Just when we were trying to give Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris the benefit of a doubt, thinking that there might be a chance that he would be the grown-up in the suburban debate about school consolidation, he’s show his true colors.
When push came to shove, he’s just Ron Lollar with a better vocabulary and puffed-up sense of his own importance.
It became obvious with his latest gambit – his effort to deny Memphians the right to self-determination by requiring a vote of the suburbs (and next we’re sure that he’ll want the consolidation rules where it has to pass separately in both places). It was yet another racially-motivated action in a season when white suburban politicians seem clearly annoyed by the audacity of a majority black city (also the majority for the entire county) to act as if they have the right to control their own futures.
It strikes directly at the heart of the sense of superiority that runs to the heart of suburban Republican politics. It is but a brand of plantation mentality that is slow to dissolve by people hanging on by their fingernails to the belief that white people should decide what happens in a majority black county.
It’s an unseemly violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which is intended to act on the promise of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” Of course, the 14th Amendment is already under attack by Republicans pandering to the extremist rhetoric of Tea Partiers who suggest that somehow only they know what the Constitutional really means (it used to be only the Bible). Mr. Norris calls the possibility of a referendum surrendering the charter of Memphis City Schools a “hostile takeover,” but he’s just playing to the cheap seats. We’ve never seen a hostile takeover by a company that surrenders its corporate charter first.
Fighting Fairness
It’s become clear as we listen to the county cabal that they believe that all men are created equal, but they are a little more equal than anyone else. Particularly when it comes to a vote – they believe it’s fair that they have a veto over government consolidation and now they want to stick their thumb in the eye of Memphis yet again.
How else can you explain the idea that voters outside Memphis should be allowed to vote on the dissolution of a Memphis-only school district?
How else can you explain Mr. Norris’s antebellum belief that the white minority in Shelby County should always have a pocket veto over anything the black majority wants to do?
How else can you explain the notion by Mr. Norris that he should be able to deny the most precious right in a democracy – the right to vote – from Memphians?
What makes Mr. Norris think that his birth right grants him the power to yank Memphians’ right to self-determination and become the equivalent of George Wallace standing in the voting place door?
Unequal Protection
We’ve already sent in our contribution to the legal fund to take him and others to court for violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
What’s amazing in this day and time is that this paternal exercise of superiority that stems from Memphians taking steps to do what they have a legal right to do. And it tells you a lot about the Norris brand of politics that if he can’t get his way through persuasion and influence, he’ll just change the rules in the middle of the game.
We often wonder if anyone outside Memphis has ever looked at demographic trends in Shelby County. We live in a county where more than two-thirds of all families have no children in public school, and we also live in a county that will be majority African-American in 15-20 years.
So, for those who support the pandering of Mr. Norris and other suburban politicians, why not just go ahead and pack up and move away now? After all, if you’re scared of African-American children becoming part of a single district with your Caucasian kids, you’re simply living in the wrong county. The tide of history will eventually overwhelm you. If you go ahead and move, at least those of us who are left know we’re willing to roll up our sleeves and work together to move this county ahead.
The Me Generation
On November 4 off last year, Mr. Norris crowed about the Republican tsunami that swept majorities into the U.S. Congress and Tennessee Legislature, saying that “values trump tradition.” With his legislative gambit, he proves how serious he was. Apparently, some of those traditions that fall victim to his values are the right to vote, majority rule, and playing by the rules.
In that same post on his website, Mr. Norris said it’s time “to let the people’s voice be heard.” We assume he only meant the voices of people who look like him. Such is the gap between rhetoric and reality.
We are told that Mr. Norris fudged the truth about his plans when he briefed Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell about them. There are some suburban politicos that aren’t pleased with Mayor Luttrell’s announced intention to act as an honest broker in the current school controversy, so it would be no surprise if the kind of behavior that is common place in the Capitol was being practiced here by Mr. Norris, whose game-playing is well-known in the Shelby County legislative circles.
