Lord Jim

Throughout the history of mankind, dictators have arisen and have attempted to rule over the societies from which they came. The story usually goes the same: a man* is smart, strong, clever, or some combination thereof, and gains influence over those around him. He looks around, decides that he might just be smarter, stronger, and/or cleverer than the other folks down the block, and decides to build his influence over them. Then he looks to the next town, state, etc., and before he knows it, he's a full-blown dictator. He goes, he sees, he conquers. It's all about moving the next step up the ladder, conquering the next village or the next nation.

We've even seen some of these guys in our own United States. Boss Tweed in New York. Huey Long in Louisiana. E.H. Crump in Memphis. That's leaving aside the surely-innumerable poobahs of rural and urban America who ruled their fiefdoms with an iron fist before the promulgation of (enforced) election laws.

These days, surely! such barbarism is past us. No man or woman can be elected** and collect unto themselves such power and might that the mountains and the riverside alike bend to their will.

It's probably true that nobody could run the show like old Boss Crump used to be able to. But by George, that doesn't keep some misguided souls from trying.

Enter our good friend, State Representative/Councilman/Planning Commissioner Jim Gotto.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking, "Why's David using all those old titles for Jimmy G?" Well, let's establish one thing at the outset: Jim Gotto is currently sitting on three legislative bodies, the Metro Planning Commission, the Metropolitan Council, and the State House of Representatives. Is that right? No, it's not. But that's an issue that's already been addressed elsewhere.

What Goodman Gotto has done is attempt a sort of reverse dictatorship. Rather than follow the traditional path of aggregating power over ever-increasing areas until someone presents you with a Dictator badge or certificate***, Gotto has won election to a state body and is attempting to use that to reach back and achieve dictatorship over the city of Nashville. And for that, he deserves to be defeated.

Let's reflect first on what's really happening here. As I hypothesized earlier, a good (so to speak) dictator must possess some combination of intellect, intrinsic power (of body, personality, etc), and cleverness. Jim Gotto has none of these, except maybe a little bit of cleverness, in sufficient amount to be likable enough to win a Metro Council seat. He won election to the House because of an historic deficit in Democratic turnout. Now, he's serving the interests those smarter and more powerful than him, AKA Glen Casada.

So what exactly is our little Lord Jim doing? Well, first he decided to usurp the authority of the Davidson County Election Commission by using state law to change the Metro election dates to coincide with national elections. Why? Nobody knows for sure. He suggested that it was to avoid another redistricting mess like we had this year...20 years from now. Maybe he actually hopes that Tennessee and Nashville will continue to trend more Republican, and that with metro elections happening at the same time, that partisanship will bleed down into the local offices. Maybe he wants the GOP's voter suppression techniques to be brought to bear against low-income, minority, or otherwise-threatening voters for metro elections, just like state and national elections. Who knows. But that was just him getting started.

For his next trick, Lord Jim decided to work in concert with his allies on the Council to gerrymander progressive and labor-friendly incumbents out of their seats. Councilman Bo Mitchell, champion of labor issues and bitter enemy of councilman at-large Charlie Tygard, was the target. Working with Tygard and Eric Crafton on the council side, Lord Jim put on his Planning Commissioner hat to re-draw Mitchell's district into a new one with his friend Seanna Brandmeir, who is also running for district council. Carrying the water on the Planning Commission side was Commissioner Tonya Jones of Bellevue. That initiative, like the election date proposal failed, so Jones just decided to run against Mitchell and try to solve the problem the old-fashioned way.

It turned out that the third time was the charm for little Lord Jim, as he decided to become Mayor of Nashville**** and veto legislation passed by the very body he came from, the Metro Council. The CAN-DO ordinance was passed, after much debate, to prohibit Metro contractors from discriminating in employment based on gender identity or sexuality. Before the ordinance even passed, the folks who hold Lord Jim's strings met to talk about how to defeat it. Once it did pass, the now-infamous HB600 was swiftly introduced, and Lord Jim got his bosses at the legislature to pass it, and they in turn got their rubber-stamp governor to sign it, despite very mixed signals from the very business community this legislation was meant to 'protect.'

Having made himself planning czar, Mayor, and election administrator, Lord Jim most recently tried to make himself superintendent of schools. HB1805, a Democrat-sponsored bill to move school start dates to the end of August (apparently to make cheap high school labor available at Dollywood through the end of summer), had an opt-out provision whereby legislators could exempt their counties from the bill's requirements.***** As our schools have enough of an uphill battle as it is, the rest of the (Democratic) Davidson County house delegation decided to exempt metro schools from this bill. 'Not so fast,' thought Lord Jim. He got the amendment killed to exempt MNPS and leave our students subject to a bill meant to help folks at Dollywood.

Luckily, the sponsors pulled the bill and the mandated school date changes will not come to pass this year. But why did Gotto do that? Just to show he could? To look at his fellow Nashvillians in the House, whose combined years in the legislature total more than 150% of Gotto's life span, and just sneer at them from his position in the majority party? It beats me.

But what I do know is that in just over 7 months as a state representative, Jim Gotto has repeatedly shown little concern for the rights of local governments and has taken every opportunity to use his multiple offices to serve the interests of himself and those who control him. It's shocking, it's disgusting, and it's utterly reprehensible.

If there's one good thing the Democrats of Davidson County and Tennessee can do next year, it would be to relieve Lord Jim of his title and self-appropriated authority. This isn't the way a responsible, well-meaning official behaves, and this isn't the way a democracy works.


*I'm using that gender identifier because, well, I'm referring to history, and historically, dictators have been men. No value judgments implied.

**That might be the important caveat to this whole idea. Nowadays, Ozymandias runs some corporation.

***While these guys definitely are no little Caesars, see for example Kelly Kiesling, Tim Wirgau, and Mike Sparks, all of whom rose from positions in their respective county governments to the Legislature last year, along with Gotto.

****The "Jim-Gotto-has-made-himself-mayor-of-Nashville" theme was first iterated by my friend Sean Braisted.

*****Let's talk about this for just a minute. Why is it that a legislative body should be able to exert a kind of executive authority that is ordinarily reserved to local school boards? The legislature ought to be in the business of setting a framework within which the executive and judiciary branches operate, not dictating the minutiae of policy.

Hello Again

Hello there ladies and gentlemen, sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. New post forthcoming.

For those of you who might have followed a link from social networking medium expecting an actual post, my apologies. Just a minute.