CAPITOL VIEW
By Pat Nolan, NEWSCHANNEL5 Political Analyst
September 15, 2023
MAYOR-ELECT FREDDIE O’CONNELL GIVES HIS FIRST IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW ON INSIDE POLITICS; MY FIRST TAKEAWAYS ON THE METRO RUNOFF ELECTION; CONTROVERSY IN THE FRANKLIN MAYORAL RACE; AN UNSETTLING WEEK IN NASHVILLE; INFLATION RISES AGAIN ALONG WITH POVERTY; THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET IS IN COURT; YET ANOTHER LAWSUIT AGAINST THE STATE OF TENNESSEE OVER ABORTION; NEW CHARGES IN THE TYREE NICHOLS CASE
MAYOR-ELECT FREDDIE O’CONNELL GIVES HIS FIRST IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW ON INSIDE POLITICS
The voters of Nashville have spoken.
They have elected a new mayor and Metro Council.
The new mayor-elect is Metro Councilman Freddie O’Connell.
We are pleased to have the new incoming mayor as our guest on INSIDE POLITICS.
We congratulate the Mayor-elect, and welcome him back to the program.
This first in-depth interview by the mayor-elect will air first on WTVF-TV, the main channel of the NEWSCHANNEL5 Network, at 6:30 pm Friday night.
Our conversation will also air on the regular weekend schedule for INSIDE POLITICS on NEWSCHANNEL PLUS.
Those times include:
7:00 p.m. Friday.
5:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.
1:30 a.m. & 5:00 a.m. on Sunday.
THE PLUS is on Comcast Cable channel 250, Charter Cable channel 182 and on NEWSCHANNEL5’s over-the-air digital channel 5.2. We are also on DISH TV with the rest of the NEWSCHANNEL5 NETWORK.
One option for those who cannot see the show locally, or who are out of town, you can watch it live with streaming video on NEWSCHANNEL5.com. Just use your TiVo or DVR, if those live times don't work for you.
This week’s show and previous INSIDE POLITICS interviews are also posted on the NEWSCHANNEL5 website for your viewing under the NEWSCHANNEL5 PLUS section. A link to the show is posted as well on the Facebook page of NEWSCHANNEL5 PLUS. Each new show and link are posted early in the week after the program airs. I am also posting a link to the show each week on my Facebook page.
MY FIRST TAKEAWAYS ON THE METRO RUNOFF ELECTION
Nashville is indeed ready for Freddie.
By a blowout 64%-36% margin, Metro district councilmember Freddie O’Connell has defeated conservative businesswomen Alice Rolli.
Mayor-elect O’Connell will become the fourth consecutive member of the Council to be become mayor in the past eight years. He is the first to make that move after being a district council member. The others had been at-large representatives, elected countywide. Before 2015, there had never been a council member to become mayor since consolidated Metro government began in 1962.
O’Connell seemed quite a long shot when he was the first candidate to enter the mayor’s race a year and a half ago. But despite a large field of 12 opponents, O’Connell slowly moved to front runner status by this summer. Even some of those who launched attack ads against him (which backfired) eventually became donors to O’Connell, as he raised a record $1.2 million in the runoff, dwarfing Rolli by a 3 to 1 margin.
Rolli saw a lane to get into the runoff with so many progressive candidates in the field. It worked but she could never expand her conservative base of support. With McConnell getting endorsements from most of the other top progressive mayoral candidates, he easily won especially as Rolli had delays due to the firing of one of her consultants due to ties with the uber-controversial Proud Boys group that she couldn’t recoup. Polling only 36% of the vote, Rolli actually ran 9 points behind her campaign treasurer, David Fox, who lost the 2015 mayoral runoff race 54% to 46% to Meagan Barry.
The other major theme of the 2023 Metro runoff races is the continued rise of women and overall diversity in the Metro Council. When I first began covering the Council in 1973, there was only one female member. That went to 2 in 1979. Finally in 2011 it rose to double digits with 11. Then the pace of change increased with 15 women in the 40-member body in 2015, 20-20 parity with men in 2019.
Now in the 2023 Council, there will be 23 female councilmembers (24 counting the new Vice Mayor Angie Henderson). In fact, all 5 at-large positions in the Council will be held by women, along with entire front row of the body will be female.
One of the new At-Large members will be Olivia Hill. She is the first openly trans women in Nashville, and the first in the entire state of Tennessee, who to be qualified as a candidate, and get elected to office.
This diversity in our local legislative body may well be the most pronounced and advanced in the nation, especially in a body with 40 members.
As the old cigarette ad said back in the 1970s: “You’ve come a long way, Baby!”
After I have a chance to review the precinct and council districts return, I will share more thoughts next week.
CONTROVERSY IN THE FRANKLIN MAYORAL RACE
The city of Franklin, in nearby Williamson County, is also in the process of selecting a mayor. A controversy has erupted over one of the candidates. This is thanks to the always excellent reporting of NEWSCHANNEL5’s Chief Investigative Reporter Phil Williams.
He has found this candidate faking some of her support in her on-line postings. Now she won’t talk about it.
One thing is for sure. Phil won’t give up.
In fact, there are now questions about Gabrielle Hanson’s residency
WITH TWO WEEKS TO GO IT APPEARS TO BE A MAJOR CRUNCH TIME FOR CONGRESS
With the month of September now more than halfway over, the major issues Congress faced when it returned from its Labor Day recess remain unresolved.
