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Looper Death Brings Emotional Times for Burks Family

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Wednesday was an emotional day for the Burks family as they learned the about the death of the man convicted of the murder of one of their influential family members, reports the Cookeville Herald-Citizen.
Byron “Low Tax” Looper was found unresponsive in his jail cell late Wednesday morning in Wartburg in East Tennessee, where he was serving life in prison for the 1998 murder of state Senator Tommy Burks.
“We’ve got a lot of different emotions running right now,” Kim Blaylock, Tommy Burks daughter, said Wednesday afternoon a few hours after the news broke.
Blaylock found out when the TBI came by her office when they couldn’t reach her mother, state Sen. Charlotte Burks.
“They wanted to tell her before it came out in the media,” she said. “It’s been an emotional day for all of us.”
Charlotte Blaylock Looper, granddaughter, said on Facebook, “I would like to say thank you very much to everyone for the calls, messages and prayers. It is very nice to know my family and I have been blessed with so many supportive friends.”
Bill Gibson was the district attorney at the time of the murder and prosecuted Looper.
“It was the highest profile case that I ever handled as DA,” he said. “I’m just feeling a lot of mixed emotions at the news of his death. We lived that case for many months. We knew he would die in prison one day.”
Deputy District Attorney Tony Craighead was on the prosecuting team with Gibson and feels this is the closure of one of the most tragic cases in Tennessee history.
“I’m proud of the fact that I had a part in putting him in prison, although I can never take satisfaction in that because of Senator Burks’ death,” he said. “I knew Tommy. He was a wonderful man. It was a horrible tragedy. I’ve been prosecuting cases for 21 years now and I’ve done dozens of murder cases, and this was one of the most well-investigated and complete cases I’ve ever been involved in.”
Now that Looper’s dead, Craighead said maybe it will be a time to remember all the good that Burks did.

Bryon (Low Tax) Looper Found Dead in Prison Cell

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Byron (Low Tax) Looper, convicted of the first-degree murder of state Sen. Tommy Burks, died this morning in Morgan County Correctional Complex, reports the News Sentinel.
Looper, 48, was found unresponsive inside his cell in Wartburg, according to a news release from the communications director for the Tennessee Department of Correction.
He was pronounced dead at 11:10 a.m. He was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for Burks’ murder.
TDOC Commissioner Derrick Schofield asked the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to assume the lead into the investigation of Looper’s death, according to the news release. District Attorney General Russell Johnson has approved the request.
Johnson said Wednesday afternoon details are sketchy and unconfirmed, but he was told guards performed what he was told was a “full level cell extraction” and Looper had to be contained.
The DA said he was told Looper was treated at the prison’s medical unit and was then put in an isolation cell. Looper was found dead about an hour later, Johnson said he was told.
Johnson said he notified state Sen. Charlotte Burks, D-Monterey, of the death of her husband’s murderer.
Looper was convicted of first-degree murder in the assassination on Oct. 19, 1998, of Burks, a 28-year veteran of the state Legislature. Looper, running as a Republican, was Democrat Burks’ political opponent in that year’s election.
Looper officially changed his middle name from Anthony to (Low Tax) in 1996, and was elected as Putnam County Tax Assessor that year.

GOP Executive Committee Rejects Challlenges to Two Primary Winners

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NASHVILLE, TN – Today, the Tennessee Republican Party State Executive Committee, acting in its role as the state primary board voted to uphold the primary election results in State House District 71 and Congressional District 9.
Election contests from Shirley Curry in State House District 71 and Charlotte Bergmann in Congressional District 9 were reviewed by a state primary board subcommittee which was appointed by Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Chris Devaney.
(Note: Curry lost to Rep. Vance Dennis, R-Savannah, by four votes, according to unofficial returns. Bergmann lost to George Flinn by about 7,000 votes.)
The subcommittee unanimously recommended to the full committee that both election contests be dismissed based on their review of the election contests.
“I appreciate the hard work and diligence of the state primary board subcommittee in reviewing these contests thoroughly and fairly,” said Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Chris Devaney.
“This review process proved that our procedures work when it comes to ensuring that we maintain the integrity of our electoral process. We are all united in our goal to defeat President Obama and Tennessee Democrats as we head toward November,” concluded Devaney.

