Former Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Ward Crutchfield of Chattanooga, a major force in state and local Democratic politics who died Sunday, was remembered as a wily politician who fought hard to build up his city and his state until his career ended in a 2005 bribery scandal.
"Ward was a political and historical icon," said Stuart James, a fellow attorney, longtime Democratic activist and former Hamilton County Democratic Party chairman.
"His legacy will be unmatched. He rose to the pinnacle of political power in this state. He also had one of the greatest falls from the height of political greatness. He represents everything good and bad about politics. He deserves a place in political history as his accomplishments far outweigh his fall from grace."
Crutchfield, 87, had been in declining health, friends said. The family is still making funeral arrangements.
"I think he really cared about education and he really cared about quality of life for the people who lived here," said Paul Smith, another former county party chairman and longtime Crutchfield ally. "He was always open to listening to everybody and he really was about building up Chattanooga and Hamilton County as well as the state."
Crutchfield could be fiercely partisan, Smith said, but he also was able to work across the aisle. "Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to get the funding" for a UTC library and a university building, he said.
Former state senator Ward Crutchfield, right, and former Hamilton County Commissioner Curtis Adams visit Fred Skillern in his office at Dixie Souveniers, the Soddy-Daisy business he started with his father.An amiable, cigar-chomping classic pol and attorney, Crutchfield was the scion of a family of prominent Chattanooga Republicans that included a city mayor. But Crutchfield, the family rebel, became a Democrat and had a political career that began in the 1950s and spanned a half century.
His son-in-law, businessman Jon Kinsey, was elected Chattanooga mayor in the 1990s.
Crutchfield left his stamp on any number of projects and institutions in Chattanooga and Hamilton County. He was a staunch supporter of the Chattanooga Zoo, and he triumphed in what some saw as a quixotic quest to get state support for a new sports stadium and engineering building at UTC.
Chattanooga attorney Jerry Summers described Crutchfield as someone who evolved beyond the era of segregation.
"He became a great champion of African- American causes over the years. And they supported him strongly politically," Summers said.
Family members related an account of how in the mid-1950s, Crutchfield brought Chattanooga educator C.B. Robinson, who was black, to the House floor. His colleagues jeered him and he even received death threats for supporting civil rights.
"Get used to it. I'll be bringing him back again," the family said.
Robinson went on to be elected as a state representative.
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First elected to the Tennessee General Assembly in 1956, Crutchfield served two terms in the House and two in the state Senate. He was aligned with then-Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Raulston Schoolfield, who ran for governor in 1954 on a segregationist platform and was impeached by the state House on numerous charges but convicted by state senators in 1958 by state senators on just three: Accepting as a gift a new Pontiac automobile, engaging in active politics and using profane and obscene language while acting as judge.
Crutchfield, a Schoolfield ally, fiercely opposed the House impeachment, voting no on all 31 counts, Summers said.
Crutchfield left the General Assembly in 1966 but stayed heavily involved in politics, which friends say he loved. In 1984, he ran again and defeated a Republican to win the District 10 Senate seat. There he rose to become Democratic Caucus chairman and later majority leader.
As caucus chairman, he was in charge of raising funds for Democratic senators' political races, primarily through caucus receptions.
FILE – In this May 27, 2005, file photo, Sen. Ward Crutchfield D-Chattanooga, reads over the Senate calendar before floor session in Nashville, Tenn. Crutchfield was among five former lawmakers convicted in the FBI's bribery sting operation. (AP Photo/John Russell, File) Ramsey was county property assessor before being elected mayor, and he remembered asking Crutchfield to carry it in the Senate.
Ramsey chuckled as he remembered Crutchfield telling him, "I don't have time to spend a lot of time studying this. I'll need you to come up here and explain this."
When a Chattanooga reporter challenged Crutchfield on whether he'd actually ever read the bill, Ramsey recalled, the senator said, "Anyone can pass a bill up here. The trick is to pass one you haven't read."
He was also a font of information for the press, once telling a Times Free Press reporter who asked him about the truth of a persistent rumor, "No, no, no. Off the record? Yes."
But in May 2005, Crutchfield, no longer majority leader, was caught up in the FBI sting code-named Tennessee Waltz with four other current and former state lawmakers. Chattanooga and Capitol Hill communities were stunned.
Indictments charged the lawmakers with taking payoffs from an FBI front company called E-Cycle Management, supposedly involved in recycling electronic equipment.
In 2007 Crutchfield pleaded guilty to bribery, admitting he took $3,000 in FBI money during the statewide corruption investigation. In return for the plea, federal prosecutors dropped a more serious charge of extortion.
He was sentenced to two years but allowed to serve six months of home confinement because of his age and health. He also paid a $3,000 fine.
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After leaving the Capitol, Crutchfield remained active behind the scenes in local politics. And in 2010, he paid a visit to his old haunts in Legislative Plaza. Asked about a rumor he was working on a tell-all book about politics, the senator smiled.
"I have no comment - yet," he said as he held his index finger to his lips in a shushing gesture.
State Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, holds the Senate seat Crutchfield once held. He said his family and the Crutchfields had ties going back into the early 19th century.
"Our family's always been very close, and it's tough," Gardenhire said.
While there's been a lot of speculation whether Crutchfield ever wrote his planned book, Gardenhire is sure he did.
"I enjoyed proofreading his book," Gardenhire said, adding he found sections of it very "humorous."
Crutchfield is survived by his wife of 50 years, Joan "Bunny" Crutchfield; two daughters, Candis Ward "Candy" Crutchfield Kinsey, married to developer and former Chattanooga Mayor Kinsey, and Margie Nel "Missy" Crutchfield; and grandchildren Morgan Ward Kinsey and James Ward Corn.
Contact staff writer Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550.