2025 Legislative Report – Open Government

(Posted June 10, by Deborah Fisher, executive director of Tennessee Coalition for Open Government)

The 114th General Assembly in 2025 created more exemptions to the Open Meetings Act than I’ve seen in any single year of tracking since 2014.

While the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government celebrated progress in applying the agenda requirement for meetings to more governing bodies, the piling up of governing bodies that got new laws allowing them to deliberate in private is a disturbing development.

Also disappointing, the Legislature rejected efforts of a set of Republican lawmakers who wanted to expand the new public comment law. They were trying to help citizens who had complained that, because of loopholes, they were not being allowed to give public comment at public meetings.

On the public records front, we continue to see the Gov. Bill Lee administration pushing and getting broad and discretionary exemption bills. This year, the administration pushed a new law that allows a new immigration enforcement division to keep records it receives confidential under the idea that some of the records it receives could be sensitive. On the other hand, the Lee administration worked with TCOG to incorporate improvements to the electronic meeting statute for state boards.

After two recent school shootings in Nashville, lawmakers also sought bills to study school shooters in more detail. One bill, prompted by the Antioch High School shooting, opens up juvenile delinquency records of a shooter that is deceased. The other, presumably related to the transgender shooter at Covenant School, requires studying medical and drug records of deceased school shooters, keeping individual information confidential but requiring data reported to lawmakers annually.

Finally, we saw more maneuvering around public notices and legal notices required to be published in newspapers. It looks to be a bumpy ride as at least one of the changes will require government entities to find additional news and information websites to post their online notice and no longer simply rely on newspaper websites where they were getting the online posting at no additional cost.

Bills that passed

1 – Expansion of agenda law

(Public Chapter 360, SB212 / HB885) by Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, and Rep. Chris Todd, R-Madison County)

The agenda law in the Open Meetings Act (T.C.A. § 8-44-110) was passed in 2023 and applied only to local legislative bodies — basically city councils and county commissions. It was expanded in 2024 to include state governmental bodies. This year, it was expanded to include more local governmental bodies: regional or municipal planning commissions, boards of zoning appeals, public utility boards, industrial development boards, housing authorities, regional and municipal airport authorities, county election commissions and the budget committee of local legislative bodies of a city or town.

The bill also changed a “may” to “shall” to require that governing bodies post their agendas to their websites if they maintain a website.

The main features of the agenda law requirements are:

• It applies only to regular meetings. (Special-called meetings have more stringent requirements.)
• An agenda must be posted 48 hours prior to a regular meeting in a place accessible to the public (and now, on their website).
• The agenda “must reasonably describe the matters to be deliberated or acted upon during the public meeting.”
• The body may “deliberate or act upon matters not listed on the agenda of a regular meeting if the body follows its bylaws or properly adopted rules and procedures and complies with all other applicable state laws.”
• The body “shall not circumvent the spirit or requirements of this section by withholding items from the agenda for the purpose of avoiding public disclosure of business to be considered…”

While the expansion greatly increases the number of governing bodies that are subject to the agenda requirement, TCOG had pushed to expand the agenda law to all governing bodies that are subject to the Tennessee Open Meetings Act. But lobbyists for government associations have consistently sought to limit which governing bodies the bill would apply to. This year, those lobbyists supported an amendment that would exempt governing bodies that had “neither the authority to make binding decisions nor the ability to appropriate funds.” TCOG testified that this proposed amendment could exempt some important governing bodies, such as planning commissions or committees of legislative bodies where many county commissions and city councils do most of their work.

In the end, a compromise bill simply expanded the bill to the additional governing bodies listed above. TCOG plans to continue to advocate that more governing bodies provide detailed agendas, including committees of local legislative bodies.

2 – Another attempt to get rid of free inspection; extension of “injunction” option instead

(Public Chapter 392, SB1114 / HB 1293 by Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin, and Rep. Rick Eldridge, R-Morristown)

Ever since the law was changed in 2008 to provide for labor charges to search for, redact and produce copies of public records, government bodies have complained that public records requesters can get around such fees (often in the hundreds and thousands of dollars) if they request to only inspect records and not get copies. In the past decade, at least two bills have been filed to get rid of the free inspection option. This year, a third attempt was made when Sen. Adam Lowe, R-Calhoun, filed a bill for one of his local governments.

However, Lowe decided not to put his bill on notice after another set of lawmakers filed legislation that extended an option already in the law that gives government entities a different route if a requester is abusing the law.

Sponsored by Sen. Ferrell Haile and Rep. Rick Eldridge, the bill deleted a 2025 sunset on a law that allows a government entity to pursue an injunction against a requester who is using the public records law with an intention to “disrupt government operations.” The law has many steps, including notifying the requester and meeting a high bar of proof. A court can only issue an injunction “upon finding by clear and convincing evidence that a records request was made with the intent to disrupt government operations.” The injunction can prevent a requester from making requests to that government entity for as long as a year.

The statute — T.C.A. § 10-7-503 (a)(7)(C) — has been in the law since 2021 and is believed to have served as a deterrent for bad behavior. No requesters have been enjoined under the statute. TCOG supported the extension as a reasonable way to deal with the occasional person who might be using the public records process not to get records, but to abuse a government entity.

3 – Closure of higher education board meetings

(Public Chapter 267, SB1024 / HB1036 by Sen. Shane Reeves, R-Murfreesboro, and Rep. Charlie Baum, R-Murfreesboro)

This caption bill was originally assigned to the House K-12 committee, styled as relative to “education” and sought to evaluate the effectiveness of an “innovative school district” in its first year. However, an amendment placed on the bill in committee on March 19 rewrote the bill to allow state university boards of trustees to conduct private meetings to “discuss or deliberate on matters related to senior administration, personnel positions, and contracts; provided, that the board of trustees took all of its votes in an open meeting.

We need to watch how this law plays out, but the words “related to senior administration” could open the door to almost any matter that would be considered by a university board’s senior administration. Could this include discussion on issues like student housing, degree programs, tuitions and fees, contracts and university policies? I don’t know, but this is the type of vague language in our open government exemptions that could invite abuse and keep public debate on important issues behind closed doors.

The bill applies to the state university boards, which include Austin Peay State University, East Tennessee State University, Middle Tennessee State University, Tennessee State University, Tennessee Technological University and University of Memphis.

4 – Home addresses of government employees

(Public Chapter 280, HB66 / SB425 by Rep. Mike Sparks, R-Smyrna, and Sen. Shane Reeves, R-Murfreesboro)

The law already requires local and state government to keep confidential residential addresses of its employees. At the local level, government employers already had to keep their employee street address confidential. At the state level, the law required government employers to keep employees’ street address, city, state and zip code confidential.

This bill expanded what had to be kept confidential by the local government employer to include the city, state and zip code — matching what was being kept confidential for state employees.

It’s unclear to me whether this applies to former government employees or applicants for employment. The bill makes changes to T.C.A. § 10-7-504(f), which speaks to confidentiality of information about both current and former government employees and applicants, but the address information in a subsection specifically speaks only to “employees.”

5 – Immigration records

(Public Chapter 1, Extraordinary Session, HB6001 / SB6002 by Rep. William Lamberth, R-Portland, and Sen. Jack Johnson, R-Franklin)

This bill established a new centralized immigration enforcement division within the Department of Safety with a chief immigration enforcement officer to establish a grant program to promote enforcement of federal immigration laws, oversee state and local collaboration with federal immigration agencies, facilitate communication between state, local and federal agencies with respect to immigration policy and enforcement, develop strategic enforcement plans, coordinate participation in federal immigration programs and report annually on immigration-related progress and challenges.

After the bill passed three key Senate committees, including the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was amended in the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee to modify the grant program. At that time, it was also amended to make many of the new division’s records confidential:

“The department may maintain any information or records collected or received by the division or chief immigration enforcement officer confidentially, including, but not limited to, sensitive or confidential information collected or received from a federal, local, or state department or agency.”

“The department of safety may maintain any information or records collected pursuant to the grant program confidentially, including, but not limited to, sensitive or confidential law enforcement information.”

Sen. Bo Watson, characterized the late-added amendment this way: “It also extends — and this is an important component for (the Department of) Safety — the confidentiality protections for law enforcement records already held by the Department of Safety to also apply to documents maintained by the newly established immigration enforcement division.”

Despite Watson’s characterization, the language of the exemption is not limited to already confidential law enforcement records. But it does give discretion of what is kept confidential by the use of the word “may.” The important thing for requesters to take away is that the exemption applies only to:

“records collected or received by the division or chief immigration enforcement officer” and to records “collected pursuant to the grant program.”

That means that the records the immigration division produces itself would not be subject to this exemption, and that records collected from another agency may still be available for inspection in the other agencies’ hands, depending on the type of record.

6 – District Attorney General Conference

(Public Chapter 312, HB49 / SB245 by Rep. Elaine Davis, R-Knoxville, and Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin)

Just days after the District Attorneys General Conference pushed this bill through a key committee — exempting many of their meetings from the Open Meetings Act — a Comptroller’s audit of the DA’s General Conference was released that found that the conference and its committees have largely been violating the Open Meetings Act.

The District Attorneys General Conference was created by the Legislature in 1961. It consists of all the district attorneys general in the state and is charged with considering all matters concerning district attorneys and new laws and rules of procedure that may be necessary to suppress crime.