Short Memory
Norris has said that he has been motivated in life by “an intense desire to help people… My mother was widowed when I was very young. I saw the unscrupulous attempt to gain unfair advantage at her expense on more than one occasion..”
He couldn’t have better described what he’s trying to do to Memphians. Apparently, the lesson about unscrupulous attempts to gain unfair advantage applies to everybody but him.
From what I’ve read, even in the Commercial Appeal, Norris is very intent on bending over backwards to make sure those outside the Memphis city limits have a say on MCS’ charter surrender in what he and many others have labeled as a “hostile takeover” of SCS. He’s even trying to pass legislation retroactively forcing MCS to perform a detailed year-long study (including a recommended plan of action) before they can even consider surrendering their own charter, further delaying a public vote when (1) a similar study was already conducted years ago by the University of Memphis addressing that very issue and (2) the State Attorney General already ruled that Shelby County residents outside of Memphis (i.e., the suburban areas that do not sit inside MCS’ district lines proper) have no say in the charter surrender matter.
These stall-and-delay tactics are baseless and they know it (or refuse to even acknowledge it), and the whole back-and-forth rhetoric between those inside and outside the city is already becoming old as it is. I say let the people of Memphis have their say and move on. What is in the best interest of the children of Memphis AND Shelby County should always come FIRST, not political and class warfare, as this has suddenly devolved into being.
This is going to court and the county and the state will spend a bunch of money fighting this thing and to what end? There is no way NOrris’ bill to post-fact stop the MCS board from doing what they had a legal right to do will pass constitutional muster. You don’t have to be a lawyer to figure that much out. In essence he’s saying that people outisde of Memphis have the right to determine what Memphis does and to force Memphis to continue running a school system when they have every right to stop doing so. That’s the essence of a plantation mentality and no one suggested doing that in Knoxville when that city surrendered its school charter. WHY?
This is Mark Norris to a “T.” Always about his own ambition.
The root issue of these discussions i.e. Race is the strongest reason causing me to uproot my family and leave my beloved hometown of Memphis. Racial division is THE root of lack of progress in Memphis, evident in this back and forth over the school system, where issues of inequality and legal segregation have taken place for decades. Every place has its issues. Hopefully Memphians learn from this consolidation issue that it is time to acknowledge the racial divide and move beyond it.
@packrat:
“That’s the essence of a plantation mentality and no one suggested doing that in Knoxville when that city surrendered its school charter. WHY?”
When you have suburban Shelby County representatives and senators in Nashville (along with others in the state) that always treat the city of Memphis proper as the “unwanted stepchild” of the family and always want to find ways to put up psychological and physical barriers around us as if we are incapable of charting our OWN course in our OWN best interest and benefit, then it’s not just a plantation mentality, it’s an island mentality, as in isolating Memphis from the rest of the state of Tennessee and making it simply an “island” among itself when it comes to the decision-making process.
Apparently, to the likes of Mark Norris, Brian Kelsey, and all of the other suburban legislators with the blessings of their leaders (i.e., Governor Bill Haslam, Lieutenant Governor/Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, House Speaker Beth Harwell, etc.) and colleagues in the rest of the state, EVERY decision that WE make in the city of Memphis proper for our OWN sake is ALWAYS WRONG in their eyes and THEY only know what’s in OUR best interest.
Might as well get started on building that moat around Memphis. How far and how deep would you like it to be?
What a scurrilous smear. SCM, you’ve outdone yourself.
There are valid reasons for wanting to include county school district voters in such an election: 1, their taxes are almost sure to rise upon consolidation; 2, the poor quality of some city school board members who would be a majority on a consolidated county school board (David Pickler’s no George Washington, but he knows how to operate a budget); 3, the manifestly appalling choices for city superintendent by what would become the new majority in the county schools. I don’t necessarily agree that all of those reasons should block consolidation. But they are valid concerns, as even you have written about.
