Tennesseean jailed for campaign sign theft bailed out by rival

A Tennessee state representative was jailed after failing to appear to talk with the Sheriff's Office about video showing him removing a rival's campaign signs. 

|
Mark Humphrey/AP/File
Republican state Rep. Curry Todd (r.) appears in Nashville, Tenn., in January 2013. Mark Lovell, one of Representative Todd’s opponents in Thursday’s Republican primary race, tells news outlets that he posted a $100 bond for the lawmaker on Tuesday as a 'good deed.'

A Tennessee representative jailed for removing rival campaign signs in a Republican primary was bailed out on Tuesday by $100 from the very candidate whose signs he had taken down.

"Someone called me and said Curry Todd is still in jail and nobody's posted his bond yet," said Mark Lovell, one of thee people challenging Tennessee's Republican state Rep. Curry Todd in the upcoming East Shelby County race, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. "I thought, we don't need our state representative in jail. He can get out and the judge can decide what to do about it later." 

Representative Todd has entered a not guilty plea, WREG Memphis reports. 

In mid-July, a staffer for Mr. Lovell captured shaky video of Todd, who first joined the Tennessee legislature in 1998, removing Lovell campaign signs at an intersection. 

"Yes, I did pick up the signs the other day, and I took 'em," Todd told The Commercial Appeal. "I wasn't trying to hide anything. It was daylight."

Todd told WREG Memphis that he had permission from developers in the area to promote his campaign, without rivals' signs, on their properties.

"They said you have permission to take them down, my employees take them down or anybody else can take them down," he told the station.

Lovell, however, told WREG that he had confirmed with the owners that Curry did not have their permission. 

Campaign signs – and their illicit removal – are one of the oldest tricks in the campaign playbook. Typically, such signs are allowed on private property if the owner grants permission. Only government or law enforcement officials can remove signs from public areas; the owner or an authorized individual should take them off of private property. 

The Shelby County Sheriff's Office had attempted to speak with Todd about the incident, but says he did not appear, leading to Tuesday's arrest. Todd has been charged with misdemeanor theft under $500, according to the News Sentinel. 

He didn't sit in jail for long. Whether trying to ensure a clean election or from a desire to do a good turn, Lovell posted the $100 bail on Tuesday.

The extra publicity might have helped Lovell as much as the signs would have. Although some doubt the effectiveness of signs in a political race, research suggests they help with ever-important name recognition. They do little to influence a decided voter, but they can be very useful in a local election when voters may not have a thorough grasp of all candidates, according to guidelines from Nelson James, the chief operating officer of Signs.com. 

"While campaign signs may not inspire instant confidence in a candidate per se, they can help uninformed voters connect a candidate’s name to friends or family members that they trust," Mr. James writes. "In this way, candidates can use signage to tap personal networks that are powerful sources of vote motivation."

Either way, Lovell said he doesn't expect to get the $100 back again.

"It's like lending money to your nephews. You don't expect to get it back," he told the Sentinel. "I figured it was a good deed."

The election is Thursday, and Todd has an appointment with the judge the following Tuesday.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Tennesseean jailed for campaign sign theft bailed out by rival
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0804/Tennesseean-jailed-for-campaign-sign-theft-bailed-out-by-rival
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe