In the end, Ronnie Steine quit talking. That, in and of itself, was as sure a sign as any that he had resigned. After a rapid-fire series of gut-busting news stories that revealed him to be a liar, a petty thief and a public official willing to use his connections to conceal his transgressions, the city’s vice mayor—and number two official—resigned his office Tuesday. Days earlier, he had jettisoned his promising congressional campaign. Days earlier, as well, he had said he would remain as vice mayor.
All told, it was one of the more startling political implosions ever witnessed in Davidson County politics.
“Unbelievable,” muttered friend and political ally Chris Ferrell, an at-large Metro Council member.
Upon being told of his resignation, Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell and top officials gathered to make sure the wheels of governance would grind on.
“There is great sadness in this announcement, as it cuts short an elected term of office and a man’s role in public service,” Purcell said, “and because it follows a period of personal anguish and sorrow.”
While not quite up to the level of Richard Nixon waving from a helicopter door, the moment still required an element of constitutional rule-following. Steine’s resignation from the top executive position in Metro Council was officially submitted to the Metro Clerk’s office. Following Metro Charter rules, the vacancy will be filled by the vice mayor pro tem, who is Howard Gentry. A new vice mayor will be elected in August coinciding with the county general election.
Shortly after news of Steine’s resignation became public, he released a prepared statement, in the form of a copy of his letter to the clerk’s office, but was unavailable for further comment.
“I have always aspired to dedicate my career to serving this city and the community I love so much,” he wrote. “For me, public service is a calling which demands the highest standards. The events of the last few days show I have not lived up to those standards.
“Out of respect for this office, my council colleagues and my many co-workers, I feel I can no longer effectively fulfill my duties as vice mayor. I hereby submit my resignation effective this day....” Steine’s statement went on to say that he will now “focus my time and energies on my responsibilities to my family, my friends and myself.”
Steine’s swift and sudden departure was the dramatic last act in a play that only began last Friday. Then, Steine admitted to a shoplifting charge on Dec. 22 of last year. To his credit, he had walked into the offices of The Tennessean to tell all. The problem was, he didn’t.
“Have you ever shoplifted before?” the newspaper asked. He replied, “No.” He was also asked, “Have you ever been arrested or charged before?” He replied, “No,” going on to say that parking and speeding tickets were all he had ever “encountered.” (He has four outstanding parking tickets totaling $81, but no other outstanding tickets or citations.) As television news programs and The Tennessean would later report, however, Steine had another shoplifting arrest, this one in the mid- to late 1980s. This did nothing to impress District Attorney General Torry Johnson, who said that had he known about Steine’s first arrest, he would not have treated Steine’s 2001 infraction so lightly. (Steine was treated as a first-time offender for the second arrest, which meant he attended a counseling class and his record was expunged. Strangely, Johnson says he cannot find any records of Steine’s first arrest.)
Even as all of this was taking place, and Steine’s inner political circle, close friends and family members were debating whether he should leave the vice mayor’s post, the Scene was investigating other damaging reports about the embattled political figure.
A serious collector of political memorabilia, Steine is being accused of pilfering various political buttons to add to his collection from another local collector named Peggy Dillard. A staunch Democrat and retired school social worker, Dillard claims that on three separate occasions Steine stole political memorabilia that she had collected. She also says that he later threatened her through an intermediary when she told others about what happened.
“Clearly his behavior is pathological, and I have concerns about him,” says Dillard, who shared her story only after the Scene contacted her to confirm such reports. “He needs to get help for himself.”
One bumbling exit
In the last week, Steine’s world came crashing down around him. His stunning citywide confessionals, which began at The Tennessean and then wound their way to just about every other media outlet in the city, were designed to show his openness to facing his charges and acknowledging he had done wrong. But in the end, he only lived up to what he said in one of his interviews: “I am an idiot.”
If Steine’s friends and colleagues were utterly bewildered by it all, they were in part amazed because the stakes involved seemed so small. Steine was charged on Dec. 22, 2001 with stealing a pack of football cards worth $7.50. As he explained, he had gone to Target to buy a bunch of things, but could not find the cards. Instead, he found them inside another game, worth $17, which he then ripped open. He got the cards and stuffed them in his pocket. He paid for $150 worth of merchandise, left the store, and was then stopped by store security.
In the other incident, Steine says he was at the same Target, went through the checkout line and was stopped after some videotapes had been put in his bag. He contends store personnel made the mistake of putting someone else’s merchandise in his bag. Nonetheless, he was charged by police for the incident.
