Race matters: Duval GOP mayoral candidates face questions about past

One of the surprises of 2014, in terms of the 2015 Duval mayoral race, is that the Republican opposition to incumbent Mayor Alvin Brown is targeting the African-American community in early efforts. Both Bill Bishop and Lenny Curry see vulnerability in Brown’s support with African American voters — which surprises outside observers because he is Jacksonville’s first African American Mayor.

Part of the problem Brown’s challengers seek to exploit is that some prominent African Americans believe that Brown hasn’t done enough for the African American community. Renew Jax, his administration’s public-private partnership to bring new development to East Jacksonville and Northwest Jacksonville, has been dismissed as “political rope–a–dope” by Juan Gray of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (who supports Bishop this time around).

Meanwhile, Brown appears to be in danger of losing support from groups he thought he could count on for reelection. The Jacksonville Brotherhood of Firefighters, a group which encompasses African-American firefighters, endorsed the Mayor in 2011, but is wavering this time around, as Brown did not reach out to them from the time of his election until recently, in seeming response to GOP inroads in the black community.

The Brown Administration has walked the path of the Conservative Democrat by necessity, and those familiar with its thinking cite polling that says that Brown has a 30% approval rating with white Republican males as proof that this strategy is paying off politically. That said, Duval Democrats recognize a certain vulnerability with African American voters, and to that end they are preparing counters to local Republicans’ inroads in the black community.

Regarding Republican (and former RPOF Chair) Lenny Curry, the Democratic opposition has been circulating materials related to Curry’s position on the so-called “voter purge” of 2012. One popular video from the past: an MSNBC interview in which Curry is quoted likening non-citizen voters purged from the rolls to drivers suspected of drunk driving on Holiday weekends.

In the interview, Curry took the position that “one man one vote” is a “bedrock of democracy”, and that the purge was to “ensure that non-citizens do not cast a vote in [the 2012] election or in future elections”. Democrats, however, are betting that voters will conflate the voter purge of 2012 to previous attempts to restrict minorities with felony convictions from voting.

When asked about this plan of attack, Curry had this to say in a statement:

“In the United States and in Florida, there are laws that unequivocally prohibit people who are not citizens of our nation from voting in our elections. In order to ensure fairness for every voter and to preserve trust in our elections we must prevent illegal votes from being cast. No matter a person’s race or ethnicity, I will always advocate for and defend the rights of those who follow the law to participate in elections.”

Curry, of course, is not the only Republican who will answer for previous political actions. Former City Council President Bill Bishop made waves early in his tenure atop the Council when he selected an all-white bloc of committee chairs, a move which led four council members to resign from committees in protest, citing tokenism and “non-inclusion”.

When I talked to Bishop on Christmas Eve, he wasn’t necessarily surprised by this line of attack potentially surfacing. “If that’s what they’re going to use to discredit me, go for it,” he said, adding that Duval Democrats “talk about inclusiveness while neglecting their own back yard.”

“Politics is a full-contact sport”, the former Council President mused, adding that “this is ancient history”, a usage of the “race card for a power play” illustrating “the lengths that people will go to”.

“At the time,” added Bishop, “this [controversy] was all about somebody running roughshod.”

Bishop was able to resolve these issues with greater minority inclusion, including appointing African-American Councilwoman Denise Lee to a committee addressing the then-current controversy of noise ordinance violations in Metropolitan Park in downtown Jacksonville.

Whether these issues are “ancient history” and “race-baiting smears”, as people familiar with the candidates’ thinking allege, or something more salient in 2015 remains to be seen. For the price of a mailpiece, these scandals from the past could very well attain present-tense currency.