[New Majority politics trounced a law-and-order scaremongering
Shelby County, TN. This marks a major win for the national movement
seeking criminal justice reform within the electoral arena. ]
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BROAD ALLIANCE OUSTS RACIST MEMPHIS D.A.  
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Jeffrey Lichtenstein and Josh Adams
March 2, 2023
Convergence Magazine
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_ New Majority politics trounced a law-and-order scaremongering
Shelby County, TN. This marks a major win for the national movement
seeking criminal justice reform within the electoral arena. _

Tyre Nichols—a 29-year-old photographer and FedEx employee who
loved skating and sunsets—was brutally beaten by five Memphis police
officers after a traffic stop. He died three days later. , Paul
Becker/Beker1999 (CC BY 2.0)

 

Without the hard work of a pro-democracy alliance last year, the
police officers who murdered Tyre Nichols most likely would not be
facing trial. The former district attorney of Shelby County, Amy
Weirich gained notoriety [[link removed]] as one
of the most punitive, racist prosecutors in the country, while always
letting cops off easy. She was as quick to pursue the death penalty
and transfer youth to adult facilities as she was to loath to
entertain conviction review under new evidence; she was known for easy
ethics, shown by her record
[[link removed]] of
prosecutorial misconduct, and for cutting indulgent deals
[[link removed]] with
law enforcement.

Voters booted Weirich out of office in August 2022, thanks to the work
of a broad local pro-democracy alliance with strong backing from
national groups. The victory testifies to the power of coalition and
collaboration under a “new majority” strategy, and marks a major
win for the national movement seeking reform of the criminal legal
system within the electoral arena.

Shelby County 

Shelby County is home to Memphis, TN, a city where underdevelopment
and super-exploitation are as bedrock as the bluff the city is built
on. FedEx, the giant anti-union logistics company, and other
high-value low-wage industries, have made it their home. Shelby County
is 52% Black, 40% white, 6% Latix and 2% Asian, making it by far the
largest community of color in the state, and the biggest contributor
of Democratic votes statewide races. Memphis has suffered all manner
of racist disenfranchisement, from a raft
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preemption policies and laws that explicitly target the city
[[link removed]],
to partisan voter purges
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felony conviction. 

Tennessee is ruled by a regime uniting white Christian nationalists
and big business, sometimes referred to as “the New Confederacy.”
Through its political instrument, the Republican Party, the New
Confederacy holds all statewide offices, eight of nine congressional
seats, and a supermajority in both legislative houses. The New
Confederacy’s crime and punishment program — curtailing civil
liberties for communities of color and diverting funds from social
programs to bloated police and prison budgets — is well developed in
Tennessee, which disenfranchises more than one out of every five
Black residents
[[link removed]],
more than almost any other state in the US. Law and Order politics —
a generalized fear-mongering about racialized crime and the promotion
of state violence as the only solution — are a key part of Shelby
County’s political culture. This narrative has buoyed GOP candidates
by pulling white Democrats and some conservative Black Democrats in
line with the GOP base. The city’s white business elites have long
depended on this political strategy to rule the majority Black
community.  

In 2018, Democrats swept Shelby County elections for the first time,
winning races for mayor, trustee, sheriff and other posts. Three
things made this possible. First, national political polarization and
the Blue Wave had made their way down into local politics. Second,
local progressive electoral and non-profit organizations such
as Memphis For All [[link removed]] and the Memphis
Central Labor Council (CLC
[[link removed]]) had gotten much
stronger and more sophisticated. Third, pro-democracy forces coalesced
around a New Majority
[[link removed]] political
strategy: a multi-racial cross-class progressive politics, built on
volunteer enthusiasm, real conversations with infrequent voters and
significant investments to expand the voting electorate among youth
and communities of color. This marked a shift away from a Black-white
binary politics which relied on a smaller electorate of super-voters,
which had been at the core of democratic strategy for 25 years. 

Why this D.A. race mattered

White supremacy is the faultline in the foundation of this country,
and at least since Michele Alexander’s incisive work
[[link removed]], the main front against it has been the
struggle against mass incarceration and police violence. The national
ecosystem of organizations fighting for criminal justice reform,
especially within the electoral area, has grown mightily during the
last eight years. National groups like Working Families Party
[[link removed]], Just Impact
[[link removed]], Sheriffs for Trusting Communities
[[link removed]] and many more have built the
muscle to team up with local groups and win elections at the center of
the criminal punishment system, especially District Attorneys. 

In Shelby County, the District Attorney is elected only every eight
years. That’s the longest term in the county and the country, for DA
or any elected office. By 2022 Amy Weirich was the last GOP candidate
still in county-wide office, and she faced her first reelection bid
since the 2018 blue wave had begun to change the tide. The Black
freedom uprisings that began in 2014 helped give form and force to
long-held aspirations of reforming the criminal legal system. A new
conscious base of volunteers and voters with clear visions of change
took shape. 

