Court of Appeals will hear National Guard challenge in March

A lawsuit challenging the presence of the National Guard in Memphis will be heard by the Tennessee Court of Appeals on March 5.

A Davidson County chancellor issued a temporary injunction in November, but allowed the guard to remain in place while the state appealed.

The state filed its appeal on Dec. 2 and the appeals court agreed to hear the case in March.

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, Memphis City Councilmember J.B. Smiley Jr., Shelby County Commissioners Henri E. Brooks and Erika Sugarmon, and state Reps. G.A. Hardaway, D-Memphis, and Gabby Salinas, D-Memphis, have questioned Gov. Bill Lee's authority to call out the National Guard.

Salinas said in an interview with TCS that her questions about the deployment have not been answered.

"When we heard rumors about the deployment of the National Guard here at the office, you know, I wrote my first letter to the governor asking him more details, how many people, what is specifically are they going to be doing?" Salinas said. "What is how they're measuring success? When are they going to be leaving? At what point do they say, 'OK, we achieved what we were out to achieve,' none of which those questions were ever answered."

Sen. Brent Taylor, R- Memphis, who is not a part of the suit, said the National Guard's presence has made a difference.

"I'm hearing from constituents every day that said, 'We swore off Grizzlies games, we swore off plays at the Orpheum, we quit going downtown to the restaurants,'" Taylor said in an interview with TCS. "We had a lot of downtown restaurants closed because, look, nobody really thought they were going to be murdered when they went downtown, but they didn't want to come out from a Grizzlies game (University of Memphis) basketball game or a play at the Orpheum and find their car broken into and all the hassle that goes along with that."

The National Guard is part of the Memphis Safe Street Task Force, which includes other federal and state agencies.

The court will only address the National Guard deployment.

"We are confident the court will uphold the Governor's constitutional authority," Elizabeth Lane Johnson, Lee's director of communications, said in a previous email to TCS.