Finally, George Will’s column today is particularly apt to this blog:
“Let us hope that Dean is the last gasp of the generation of liberals whose default position in any argument is to indict opponents as racists. This McCarthyism of the left – devoid of intellectual content, unsupported by data – is a mental tic, not an idea but a tactic for avoiding engagement with ideas. It expresses limitless contempt for the American people, who have reciprocated by reducing liberalism to its current characteristics of electoral weakness and bad sociology.”
Re: Anonymous 10:32, if anything is half baked and devoid of intellectual content, it’s Mark Norris’ panicked attempt to rewrite Tennessee law at the eleventh hour. I’m not going to delve into constitutional law on this one, because that’s where fools dare to tread, but at the very least, if Norris gets this hogwash passed, an argument (easily much better than mine) is going to be made and taken to court that narrowly tailoring a state bill, as apparently he is doing, to apply only to Memphis and Shelby County, to create for the minority non-city, county residents a gerrymandered veto power over a matter in which they have otherwise have no standing, is unconstitutional. On it’s face, this seems absurd. It strips away the very meaning of democracy. (Can part of a county’s electorate vote to refuse county education to another part of the county’s electorate? Will Norris also rewrite the structure of public education in Tennessee so that counties are no longer responsible to provide public education to all of their children?)
Although a court of law will have to decide the answer, more important is that by playing politics this way, Norris is inviting immense uncertainty and division into an already difficult process. Worse, he’s injecting social discord where good leadership would strive to do the opposite.
Ideally, your three points and many other critical issues would have been considered by SCS leadership before they moved forward with a plan that they knew risked forcing MCS’ hand. Their plan all along, however, was to wall themselves off from the city’s problems, disregarding any responsibility that county residents might have to the failing public school structure of the economic center of the region. Now that the die has been desperately cast to stave off ruin, Shelby County leadership scrambles to protect the failing status quo indefinitely. If Norris succeeds in passing a bill that places a permanent barrier in the way of county-wide consolidation, Memphis and Shelby County will just be that much more challenged to together make progress on the region’s toughest issues, your three points included (i.e., but better stated: unsustainable tax burden in the city; poor public schools).
SCM,
You have proven yourself to be a partisan. You writing shows your intelligence. Why are you willfully missing many of the obvious points in this discussion?
In 2 or 4 years, the citizens of Memphis would control a consolidated school system via the 70% of the board that they would elect. The surrender of the MCS charter is an annexation of the SCS schools.
Senator Norris has had the temerity to say that perhaps we should ask the suburban residents whether or not they would like to have their schools administered by the MCS team. I am truly dumbfounded to see you reference the 14th amendment as a reason to deny the suburban minority any opportunity to weigh in on this question. The 14th amendment was all about the right to vote and protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
Take a stiff drink of whatever you favor and reread this part of your post – “How else can you explain the notion by Mr. Norris that he should be able to deny the most precious right in a democracy – the right to vote – from Memphians?” Allowing suburbanites to participate is tantamount to denying Memphians a vote? Requiring an urban / suburban consensus is somehow un-American?
How about this notion? – Democracy is not two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. The majority rules, but the rights of the minority are always respected. The bill proposed by Senator Norris aims to insure that the minority has a voice in school consolidation issues.
One more thing: Please stop saying that people who believe that 150,000 students is too large of a district are racist. Also, please stop saying that people who believe consolidation will cost us four years of improvement efforts while we hash out merger issues are racists. There are actually thoughtful, logical reasons to oppose consolidation. It does not require great imagination to say “my opponent is a racist.”
Ken,
Should memphis city residents now have the right to vote in Shelby County school elections? Since, after all, they ARE residents of Shelby County.
