Though first indications were that Mayor-elect A C Wharton might
move with deliberate speed in the naming of his top aides, the news on
Monday afternoon that he had settled on former MLGW head Herman Morris
as his city attorney-designate indicated that the new mayor already had
his mind made up about several of his appointees.
The ascension of Morris, an unsuccessful candidate for city mayor
himself in 2007, was vaguely reminiscent of Dick Cheney, who became
George W. Bush’s choice for vice president in 2000 after being asked by
then candidate Bush to look over the various candidates for the
position. In like manner, Wharton had asked Morris to “research” the
office of city attorney. Now, mere days later, in the punchline of an
old joke, he ARE it.
Though his dogged, thoughtful manner was more a hindrance than a
help to Morris as a candidate for mayor, it will doubtless serve him
well in his new role. Long before Willie Herenton’s last city attorney,
Elbert Jefferson, tendered his formal resignation last week, he, along
with the office he held, had become a liability to Mayor Pro Tem Myron
Lowery and to city government itself. The stalemate between mayor and
council over Lowery’s attempts to fire Jefferson was a blemish on his
otherwise outstanding fill-in tenure.
And Jefferson’s suspect diversion of taxpayer funds to pay for
Herenton’s private legal expenses is one of several actions that had
attracted adverse public attention, even legal action in the form of an
ouster writ filed by district attorney general Bill Gibbons.
Appointment of the stolid Morris by itself may serve to dispel a cloud
of doubt over the city’s legal doings — as, we might add, would
long-term service by Veronica Coleman, who served as Lowery’s deputy
city attorney, might also have.
Wharton’s dispatch in naming this first appointment is encouraging
news and symbolically reassuring as we await the final shape of his new
administration.
Low Turnout
Though there was much to commend in the manner and outcome of last
week’s special mayoral election, there was much to encourage collective
head-scratching, as well. What about that alleged low turnout —
roughly 110,000 of the city’s 400,000 eligible voters, not quite 25
percent of the whole?
Frankly, considering that there was only one race on the ballot with
no “down-ballot” races for city council and no referenda to dispose of,
we aren’t as down in the dumps about the turnout as many others are.
All things considered, one voter out of four doesn’t strike us as
catastrophic concerning the future of democracy — especially
given the virtual certainty of the final outcome, from early on in the
campaign.
Several of the losing candidates were outraged by proliferation of
published polls, with their implicit predictions of a pending landslide
for A C Wharton. So was Election Commission chairman Bill Giannini, who
thought the polls were a major factor in suppressing voter turnout.
Maybe so, but given the final spread — Wharton by almost 50
percentage points over his closest competitor — we don’t see how
things would have been much different if all citizens had been
dragooned to go vote, as they are in totalitarian lands that hold
“elections.”
