CAPITOL VIEW
By Pat Nolan, NEWSCHANNEL5 Political Analyst
November 4, 2022
BAD NEWS EVERYWHERE FOR DEMOCRATS; DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE HEIDI CAMPBELL ON INSIDE POLITICS; BOGUS BALLOTS GIVEN TO SOME DAVIDSON COUNTY EARLY VOTERS; ONE KEY BILL FOR THE COOPER ADMINSTRATION GAINS FINAL APPROVAL IN THE METRO COUNCIL, OTHERS WILL TAKE AWHILE; HOMELESS DEVELOPMENTS AND CRIME REDUCTION FUNDING ALSO LOOM AHEAD FOR THE COUNCIL; THE CONTROVERSY OVER TENNESSEE’S HEARTBEAT ABORTION LAW CONTINUES; HONEY; WATCH US TUESDAY NIGHT
BAD NEWS EVERYWHERE FOR DEMOCRATS
Heading into the final weekend before the Tuesday, November 8 midterm election, every late or final poll has nothing but bad news for Democrats.
What looked in the summer to be an opportunity to hold control in the Senate has apparently vanished while predicted potential losses in the House continue to increase leading to a potential takeover of both houses by the Republicans.
The President and the party in power in Congress almost always loses seats in the midterms.
The last Democratic President to experience it, Barack Obama in 2010, called it “a shellacking.”
What to call the 2022 elections? “Shellacking 2.0?”
Things apparently are looking so positive for Republicans that former President Donald Trump is trying to claim some of the credit. He is increasing his presence on the campaign trail in the final days of the election, and strongly indicating he will be announcing another bid for the White House very soon.
The latest economic news just before the election is also not so good for the Democrats. The Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday raised interest rates another three-quarters of a percent. It is the sixth time this year interest rates have been hiked, with the last four being three-quarters of one per cent each time.
The moves are supposed to be a way to bring down record inflation, but so far there has been little sign that is happening. Instead, there are indications the Fed may go for more interest rate hikes but at a slower pace in the future.
The final piece of economic news from the government before the November 8th election was the October jobs report on job creation and unemployment released on Friday (today).
It appears to be a mixed bag as the number of new jobs added is still up, and higher than expected but so is unemployment while wage increases also declined a bit.
The Biden White House tried to put the most positive spin it could on this latest report. Some stories are describing it in “Goldilocks” terms.
Actually, given the continuing mixed signals coming out of the economy, I am thinking more “Alice in Wonderland” and things being “curiouser and curiouser.”
President Biden also this week tried to turn back the rising red election tide, again threatening the multi-national oil companies with higher taxes unless they do more to increase domestic oil production to lower gas prices. The President’s push comes as quarterly earnings for Big Oil show skyrocketing, massive profits.
In the wake of the attempted murder of the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a home break-in last Friday, Mr. Biden has given two other speeches in recent days, saying again the rise in political violence and the hundreds of Republicans on the November ballot who are election deniers, means democracy in America is at risk and under assault.
It is hard to see how these efforts by the President will make much difference this late in the election cycle. Still, it is both astonishing and rather disgusting to see how quickly bogus conspiracy theories have surfaced from the political muck and mire within just a few hours of the Pelosi assault, with many of the claims then reposted or retweeted by some Republican and conservative leaders.
DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE HEIDI CAMPBELL ON INSIDE POLITICS
As we reach the final days of 2022 mid-term election, the battle to control Congress, especially the Senate, has been hotly contested.
Tennessee does not have a Senate race this year, but for the first time Nashville and Davidson County is voting in three different House congressional districts, thanks to the Republican Super Majority in the Tennessee General Assembly. Perhaps not surprisingly, and also, for the first time in modern history, Republicans could win all three positions.
The most competitive race is the newly redrawn 5th District where there is no incumbent.
We asked both candidates to join us. Unfortunately, we could not contact or work out a date for former Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles, the Republican nominee, to join us.
