By Bill Dries, Daily MemphianUpdated: March 14, 2023 7:26 PM CT | Published: March 14, 2023 2:23 PM CT
Memphis mayoral contender and Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. has filed suit in Chancery Court to contest the Shelby County Election Commission’s five-year residency requirement for the race on the October 2023 ballot.
Attorneys for Bonner filed the lawsuit Tuesday, March 14.
Bonner lived in Bartlett when he announced his candidacy. When he filed his first campaign finance report of the race in January, he had moved within the city of Memphis.
“The latest opinion is politically motivated and legally flawed and won’t slow down Floyd Bonner,” said Steven Reid of Bonner’s campaign. “It is unquestionable that Floyd Bonner is the most experienced candidate to tackle crime in Memphis, and we won’t let back room deals take away the people’s right to vote for change.”
The legal challenge comes two weeks after the election commission announced it would enforce the city charter’s requirement that candidates for mayor must have lived in the city for at least 5 years prior to the election they are running in.
The directive was based on a new legal opinion from attorney and former Election Commission chairman Robert Meyers that the charter provision, dating back to previous city charters over the last 118 years, is still in force.
The suit seeks a temporary injunction on enforcing the charter provision.
It also seeks a ruling by the court that accepts the legal opinion of city council attorney Allan Wade.
Wade, in a legal opinion this past November that was sent to the election commission, said city voters had done away with the five-year residency requirement for the mayor’s race in a 1995 charter amendment referendum that created the set of city council super districts.
Wade, who drafted the charter amendment, opined that the residency requirement applies to whoever wins the race for mayor when they win the race.
“Apparently, the SCEC was not satisfied with the 2022 Wade opinion,” wrote attorney Robert Spence in filing the complaint for Bonner Tuesday in Chancery Court.
The lawsuit also says the election commission’s five appointed members should have taken some kind of vote on the matter before the posting on its website that the five-year requirement would be enforced.
“Defendants did not take any official action by vote or otherwise with regard to its decision to ignore the precedents of all municipal mayoral elections since the passage of (the referendum ordinance) and the prior legal opinions from the city of Memphis.”
Meyers, in the legal opinion issued Feb. 28, opined that the 1995 referendum terms did not do away with the five-year residency requirement in the mayor’s race.
The case has been assigned to Chancellor Jim Kyle and could include former County Commissioner Van Turner, who said last week he would also seek to challenge the five-year requirement.
Candidates in the race can begin pulling and filing qualifying petitions to get on the ballot May 22.
State House Democratic leader Karen Camper of Memphis said the rival contenders for mayor who “have recently moved to Memphis” should “honor the laws of our city and withdraw their names from consideration.”
“For the last 118 years, the Shelby County Election Commission has adhered to the laws that a candidate for Memphis Mayor must be a resident for 5 years,” Camper said in an emailed statement Tuesday afternoon.
“Last week the commission decided that despite the opinions of others, that they would continue to follow that law and allow only those that live in Memphis to be eligible to lead Memphis,” she said.
Memphis-Shelby County Schools board member Michelle McKissack touted her campaign with a tweet that boasted of being a homeowner for 20 years.