MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A former city councilwoman indicted for official misconduct wants her seat back.
Barbara Swearengen Ware represented District 7 for 16 years until she resigned over charges she offered bribes in exchange for favors.
She told WREG in 2010 she planned on reclaiming her 7th district seat on the City Council. Now, five years later, she’s trying to make good on that promise.
Swearengen Ware is vying against six others to be appointed to Lee Harris’s vacated seat.
“This seems to be a great opportunity to pick up where I left off,” she told WREG Thursday.
Swearengen Ware was charged a lower-level felony, official misconduct, in 2010. Officials said she used her position to get vehicle registrations without having to go through inspection processes. She reached a plea agreement over the charge.
Other members of the Shelby County Clerk’s officer were charged with bribery for accepting small amounts of cash (usually $5) from Swearengen Ware in exchange for looking the other way.
WREG asked her whether she thought that past indictment would hurt her chances at reclaiming the seat.
“That was something of the past, and I don’t want to really discuss how minute it really was,” she replied.
WREG political commentator Otis Sanford said if she was trying to be elected, rather than appointed, to the city council seat, the past may have been hard for voters to forget.
“The vocal majority of the public would say, ‘No. Don’t do this, because of her credibility issues,'” he said.
But Sanford said Swearengen Ware has plenty of support from some current council members, and that may be enough to give her a second chance at politics.
“The question the council members have to ask themselves is, ‘Do you really want to go back and revisit the past?'” he said.
Swearengen Ware said she’s only interested in filling the interim council seat.
She also told WREG she resigned in 2011 because she was ill, not because of the indictment.
