Questions about Memphis’ mayoral residency requirement answered
Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. (left) and president of the NAACP Memphis Branch Van Turner (right) are the focus of litigation regarding a residency requirement to run for Mayor of Memphis. (From left to right: Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file; Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file).
The City of Memphis’ five-year residency requirement for elected officials goes back to 1905. So why is it up for debate now? And when will we know who is eligible to run for Memphis’ next mayor?
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Samuel Hardiman
Samuel Hardiman is an enterprise and investigative reporter who focuses on local government and politics. He began his journalism career at the Tulsa World in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he covered business and, later, K-12 education. Hardiman came to Memphis in 2018 to join the Memphis Business Journal, covering government and economic development. He then served as the Memphis Commercial Appeal’s city hall reporter and later joined The Daily Memphian in 2023. His current work focuses on Elon Musk’s xAI, regional energy needs and how Memphis and Shelby County government spend taxpayer dollars.
Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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