By Steve Hunley

State Legislature To Consider County Primary Election Change

The Tennessee General Assembly has begun its new session and legislators are busy dropping bills, organizing committees and getting underway.  One of the more interesting proposals is sponsored by House Majority leader William Lamberth.  Lamberth is carrying a proposed amendment to Tennessee's Constitution, which would move the date of county elections.

Presently, county elections are held in May and August.  The primary is held in May with the general election following in August.  Under Lamberth's amendment, the election would coincide with the state primary and general elections, meaning the primaries would be held in August and the general election in November.

Every two years there is the oddity of the presidential primary held in Tennessee.  To save money and increase the vote, the county primaries have been held on the same day as the presidential primary in February, which leaves more than six months before the general election.  That makes for a really long campaign for candidates and voters alike.

Representative Lamberth's proposal is worth considering, would save taxpayers hundreds of thousands of tax dollars and the number of voters participating would multiply significantly.

Let's Move On

Commissioner Dasha Lundy's feud with the Knox County Sheriff's Office over an alleged incident at a local deli has likely peaked.  The sticking point is the firing of a 15-year-old girl working at a local deli, who an employee of the sheriff says refused to serve officers.  The young lady says that's not true; she says she was at the end of her shift and asked another employee to wait on the officers.  The girl is the sister of Anthony Thompson Jr., the young man shot and killed in a struggle while he was armed with a loaded handgun at Austin-East High School.

The Knoxville News Sentinel has had a field day blowing up the issue and Lundy has made it into a spectacle.  The debate between Commissioners Dasha Lundy and Rhonda Lee speaks for itself and both made some valid points.  Lundy wanted Sheriff Spangler and the officers to come to the county commission meeting and answer questions.  Previously, Lundy had the young lady down to the commission meeting to allow her to make a statement.  Lundy wanted to subpoena the sheriff and staff, which would require a three-quarters majority of the Knox County Commission.  A note of sanity was interjected into the debate by Commissioner Larsen Jay, who wondered if the young lady was to be subpoenaed as well.  Lundy didn't like that idea, saying the young lady had already made her statement.

Enough is enough.  Dividing the community further serves no good purpose.  The Sentinel has become a publication centered around race and food and little else.

McNally Re-Elected As Lieutenant Governor

Congratulations to state Senator Randy McNally, who also represents a portion of Knox County.  McNally has just been reelected lieutenant governor of Tennessee by his colleagues in the state Senate.  Randy McNally is a man of character, ability and integrity and the senators could not have made a better choice.

Bypass A Good Idea

State Senator Becky Duncan Massey has joined with County Commissioner Larsen Jay to draft a resolution, which was just passed unanimously by the Knox County Commission.  The resolution calls for a bypass around Knoxville.  Just about every local has encountered the heavy traffic along I-40 and I-75 and the resolution, which Becky Duncan Massey helped Commissioner Jay to draft, asks the State of Tennessee to fund a bypass, diverting traffic around Knoxville.  Currently, 16% of that traffic is composed of commercial vehicles.  80% of America travels through Knoxville and as County Commissioner Carson Dailey said at the recent commission meeting, when the commission speaks with a unified voice, it has an effect.

Double Standards Continue

The classified documents kerfuffle in this country is probably the best illustration of two very different standards of justice in this country for the very same thing.  The outrage following the discovery of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago has faded into dismay with the discovery of classified documents in the possession of Joe Biden at several locations.  Former President Trump was actually cooperating with Justice Department officials and had complied with requests such as padlocking the area where the documents were stored, while Biden kept some in his garage in a home his son Hunter had claimed as his residence.  Mar-a-Lago was raided while Biden's lawyers are allowed to sift through things without any presence by Department of Justice officials.

The news that the FBI spent $3.4 million with Twitter and suppressing information, along with the repeated actions by the Department of Justice, leaves folks shaking their heads.  J. Edgar Hoover left a very dark legacy in his wake as, at best, a petty tyrant who abused his power as Director of the FBI.  At worst, Hoover was a deeply corrupt official who meted out something far removed from justice.  Unfortunately, that sounds all too familiar these days.

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