Shelby County's Hard Choice is an op-ed series by Tom Lannan, Republican candidate for Shelby County Assessor of Property. This is his own statement — it does not reflect the reporting or editorial views of JustMyMemphis's news staff.

I'm running for an office most people don't think about until their tax bill shows up and the number doesn't make sense. Property Assessor isn't a glamorous job. It's an operations job. You inspect, you detect, you correct, and then you build something better than what was there before. That's the whole approach I'm bringing to the Assessor's office, and it's the same approach I think Shelby County needs to be honest with itself about right now, in every office, on every ballot.

So let me be straight with you about why I'm writing this.

Shelby County is a Democratic county. I'm a Republican. I'm not going to pretend that's not true, and I'm not going to pretend it doesn't matter to some of you reading this. But I've spent forty years in the private sector learning one lesson over and over: when something is broken, you don't ask what letter is next to a person's name. You ask if they know how to fix it, and whether they've already proven they can.

That's why the first feature in this series is John DeBerry.

The Résumé That's Hard to Argue With

John DeBerry represented District 90 — Memphis, Shelby County — for 26 years in the Tennessee House of Representatives. He never lost a race as a Democrat. Not once, in thirteen elections. When his own party's leadership up in East Tennessee decided his values, and the values of the people who elected him thirteen times, didn't fit anymore, they didn't just push him out — they told the voters of District 90 they didn't have enough information to pick their own representative. I don't think that's a small thing to say about the people of this county, and I don't think it's something Shelby County voters should let slide by unnoticed, regardless of what ballot line DeBerry's name sits on now.

DeBerry's response to that moment tells you most of what you need to know about how he operates: he didn't get quiet, and he didn't get bitter. He got specific. When I asked him directly whether being in office 26 years in the legislature, and 32 years total working alongside the governor's office, makes him part of the problem, he didn't dodge it. He laid out the difference between federal, state, county, and municipal government, and made the case that for his 26 years, his job was to stand and fight for Memphis and Shelby County 200 miles up the road in Nashville — and that he held up his end.

What He's Actually Proposing

Here's where DeBerry and I actually agree on something that matters more than party: you can't fix what you haven't measured. When I talked to him about the $125 million in emergency loans Shelby County requested less than 30 days into a new fiscal year, his answer wasn't a talking point. It was accountability, plain and simple: "When you find something that has gone awry as much as the budget has in Shelby County, you can't help but ask who is it that has not been responsible with the people's dollars." He didn't dance around who sits on the finance committees. He said the mess belongs to whoever let it happen, "either by commission or omission."

That's not a slogan. That's the same zero-based approach I've talked about for the Assessor's office — find out exactly how deep the debt is, what's been signed, what's been promised, who's accountable, and then rebuild it piece by piece. DeBerry calls his version "inspect, detect, correct." I call mine starting at ground zero. Different words, same discipline.

The Bigger Point

Former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton posted something recently that I think every voter in this county — Republican, Democrat, independent — needs to sit with. He wrote about the sacrifices made so that Black men and women could hold the mayor's chair, the commission seat, the judge's bench, and how it saddens him to watch that inheritance treated like an entitlement instead of a responsibility. His line has stuck with me: "Name recognition is not a qualification. Family lineage is not a credential." He wasn't talking about DeBerry specifically — but the principle applies to every single race on this ballot, mine included.

Shelby County is losing people. We've lost over 30,000 residents in less than two years — the only county in Tennessee that's shrinking while it's also the largest county in the state by land. That's not a Democrat problem or a Republican problem. That's a "the people running this county haven't earned the trust to stop it" problem. DeBerry said it plainly: responsible families, responsible business owners, are choosing to live somewhere else, and when you look into why, you find the same bureaucratic and budget dysfunction stacked on top of itself for decades.

Why I'm Telling You This

I'm not asking you to become a Republican. I'm asking you to do what DeBerry's own thirteen election wins proved Shelby County voters already know how to do: judge the person, not the party label stapled to them. DeBerry said it best when I asked him for his closing message to voters — turn this moment into a movement. Stop kicking the same problems down the road because it's easier than doing the hard, unglamorous work of actually fixing them.

That's the whole premise of this series, and it's the whole premise of my campaign for Assessor. Shelby County's hard choice isn't between two parties. It's between staying comfortable with what isn't working, or finally asking who in this county has actually done the work to earn your vote — regardless of what's printed next to their name on the ballot.

Early voting is underway. Election Day is August 6th. Go look at the person, not just the party.

— Tom Lannan Candidate, Shelby County Assessor of Property