting piece about this. But this could have a real impact on elections. Our current mayor, Paul Young, won with just 28 percent of the vote. And that was because there were so many candidates on the ballot. But I wonder, in the future, if we narrow down candidates until someone gets 50 percent, what happens in our political landscape?
SANFORD: You will need to campaign pretty much citywide, because with, say, 13, 14 people on the ballot, all you need to do is get some of your faction to the polls. And if you do that, and you're able to get in first or second place, that runoff is going to force you to campaign citywide. So yes, it's going to be more expensive, but it's going to reach more voters. And I think the main thing here is that people want their mayor to serve with a mandate from the voters.
BLANK: Remind me, why did we do away with runoff elections? I feel like, as in everything in Memphis, there were some racial issues at play.
SANFORD: Oh, absolutely it was. In 1991 there had been a couple of lawsuits filed that dealt with runoffs. And it was in federal court. Out of nowhere, really, a federal judge -- Jerome Turner -- did away with runoffs in the mayor's race -- and in any at-large city council races -- because he said it was discriminatory against African Americans, who at that time, did not make up the majority of Memphis voters. That has changed now. And Memphis is heavily majority African American voters.
BLANK: Another referendum we passed clears up residency requirements for mayoral candidates. As you know, a few of the people running in the last election did not have a current Memphis address when they started campaigning. You know, it seems to me that, yes, while we do want our candidates to be Memphis residents what it means for potential candidates: they really need to know that they're going to run for mayor way ahead of time.
SANFORD: And I think this is the most reasonable of the referendums that were on the ballot. Yes, if you want to run for mayor and you don't live in Memphis, you need to be planning your move now. Buy that house right now and get in it if you want to run for mayor in 2027. That is a reasonable thing to do.
BLANK: Memphis voters also passed three referenda related to gun control in the city, which could only really take effect if the state changes its laws. But about 80 percent of Memphians voted for these. And this week councilman JB Smiley acknowledged that the whole point of the laws are to signal to state lawmakers that folks in urban areas need stricter gun laws to reduce crime. Do you think there is a path in this state -- maybe over time -- for some regulations? Maybe through suburban Republicans like John Gillespie who support, at least, the initiative of these referendums if not all of the substance inside of them?
SANFORD: Right now there is no path. Eventually, and over time as you say, there could be a very narrow path. But the only way that this can happen is if legislative leaders -- and I'm talking about either the current speaker or a future speaker of the House, or the leader in the state Senate -- they would have to change their thinking on this and allow municipalities to sort of set some rules around firearms. Even though John Gillespie said he supports this, he does not have the clout in Nashville to try to lead an effort to get this done. It's going to take a lot more people, and it's going to take the leadership. And right now, that's not happening. So, these are trigger laws right now. And that's all they are.
BLANK: One last thing on Tuesdays voting -- and I think the biggest surprise. As a majority Black community, I think we assume that if a Black person is running for president, there will be a groundswell of support here. And this was true when Barack Obama brought out about 60 percent of registered voters in Shelby County. That did not happen this time. We had the lowest voter turnout for a presidential election since they started counting these percentages back in the 1960s. What do you think happened here? Because it kind of contradicts this idea.
SANFORD: It is, and it was a real head shaker for me and a very big surprise. I'm hesitant to criticize any one person, certainly, and any one organization. But I think we need to say that I don't think the Democratic party locally had its act together enough to mobilize the vote here in Shelby County. I don't know how much the lukewarmness of Kamala Harris being an African American female had on it. I would hope that it didn't. But I just think a lack of mobilization, really, by the Democratic party may have hurt turnout here.