We did contact the Democratic candidate Nashville Senator Heidi Campbell. She is our guest on INSIDE POLITICS this week.
We particularly thank Senator Campbell for joining us, especially within days after she disclosed her husband has been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. He has begun treatments including surgery on Wednesday.
We wish the Senator, her husband and family all the best and offer prayers of peace and comfort to them at this difficult time.
On the other side of the aisle, we wish Tennessee’s First Lady Maria Lee continued good progress for recovery after she reported on her cancer treatments this week.
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Finally, I am now posting a link to the show each week on my own Facebook page, sometime the week after the show airs.
BOGUS BALLOTS GIVEN TO SOME DAVIDSON COUNTY EARLY VOTERS
With Nashville now divided into three different congressional districts, there has been more than the usual amount of voter confusion this election year as to which district they were to vote in.
But now we’ve learned it’s not just voters who are confused, so are local election officials. They apparently got their data wires crossed with the state and gave over 200 early voters the wrong ballot over the last two weeks, impacting not just the three congressional races but every State House and Senate race in Davidson County.
And the problem is even worse than that. These new district and precinct lines were in effect during the August election, meaning many more voters potentially received wrong ballots then.
Davidson County Election Registar Jeff Roberts admits the error and says it been fixed going forward for the final few days of early voting It ended Thursday) and for Election Day November 8. But as for those who voted in the wrong races, Roberts says nothing can be done, That’s a remark sending some of Democrats on the local November ballot into political orbit calling for the election chief to resign or be fired.
In a time of election deniers and voting conspiracy theories, Tennessee and local election officials have gotten overall good marks for the job they’ve done, but this goof certainly give pause to many and credence to those who believe our democratic process is falling apart.
By the way, this is the same Davidson County Election Commission that wasted close to $900,000 in taxpayers funds, suing the city in an effort to put an ill-drafted set of Metro Charter amendments on the ballot. It was effort that lost in the local Chancery Court, the Court of Appeals and in the Tennessee Supreme Court.
This week the new NASHVILLE BANNER raised some additional questions about the billings submitted for payments by the Commission’s lawyers.
ONE KEY BILL FOR THE COOPER ADMINISTRATION GAINS FINAL APPROVAL IN THE METRO COUNCIL, OTHERS WILL TAKE A WHILE
On Tuesday, the Metro Council voted 27-4 to give final approval to a 5-year contract with LAZ Parking Georgia, LLC to modernize the city’s parking meter system. The move is supposed to make the system more efficient and convenient, and better maximize the value of the program for funding future traffic and parking improvements.
Four years ago the Council, led by then Metro Councilman At Large John Cooper, declined to approve a parking meter plan offered by then-Mayor David Briley. It failed because the Council thought it was privatization, including selling the parking system to a private company.
The plan approved by the Council Tuesday night is Mayor John Cooper’s, and it is a big win for him, fulfilling a campaign promise he made running for mayor four years ago. The new contract is much less of a privatization, and it does not sell the parking system. But according to more than a few council members I talked to, one key element in passing the measure was the work of key Council sponsor Angie Henderson who negotiated between the Cooper administration and the Council to make the changes needed to garner the 2/3 vote the bill received for final approval.
As for the new Titan’s roofed stadium on the East Bank, biggest project of the Cooper administration now has before the Council, and at $2.1 billion, the biggest public construction project ever proposed by Metro government, progress was slow Tuesday night.
Yes, the ordinance to help fund Metro’s part of the project, a 1% increase in the local hotel-motel room tax, was approved on first reading. But that is just routine and perfunctory. The real news is that the bill was then deferred two meetings (a month) for more study.
In fact, with the Council’s special East Bank development committee planning public hearings all over the county throughout the month of November, don’t expect final approval of this ordinance until at least late December, if not into the new year. The same is true for the non-binding term sheet which sets out the terms and conditions and transactions required of the deal between Metro, the Titans and the State. That resolution will likely be deferred as well until close to the end of year at least. The Council says it still has too many questions it needs answered to move forward.
