3 lawmakers get court summons in Ford case

Ophelia Ford wants judge to keep Senate from overturning election

By BONNA de la CRUZ
Staff Writer, Tennessean.com
January 24, 2006

Three West Tennessee senators have been commanded to appear in federal court tomorrow morning and may be asked why they voted to unseat a colleague, newly elected Sen. Ophelia Ford of Memphis.

Ford is going before a federal judge at 8:45 a.m. to try to stop the Senate from overturning her election last year, which was fraught with voting irregularities.

The three senators who got subpoenas yesterday — Don McLeary, D-Humboldt; Mark Norris, R-Collierville; and Curtis Person, R-Memphis — will probably miss a Senate session scheduled for 10 a.m.

"We are now living a clash between branches of government," Norris said.

Person said he hopes the state attorney general can extinguish the subpoenas at the start of the hearing.

The two Republicans said they question why the federal court is intervening in the matter, citing two sections in the Tennessee Constitution: one says the Senate is the sole judge of its members and another says senators cannot be questioned for any speech or debate at any other place.

"This is unprecedented in my 40 years of service," Person said. "I feel responsibility to be in Nashville, but I simply can't ignore a federal subpoena."

McLeary could not be reached for comment.

Last week, the Senate took an initial 17-14 vote to oust Ford — all Republicans and one Democrat, McLeary, voted for the measure. Senators were on track to take a final vote Thursday before Ford, a Memphis Democrat, filed the federal lawsuit.

The complaint said the Senate would be discriminating against her and other black voters in her district and denying them the right to vote.

Ford beat Republican Terry Roland by 13 votes last September in Memphis.

Since then, at least six votes cast in the election have been deemed illegal because they were cast in the names of dead voters or by convicted felons, state election officials said.

Additional votes also have been challenged by Roland over residency and ballot application requirements. A Senate panel is to meet today to give its final review of the election.

It is unclear why the trio of senators got subpoenas. During debate on the resolution, Norris spoke at length about how someone forged a poll worker's name on some ballots. McLeary, on the other hand, did not say a word.

It may be they are the only three among the 17 senators who voted for the ouster who live within 100 miles of the courthouse.

More notice time and additional court procedures are required for those who live beyond the 100-mile limit, said David Raybin, a Nashville lawyer and legal scholar.

All 32 senators named in Ford's complaint were issued summons and will have the state attorney general's office there to represent their interests.