After finding their way through the August “big ballot,” Memphis voters have a lot fewer local races on the Tuesday, Nov. 8, ballot.

Aside from general election races for the Tennessee Legislature and Congressional races, there are two other races specific to city voters Tuesday.

Both are special elections — one for Memphis City Court Judge Division 2 and the other for District 4 of the Memphis City Council.

The District 4 race is limited to Memphis residents who live within District 4, which generally takes in Orange Mound, South Memphis and Cooper-Young.

Here is an updated council map of the District; use the Secretary of State’s app to find council and other districts.

The City Council seat became vacant when Jamita Swearengen won the August race for Circuit Court Clerk and took office in September.

The remaining 12 members of the council appointed Teri Dockery to the seat until the special election is decided. Dockery is not among the four contenders on the November ballot.

The winner of the race serves out the remaining year left in Swearengen’s four-year term.

The position will again be on the October 2023 Memphis elections ballot, along with the 12 other council seats for a full four-year term.

Here are the candidates for Memphis City Council District 4:

LaTonia Blankenship — Blankenship is a Memphis-Shelby County Schools employee, working in the early childhood division.

She also has been chair of the Orange Mound Collaborative.

Blankenship worked as a family engagement specialist at Melrose High School in her 20-year career with the school system. 

She stepped down to run for the city council seat.

“We have all this development going on around Orange Mound, but we’re not getting a piece of the pie as well. We’re getting crumbs,” she said.

At Melrose, she said that she used to take students on trips to the state capitol so that they could learn the ins and outs of the government and its processes.

She wants to do something similar with a position on city council by showing youths how local government works.

Blankenship acknowledged the race for a year on the council is hard fought.

“I’m trying to keep my integrity. I’m trying to keep that Michelle Obama motto: When they go low, I go high,” she said.

Barry Ford — Ford is a business systems analyst for Shelby County government and a Navy veteran.

He decided to run for city council because of his involvement with the Glenview-Edgewood Neighborhood Association.

“That made me want to participate more actively in the kinds of things that affect people’s lives on a daily basis,” Ford said.

If elected, he wants to bring the individual neighborhood associations in the district together to work in conjunction with one another on issues like blight and garbage pickup.

Ford said that he stands out from his three rivals because of his involvement in the community.

He has worked in the campaigns of numerous other candidates over the years and was elected to the Tennessee Democratic Party’s executive committee in the 1990s.

Ford said he also has made it a point to knock on doors and meet people face-to-face to ask for their vote in the current campaign.

“I’m trying to directly connect with voters of the district to show that I am sincerely interested in getting their interests heard in city hall,” he said.

DeWayne Jackson — Jackson hasn’t had much of a profile in this campaign. He could not be reached for comment and didn’t appear to have any online social media campaign presence.

Jana Swearengen-Washington — Swearengen-Washington is an educator and the sister of former council member Jamita Swearengen. She is also the niece of the late council member Barbara Swearengen-Ware.

Her campaign signs and billboards bill her candidacy as “a family tradition of service.”

Even though her sister just stepped down from the seat, she says her campaign speaks for itself.

“People that know us know that we have two totally different personalities,” she said.

Swearengen-Washington earned both her undergrad and master’s in education from the University of Memphis.

Like Blankenship, she is also an educator.

She is an assistant principal at Forrest City Junior High in Forrest City, Arkansas.

Swearengen-Washington began her career in education at Peabody Elementary in Memphis but moved to the Arkansas school district after its superintendent asked her for help there, she said.

She said that she always felt like running for office, but that the time was never right. “I felt this was the season to finally do that,” she said.

Whether this is the last election of the year for all Memphis voters depends on whether any of the four contenders in the special council race get a majority of the votes.

If no one does, the election year will move to a December runoff for the top two contenders.

Nine candidates are running in the special election for Division 2 Judge of the Memphis Municipal Court, the position held by Tarik Sugarmon, who resigned when he was elected Juvenile Court Judge in August.

City Court hears primarily traffic violations and other alleged violations of city ordinances. Races for the three divisions of city court are on the city ballot every eight years with the next regularly scheduled election in 2027.

Here are the candidates for Memphis City Court Judge Division 2:

Latonya Burrow — Burrow is currently an attorney in private practice. She has been a licensed attorney for nearly 30 years. She has also worked as Chief Ethics Officer for the City of Memphis and as an assistant public defender working in re-entry. Burrow was a 2014 candidate for the Shelby County Criminal Court Division 3 but lost to incumbent Judge J. Robert Carter, who is now retired.

John Cameron — Cameron has been an Environmental Court Referee for Shelby County since 2007. He was appointed by Judge Larry Potter, former Environmental Court Judge for Shelby County General Sessions Court Division 14. This is Cameron’s first run for office.

Varonica Cooper — Cooper has been an attorney in private practice for 25 years. Prior to moving to Memphis, she worked as an entertainment attorney. She is a former professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. Cooper also ran for Shelby County General Sessions Division 5 Judge on the Aug. 4 ballot but lost to incumbent Judge Betty Thomas Moore.

Lynnette Hall-Lewis — Hall-Lewis is a senior human resources manager for the City of Memphis. She was formerly a Senior Assistant City Attorney for Memphis. She has more than 30 years of legal experience and has practiced law in Memphis for 17 years. Prior to moving to Memphis, she served as the Vice Chair of the State of Louisiana Judiciary Commission, which recommends discipline for judges and justices for misconduct or failure to perform duties. This is her first bid for office.

LaTrena Ingram — Ingram has been a practicing attorney for more than 25 years. She is former chief of staff for Congressman Harold Ford Sr. and is the former president of the Ben. F. Jones Chapter of the National Bar Association. Ingram ran for Memphis Municipal Court Division 1 in 2019 but was defeated by attorney and school board member Teresa Jones.

William Larsha Jr. — Larsha has been a Senior Assistant City Attorney for 22 years. He has 32 years of experience practicing law. Larsha also ran for Shelby County General Sessions Court Division 3 Judge in the general election Aug. 4 but lost to Judge Danielle Mitchell Sims.

Christine Stephens — Stephens is a solo practitioner who owns her own law firm. She has more than 20 years of experience practicing law. Previously she was a partner at Apperson Crump PLC. This is Stephens’ first run for office.

Carolyn Watkins — Watkins has been serving as Division 2 judge of the Memphis Municipal Court since Sugarmon’s resignation. She was appointed by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and confirmed by the Memphis City Council. She formerly served as appointed judge for Division 1 of the Memphis Municipal Court between May 17, 2021 and September 1, 2022 following the 2021 death of Teresa Jones. Watkins ran for the rest of Jones’ term during an Aug. 4 special general election but lost to Kenya Hooks. Watkins is a former administrator for the Shelby County Office of Equal Opportunity Compliance and a former Assistant Public Defender for the Shelby County Public Defender’s Office.

Patience “Missy” Branham — Branham is a defense attorney. Previously, she was an Assistant District Attorney for the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office for 32 years. She has practiced criminal law for nearly 40 years. She also ran for Shelby County General Sessions Court Division 10 Judge during the Aug. 4 general elections losing to Greg Gilbert.

The Daily Memphian reporters Julia Baker and Aarron Fleming contributed to this story.