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by Joe Sullivan

The egregious flaws in the state’s election laws that allowed Jeff Byrd to be declared the winner of a Knox County school board seat have got to be corrected.

Byrd did the right thing to abdicate the seat within hours after the Knox County Election Commission abjectly certified his election. But the way in which he couched his abdication only served to underscore the sorry spectacle that the third-district school board contest has become.

Byrd said he would decline to serve unless his opponent in that contest, D.M. Miller, releases him from a promise to withdraw. But he went on to say that if Miller “does not object to my serving, then based on the will of the voters I will continue as the third district school board representative.”

The onus of preventing Byrd from serving should not rest on Miller, but on the inability of the Election Commission to enforce Knox County’s residency requirements for school-board candidates. Byrd’s promise to withdraw came as a condition for dismissal of a lawsuit by Miller challenging Byrd’s eligibility to run for the seat which Miller has held for the past eight years. But the very fact that Miller had to resort to such a lawsuit also attests to the failure of state election laws to provide procedures for determining a candidate’s eligibility in advance of an election.

There is little room for doubt that Byrd fails to meet the residency requirement for serving as the Third District school board representative. Under the Knox County Charter, candidates for school board must be a resident of the district in which they seek office for one year prior to election. And Knox County voters on August 5 resoundingly rejected a proposed charter amendment that would have eased this requirement.

When Byrd filed his candidacy on September 12, 2003, he signed a sworn statement giving his residential address as 7529 Saint Baron Way in Powell, which is within the Third District. The document he signed prominently states that “a person who knowingly makes any false entry on an election document commits a class E felony.”

Miller promptly protested that Byrd did not really live at this address and, in fact, resided at 9328 Camrose Lane—which lies outside the district. But the election commission informed Miller that it had no authority to make residency determinations and that Miller’s only recourse was to resort to the courts.

After Byrd defeated Miller in the February primary, Miller filed suit in Chancery Court, and ensuing depositions on the part of his attorney adduced the following: Byrd and his family had long resided at the Camrose Lane address, but in August, 2003, he rented a unit in a condominium complex on Saint Baron Way. However, the unit was sparsely furnished without even a bed; nor did it have a refrigerator. While Byrd had utilities placed in his name, billing records show that he didn’t use any water during the three months he purported to live there before moving with his wife and two children on last November 1 into a new home at 3411 Meadowtop Lane within the district. Tennessee court cases have defined residence for purposes of election eligibility as the “domicile where a person has his principal home” as evidenced by where he sleeps, eats, bathes and the like.

The day before Miller’s suit was due to go to trial on July 1, Byrd issued a statement withdrawing from the August 5 general election in which he was running unopposed. However, the Election Commission ruled that his withdrawal came too late to remove Byrd’s name from the ballot. Then, in the worst travesty of all, the commission on Monday determined that the withdrawal came too late to invalidate his election, and certified Byrd the winner.

The onus for this travesty doesn’t rest with the commission but rather with convoluted, contradictory provisions of state election law as interpreted by Knox County Law Director Mike Moyers and the state’s Registrar of Elections Brook Thompson. While insisting that existing law left no other recourse, Moyers is quick to add that, “The election code is probably the worst single section of the entire Tennessee code, and the state should form a committee to completely rethink it.” Election Commission Chair Pamela Reeves, while also insisting that Byrd’s letter of withdrawal came too late to have effect, adds that, “He can refuse to serve, and considering his previous statements that’s what he ought to do.”

Relying on Byrd’s withdrawal letter, Miller agreed to the dismissal of his lawsuit, thus closing the one avenue that remained for getting Byrd declared ineligible to take office by court order. In withdrawing rather than face trial, Byrd invoked “personal obligations as a result of the ill health of a family member.” His attorney, Greg Issacs, who doubles as Byrd’s spokesman, reports that Byrd’s mother-in-law who had been gravely ill is “getting better now.” And Issacs insists that Byrd “meets legal residency requirements and is legally entitled to accept the will of the voters and assume the position as their district-three representative on the school board. He could have gone back on his word, but unless Mr. Miller releases him from his word and his bond, he will not serve.”

Miller is clear that Byrd’s withdrawal stands. So the result is a school-board vacancy that will be filled by a special election on November 2. That’s the only decent way to rectify all of the indecencies that have marred the third-district school board contest up to now.

But the State Legislature must find a way of resolving candidate eligibility and withdrawal issues so that there won’t be a recurrence of such election travesties in the future.

August 19, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 34 © 2004 Metro Pulse