Pro-democratic forces had stumbled in previous attempts to make
criminal justice reform the centerpiece of their program, succeeding
instead on the power of national anti-MAGA sentiment and moderate
economic populism. The DA’s race was a chance to change that and
continue to prove the power of the New Majority strategy. So much
about what needed to be changed had gotten clearer over the last eight
years: bail reform, conviction review, an end to the death penalty and
youth transfers, prosecution of wage theft, restorative justice, and a
generalized approach to prosecution that would divert as many people
away from jail as possible. Weirich wanted none of this, and keeping
her in power became a top priority for the Tennessee GOP. 

Setting the stage for the fight

As a general election, the fight was always going to be a highly
partisan square-off between a broad pro-democracy front for the common
good under the Democratic banner and the New Confederate alliance
under the GOP banner. Leftists and progressives had anticipated the
battle for years, without identifying a clear candidate to lead the
ticket.

A three-way primary in May 2022 ended with Steve Mulroy as the
Democratic nominee. A white law professor and former county
commissioner, Mulroy had connections with Labor, the white Democratic
establishment, and Black electeds who had introduced New Majority
politics four years before, especially the county mayor (not the same
as the city mayor). Mulroy’s primary victory helped assure the
participation of labor and the continuity of the New Majority
strategy. It also reinforced the power of white Democrats, and sapped
some enthusiasm from activists who backed the other primary
candidates, both of whom were Black women.

Throughout the primary, most progressive groups chose to focus fire on
Weirich to drive up her negatives while saving their funding for the
general election. Weirich’s opponents, and eventually Mulroy’s
backers, included established Black political institutions, most
voters of color, and white progressives. It also included most
segments of labor, including the building trades. 

As the general election got underway, additional New Majority
institutions also emerged as crucial: immigrant community and civic
groups, especially Latinx forces, independent political organizations
like Memphis For All, education reform groups, new Black community
organizations and young voters. Finally, in line with national trends
kicked off by the Dobbs ruling, liberal white women showed up to
support in greater numbers than in past cycles. As important as any
other single ingredient, however, was the support of national groups
as real partners, rounding out the coalition. 

Amy Weirich’s New Confederate front primarily included white
Republicans, with the backing of the state GOP and corporate donors.
She was able to pull a small number of white Democrats and an even
smaller number of older Black Democrats who were won over by her
reactionary law-and-order messaging. The white leadership of the
police and sheriffs’ unions supported Weirich, but their membership
was divided, primarily along racial lines.

What happened

In January a mobile billboard bearing ugly facts about Weirich circled
the County corrections building where she worked. A website
documenting her abhorrent record was launched. Soon after standard
billboards went up too. Pickets and press conferences outside
Weirich’s office at the jail were common. Rallies and candidate
forums and volunteer recruitment events took place throughout the
spring. By May, a small army of volunteers and paid staff were fanning
out through Memphis’ dozens of neighborhoods, knocking doors and
telling the truth about Weirich. Paid media, like TV and mail, field
work, like door-knocking and phone-banking, and events like debates,
continued to build until the August 4 election crescendo. 

Mulroy did a good job of making a positive public case for reform,
winning endorsements, building a program to reach the Democratic base
and crafting a message
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fears and hopes. He asserted that the path to lowering crime was
fixing the broken bail system so innocent poor people weren’t locked
up, treating kids like kids instead of sending them to life-altering
prison, and focusing DA resources on violent crime. The endorsements
he earned from the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob
Blake were particularly powerful.

Two large coalitions were formed: a c4 coalition that could wade
directly into the race, called People For Fairness and Justice, and a
c3 coalition, that focused on voter turnout and issue education,
called the Justice and Safety Alliance. The creation of the former was
led by progressive issue-based groups—Stand For Children
[[link removed]] and Just City
[[link removed]]—with the support of labor and IPOs
(Independent Political Organizations)—the Memphis CLC and Memphis
For All. The latter was led by the same, with the key addition of
faith-based groups, namely MICAH [[link removed]]. It
took all hands, moving in each in their lane, to win. 

These coalition groupings outspent the Mulroy campaign five to one.
Without such significant resources, it’s unclear if Weirich could
have been beaten. These groups introduced contemporary electoral
techniques, expanded what people believe is politically possible, and
connected activists to the election. This was achievable in large part
through national backing of the Working Families Party, Stand For
Children, Just Impact, as well as Showing Up for Racial Justice
[[link removed]], Movement Voter Project [[link removed]],
and others. Support was more than financial, it also bolstered
strategy, administration and operations. These connections with
national groups are an echo of the kind of alliances that have often
been crucial to changing the South, from the Abolitionist movement and
Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement. 

