Tennessee to Decide Fate of 3 Court Justices

By ALAN BLINDER and JONATHAN WEISMANAUG. 7, 2014

NASHVILLE — Capping a campaign that emerged as an early test for conservative groups pursuing shake-ups of the courts across the country, Tennessee voters are deciding on Thursday whether to oust three members of the Supreme Court whose work has been criticized as incongruent with the state’s rightward tilt.

Participants in the state’s Republican primary are also choosing a nominee for United States Senate from a field that includes Senator Lamar Alexander and State Representative Joe Carr, who has won Tea Party support.

The races have energized Tennessee’s August primary, which is typically a relaxed round of balloting. Voters saw and heard a torrent of television and radio advertisements, and many received baskets of direct mail.

Despite their placement near the end of the ballot, the judicial races seized much of the local political spotlight. Voters are being asked whether they want to retain or replace three justices: Cornelia A. Clark, Sharon G. Lee and Gary R. Wade, the state’s chief justice. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, named all three to the Supreme Court when he was governor, from 2003 to 2011. The justices are subject to intermittent retention votes, and only one has been ousted in 20 years.

But the three justices on the ballot Thursday were targeted by conservative groups that contend that the present court is “the most liberal place in Tennessee.” They say that the justices failed to protect the rights of crime victims, alienated business interests and implicitly supported the Affordable Care Act, the health care law championed by President Obama. (The court itself has never considered a case focused on the law, and supporters of the justices have complained that the allegations that have surfaced in the campaign are baseless.)

The justices spent many weeks campaigning and raised more than $1 million to protect their seats on the court. But their critics have also mounted a fierce effort, backed by a formidable blend of funds from within the state — a political action committee tied to Tennessee’s lieutenant governor, a Republican, contributed at least $425,000 — and elsewhere. The Republican State Leadership Committee and Americans for Prosperity, which is aligned with the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch, are among the outside groups that have invested in the race.

Opponents of the justices have said that defeating a single one would be a significant victory because it would allow the current governor, Bill Haslam, a Republican, to name his third appointee to the Supreme Court, presumably shifting the balance of power on the five-member court toward Republicans.

The Senate contest is the latest in a series of primaries featuring a veteran Republican incumbent and a Tea Party challenger.

As of Thursday, not one challenge has been successful, a marked turnaround from 2010 and 2012, when Tea Party candidates sent Senators Robert Bennett of Utah and Richard Lugar of Indiana, both Republicans, into retirement.

Mr. Alexander, with his long record of compromise and deal making, knew he would be a target. He won the backing of his state’s political apparatus early to deprive any challenger of political oxygen, and he raised a daunting re-election war chest of $6.6 million to Mr. Carr’s $1.1 million.
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Given little chance, Mr. Carr found life in June after the shocking defeat in Virginia of Eric Cantor, the majority leader of the House of Representatives, by a little-regarded Tea Party candidate, David Brat. Mr. Brat made Mr. Cantor’s support for granting some illegal immigrants legal status a centerpiece of his campaign, and Mr. Carr used a similar playbook in the weeks leading to the primary Thursday.

Tennessee voters are also deciding the fate of Representative Scott DesJarlais, a Republican who was swept into office in the Tea Party wave of 2010 but got caught in a scandal in 2012. Court documents showed that Dr. DesJarlais, a physician, had sexual relationships with patients, pressuring one to have an abortion and prescribing pain medication to another while they saw each other romantically. They also showed that Dr. DesJarlais, who campaigned as a social conservative opposed to abortion, supported his former wife’s decisions to have two abortions before their marriage.

The scandal prompted State Senator Jim Tracy to challenge the congressman, and early signs indicated that Mr. Tracy would cruise to victory. Instead, it has been a dogfight.

Janet Stephens, 47, said on Wednesday that she had voted against the three justices and Mr. Alexander when she participated in Tennessee’s early voting program, mostly because she was frustrated by the length of their tenures.

“I’m tired of people being up there for too long, in any office,” Ms. Stephens, a handgun holstered on her hip, said at the Christiana firearms shop where she works.

But she also faulted the voting record of Mr. Alexander, a former governor who was elected to the Senate in 2002.

“I’m ready for someone who’s more conservative,” she said. “Lamar votes with Obama way too much.”

Some voters remained undecided on some races as the start of balloting neared, but they said they were ready for an especially rambunctious political season to end.

“It gets old after a while,” said Claudine Brown, who runs Ms. Brown’s Country Store and Kitchen in Beechgrove. “People get tired of it.”

Alan Blinder reported from Nashville, and Jonathan Weisman from Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/us...ices.html?_r=0