That includes passing several appropriations bills to keep the federal government open after the beginning of the new federal fiscal year on October 1st. There are requests as well for more disaster aid and aid for Ukraine.
But the “mini-bus” plan of the Speaker seems already dead due to a split among Republicans over an abortion rider offered to some bills.
The path to resolve these funding challenges also got more complicated this week when Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy altered course and now has asked a House committee to begin an impeachment investigation of Democratic President Joe Biden. Until this week, the Speaker said an impeachment investigation would not begin until of the full House of Representatives.
The decision to move ahead with impeachment comes amid heavy pressure on McCarthy from hardline members of his GOP House Caucus who want significant spending cuts and the President’s removal. And if Speaker can’t get that done, these caucus members may seek to “vacate” McCarthy from the Speaker’s chair and shut down the country.
The pressure seems to have gotten so intense, Speaker McCarthy lost it and used the F word bomb while speaking to reporters on Thursday.
As for House Democrats, Former speaker Nancy Pelosi says McCarthy now has ‘an ever incredibly shrinking” speakership.
The Senate seems to be working to get the appropriations bills done and seem to be shrugging their shoulders on the impeachment effort.
If reading through all this leaves you confused, and makes you wonder about what will happen next between now and September 30, all I can say is, me too.
Late in the week(Thursday), another political log was thrown on the fire, when as expected Hunter Biden, the :President’s son was again indicted by the Justice Department on weapons charges.
The Senate this week also learned one of its more moderate conservative Republican members, Mitt Romney of Utah, is not seeking re-election next year. Romney, once the 2012 Republican nominee for President, says it’s time for a ‘new generation of leadership.” He would be in his 80s during part of next term, if re-elected.
But the retirement of Romney could mean the end of several things in the Senate for both parties and for President Biden if he is re-elected.
AN UNSETTLING WEEK IN NASHVILLE
As voters went to the polls in Nashville this week, there were some unsettling stories in the news.
They all turned out to be hoaxes, but there were a number of threats made to schools, businesses and facilities all over town.
There were threats made like this all over the country. It’s relieving they were all false, but the anxiety that was caused is just increasing the concern about the sickos making these threats (people not thought to be in Tennessee). Hopefully they will soon be caught and punished to the full extent of the law. The FBI is now involved in the police investigation here.
The more unsettling news this week was a report by THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE newspaper. It says over the past year Nashville/ Davidson County has suffered the most drug overdose deaths of any city in the nation, except Baltimore.
Overdose deaths have been rising here, and across the nation, in recent years. But I don’t remember this issue getting a lot of attention from the mayoral candidates or others in the Metro election. Maybe it should have, and maybe the mayor-elect will need a plan to elevate the matter to the highest level. This is a public health and safety issue that must be addressed.
INFLATION RISES AGAIN ALONG WITH POVERTY
I distinctly remember reading stories a few weeks back about how gas prices were about to go down significantly, as the nation’s oil refineries made a seasonal change to a cheaper gasoline blend.
But that hasn’t happened. In fact, higher fuel prices have helped to cause a new rise in inflation as reflected in the new Consumer Price Index report released on Wednesday.
While it is unclear if the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again when it meets next week, another federal report this week showed a sharp increase in poverty in America. In fact, it is the largest rise in over 50 years!
Meanwhile, the nation’s economy could take a major hit in the days to come now that the United Auto Workers union has started a strike against the Big 3 automakers. Union members started walking off the job at midnight Friday morning. The UAW has never struck the Big 3 Automakers Ford, General Motors, Chrysler (now Stellantis) all at once.
However as of Friday morning, only three plants have been shut down (one for each automaker). Negotiations are continuing but the strike could spread quickly to some or all other UAW plants, with some picket lines already being set up.
The big UAW presence in Tennessee today is the GM Plant in Spring Hill. It is not a plant on strike as of this writing. In the future, The Ford Oval Plant in West Tennessee is still under construction, would likely be a part of the next UAW labor contract.
These UAW labor negotiations have a personal history for me. My Dad worked for many years at Ford Glass Plant here in Nashville and contract negotiations usually came down to the wire. Mom was always frugal, but especially so since contract negotiations always came to a climax at the same time my brothers and sisters and I were about to start back to school. Our new back to school shoes were sometimes delayed.
My father always felt Ford would be the strike target because GM was too large, and Chrysler was too small to launch an effective work action. Therefore, Ford was often the first strike target, leaving my family in uncertain territory until a new contract was settled. Let’s hope any new strike will be a short one.
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET IS IN COURT
This week a trial began in Washington that could shape the future of the internet.
The federal government is charging Google of having an unfair monopoly, choking off its rivals for internet searches. The feds want the courts to break up Google. The company says it is doing nothing wrong.
The trial is expected to last several weeks.
YET ANOTHER LAWSUIT AGAINST THE STATE OF TENNESSEE OVER ABORTION
Even after the Tennessee General Assembly, earlier this year, passed a narrowly crafted bill of exemptions to Tennessee’s near complete ban on abortions, a lawsuit has been filed to get the state courts to throw it out.
The issue of abortion continues to be a difficult one for Republicans both here in Tennessee and across the nation. That appears likely to continue into the 2024 elections.
NEW CHARGES IN THE TYREE NICHOLS CASE
The shameful beating and murder earlier this year of Tyree Nichols by Memphis Police saw still more charges brought against the five officers involved. On Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department announced a grand jury had returned criminal indictments charging civil rights violations. They will go with already pending state charges including second-degree murder.
