Potential Nashville Mayoral Candidate Carol Swain Suggests Ways to Boost Police Morale

If Carol Swain decides to run a second time for Nashville mayor then she said she may have a way to boost morale among the city’s police officers.

Swain said low morale exists, and, for this, she blames low pay and current Police Chief Steve Anderson.

“When it comes to the police problems, one of the things is that police don’t get a say in the selection of the police chief,” Swain told The Tennessee Star this week.

“I think it is important that when the next police chief is selected that some representatives of the police department sit on that committee (to choose the chief) and the police officers themselves get an opportunity to decide who will sit on that committee. (They decide) who their representatives will be.”

Swain also said she has ideas on how to lower the city’s crime rate.

“The people (here) are concerned about rising crime, the fact that first responders are so underfunded and there is corruption as well as the lack of any real creative ideas to address affordable housing and the traffic situation,” Swain said.

“What I would like to do is apply old fashioned common sense solutions to some of these problems working alongside people who love Nashville the way I do. I believe we can improve the lives of everyone, and the political left suffers under this administration alongside other people that are more conservative.”

The Benefit of Hindsight

Having run for mayor last year — and losing — Swain also said she has the benefit of hindsight. Swain said she learned a lot about campaigning and was already prepared to go in with what she said was a “well-qualified” transition team.

“There are people who say I can’t win because I’m a Republican. I would say to them that it’s a non-partisan election, and there will always be naysayers who say what you can’t do. But the election of Donald Trump and other people in unexpected situations where they were supposed to fail proves that the electorate is willing to give people a chance,” Swain said.

“In a city like Nashville that is headed in the wrong direction it is important to be able and willing to give a person a chance when there is so much at stake. I think it is important to address the naysayers who say that you can’t because you can’t raise money or because you are a Republican and it’s a blue city. This is a non-partisan election and everyone should care about good government, and we certainly don’t have good government right now.”

As The Star reported this week, Swain is waiting to see how much money she can raise before and if she decides to run.

According to her LinkedIn page, Swain was a law and political science professor at Vanderbilt University for 18 years. She was also a member of the Tennessee Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Swain received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The race is scheduled for Aug. 1. The filing deadline for the race is May 16.

Swain ran for mayor last May in a special election to fill out the remaining term of disgraced former mayor Megan Barry. According to Ballotpedia, she lost that election to then-interim Mayor David Briley. Briley got 54 percent of the vote, while Swain got 23 percent.

Last time around, Swain told her Facebook followers, she was outspent six to one, but she still came in second in a field of 13 candidates with only six weeks to prepare.

This year Swain said she has six months to get ready — as opposed to what she had last time, six weeks.

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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Background Photo “Nashville Police Car” by Josh Beasley.  CC BY 2.0.