Ken,
If the actions of Norris were as benevolent as you would suggest, where was he over the past 10 years during which SCS has sought special school district status? Was he preparing legislation that would permit the residents within the city to have a voice in efforts by the SCS to create a special school district? Are those in Memphis not in fact residents of Shelby County? Should they not be able to cast a vote seeing as their taxes in fact go towards funding Shelby County Schools? That in the future the city of Memphis would have within the city limits 2 school systems? I think not, which is where your stance and that of Norris looses all credibility and standing. It only stands to reason that the residents of Memphis should be represented at the SCS if the residents outside Memphis are to have a vote where the operations of MCS are concerned. It would also stand to reason that any vote made concerning such a course would count every vote equally throughout the county seeing as we are talking about county wide schools.
Your view of democracy is biased at best. Your “minority” will always have a voice in school consolidation. SCS will be the surviving organization and will be run by a school board elected entirely by the county. Once those members terms have expired, then the residents of Shelby County (the minority) will have the same voting power they previously maintained before consolidation- one vote per registered voter. What Norris instead wants is to give these voters and the population of Shelby County outside of Memphis an equal voice and standing to the population within the city of Memphis. That is grossly unfair and violates the standing rule of one man, one vote. Then again this has never been about true equality between the city and county but situational equality. Your argument for democracy only when it suites the needs of certain individuals falls flat.
If your premise were true and in fact fair, then it must be applied universally, not just in those areas where it would benefit SCS.
And Ken let’s be honest here, what the “minority” wants in this case, is veto power over the benighted citizens of the city of Memphis making their own decisions. That’s textbook plantation mentality.
Should Memphis residents have the power to decide that say, Germantown, should have to start its own school system? That’s in essence what you are saying non Memphians should be able to do in regards to Memphis.
Norris just killed any chance he may have had of a higher office outside of the ‘burbs. The Memphis republicans will remember that the threw them under the bus.
It’s funny when liberals quote the Constitution as if those tired old words suddenly have meaning.
Mark Norris has nothing to worry about though. Whatever the General Assembly decides to do can undoubtedly be justified under the General Welfare Clause.
So I-269, assuming you support Norris on this issue, you would ogically also support Memphians being able to vote in Shelby County school board elections, right?
ogically or logically, those 2 hypothetical votes are much different, and support for one does not lead to support for the other, by logic or anything else. I am not for either, by the way. What I have never understood is why “good” conservates like Norris and Kelsey run to impose state control on local decisions anytime there are local decisions they don’t like.
As soon as Memphians send one penny to County schools, then I’ll be glad to let them vote in County School Board elections!
I269, thanks for the glowing hypocrisy on parade.
Ken:
Unfortunately, in this case, there’s no other conclusion to be drawn but that an underlying motivation for fighting this consolidation tooth and nail is racial. We don’t recall anyone proposing any of these similar legislative interventions when other schools consolidated.
Your comment leaves us speechless in the notion that non-Memphians have the right to vote on uniquely Memphis issues. Can Memphis residents now have a vote on the decisions, not to mention the board, of Shelby County Schools? Can Memphis residents have a vote on decisions made in Bartlett that affect the city’s tax base?
You are tying yourself into a mental pretzel trying to make Norris’s point of view sound logical. It isn’t. It makes no more sense that allowing the voters in Tipton County to have a vote.
People in one jurisdiction don’t get the right to vote just because the votes of other people in their own jurisdictions have consequences for them.
I-269: Memphians already send money to county schools. Please don’t try to play one of those mathematical games used by some suburban politicians.
Packrat I disagree. How do you suppose my response to the question to the question posted to me is hypocritical?
PS, I-269:
If you think that this godawful highway with no justification for its existence is a way to dig at Memphis, you have your head in the sand with the town mayors. It will not only devastate Memphis, but the suburban Shelby County towns, as it is presently designed.
Let’s extend your logic 269. Since the state of Tennessee is a net recipient of Federal tax dollars, then Tennessee resident shouldn’t be “allowed” to vote in national elections. Give it up.
