WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (Host): The Mid-South is getting ready for a weekend of severe weather. That goes for the whole state of Tennessee. Next week, the General Assembly has postponed committee meetings, at least through Wednesday. Even still, the wheels of politics are turning. And to help keep us on this slippery road is political analyst Otis Sanford. Welcome back.
OTIS SANFORD: Thank you, Chris. Glad to be with you.
BLANK: You know, times like these it's good to revisit one of the most essential parts of our Memphis government and that is public utilities. Typically with these winter storms, our two big problems are frozen tree branches, which fall on power lines. And frozen pipes and pumping stations, which cause the water pressure to drop below safe levels to drink and then we have to boil water. Doug McGowen has been head of MLGW since 2022. Under his leadership, do you think MLGW has done a better job handling these big emergencies?
SANFORD: I would say that they've done a better job responding to them. They still cannot -- and I would not expect them to based on the infrastructure that we have with MLGW -- to do an outstanding job of prevention when it comes to power outages. But in terms of responding, I do think that they have done as good a job as they possibly can and I would give them a good B+ or an A- on that.
BLANK: Okay. Well, we'll see what happens. The weather is still a little up in the air, uh literally and figuratively, I suppose. Moving to politics, this week Memphis State Rep. Justin Pearson announced he's seeking re-election. Now, this would be expected of a popular local politician, except he is also simultaneously trying to unseat Steve Cohen in the Democratic primary for Congress here. Some thoughts about that?
SANFORD: He is hedging his bet right now, which is what some politicians do. I think he understands as ambitious as he is that it will be a tall order to unseat long-time congressman Steve Cohen. So I just think that Justin is hedging his bets here. If he loses the congressional primary, he will still be a prohibitive favorite to retain his state house seat.
BLANK: Yeah, having a Plan B is pretty common in Tennessee politics, I think. Over the years, a lot of politicians have done that. And voters don't really seem to mind that, do they?
SANFORD: Oh, no, not at all. Matter of fact, one of the more recent ones, Gloria Johnson out of East Tennessee, and she ran against Marsha Blackburn in 2024, as I recall, and lost that, but she was running at the same time unopposed to retain her house seat. And the fact that she was even unopposed speaks to the fact that people don't hold that against them, and nor should they. I mean, there are some seats -- especially at the federal level -- where you don't want people running in two or three different things. But for state offices, the voters don't care about that.
BLANK: Well, finally, Otis, State Sen. Brent Taylor, one of our most conservative local lawmakers, has also been doing a bit of prop comedy in the media using an ice cube and a cup of tea. And he got this visual gag when Renee Good, the Minneapolis woman, was killed by an ICE agent. And then he posted on Facebook that he wants to see that kind of thing happening here. And his punchline is quote, "Just like my sweet tea, I want Memphis with a lot of ICE." He posted this, and this is right after this woman's death. And he likes this line so much that he's been doing it in front of cameras with a cup of ice tea and ice. It appears some people don't get this joke though. Can you help me, and tell me what the response has been?
SANFORD: A lot of people don't get the joke and I don't get it either. I mean, this is not a funny matter here. Brent Taylor should stop the gags. We're talking about a woman who was killed, whether you believe that the ICE agent acted justifiably or not. We're talking about somebody who was dead. We're talking about people who have been snatched from their homes. There was a 5-year-old boy the other day that was detained by ICE in Minneapolis. This is not a joke. Shame on Brent Taylor for treating it as a joke. And to underscore that, you have the company that bought his funeral homes. They are now distancing themselves as far away from him as they possibly can because they just don't appreciate the political tone that Brent has been using and I don't blame them.
BLANK: Right. This company as you mentioned is considering removing his name from the funeral home, I guess, that he created here.
SANFORD: That's right. And they put out a statement about that. And they were pretty clear in that statement that they want to make sure that everybody's treated fairly. I think they were thinking about their customers and potential customers, and they just don't appreciate the level of -- and I don't know what else to call it other than shameful rhetoric -- by Brent Taylor when we're talking about serious issues. And now his response was "well, they paid me a lot of money and so I'm going to laugh all the way to the bank with the money that they paid me" and that may be true. But this is no time for jokes, and he needs to get more serious about this than he has shown so far.
