Correction: A previous version of this story suggested Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland asked voters to allow the sitting mayor and Memphis City Council members to be in office for three consecutive terms. The measure was instead brought forward by members of the City Council. 

Welcome back to The Daily Memphian’s On The Ballot newsletter, bringing you the latest election coverage, including who’s running for what, voting information and all the context you’ll need to make informed decisions as our city prepares to choose our next mayor and city council members. 

If you’ve received this newsletter in an email, it’s because you signed up for our On The Ballot election emails last year. Expect this email in your inbox every other week, generally, and more often as we get closer to Election Day.

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Though candidates for Memphis mayor, City Council and city court clerk will not file their official petitions until July 20, the build up — especially for the Memphis mayor’s race — started months ago. If you’re just tuning in now, here are four key points to get you up to speed.

1. Candidates started paperwork with the Election Commission

Memphis, start your engines. Races for Memphis mayor and City Council officially passed “go” on Monday, May 22. That was the opening day for the candidacy petition process. Fun fact: May 22 was also the city’s 204th anniversary.

Mayoral candidate J.W. Gibson (middle) pulls his qualifying petition May 22 with the Shelby County Election Commission. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)

The process begins with potential candidates pulling petitions, gathering 25 signatures, paying a $100 fee and then filing the petition by the deadline July 20.

So, who’s running?

Bookmark our how to keep up with who’s running page for an updated list of mayoral candidates and links to the City Council and City Court Clerk petitions.

As of June 6, 14 candidates have declared their intention to run for mayor, meaning they’ve either made a public announcement that they plan to run or they’ve issued petition paperwork. 

As for City Council, more than 40 candidates have issued petitions for the 13 city council seats up for grabs, though exactly where those districts are is in question for a few more days.

Unlike all these possible candidates, the 25 people who sign their petitions to run do have to live in the city. 

Which brings us to our second point...

2. Where we’ve been: the residency question

The biggest controversy of the election, so far, concerns mayoral candidate residency. Should the mayor of Memphis have to live in the city limits? 

Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. (left) and president of the NAACP Memphis Branch Van Turner (right) were the focus of litigation regarding a residency requirement to run for Memphis mayor. (The Daily Memphian file)

Shelby County Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins in a ruling on May 11 said no, at least not from a legal perspective. Voters will have to decide for themselves if candidates’ addresses matter.

The Daily Memphian’s Bill Dries and Samuel Hardiman went deep into a 1996 referendum that removed a previous residency requirement, including the big, important catch — that Memphis voters were not explicitly changing residency requirements when they voted to pass it.

Why it matters

This ruling affected the campaigns of at least two declared mayoral candidates, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. and NAACP Memphis Branch president Van Turner. 

Bonner had owned a house in Bartlett and bought another in East Memphis in January 2023. Turner had lived in unincorporated Shelby County but claimed he moved last fall to another home he owns in Binghampton. Hardiman looked into this claim and found that, as of late March, Turner’s MLGW showed no water usage and minimal electric usage at the Memphis house.

Residency requirments have been a focal point of the Memphis mayor’s race so far in 2023. (The Daily Memphian file)

With their residency in question, these two candidates filed a suit against the city claiming that the 1996 referendum left them in the clear. Later, the City Council joined in on Bonner and Turner’s side to fight the city. And that gets us back to May 11, when Chancellor Jenkins sided with the candidates. Now their campaigns are ready to go full throttle. 

And there’s precedent. There’s some doubt as to whether four-term mayor Willie Herenton resided in the city during his 2019 run for mayor, but it never came up at the time, largely because Mayor Strickland, the incumbent and Herenton’s competition, didn’t question anything. “It was kind of a side issue,” Strickland said in a Behind the Headlines interview with The Daily Memphian. “I thought we were going to win anyway.”

Mayoral lore: the fist bump heard ‘round the world

In this section, we’ll look back our past mayors and their stories, from alien origins to historic moments.

When you meet the Queen, you curtsy. What do you do when you meet the Dalai Lama? In 2009, Memphis Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery decided the appropriate greeting was ... a fist bump. His Holiness was on his first visit to Memphis to receive a Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum.

The Dalai Lama was greeted with a fist bump from Memphis Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery and smiles from Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton Sept. 22, 2009. (AP file)

The Dalai Lama didn’t seem bothered by up close and personal contact, though, as The Daily Memphian’s Bianca Phillips experienced when she met him at an award-related press conference. He reached out, grabbed her lip ring and gave it a jiggle. Then he laughed and walked away. 

Got a Memphis mayor moment, cringe or otherwise, that you recall? Email hwhitfield@dailymemphian.com.

3. Campaigning, fundraising, public forums and debates are happening

Mayoral candidates (left to right) Karen Camper, Frank Colvett, J.W. Gibson, Michelle McKissack and Paul Young attend a Daily Memphian sponsored debate April 24 at the Halloran Centre for Performing Arts & Education. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

Candidates have begun hosting campaign events and fundraising, some more than others.

And they’ve started sharing their platforms through various events and appearances. 

• Shelby County Young Democrats held a forum at The Pocket bar Downtown.
• Memphis for All hosted a debate at First Congregational Church. 
• The Daily Memphian hosted a debate at the Halloran Centre focused on local crime and criminal justice. Read the top takeaways or watch the debate in its entirety here.
• Commit to Memphis held a forum at Mosaic Church.
• The People’s Convention has hosted a series of meet-and-greets, including one at Dreamfest music and spoken word event.
• Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church brought candidates to the pulpit at a forum to talk gun control and answer quick questions.

4. Why this race matters

While our mayoral elections have certainly been contentious and heated in the past (Anyone remember the “turn off the AC” campaign?), this election may feel different from other races in the recent past.

For one, it’s the end of an era as two-term Mayor Jim Strickland is on his way out after voters said “no” last fall to a proposal that would have extended term limits. It’s time for a clean slate for Memphis.

The Downtown Memphis skyline sits behind a vacant lot. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file)

This year’s election also comes at a point in Memphis history when high-profile incidents have thrust our city into the worldwide spotlight in a way the last few years of city boosterism hoped to avoid. 

Not to mention this chance for a fresh Mayor and a potentially fresh City Council comes after multiple pandemic years when property and violent crime have increased and leadership for other institutions, like the Memphis Police Department and Memphis-Shelby County Schools, is up in the air. 

Stay tuned for the next On The Ballot newsletter in two weeks when we’ll discuss how the council’s fight over districting shakes out and the latest campaign updates.

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