Notes on TN Democrats at the National Convention, 9/6/12

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Biden’s Tennessee Connection
When Joe Biden started running for a Senate seat in 1972, few people thought the young man from Delaware had a chance, writes Michael Cass, but a well-placed Tennessee couple tagged him early as an up-and-comer.
“I was 29 years old, running for the United States Senate against a guy with an 81 percent favorable rating, a year where Richard Nixon won my state by over 65 percent of the vote, and I was an Irish Catholic in a state that (had) never elected one,” Biden told Tennessee Democrats in a speech two years ago, recounting a story that got scant media attention at the time.
Biden pulled off a stunning, 3,162-vote upset with a mix of youthful vigor, skillful campaigning, energized volunteers and smart advertising — fueled by tens of thousands of dollars that a prominent Tennessee couple raised for his campaign.
Ashley Action
Actress Ashley Judd put her high-wattage star power to use in the political arena on Tuesday by imploring Tennessee’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention to share personal stories of how their lives have improved under President Barack Obama, reports Michael Collins.
Judd said Tennesseans have a rich history and tradition as storytellers that could be used to help the Obama administration make its case for another four years.
“With all of the obfuscation of the facts, with all of the distortions, we have to take the truth and the honesty and the accomplishments back,” the actress said to rousing applause.
Judd, who lives in Williamson County, is one of Tennessee’s 98 delegates and alternates to the national convention, which opened on Tuesday.
The actress was the guest speaker and star attraction at a Tennessee delegation breakfast Tuesday morning. She’ll also have another starring role tonight: She has been chosen to announce the state’s roll call vote from the convention floor when Democrats officially nominate Obama for a second term.
Cooper’s Complaint
U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper of Nashville blasted Davidson County’s recent election problems Wednesday while urging his fellow Tennessee delegates to the Democratic National Convention to work hard to register voters between now and the Oct. 8 deadline, reports The Tennessean.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, folks,” Cooper said at the delegation’s breakfast. “We have got to get our folks registered.”
The congressman said recruiting Democrats to vote for President Barack Obama in November is especially critical in light of Davidson County’s “outrageous” situation. Some voters, including Sheriff Daron Hall, have said they were given Republican ballots by default after poll workers failed to ask them their party preference during the Aug. 2 primary. The county was using new electronic poll books in 60 of 160 precincts.
“This is unbelievable, that anything could be programmed like this to take voters and make them Republican,” Cooper said. “This isn’t like defaulting to R. This is like defrauding folks of their normal rights.
“The implications of this are something. If you treat the sheriff this way, you’ll treat anybody this way.”

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Notes on Tennesseans at the Democratic National Convention