Part of the public’s amazement regarding Steine has to do with the fact that, in the words of one observer, “he could have bought the entire store.” Steine’s wealth is such that he really has not needed steady employment his entire adult life. (He is, in fact, currently unemployed and has been since last summer. His late father David was a Vanderbilt professor, who also worked at one point at J.C. Bradford. And his mother, Peggy Steine, is a powerful player in the city’s arts and philanthropic circles. It’s her father, in fact, who is credited with creating the family fortune, through a Coca-Cola enterprise.)
It was particularly Steine’s forgetfulness, to put it charitably, in not acknowledging the earlier incident that many believe began his very public self-conflagration. Most seasoned observers say he simply ignored basic common sense.
“It’s real simple: If you’re in a situation where you have to take your case to the media, you get it all out,” says Joe Hall, a former reporter who works at The Ingram Group, a local public relations and strategy firm. “And when you do get it out, you make sure it can be corroborated and it’s irrefutable.”
M. Lee Smith, who has been closely associated with a number of Republican campaigns in Tennessee, says that “you acknowledge the problem, you ask for forgiveness and you hope you can then go on to the next item on the next day.... Anybody who’s been in politics as long as Ronnie Steine has been knows that, and it’s hard to imagine why he didn’t recognize that.”
Pat Nolan, a former reporter who’s now a public relations practitioner, says it was one thing for Steine to acknowledge the shoplifting charge. But to then fail to acknowledge the second charge—and lie to The Tennessean that there were no others, as he did in Saturday’s newspaper—put his political life in automatic suspension. Instead of being simply a thief, he suddenly became a liar and a thief.
“Ronnie is not beloved in the council,” Nolan says, adding that because of the second incident, “you have to start worrying about patterns of behavior and whether he can remember this, and all that.”
Obviously, the torrent of negative publicity became too great for Steine to handle. Radio talk show hosts, particularly Steve Gill and other conservatives, were calling for his head. On top of that, Steine left plenty of supporters scratching their heads by appearing on Teddy Bart’s Roundtable radio program Monday morning and showing significant hesitation when asked if he had ever shoplifted on other occasions. All of it painted a picture of a troubled man undergoing a very public political and personal unraveling. And so, he simply called it quits.
To many, the 46-year-old Steine’s departure from public life was an immensely sad event. For years, Steine has worked in Democratic Party trenches, dating from the early ’80s when, as a young Vanderbilt Law School graduate, he became head of the Davidson County Democratic Party. He ran for the state legislature in 1986 and lost, but he later ran for Metro Council at-large and won. His race for vice mayor was viewed by most political players as essentially a stepping stone office from which he could launch races for either mayor or Congress.
As for Steine’s politics, he always appeared to lean slightly to the left of center, although so many of the issues he worked on at a local level were never of an ideological stripe. He can be credited with negotiating the Metro Council compromise tax increase during Phil Bredesen’s second term as mayor—the one that funded the city’s beloved new downtown library. Also, Steine has done more than any other council member or local politician for arts funding.
But in the final analysis, Steine was smart enough to know that he had lost it. He had broken laws that ordinary citizens lived by; he had not been honest when asked about his behavior. Basically, he had gone down swinging, and the only person he had hit was himself. It was ugly to watch. But his departure was fitting.
Life goes on
Meanwhile, the congressional race in which Steine had been one of the three principal candidates goes on. Rumors abound that it was Davidson County Sheriff Gayle Ray’s campaign that originally leaked information about Steine’s problems; Ray adamantly denies that, saying she only learned about the arrest on Friday like everyone else. Meanwhile, she has spoken with Steine to offer her concern. So has the other major candidate in the race, Jim Cooper.
As to where Steine’s exit leaves the congressional race, Nolan, Smith and Hall have opinions.
“I can identify a portion of Ronnie’s vote, which is a little left of center, and that’s probably a vote he would share with Gayle Ray,” Nolan says. “But because of Ronnie’s family’s background and connections, he also shares some vote with Cooper. But it may be that more of the vote that goes to Gayle will be Democratic, and the other vote that goes to Cooper may be Republican and may not be voting at all.”
Smith has this to say: “At first blush, I would think probably Ray would [benefit]. I think Ronnie and Gayle are competitive for the same support. Both are more political insiders in Davidson County. They have more of those alliances, whereas Jim Cooper does not, by and large.”
Hall, meanwhile, opines that Cooper will benefit. “He stands to benefit the most because he knows Steine’s constituency and he knows how to raise the money.”
