Quick, what is Question Two? The rest of the city doesn’t have a clue either. Question Two, which will be on Tuesday’s ballot, is a vote on a constitutional amendment that would make it easier for local governments to fine people more than $50. The Tennessee Supreme Court decreed last year that the Tennessee Constitution limits fines in non-jury matters to that relatively low amount. As a result, people willfully violate various laws—from illegal dumping to zoning infractions—knowing the government can do little to punish them.

“I’m concerned that people will see this question and say 'I don’t want to pay higher fines,’ ” says at-large Metro Council member Chris Ferrell, “when in reality they don’t want people dumping garbage in their neighborhood and getting fined only $50.”

On the flip side, others are appropriately wary of revising the Tennessee Constitution. “I’m reluctantly in favor of it,” attorney David Raybin says of the constitutional question. “It’s a part of tradition and has been around for more than a hundred years. It’s a way to keep local magistrates in check, but on the other hand, I realize that it’s archaic and doesn’t keep up with inflation.”

Regardless of its merits, Question Two is certainly one of the least known of Tuesday’s ballot choices. (Question One, for those who are wondering, is the lottery.) While the contests for governor and Senate have largely dominated the headlines, it’s the scrappier battles in the lower-profile races that seem to feature more color, spontaneity and intrigue. These contests include the race for one at-large seat in Metro Council, in addition to several local state House races.

It is in those state House races that few political spectators see any developing upsets. But don’t tell that to independent candidate Thomas O’Connell, the 25-year-old Brown University graduate who’s hoping to unseat entrenched Republican incumbent Beth Halteman Harwell for the District 56 seat. This weekend, O’Connell plans to walk approximately 20 miles across the length of the district, which includes the southern and western portions of Davidson County. Although running as an independent, Connell leans to the left on most issues, from being open to an income tax to advocating more money for schools.

“I don’t think a kid wants to go to a school with no toilet seats, no toilet paper, no soap in the bathroom and holes in the gym floor,” he says.

Democratic candidate Shannon Wood, the owner of the Darkhorse Theater who is also running for the District 56 seat, joins O’Connell in criticizing Harwell. “[When] we were in the middle of the budget crisis, she was saying that nobody in the district would consider a state income tax,” she says. “I found that not to be true. I was one of many people who was at least willing to consider it.”

But Harwell, who opposed the income tax but did little to propose spending cuts, says that her anti-income tax stance is the right one. “I think Ms. Wood is clearly for a graduated income tax, whereas I’m against one. I think I’m clearly following the will of my constituency.” In the end, Harwell voted with the legislative majority last session for a sales tax hike that will increase state revenues by nearly $1 billion.

While both candidates for governor swear that they have no plans to implement a statewide income tax, the topic obviously remains an issue in many local House races. Ironically, in the race for the District 54 seat, the question seems to be who is the most in favor of an income tax. “I’m one of the representatives who voted for the income tax,” says Democratic incumbent Edith Taylor Langster, who has presided over the largely Democratic district, which includes both Tennessee State and Vanderbilt universities, for the last eight years. A former Metro Council member, Langster says that she supported the ultimately doomed income tax plan because it would have removed the sales tax on most groceries. “This is very important to me—to eliminate the sales tax on food,” she says. Langster has also supported increasing public assistance for the elderly and disabled.

Despite those liberal credentials, challenger Kwame Leo Lillard seems to think Langster is the second coming of right-wing radio talk show host Phil Valentine. At times, the independent candidate sounds like a Marxist when explaining why he adamantly favors not just an income tax, but a graduated one at that. “Tennesseans want a good state, and they have to know that from those who are given much, much is expected.”

Lillard, a former Metro Council member who now works for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, has some provocative ideas, including the actual enforcement of environmental penalties and the channeling of gas tax money to education. But Lillard is something of a dreamer.

“I’m going to win with a sizable victory,” he says. “When I’m knocking on doors all over the district, people don’t have a clue who [Langster] is.”

In the District 52 race, the income tax is again on the ballot. Democratic incumbent Rob Briley, the grandson of former Mayor Beverly Briley, voted for the income tax proposal and says that when voters ask him about his stance, it can take 20 to 30 minutes to explain why. “That’s hard to do when you have about 55,000 people to reach,” says Briley, an attorney.

Karen Bennett, a real estate appraiser and Briley’s Republican opponent, is the candidate for those who lament the departure from the state Senate of tax-hater Marsha Blackburn. “I’m going door to door and talking to voters, and they are very upset about the income tax issue,” Bennett says. “I don’t want to get into specifics, but I believe there’s a lot of fat in the budget that can be cut and should be cut.”

The last time Adam Dread ran for Metro Council at-large in 1999, he feuded bitterly with John Summers, the former East Nashville Council member who was elected to the District 23 seat that same year. Following the election, Dread publicly trashed his nemesis in the now-defunct weekly paper In Review.

From his perch as a columnist, Dread, a former comedian and radio disc jockey, called Summers, who was running against a friend of Dread’s, a “cowardly, pompous jackass” and joked that his arch-enemy uses “his own personality as an effective means of birth control.” In yet another column, Dread wrote that Summers should be, well, run out of the state. Not exactly mending fences, there.

Now Dread, the well-traveled cut-up who wants to be taken seriously, is running again for the open at-large seat, where, if elected, he’ll become Summers’ colleague. Asked to comment on Dread’s candidacy, Summers declined, saying tersely, “I have not talked to him.”

In the eight-candidate at-large race, most people who track the political tailwinds say that Dread may actually be the favorite. In 1999, despite having almost no relevant experience, Dread ran a competitive campaign, making a four-person runoff before finishing last. Since then, Dread has enrolled in the Nashville School of Law, while serving capably on a number of boards and commissions, including the Metro Beer Board. Insiders say that Dread, who has purchased 600 television spots, is the only candidate running a countywide campaign.

“I think the general consensus is that I’m working 10 times harder than anyone,” Dread says. “Anyone who talks to me realizes how serious I am about this.”

Dread, however, is unlikely to win the majority of votes needed to avoid a runoff. The candidate’s main rivals include former council member Charles French and Hospital Corp. of America attorney Tracey Kinslow. A graduate of Princeton and Vanderbilt Law School who overcame a virus that temporarily left him paralyzed, Kinslow may be the most promising candidate of the bunch. But his grasp of the intricacies of Metro is loose. Perhaps because of that, Kinslow is stressing his approach to government over his stance on specific issues. “We’re all for quality education and safe schools,” says Kinslow, who also has been running television ads. “But I want people to know that I can be someone who discerns the issues, represents their interests and gains their feedback before making critical decisions.”

Political veteran Charles French, who left Metro Council in 1999, also has a decent chance of making the runoff, even though Metro Council attorney Don Jones says that French’s candidacy violates the city’s term limits rule. French and the Metro Legal Department both see the situation differently, arguing that because of a technicality he’s eligible to run. French lost his reelection bid for his district seat in 1999 and doesn’t seem to have many supporters outside of the confines of that southeastern district. While in the Council, French was known as a pro-business, social conservative who nevertheless got along with members on the opposite end of the political spectrum.