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Believing in President Obama
Tennessee delegates to the Democratic National Convention are supportive of President Obama despite what pollsters describe as an “enthusiasm gap” between Democrats and Republicans this year, reports Michael Collins in a setup story on the state’s representatives to the Charlotte gathering.
“It’s really fascinating,” Gloria Johnson, a delegate from Knoxville, said of the convention experience. “You’re sitting there, and there is George Stephanopoulos four seats down. There are all these people there, and nobody cares. We are all there to nominate the person we want to be president.”
Four years ago, Johnson attended her first political convention. She had never been involved in a political party or politics, yet she was so inspired by Obama that she became politically active. Now, she’s chairwoman of the Knox County Democratic Party and a candidate for the state House of Representatives.
Like Dayton and other Obama believers, Johnson was convinced four years ago that as president he would bring about much-needed changes. In her view, he has.
He got health care reform passed, ended the “don’t ask don’t tell” ban on gays serving openly in the msitary, signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law and offered a stimulus package that created millions of private sector jobs, Johnson said
Ashley Judd: Star of the TN Show
Entertainer Ashley Judd, a Tennessee delegate to the convention, tells the Tennessean she’s a dedicated activist.
“I’ve been a Democrat for a very long time,” Judd said. “Family lore says that my beloved great-aunt, Pauline, who lived on a farm in Lawrence County in Eastern Kentucky, named all her dogs after Democrats.”
This week Judd, a famous actress, activist and Williamson County resident, is taking her partisanship to a new level as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. She’s an at-large member of the Tennessee delegation and a campaign surrogate for President Barack Obama, speaking to supporters on his behalf.
And she says her ties to the party run even deeper than those born of family lore.
“The party platform is one of a social justice gospel and faith. It became my party based on a sense of equality and fairness, hard work and advocating for people living at and below the poverty line and helping them strive toward our fabled middle class.”
Clayton Takes a Swat at the Chair
While party unity is a theme at the Democratic convention, Michael Cass reports that disavowed U.S. Senate nominee, Mark Clayton, wasn’t on board, providing a pre-convention parting shot at Tennessee’s party chairman.
Clayton released a lengthy statement Friday that attacked Forrester (without ever daring to mention his name) and the party for supporting gay marriage, saying that stance puts the Democratic establishment out of step with most voters.
“The current TNDP chairman and staff are finding themselves politically isolated and left to represent, with taxpayer funds, the fringe of anti-family, anti-constitution zero-sum politics in Tennessee all the while making President Obama look like a far right-winger by comparison to themselves,” the statement said.
“Mark Clayton always got along fine with previous TNDP chairmen. But in contrast, the current TNDP chairman and his staff who despise Mark do not represent mainstream Democrats in Tennessee and are far to the fringe and far away from even President Obama’s comparatively conservative view on the Constitution and marriage issues.”
The Memphis Mood
Bart Sullivan has commentary from West Tennessee delegates to the convention:
City of Memphis police legal adviser and lawyer Zayid Saleem will be attending his first convention after being elected to the Shelby County Democratic Executive Committee. Saleem said he recognizes that Tennessee has gone for the Republican presidential candidate the last two cycles but “we still need to motivate people to get out (to vote) across the state. You never know what will happen.”
Seeing Obama at the 73,778-seat Bank of America Stadium Thursday night will be a highlight, he said. “It’s historic to actually be a part of the process.”
Kelly Jacobs of Hernando is driving her bronze Prius — decked out with re-elect Obama signs and Christmas lights — to the convention, her third after former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s run got her charged up in 2004.
While she’s excited to be among other Obama-Biden supporters, she’s disappointed at the decision not to let Dean or Obama’s chief rival in 2008, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, make podium speeches. She also said she had a pile of invitations five inches high by this time four and eight years ago, but now invitations come by e-mail and she wonders if elderly delegates who don’t use computers will miss out.

Gore Dodges Democratic Convention (except as commentator)

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Former Vice President Al Gore apparently won’t be attending the Democratic National Convention, though is previously listed as a “super delegate” from Tennessee, reports The Tennessean as part of an overview story on Gore’s present status with the party.
Gore also co-founded Current TV. Instead of speaking this week at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., as his party makes the case for another four years in the White House, he’s expected to anchor Current’s coverage from a New York studio, as he did when Republicans met last week in Florida.
….In late July, the Tennessee Democratic Party listed Gore as a superdelegate to this week’s national convention. (Note: A list of delegates distributed by the state party on Saturday still lists him as a super delegate.) But Current TV announced a week later that Gore would anchor the network’s coverage of both conventions.
Brandon Puttbrese, a spokesman for the state party, said Gore’s staff has said he’ll stay in New York rather than fly to Charlotte to cast a vote for Obama. Because alternates can’t vote for superdelegates, Gore’s absence would leave the Tennessee delegation down a vote.
It’s unclear if Obama’s campaign and Gore ever discussed a speaking role at the convention, which might have reminded liberal Democrats of Obama’s inaction on climate change.
Another excerpt from the Tennessean story:
U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper chalked the 2000 vote up to the fickleness of the American electorate. Like the British people voting Prime Minister Winston Churchill out of office after he led them through World War II, voters didn’t realize what Clinton and Gore had achieved, Cooper said.
“We dream today of having a budget surplus, and Clinton gave us three in a row,” he said. “People in 2000 took that sort of prosperity for granted.”
….Friends say Gore has never discussed his deepest feelings about the (2000 presidential race) loss, which he publicly addressed with a gracious speech the day after the Supreme Court ruling.
Cooper called Gore “one of the greatest Tennesseans ever” but said he has “a lot of arrows in his back” as a result of his outspoken advocacy.
“There’s even a section in the Bible that says no prophet is honored in his hometown,” Cooper said.
—
Note: The Tennessean says Gore declined to be interviewed. He’s turned down my last umpteen requests over the past decade or so, too.

