With no public notice Thursday, Sept. 1, Memphis City Council members took up a question for the Nov. 8 ballot that would have brought back a runoff provision for the 2023 Memphis mayor’s race.

The attempt failed on a 6-6 vote at the end of a special meeting called to fill the vacant District 4 council seat.

After appointing Teri Dockery to the seat and Dockery taking the oath of office as well as her seat on the council, council member JB Smiley introduced an amendment to an earlier referendum ordinance that would have allowed partisan primaries in city elections starting next year.

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The amendment was to require a runoff for the Memphis mayor’s race if no contender gets a majority of the votes cast on the Oct. 5, 2023, election day.

“It would allow the people of the city of Memphis to vote on whether or not they want the mayor’s race to be decided by a majority vote,” he said.

Smiley then moved to suspend the rules to add the item and allow for subbing out the primaries and inserting the runoff provision.

“This has already been voted on twice,” Smiley said when several council members objected.

“No it hasn’t,” replied council member Worth Morgan, who at first attempted to delay the vote to the Sept. 13 council session.

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That would have effectively killed it because council attorney Allan Wade said the council had to give final approval to the referendum Thursday in order to meet the state requirement that such charter change ballot questions be published 60 days before election day.

“It’s a dead issue because this is the 58th day before the November election,” Wade said.

Council member Chase Carlisle called Smiley’s statement a “slight misrepresentation.”

“The general public’s takeaway is that it was an item on partisan primaries,” he said. “They assumed it was a partisan election question, not a majority runoff.”

Smiley called Carlisle’s opposition “ironic” given Carlisle’s position on other charter referendums proposed.

“I find it ironic that this body speaks a lot about letting the people decide,” he said. “Let’s just take a vote and see what happens.”

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What happened in the council vote was a 6-6 tie with council member Jeff Warren absent.

Voting yes were Smiley, Cheyenne Johnson, Rhonda Logan, Michalyn Easter-Thomas, Patrice Robinson and chairman Martavius Jones.

Voting no were: Dockery, Carlisle, Morgan, Ford Canale, Frank Colvett and Edmund Ford Sr.

Carlisle said later that he has been consistent about letting people vote.

“We have three readings for ordinances on purpose — to give the public time to weigh issues and react,” he said. “I’m all for letting the people speak. But it has to be done in an appropriate way.”

Johnson brought the referendum ordinance back to life at the Aug. 23 council session when she moved to pull an item from the minutes of the Aug. 9 session.

That item was the third and final reading of the referendum ordinance on city primary elections that the council defeated Aug. 9.

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By pulling the item from the minutes, Johnson set the stage for the switch to mayoral runoffs in the proposal that the council never discussed publicly prior to Smiley bring up the item Thursday.

Instead of adjourning the special meeting Thursday following the vote, the council recessed and in doing so raised the possibility that another special meeting could be called on the matter, possibly as early as Friday, Sept. 2.

The council notice for Thursday’s special meeting listed the council vacancy as the only item on the agenda.

But it also included wording that allowed for “further consideration of any other matters lawfully coming before the council which require action by said council.”