MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It’s been a while since we’ve heard much from former Shelby county mayor Mark Luttrell.
A moderate Republican, Luttrell was in the public eye for some 16 years – serving two terms each as sheriff and county mayor. Midway through his second term as mayor, Luttrell sought the 8th district congressional seat in the 2016 Republican primary. But his brand of consensus politics was incompatible in a district that had shifted to the far right and was falling in love with the extreme politics of Donald Trump.
Now, Luttrell is back in the political spotlight – sort of. This week, he was named chairman of the Shelby County Election Commission, replacing Brent Taylor, who stepped down to seek the District 31 seat in the state Senate.
Luttrell was the commission’s unanimous choice, and a good one. Throughout his political career, Luttrell was known as a consensus builder, which will be a valuable trait to have with so much distrust lately of the voting process, mostly by Republicans, but also in recent years by local Democrats.
None of that will automatically disappear just because Luttrell is chairman. But with elections, credibility counts almost as much as the total votes. And Luttrell brings plenty of credibility to a difficult job, just in time for three local elections this year – one in May, one August and one in November.
In other words, the election commission got this one right.