Its meetings, including meetings of its committees, are subject to the open meetings laws. However, it hasn’t been giving public notice of many meetings. For example, its executive committee gave notice for only eight of its 30 meetings from 2021 to 2023, and the regular conference gave notice of only two of its six meetings, according to the Comptroller’s Report.

The bill exempts its executive committee from holding public meetings for several broad reasons including “Matters involving requests, information, investigations, proceedings, or prosecutions conducted by a district attorney general pro tem appointed under § 8-7-106.”

TCOG objected to the broad nature of the bill — particularly what seemed to be a garbled phrase including the words “requests” and “information” without any limiting words as exemption triggers – but the district attorneys conference refused to make any changes or be more specific, as did the bill’s sponsors.

7 – Advisory Committee on Open Government

(Public Chapter 370, SB623 / HB 857 by Sen. Richard Briggs, R-Knoxville, and Rep. Tom Leatherwood, R-Arlington)

In 2008, the Legislature created the Advisory Committee on Open Government (ACOG) to provide guidance and advice for the Office of Open Records Counsel in the Comptroller’s Office. The committee has 14 members, evenly divided between representatives of citizen groups and representatives of government associations. The committee also can, if requested, review and provide written comments on proposed legislation related to the open meetings and public records laws.

Meetings of the committee have been sporadic. The last known meeting of the committee was in December 2020 after it had researched the impact and effectiveness of keeping applications and materials confidential during the selection process of state university presidents. In the committee’s Dec. 17, 2020, meeting, it adopted a report on the topic delivered to the governor and speakers of the House and Senate.

However, the advisory committee has not met since. The only way for ACOG to meet is at the call of its co-chairmen or a majority of its members. The tweak to the law requires the Office of Open Records Counsel to select a date for the annual meeting of ACOG when there are no co-chairs and when a majority of the members make a request for a meeting to the office. The statute also outlines how the Office of Open Records Counsel shall facilitate the convening of meetings, including reserving a room, posting the meeting notice on the comptroller’s website, posting minutes on the website, and posting the meeting agendas on the website. The office also is charged with providing an electronic method by which the committee may allow participation by electronic means as applicable.

8 – Electronic meetings of state boards and commissions

(Public Chapter 524, SB1316 / HB1330 by Sen. Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, and Rep. William Lamberth, R-Portland)

Styled the “Less is More Act of 2025,” this new law makes numerous changes to the state’s licensing boards that oversee professionals ranging from real estate agents to accountants. But it also included a piece that allowed state boards — any state board, not just regulatory state boards — to meet electronically without having to file a “determination of necessity” with the secretary of state. Previously, if no physical quorum was present at the location of a meeting, a state board could meet electronically if the board made “a determination that a necessity exists,” including a recitation of the facts and circumstances on which the necessity was based. I’ve reviewed such determinations, and they often were just perfunctory statements that it was necessary for a board to take action on some item — in other words, this was a low bar.

T.C.A. §8-44-108 already had rules on state boards meeting electronically that were last improved in 2022, but the rules were strengthened with the rewrite. Those improvements include:

• A member of the public who wants to view or listen to an electronic meeting does not have to register their names as a condition for receiving a link or phone number to the electronic meeting. If they want to provide public comment, they must provide their names in advance.
• Governing bodies must post the link to a recording of the electronic meeting no later than two business days after the meeting and keep it online for at least a year, retaining the recording for three years. Previously, they had three days to post the link and no requirement for keeping it on its website except for a requirement to retain the recording or link for three years.
• The governing body must ensure each part of the meeting is audible and that members of the governing body participating by electronic means are identifiable by name to the public throughout the duration of the meeting.
• The governing body must take roll call votes on all votes taken during an electronic meeting.

9 – Electronic meetings for county commissions and city councils

(Public Chapter 411, SB136 / HB152 by Sen. Richard Briggs, R-Knoxville, and Rep. Dave Wright, R-Knox County)

After three years of trying, two Knox County lawmakers finally got their bill over the finish line to allow members of city and county legislative bodies (county commissions, city councils, boards of aldermen) to participate in meetings remotely through a phone call or videoconference. There are some limitations. Each member can participate electronically only two times a year. But they don’t need much reason to do so — the law says the member must be dealing with a family emergency or a medical emergency (both as determined by the legislative body), have been called into military service, or can’t make it to the meeting because of “inclement weather.”

The only other restrictions are that the governing body itself must have a quorum physically present at the meeting and that no more than 20% of the total membership of the body can participate electronically in any given meeting, with a cap of three members.

The bill requires a governing body to “opt in” to allowing their members to participate electronically by a two-thirds vote. If they opt in, they must also give real-time audio or video access to the meeting to members of the public. They also must develop a policy for conducting electronic meetings.

