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| Senate voids Ophelia Ford election |
By John Rodgers, jrodgers@nashvillecitypaper.com
April 19, 2006
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Updated 5:38 p.m. Posted: April 19, 4:05 p.m. CDT
Sen. Ophelia Ford was ousted from the state Senate today, but she vowed to return.
The Senate, voting 26-6, found Ford’s narrow, 13-vote election victory “incurably uncertain and untrustworthy” for it to stand after finding at least 12 illegal votes.
Ford (D-Memphis), who remained silent while the Senate had minimal debate about voiding the election, gave a speech at her desk following a 10-minute recess after the vote to void her election.
Five other senators, including Nashville Senators Thelma Harper and Joe Haynes, joined Ford in voting to uphold her election.
Ford said her attorney would be back in court Thursday in asking for an injunction and claimed she could return next week. If she’s unsuccessful, Ford said she would win in November’s general election, saying, “I will definitely be back here come January.”
“It’s difficult for me to receive my Republican colleagues, to be so very hard and not really be fair in the process, and then my Democratic colleagues that went along with it too,” Ford said on the Senate floor. “I just have to say that today.”
Terry Roland, the Republican who lost to Ford, will likely be appointed by the Shelby County Election Commission to replace Ford. That commission next meets May 8.
For more on the story, see Thursday’s City Paper.
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