An independent investigation of the state's secret handling of lethal injection drugs shows it did not follow state protocols for testing the materials. The state should fix this and address the secrecy about lethal injection drugs going forward.
In the second public records lawsuit against Gov. Bill Lee's administration in a matter of weeks, Nashville Post journalist Stephen Elliott says that the administration's claim of a "deliberative process privilege" to keep secret a consultant's reports during the COVID-19 pandemic has no basis in state law.
The proposed bill that would create the Megasite Authority of West Tennessee with the power to approve a half-billion dollar grant to Ford Motor Co. offers another coveted power: megasecrecy.
A $1.59 million report by McKinsey & Co. on restructuring the state's workforce is confidential and won't be released to the public, a state agency has told The Tennessean. The Department of Human Resources told The Tennesseean in a story published March 9 that the taxpayer-funded report was confidential, citing the department's "deliberative process privilege." DHS has acknowledged to The Tennessean that it is planning employee buyouts. The state received the McKinsey report in September. This is not the first time the Gov. Bill Lee administration has asserted the deliberative process exemption to shield written reports. In 2019, the administration claimed they did not have to release written reports from [...]
Beginning on Oct. 1, all governing bodies in Tennessee must provide real-time audio or video access of their meetings held electronically. Under Gov. Bill Lee’s earlier executive order, governing bodies who met electronically instead of in-person because of COVID-19 safety concerns had to make “reasonable efforts to provide live access." But if a governing body could not provide live access after making such efforts, it could make a recording of the meeting and provide it to the public afterward. The new order, issued on Aug. 28, requires both live access and a "clear audio or video recording of the meeting." The recording must be made available to the public "as [...]
