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Is it constitutional for the Shelby County Fee to chop quick the phrases of Memphis-Shelby County faculty board members?
Tennessee Legal professional Normal Jonathan Skrmetti’s workplace has been requested to weigh in on that query as county officers contemplate resetting elections for 5 faculty board seats to align them with different 2026 native elections.
The request for the lawyer normal’s opinion got here from Democratic state Rep. G.A. Hardaway, one in all a number of Memphis lawmakers who backed a brand new regulation permitting native governments to change the phrases of faculty board members. The Shelby County Fee was set to vote final week on a decision to reset MSCS board phrases underneath that regulation, however as a substitute kicked it again to committee amid pushback from sitting faculty board members and lingering questions concerning the decision’s constitutionality.
The committee is anticipated to once more contemplate the decision on August 6.
The brand new regulation permitting such strikes handed the Normal Meeting this 12 months with bipartisan help and was written broadly to use to any native governing our bodies in Tennessee.
However the laws was sponsored by Memphis lawmakers and has been extensively considered as an accountability measure geared toward 4 board members who voted to fireplace Marie Feagins as MSCS superintendent earlier this 12 months, a transfer that angered many neighborhood members and triggered a lawsuit by Feagins. That lawsuit remains to be pending.
Tamarques Porter, Stephanie Love, Natalie McKinney, Sable Otey, and Towanna Murphy would all be affected underneath the decision if the fee formally approves the measure. The varsity board members, all elected in 2024, would have their four-year phrases lower quick by two years.
Opponents of the reset decision, together with the Shelby County Democratic Occasion, now say the decision violates a piece of the Tennessee Structure that claims the legislature can’t move laws to take away a neighborhood official from workplace.
The regulation itself doesn’t change the size of any native official’s time period in workplace. Slightly, it permits native our bodies to resolve whether or not to take action.
Nevertheless, language in the identical part of the state structure means that native our bodies such because the Shelby County Fee should both maintain a referendum on the problem, or vote to approve such a change by at the very least a two-thirds majority, fairly than a merely majority.
“There’s nothing incorrect with the laws a lot. It’s how they’re selecting to execute it,” Hardaway, who voted for the laws earlier this 12 months, stated of the proposed county decision. “I believe that’s the place the questions should be answered by the AG. Let’s manage the details and relevant regulation in order that they know the place they’re and what they’re doing going ahead.”
Tennessee lawyer normal opinions will not be legally binding, however are as a substitute thought of authorized recommendation to shoppers, akin to state lawmakers, about what could be legally defensible. Hardaway final week stated he requested an expedited opinion from the workplace, however there is no such thing as a timeline of when it’d reply.
Hardaway stated he wouldn’t categorical a public opinion on the problem earlier than he receives steerage from the AG’s workplace, however he believes the fee ought to “enable a while for this ship to proper itself” earlier than making use of the regulation to the MSCS board.
“The issues that they’re going to have to handle for the voters goes to be whether or not the voters have the say so, whether or not they’re required to have one or not, whether or not it’s put to a referendum,” Hardaway stated. “A lot of the voters I’ve heard from wish to have a say so. They need a referendum.”
Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.