I-269,
While Memphis only accounts for 40 percent of the land area within Shelby County, 2 out of 3 dollars of tax value assessed in Shelby County originates within the Memphis city limits.
The rural school bond data can be used to calculate how much money County residents outside of Memphis contribute to the schools. Someone did the math and laid it out here on this blog a year or two ago. The County subsidized the City schools then for
around $25 million/year.
Edit: County residents outside of Memphis subsidized MCS to the tune of about $25,000,000/year.
Considering the county funding for public education is split along ADA lines, it is easy to see that the County is not providing more to one district or the other on a per student basis.
Oh, my God, and we asked you not to trot out your hoary theory about mathematics. Either side has the numbers or the percentages or the government philosophy to support an argument.
More to the point, if you want to relegate this to math exercises, Memphians pay more than that to retire the county bonds that were issued to pay for sprawl in the form of schools and roads.
I269, when are the Memphis suburbs going to reimburse Memphis taxpayers for all the years Memphians subsidized suburban development years ago? In my view, that debt has not been paid, but all your obsfucations don’t conceal the main point here: we are all Shelby Countians, we all live in the same county. The education of the children of Shelby County is the responsibility of SHelby County and not the city of Memphis. And it’s time we either acted like it, or go ahead and recreate your bright shining city on a hill in Fayette County. Good luck with that. BY that time, Fedex will have moved its HQ to Indianapolis and this metro area will be dead anyway. All your $700K houses will be molded and abandoned.
It’s not mathematical theory. It’s just basic math to calculate how much Memphis and County residents outside of Memphis pay in taxes using the rural school bond revenues and total tax revenues to separate out how much each group pays compared to how much events each school
district gets.
I was just responding to the question about letting Memphis residents vote in County school board elections. I think it is a fine idea once they start contributing to SCS. For that I am labeled a hypocrite when basic math using city and county figures can be used to demonstrate I am telling the TRUTH, not advancing a theory.
I-269
So you are totally ignoring the budgets of both school districts and the fact that they are governed by the ADA split? It sort of discredits any financial theory you are trying to advance.
So, should Memphians get to vote on Germantown aldermen since they have paid for roads inside Germantown?
Packers, I am not obfuscating anything. I politely answered a question posed to me by an anonymous contributor assuming I support Senator Norris (an assumption that has not been established).
The answer was reasonable and based in the fact that MCS is subsidized by County residents outside of Memphis.
It is telling that you jumped in the middle and insulted me though. I still cannot determine what was hypocritical about my response.
I’ve paid taxes to the Republic of Texas when I’ve purchased gasoline. I wonder if I can vote in the next general election in Texas?
If it wasn’t hypocritical, then answer my questions above:
Let’s extend your logic 269. Since the state of Tennessee is a net recipient of Federal tax dollars, then Tennessee resident shouldn’t be “allowed” to vote in national elections.
And I apolgize if insinuating you were being hypocritical is an insult to you. I consider it more in the nature of the give-and-get of comment board threads.
In answer to your question about Tennessee and federal funds, the problem lies in the collection and distribution of federal funds among the various states. See my earlier jab regarding the General Welfare Clause.
Cut out all the unconstitutional federal spending and do away with ridiculous interpretations of the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses and limit the federal government strictly to its enumerated powers.
Please don’t default into Tea Party sloganeering. It makes my eyes hurt.
“I’ve paid taxes to the Republic of Texas when I’ve purchased gasoline. I wonder if I can vote in the next general election in Texas?”
Not if you don’t reside there, but since Memphians reside in SHelby County, and if non-Memphians are going to get to vote in Memphis elections when they don’t live in memphis, then it’s quite logical to assume that Memphians should get to vote in SHelby County school board elections.
I-269
Seeing as the Republic of Texas ceased to exist in 1845, I would suggest you are a little late in questioning your right to vote is said Republic. As for the taxes you paid in the State of Texas, 25% went towards public education and 75% went towards transportation. The 75% that went toward transportation was in effect paying for your use of roadways Texas maintains either in part or whole. The head of the state’s education department is not occupied by a publicly elected official and its programs are not a matter of public referendum. Thus you have no reason or right to vote in the State of Texas.