In 9th District, Cohen and Flinn Looking Past Primary to Fall Clash

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Thursday’s Republican and Democratic primaries for the 9th Congressional District seat look like anything but a toss-up, observes Bart Sullivan. Name recognition and funding heavily favor incumbent Steve Cohen and challenger Dr. George S. Flinn Jr.
In fact, in a speech to the United Transportation Union’s meeting at The Peabody last week, Cohen was already predicting a Democratic primary win over Memphis City Schools board representative and Memphis Urban League CEO Tomeka R. Hart.
“Then we’ve got a general election going up against a self-funder,” Cohen told the union members. “He’s going to spend probably $3 (million) or $4 million dollars.”
He wasn’t talking about 2010 Republican nominee Charlotte Bergmann, who has raised $19,495 this election cycle and had $531.93 in cash on hand in her most recent Federal Election Commission report this month.
Flinn, 68, raised $3,385 in the period between July 1-13, has loaned his campaign committee $1 million, has already spent $354,417 and has $442,948 in his FEC account.
…Flinn also appears to be looking to November, and Cohen. He said he will take issue with Cohen’s liberal voting record, saying “my views are more in line with Memphis and Shelby County,” which he said he believes are “middle-of-the-road conservative.”
…Flinn, who owns more than 40 radio stations from California to Florida, including Hot 107.1, a hip-hop station in Memphis, said he will spend “whatever it takes to get the message out.” Flinn spent $3.6 million in 2010 in his loss to Fincher in the GOP primary.

Newspaper’s Record Check Finds Candidate Court Problems

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State Rep. G.A. Hardaway Sr. owes Memphis and Shelby County $39,000 in taxes and weed-cutting fees on three local properties, reports The Commercial Appeal.
Hardaway says his mother died in 2007 and left several properties to her four children, and that there’s confusion over who’s responsible for them. “Well, from my understanding all of the (children’s names) should be on all of the properties,” Hardaway said. He also said he believed his former attorney had made arrangements to pay the taxes.
Hardaway’s situation was just one of the discoveries The Commercial Appeal made as it reviewed paper trails for more than 40 candidates in contested races in the Aug. 2 elections. The newspaper looked at criminal records, bankruptcies, civil lawsuits and property tax payments, among other documents.
…House District 84 (Democrats)
Hendrell Remus: The University of Memphis sued Remus and in January won a judgment of about $6,000. Remus said the case came about when he used a check to rent a stage for a performance of an inspirational play he had written. The check bounced.
He said he’s almost cleared the debt. “I think next week will be the last payment and we should be done with that.”
Incumbent state Rep. Joe Towns Jr. has missed the deadline to pay 2011 Shelby County taxes of $1,050 on his property.
…Incumbent Rep. John DeBerry Jr. agreed to a General Sessions consent judgment of about $6,500 in 2008 after not making payments on two leased recliners from Ashley Furniture. The company attempted to garnish his state wages, but paperwork shows the state won’t do it because it’s already garnishing his legislative wages for another judgment.
I didn’t default on anything,” DeBerry said Monday. “Those recliners are sitting in my office right now, paid in full.”
A judgment in a Chancery Court lawsuit filed by Penton Publishing Inc. in 2003 led to years of garnishments against DeBerry’s state legislative salary, according to an online summary of the case. The case file wasn’t available in the Downtown courthouse.
DeBerry says the garnishment is an old business dispute involving his advertising agency. “I’m responsible and I was the logical person to go after, and everyone went after me.” He said he’s let the garnishment stay in place because the opposing side “went behind my back and got the judgment when we could have had a settlement.”
He added: “I don’t have much debt. I’m 61 years old, and the only thing I haven’t paid in full is my house and my car.”
…(In the 9th Congressional District Republican primary)
A collection agency sued Charlotte Bergmann in Shelby County General Sessions court earlier this year, seeking payment for $9,600 owed on her Chase Bank account. Bergmann said this case is related to a foreclosure of her home in 2006. She said the foreclosure forced her to sleep in her car for some months; that the bank actually owes her money, not the other way around; and that the issue is coming up now for political reasons. “I am the strongest candidate at this point, so there is some political dirt being thrown up.”
Savage Construction Co. filed suit against George Flinn in November 2008, saying that it had agreed to renovate a house near Memphis Country Club for about $621,000 but that changes ordered by Flinn and others caused the size of the contract to increase to about $1.4 million.
The contractor filed suit in Chancery Court, seeking to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars. The two sides settled last year. “We’re friends and we’re moving on,” Flinn said.
Ernest Lunati is a perennial candidate whose Shelby County criminal record lists a nickname, “The Amazing E,” and more than 30 encounters with police, starting in the 1960s. Several of his arrests are for promoting prostitution or pornography, and he was convicted under an obscenity statute in 1983.
In 1998, he fired a shot at a father and son who were looking at what a police officer described as a possible stolen pickup truck on a parking lot on Summer Avenue. The bullet bounced off the truck’s tailgate and hit the father in the leg, according to a police affidavit. Lunati later pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment charges and was sentenced to a year in prison.

