Optimists and Skeptics consider the Weaver ruling
It is interesting to read the different viewpoints between optimists and skeptics concerning the Weavergate conundrum. Local optimists believe Knox County government is made up of good people doing their best and they can disagree and still be friends. Local skeptics believe Knox County government is controlled by a very few un-elected people and everything that happens, happens for a reason.
Before the Tennessee Supreme Court issued the Bailey ruling that term limits apply in Shelby County, term limits were ignored in Knox County because of a 1994 opinion from the State Attorney General that State Constitutional offices could not be term limited even though Knox County voters clearly voted in a 1994 referendum on term limits that clearly stated that all office holders in Knox County government would be held to a maximum of two terms.
One of the problems is that the English language can be imprecise. Another problem is that no matter how well a law, Charter, or referendum is worded there is always a lawyer somewhere that can challenge it using some literal absolute interpretation. Optimists may say that Chancellor John F. Weaver was doing his job and had no choice but to enforce the laws of the State of Tennessee. Skeptics may say that the fix was in from the day the Supreme Court ruled in the Bailey decision to enforce term limits.
The outcry from the public is matched by the outrage in the press. Editorials from the Knoxville News Sentinel and The Metropulse have chastised the Weaver ruling as unfortunate, outrageous, and egregious. The most telling opinion is from the Number One optimist Mayor Mike Ragsdale who said, “This would be the same as a federal judge ruling that the U.S. Constitution is invalid simply because Jefferson or Adams signed on the wrong line or that Benjamin Franklin didn’t deliver the right copy to President Washington.”
One of the most significant sources on this matter has been Richard Beeler the former Knox County Law Director who took office in 1990 and was Secretary on the Charter Commission of 1988. His appearance on the Lloyd Daughtery Show and on WBIR’s Inside Tennessee have provided more information than almost any other source. Mr. Beeler defends John F. Weaver as a good judge and astute legal scholar but disagrees with his ruling. Beeler does not seem to fit in either the optimist or skeptic camps. His point is that the Charter had no problem in the fact that the Constitutional offices were not defined. They were not defined in the Shelby Charter either. There are defined in the State Constitution.
Beeler’s other main point is that the Charter became effective upon being ratified by the people and that the return receipt from the Secretary of State is an overblown issue.
But here is where it gets interesting. Beeler notes that the term limits referendum was brought forth by a regular citizen and was not correctly written according to State law. Stop right here, this is the important part. The Charter was never the problem, the term limits referendum was the problem. The State Attorney agreed that the term limits referendum was incorrectly worded when he gave his opinion in 1994 that the Constitutional offices were not affected by referendum. Since 1994 Knox County Commissioners have used that opinion to disregard the will of the people on term limits.
The question people will ask is why did Weaver muse out loud in court that the Charter might not be valid? Betty Bean was far ahead of the curve on this when she wrote about the problem of obiter dicta.
Optimist may say that Weaver is just a very analytical judge who made this ruling in only a legal interpretation of the law. Skeptics may say there is an end game. If the skeptics are right, what is the end game?
