Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, during The Daily Memphian’s “On The Record” podcast defends the new district lines for the House that put the two youngest incumbents in the Shelby County delegation in the same district. Sexton also talks about the special legislative session on the pandemic in a wide-ranging interview.

Shelby County Election Commission chairman Brent Taylor says in the “On The Record” podcast that the realignment of some precincts is an adjustment to new Shelby County Commission district lines. And the new identifiers for precincts are a change in a system of identifiers that may date back to the Crump era of Memphis politics.

The podcast debut sets the stage for the interviews that are an integral part of The Daily Memphian’s coverage of politics and government.

On The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, City Council member Martavius Jones says he intends to propose doing away with council super districts and also will call for partisan primaries in advance of city general elections. 

The state’s executive order banning mask mandates is taking fire from President Joe Biden as well as Biden’s education secretary Miguel Cardona, who this past week specifically questioned the legality of the executive order.

One of the county’s most vocal advocates for a new voting system with hand-marked paper ballots says the push for such a system isn’t part of the national political movement that contends Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.

City Council member Chase Carlisle distinguishes between the case for consolidation and the case for drafting a consolidation charter. He also acknowledges getting the votes to form a charter commission will not be easy.

On The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, Shelby County Election Commission Chairman Brent Taylor went partisan in the dispute with the Shelby County Commission over a new voting system for the 2022 elections. And he talked about a possible compromise as he held firm in his belief paper ballots would cause chaos at the polls.

On The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, Cohen also described the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection as “Snow White and the six Democrats.” But he said the panel is necessary to answer questions about whether the violent march into the Capitol was connected to former President Donald Trump.

The author of the definitive 2008 biography of the anti-lynching crusader and NAACP cofounder says the statue of Wells defines the city as well as honors her in a city whose leaders once talked of killing her.