“In answer to your question about Tennessee and federal funds, the problem lies in the collection and distribution of federal funds among the various states. See my earlier jab regarding the General Welfare Clause.
Cut out all the unconstitutional federal spending and do away with ridiculous interpretations of the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses and limit the federal government strictly to its enumerated powers.”
and you say you don’t obsfucate…..nice dodge.
Great discussion, everyone.
Urbanite, I was on a motorcycle riding through the tiny panhandle portion of interstate 40. My tax contribution was hardly in proportion to the service received on such a crummy stretch of road.
The use of Republic was a bit of a joke. Maybe if I change my name to Madison@East Parkway you folks will lighten up.
I-269
My comment was hardly meant to be taken as a serious rebuttal seeing as both it and the original comment were so far off topic. If you thought the road was crummy then, imagine what it would be like without said contribution.
The Shelby County Attorney, Kelly Rayne, has opined (1/9/11 Memo, Item #8) that creation of an SSD would not preclude the surrender of the MCS charter and subsequent transfer of city school administration to the County. So if the County SSD is established first and then the referendum results in the City schools being transferred to the County, does that mean that the County will be administering two school systems?
Here’s some interesting reading material from the 1997 court case about Memphians voting for county schools board members:
Board of Commissioners of Shelby County v. Burson, 121 F.3d 244 (6th Cir. 1997). In Burson, Republican Commissioners Mark Norris, Bill Gibbons, and others caused Shelby County to sue in federal court (over the objection of black Commissioners) to declare its own redistricting plan for the county school board unconstitutional because it included voters from Memphis. (The Commission had done so because a new Tenn. law at the time had required it.) The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held it was unconstitutional for Memphis voters to have a say in Shelby County school board elections. The Court stated that the “relevant geopolitcal entity” for one person, one vote issues was the school district, not the county.
Notably:
1. The Court said the constitution is violated “where the government allocates the franchise in such a manner that residents of a separate area have little or no chance to control their own school board….” Id. at 248. Here, the “dual majority” requirement gives suburban voters a complete veto over whether Memphis decides to discontinue operating its special urban school district. Memphis must have the right to decide if they will continue to operate its special school district, because state law provides the default rule that COUNTIES educate kids in the county–special school districts are a departure from the default rule, undertaken voluntarily by the city operating a special school district. Norris’ bill would mean that Memphis signed up for a SSD 100 years ago, not knowing they’d be perpetually locked in, but now has no control over its own fate.
2. Here’s the kicker. To defend the redistricting plan, the State had argued that without including Memphis voters in Shelby County elections, it would dilute minority voting strength. The court rejected this argument, because the relevant pool of voters is those inside the school district. They said it would be different if someone tried to include mostly white suburban voters otuside the school district in a an election for an urban, mostly black school district–i.e., the exact case here. The court’s exact words: “The…problem…is the issue of whether the decision to expand the electorate to include out-of-district votes dilutes minority votes. Such a case would be presented, for example, if a city’s electorate was expanded to include white suburban or rural areas in order to prevent a black majority in an urban area from controlling their own local government.”
There is some language which provides room for them to argue the other way, but I think these pull-quotes are pretty damning.
“How else can you explain the notion by Mr. Norris that he should be able to deny the most precious right in a democracy – the right to vote – from Memphians?”
—
You’d have to be deaf blind and dumb as a rock not to know that Memphians haven’t EVER had the right to vote with the Shelby County election system.
—
“Unwanted stepchild”?
–
Here’s a thought, let’s just say for a minute that white people are slaves for 400 years to people of color. Freed, but, not compensated or educated. Can’t vote to change their future for the better FAIRLY” by veiled Jim Crow actions on the part of election commissions. “Given” sustenance for survival level existence only, and then suddenly, when everyone forgets what put most of them on public assistance and education in the first place, BLAME them for not doing well.