That’s true even after the final report of an outside consultant says renovating the current Nissan Stadium will be close to what the new roofed stadium will cost.
The Council always feel rushed to act when any mayor presents a major new project, so the push back from the Council is natural. But another factor is in play this time. It is the ongoing bad blood between the Council and state lawmakers, who are still upset the city turned down the opportunity to host the 2024 National Republican Convention.
It has been speculated the Cooper administration has been trying to move the stadium project along quickly enough that it will hard for state lawmakers to pull out of the deal when the new General Assembly convenes in January. By the way, even if reneging on the stadium bonds doesn’t happen, there are discussions among GOP lawmakers to find another way to punish the Council over the GOP convention snub.
That might be cutting the size of the Council in half from 40 to 20 members. It is not clear what public policy benefit would be gained by that move. It is questionable whether such a move would make resulting 20 member body less partisan (Democrat). The size of the local legislative body was set 60 years ago, by the voters of Davidson County not by a law passed by the city or county government.
HOMELESS DEVELOPMENTS AND CRIME REDUCTION FUNDING ALSO LOOM AHEAD FOR THE COUNCIL
With the Council allocating the record sum of $40 million to provide homeless services in Nashville, a city advisory group is thinking about what to do first. The controversial homeless camps in Nashville, especially the one in Brookmeade Park off Charlotte in West Nashville, is being mentioned.
In a move similar to what it did concerning the East Bank and the stadium, the Council is also moving to appoint a special committee to provide oversight and to monitor how the homeless funds are being spent. Vice Mayor Jim Shulman has named councilmembers Druffel, Hausser, Porterfield, Johnston, Allen and Evans to serve.
Another hot potato coming back to the Council, at its next meeting on November 15, is the continuing grant funding to the controversial non-violence group Gideon's Army, along with a second nonprofit. An advisory group is recommending approval even though, during their deliberations, they asked no questions about what a NEWSCHANNEL5 investigation uncovered.
THE CONTROVERSY OVER TENNESSEE’S HEARTBEAT ABORTION LAW CONTINUES
While Governor Bill Lee and Tennessee Republican legislative leaders say they see no reason to provide exceptions to Tennessee heartbeat law that has all but outlawed abortion in the state, many in the medical community say such exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother ought to be added. That week those saying that includes the Dean of the Medical School at the University of Tennessee.
How will GOP lawmakers respond, especially when a top state employee speaks out? Like they did during the COVID pandemic when state health officials were threatened and harassed when they spoke in favor of vaccines?
The reproductive health issue is not going away. But this week, the Tennessee Attorney General did try to take some of the pressure off Republicans by opining that, in his opinion, the state’s abortion law does not apply to unused IVF embryos.
HONEY
Tennessee lost one of its great ladies this week with the death of Honey Alexander, the wife of former Tennessee Governor and United States Senator Lamar Alexander.
Whenever I had the opportunity to be with her, I was always struck with how friendly and down-to-earth she was, and how humble she was about her many achievements and the areas of service she was involved in during her public life. RIP, Honey. You have left quite a legacy.
WATCH US TUESDAY NIGHT
For the best election coverage and analysis of the November 8th midterm election, tune to the NEWSCHANNEL5 Network.
I will be joining Rhori Johnston and Carrie Sharp for wall-to-wall coverage on NEWSCHANNEL5 PLUS from 7:00 until 9:00 PM, with cuts in on the main channel twice an hour.
We will be joined by some special guests dropping by, including retiring Nashville Congressman Jim Cooper, his former top aide Lisa Quigley and former Tennessee Speaker of the House Beth Harwell. And will have the best team of reporters and photographers out in the field to capture all that unfolds on Election Night.
Through the resources of NEWSCHANNEL5’s parent company, Scripps, we will also be able to provide coverage of some of the key legislative races, across the county, especially in the Senate.
Watch us!
