Posted Jul 22, 2022 at 10:46 AM m. CDT
The license plate debacle was slow to make headlines. By the time it became public knowledge that thousands of people were not receiving their new Tennessee plates due to a backup at the Shelby County Clerk’s office, Wanda Halbert had already won her primary re-election.
Memphis political analyst Otis Sanford says the story might be different if the mismanagement had come to light sooner. But he is likely to defeat his Republican and independent rivals in the Aug. 4 election.
This week, Democratic state Rep. Torrey Harris was arrested in Nashville after getting into a domestic dispute with an ex-boyfriend. Sanford hopes it won’t affect his electoral bid for the 91st District seat.
Finally, Tennessee’s so-called ban on Critical Race Theory in public and charter schools goes into effect in August, though lawmakers refused to explicitly state what topics of conversation or elements of American history should be avoided so as not to offend the public. children, parents, employees, or school board members with respect to race or gender. The law allows anyone who objects to anything to file a complaint, and if that complaint is found to violate the legislators’ deliberately vague policy, the Department of Education must defund a school district.
This puts the burden of stifling free speech not on state lawmakers, but on local school districts under threat of defunding, a tactic gaining popularity among Republican lawmakers with a pro-white racial agenda who previously defunded the city of Memphis for removing Confederate monuments.