ALL without PROPER support.
Then the white people kneejerk, they begin to hate people of color, do wrong things on purpose, tell lies to support their position supporting their bad actions against innocent people of color, crime skyrockets, people leave the area, taxes shoot sky high to cover the damages evil white people wrought, destroying the progress of public schools, destroying businesses, banks, corrupting police departments who won’t be bothered to do the right thing and would be hindered if they did, creating an atmosphere of “fear of violent crime, and miserable conditions”.
—
WHO would want those nasty white people as part of their system?
What’s missing? ACTUAL THINKING.
—
It’s time that all parties in Memphis designed a new working system for the benefit of all and rejected the advances of crap congressturds.
——–
Step out of the system that victimizes both of you for the pocketbook of the state reps. Surrender and let it be surrendered, then design something that hold parents, teachers, admin, and students 100% ACCOUNTABLE for positive results in education.
— Watch as the crime and prison population goes down to nothing and the tax base and cost of living go down as the standard of living goes up for everyone.
——–Sometimes you have to give something up, take a leap of faith through paradox and confusion, to get the best results that can be had.
So, to say it succinctly, you never finished the job of setting your slaves 100% free, and that is a patent Memphis of old (county of new, same people and families) practice, not finishing the job and taking the money anyway.
–
At least the mayor is trying to do something about it.
May God bless him.
Smart City – Need to include all the factors cited by the US District Court of Appeals in the Board of County Commissioners of Shelby County Tennessee v. W Burson case. In this decision, the US Court of Appeals ruled that a group of voters [Memphis voters] outside of the direct area served by a school district [SCS] could not vote on items affecting that school district [SCS] because Memphis voters had no financial interest in SCS. Also, including Memphis voters would remove the ability of citizens outside of Memphis to control their own school district. Now apply this criteria to the current case
1) Shelby County residents outside of Memphis do have a financial interest in the MCS school district (The citizens of Shelby County outside of Memphis has a financial interest in MCS. This is confirmed clearly in the text of the decision. In 2008, MCS received $261 million from Shelby County but Memphis only contributed $241 million to Shelby County by way of county property tax and the wheel tax. The $20 million shortage was made up by taxes received from SC residents outside of Memphis.)
2) Including all Shelby County residents does not remove the ability of the citizens within the school district to control that district (The citizens of Shelby county outside of Memphis would only makeup 30% of the voters in the referendum. This apportionment gives Memphis voters 70% of votes, still a substantial majority)
Requiring a referendum be approved by separate majorities the Memphis and Shelby County outside of Memphis is supported by the US Supreme Court ruling in Lockport v. Citizens for Community Action. In this case the Supreme Court ruled, 9-0, that requiring separate majority approval for referendums is Constitutional. Remember this case was heard by the same Supreme Court that issued rulings in support of busing for school desegregation.
The Lockport case deals specifically with a restructuring of government. However, the broader application is that the Supreme Court says a voting group that is in the numerical minority can be can allotted greater weight on a referendum. It can be done if the State determines that the adoption or rejection of a referendum will have a disproportionate impact on an identifiable group of voters. The Supreme Court opinion never specifically defines “disproportionate impact.” The wording also does not lead to a belief that the impact must be financial in nature. In fact it never gives standards or guidelines to determining impact.
Finally, the courts generally strike down retroactive legislation in criminal cases. However, retroactive legislation that is civil in nature has been upheld by the US Supreme Court here are some examples
1) General Motors Corp. v. Evert Romein (1992)US Supreme Court found that a Michigan law retroactively forcing GM to pay workers benefits was Constitutional.
2) United States v. Carlton (1994) US Supreme Court found that retroactive tax laws are constitutional
The courts overturning the Tennessee General Assembly is very shaky.