9th District GOP Primary: The Millionaire vs. Bergmann

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It has been a long time since Memphis and Shelby County saw a truly competitive Republican primary race in the 9th Congressional District, observes Bart Sullivan. And then came 2012.
Charlotte Bergmann, 59, a Republican businesswoman who won 25 percent of the general election vote in 2010 when she ran against incumbent U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, drew a primary election opponent this year in deep-pocketed Dr. George S. Flinn Jr., 68, a former Shelby County commissioner. Two other candidates, Ernest Lunati and Rollin Wilson Stooksberry, both of whom have little support and few resources, are also on the GOP ballot this year.
…Bergmann had two little-known Republican opponents in 2010 and won the nomination with 13,285 votes. Voting records dating back to 1980 show only seven contested Republican Party primaries in the 9th District and nine uncontested races.
The contested race this time, and the prospect of big money being spent, “shows that there’s a lot of interest on the Republican side to replace Steve Cohen,” said Justin Joy, the Shelby County Republican Party chairman. With the changes in the 9th District’s boundaries that resulted from this year’s congressional redistricting, he added, “there’s a possibility” a Republican could win.
Flinn ran in the 8th Congressional District in 2010 and lost in a three-way Republican primary to political newcomer Stephen Fincher despite spending $3.6 million, most of it his own money
Flinn has loaned his campaign $1 million, and according to his most recent quarterly statement to the Federal Election Commission in April, he had raised $11,599 and had $699,092 in the committee bank account. Bergmann had raised $7,497 and had $3,283 in cash on hand in April.
Bergmann’s campaign manager, Randy Lawson, resigned last week because of what she described as “the impact of the current severe economic conditions.”
Flinn’s campaign-spending history translates into a man accustomed to “dropping big bucks” with nothing to show for it, according to Bergmann.
“I respect Dr. Flinn; don’t get me wrong,” she said. “His heart is in the right place. But he’s been a nine-time loser. It’s not only just money that enables one to win a campaign.”

Legislators Skipped Meetings of Troubled Board; Some Colleagues Want an Invesigation

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Two Tennessee state lawmakers partly responsible for helping oversee the scandal-gripped Upper Cumberland Development District can count on one hand the number of board meetings they’ve collectively attended in the last two years, reports Andrea Zelinski.
Attendance records for meetings of UCDD’s Board of Directors and its Executive Committee dating back to 2010 show that Rep. Charles Curtiss attended one meeting in that time and Sen. Charlotte Burks made two appearances.
“We can’t always break loose” from prior engagements to attend UCDD meetings, Curtiss, D-Sparta, said in his Capitol Hill office during a recent interview with TNReport.
…UCDD’s executive director, Wendy Askins, and her deputy, Larry Webb, were recently placed on administrative leave after a WTVF NewsChannel 5 investigation revealed Askins had moved in to the agency’s million-dollar “Living the Dream” assisted living facility for needy seniors.
NewsChannel 5′s UCDD series has also raised questions not just about the “Living the Dream” facility, but management of the agency in general. UCDD doled out thousands of dollars for campaign events, booze, personal gifts and other potentially suspicious reimbursements under Askins’ leadership, WTVF reported.
After the WTVF “Living the Dream” story first broke last month, UCDD board members who previously voted for or vocally defended taxpayer-spending on the plush estate — or signed off on other curious agency spending — claimed they were duped into acquiescence by Askins and a UCDD auditor, whom board members now allege was incompetent.
Curtiss has missed every meeting since 2010 except this year’s Jan. 19 meeting, where board members voted to revise the official minutes from a previous meeting which occurred on Feb. 16, 2010 regarding discussions they’d had about the “Living the Dream” project. Curtiss was one of 16 members who voted “yes” on the revisions, which involved retroactively approving $300,000 for “Living the Dream,” even though he wasn’t at the 2010 meeting in question.
A number of Tennessee lawmakers are now calling for a thoroughgoing probe of UCDD by state auditors. The situation is raising concerns among lawmakers that this board, and possibly others like it, risk being poor stewards of government money and deserve focused legislative investigation as well