Part of the winning strategy was to do _everything_. The
coalitions’ election work combined all conventional tactics,
including peer-to-peer-texting, phone banking, door-knocking, digital
advertising, mail, radio and significant TV, which proved important.
Mulroy was enjoying a significant lead in early polls, but that lead
fell by half when Weirich started airing commercials. It was recovered
when Mulroy built a TV presence. Door-knocking was also vital: the
coalition was able to honestly count every supporter, and check
against the election data to see if they had voted. 

The c3 program made vital large non-partisan investments, including
voter registration through multiple coalitions. The turnout effort
included texting 100,000 people, with unusually high positive response
rates. There were more phone banks and poll parties than anyone could
remember ever having before. It took multiple independent
structures—party, candidate, c3 coalition, c4 coalition, PAC—each
moving program, often without coordination, and often in spite of
interpersonal tensions, to do all this work. It culminated in a
12-point win for Mulroy.

What changed 

As with any important election, it would have been unwise for the
candidate and the Democratic party to have gone it alone, leaving
aside progressive non-profits and IPOs. In Memphis, the c3 and c4
coalitions these groups formed had the strongest connection to crucial
national partners and the most sophisticated electoral tools. They
were most closely in touch with large segments of the activist base,
and most comfortable with a progressive approach to issues. This
election demonstrated the crucial importance of this sector.

Locally the campaign cemented the hold of the Democratic Party over
Shelby County through the use of a New Majority political strategy.
Before this race, it was unclear whether, in a city with high crime
and poverty rates, a strong white power structure, and extremely cruel
and powerful institutions of law and order, the Republicans might be
able to retain control over the DA’s office. Many believed that
law-and-order politics transcended party and could not be pried loose.
They were wrong. Democrats also maintained control of all county-wide
offices and expanded their majority on the county commission to 9-4.

In most cases the coalitions and IPOs which helped deliver the victory
didn’t have a robust long-range plan going into the races; they
“built the plane while flying.” Groups learned basic election
skills they didn’t have before. Voters became activists, activists
became organizers, and organizers became leaders. Many activists who
got their start in the 2018 and 2019 campaigns became leaders in this
fight. Because few future elections will garner such national support,
however, the local pro-democracy alliance will have to build on this
victory by cementing sustainable collaborative structures over a long
timeline and build deeply with voters over years. 

What’s next

This campaign showed that a New Majority politics can win against
law-and-order politics.

It opened an opportunity to transform the District Attorney‘s
office, to expand the movement for criminal justice reform, and to
grow the strength and coordination of IPOs, including national groups
like WFP. There is an opportunity on the community level to have
strong relationships among community organizations, which can fuel
efforts for voter education. Because Mulroy, a progressive
reform-minded DA, finds himself enclosed within the GOP state regime,
his administration holds an opportunity to learn how to use
prosecutorial discretion to accomplish a reform agenda, threading the
needle between state preemption laws that have outlawed local attempts
to decriminalize things like marijuana, and a state law that empowers
the attorney general to step in if the DA isn’t enforcing the law. 

Next steps include trying to transform the vibrancy of the election
into stable long-range capacity, as well as supporting the new DA
through co-governance and applying pressure when needed. Coming out of
this election, Left-progressive forces will be more willing to work
together, having built unity in the best possible way, through shared
practical work and shared victory. People put their hesitation, their
strategic differences and even personal histories aside to come
together around this historic campaign, and together they won.

_Jeffrey Lichtenstein (he/him) is the former Executive Secretary of
the Memphis and West Tennessee Central Labor Council, CWA organizer
and a founding member of Memphis For All. He came to the workers’
movement through United Campus Workers of Tennessee where he was part
of the fight to stop outsourcing and win a living wage; he came to
electoral politics through the Fight For $15 and the Bernie campaign.
His work is focused on expanding democracy against MAGA facism. He now
lives in Philadelphia._

_Josh Adams is a political organizer for Memphis for All. He began
advocating in 2014 as a student at the University of Memphis. After
years of organizing for various organizations as a volunteer, Josh
joined Memphis for All's team to assist local voters as they
restructure the local political landscape._

_Convergence [[link removed]] is a magazine for radical
insights. We work with organizers and activists on the frontlines of
today’s most pressing struggles to produce articles, videos and
podcasts that sharpen our collective practice, lift up stories from
the grassroots, and promote strategic debate. Our goal is to create
the shared strategy needed to change our society and the world. Our
community of readers, viewers, and content producers are united in our
purpose: winning multi-racial democracy and a radically democratic
economy._

_Today, our movements continue to grow, but so too does the threat
from the racist, authoritarian right. We believe we can defeat them,
dismantle racial capitalism, and win the change we need by building a
new governing majority that is driven by a convergence of grassroots
social movements, labor movements, socialists, and progressives._

_Join us._

* Tyre Nichols
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* Memphis
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* prosecutors
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* Grassroots Organizing
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