Garrigan
It’s 10 in the morning and Davidson County Clerk Bill Covington—the guy who issues marriage licenses and license plate renewals—is throwing ink pens at his closed office door trying to get the attention of his assistant on the other side. “I’ve been here 47 years, and I don’t have a damn intercom,” he tells us over the phone. (Forty-seven years is characteristic hyperbole, by the way; he’s been clerk for 20.) A minute later, his assistant’s voice is audible. “What’s my cell phone number?” he asks her—and, it’s clear, not for the first time. She patiently recites it.
Then, after a joke or two, a mandatory part of any conversation with this poor East Nashville boy made good, Covington’s talking about those among his 79 employees who are “producers,” who get the job done. But, as with any office, there are the “boat anchors” gathering moss and just collecting a paycheck. Perhaps acknowledging a weakness, he notes that he’s been a generous employer with regard to his non-civil service workers. “You pretty much have to steal something or back up and take a dump on my desk to get fired over here,” he says.
Vintage Covington.
But stock up while you can on his hilarious truisms, which shed light both on government’s inherent weaknesses and its occasional successes. Because come Aug. 31, the 58-year-old bureaucrat who missed his calling as a comedian is hanging up his specialized license plates and leaving office for medical reasons, the details of which he’ll share with you if he likes you well enough. Meantime, the political vultures—most notably, former state Rep. John Arriola—are already lining up to take the countywide elected post.
Covington’s political career started in 1975, when the young man who’d been raised in the Vine Hill and James Cayce projects became the youngest person ever elected to the Metro Council. Covington subsequently served in the state legislature, which is the only place he says he’d return if ever he resurrects his political life. “As many people as there are up there and as much crap as goes on there, you can really do some good in that job.”
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Perhaps more than any other elected officeholder in Metro, Covington is someone in whom old and new Nashville politics collide. Sure, maybe TV reporter Phil Williams nailed him for having a public employee make afternoon beer runs for him. But, then again, after Covington became clerk in 1986, he reduced the number of employees in that office from 104 to 79, and was subsequently recognized by the Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants for his efficiency. And sure, nearly 10 years ago, Covington was the subject of an FBI probe investigating claims that he’d misused his office to aid political campaigns and used office employees to do personal work for him. But that inquiry was widely believed to have been stoked by a disgruntled ex-employee who wanted a lucrative, tax-free pension. And in the end, in an unusual and formal pronouncement, the FBI said that it had found nothing to pursue.
Covington’s not known for subtlety. He’s been a political kingmaker in this town for over two decades, informally counseling judicial, legislative and even mayoral wannabes who desperately needed his seasoned guidance. He’s picked apart voting stats, helped create mailing lists, even produced political signs out of his barn. He’s backed some winners—and some stinkers too. He knows every sticky-floored beer joint in the county, from East Nashville’s gritty urban core to the most remote, cow-pasture enclave. He can imitate former Gov. Ned McWherter so well that he’s fooled reporters on the phone. His political knowledge is comprehensive both on the micro and macro levels, so much so that it can be scary.
Along the way, Covington’s made a lot of enemies, and a good deal of friends too. Empty FBI probes and gotcha TV reports about beer runs are among the perils of being a political personality who falls somewhere between squeaky clean and corrupt. In the meantime, if this reads like a political obit, it’s because it is. In which case, this may be the only time when fond words are both shameless and appropriate: Covington, you’re impossible not to like—good luck with the fishing, and the next 12-pack’s on us.