TCOG talked with sponsors of the bill, hoping for changes that would require video of the member attending electronically, adding audibility and identification standards so citizens would know who’s talking when they aren’t visible and eliminating the “family emergency,” which seemed to be a catch-all for many reasons a member might not attend in person.

The bill was almost identical to previous versions. One change from previous versions was the addition of the “inclement weather” reason. Another was a so-called sunset that automatically deletes the new law on July 1, 2028. Lawmakers would have to remove the “sunset” for the provisions to remain.

10 – Records of juveniles who commit homicide on school grounds

(Public Chapter 179, SB992 / HB1038 by Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin, and Rep. Johnny Garrett, R-Goodlettsville with an amendment opening up juvenile records by Rep. William Lamberth, R-Portland.)

An amendment was added to this bill in response to a shooting at Antioch High School on Jan. 22, 2025, in which 17-year-old Solomon Henderson shot and killed a 15-year-old girl and injured another student before committing suicide.

The bill created a statewide juvenile justice case management system. Almost all juvenile delinquency proceeding records are confidential, but the amendment added a provision that made all files and juvenile court records open to public inspection if the person committed a homicide at a school and the person was deceased.

Rep. Lamberth explained his amendment in the House Judiciary Committee: “It goes directly at the recent shooting that happened at Antioch High School. The juvenile records of an individual, a child that commits a murder in a school, upon their death those records should be public. I think everyone, both in this room, and in the public and especially the children and families in Antioch need to know exactly what that individual’s history was and then we can evaluate how to prevent horrible, horrible murders like that from occurring. And until you have the information, it’s hard to do so. And that information should be released.”

After the law went into effect, the Davidson County Juvenile Court released records that showed Henderson had been arrested at least twice in Nashville and had been in court for a probation violation the morning of the shooting. The probation violation was from an arrest over threatening another student with a box cutter. He also had been arrested for aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor among other interactions with law enforcement.

11 – Drug use by mass shooters, including hormonal treatments

(Public Chapter 272, SB1146 / HB 1349 by Sen. Rusty Crowe, R-Johnson City, and Rep. Mary Littleton, R-Dickson)

This new law requires county medical examiners or a state’s regional forensic center who is conducting an autopsy of a person suspected to have committed a mass shooting to consult with the person’s treating physician or mental health professional to obtain information about the person’s psychotropic drug use, which includes hormonal treatments meant to alter the person’s physical or sexual characteristics. It also requires the county medical examiner to test for the presence of any drugs, including “therapeutic levels of psychotropic drugs.”

The information from a decedent’s medical files would be considered confidential under the medical information exemption governing public autopsies. But the new law requires this information, without identifying information on the person, to be sent to the University of Tennessee’s Health Science Center, which must study the data and submit quarterly reports on it to the Legislature.

The drugs studied will be agents for control of mania and depression, antidepressants, antipsychotics, anxiolytics, hypnotics, mood stabilizers, hormonal medication with the primary goal of altering a person’s physical appearance and sexual characteristics existing at a person’s birth, psychomotor stimulants, stimulants and benzodiazepines.

12 – Ethics Commission records

(Public Chapter 415, SB229 / HB 653 by Sen. Richard Briggs, R-Knoxville, and Rep. Tim Hicks, R-Gray)

This new law drew most attention for eliminating a cap on campaign contributions to political campaign committees controlled by political parties, such as those controlled by Republican and Democrat parties in the House and Senate. But a provision in the bill also changed some confidentiality provisions related to complaints to the Tennessee Ethics Commission.

Previously, the statute said all commission proceedings and records related to an ethics commission preliminary investigation were confidential until the commission found probable cause. Then the records would be made public on the date of the hearing on the violation or the date in which the commission refers the matter. If no probable cause was found, the records would become available 60 days after the commission report or after it issued its no probable cause finding. When there was no probable cause, personal and professional financial records of the alleged violator were kept confidential.

Bill Young, the executive director of the Ethics Commission and the Registry of Election Finance, said complaints were open when filed related to campaign finance but not with the ethics commission. “We thought we needed to reduce the confidentiality.”

The new law replaces the confidentiality on ethics commission complaints by making all proceedings regarding a complaint and records related to a preliminary investigation open for inspection under the public records law except for during the 30 days preceding the beginning of voting for an election and through election day when the complaint involves a candidate In making the changes, the law replaced a distinction on personal and professional financial records of the potential violator by simply saying they are always confidential, not just confidential when there is no probable cause. It’s probable that in practice the commission would share information about such financial records when they were relevant to a finding, but the statute doesn’t track exactly and might appear to some to make such records confidential even under a probable cause finding.

13 – High school students on school boards

(Public Chapter 359, SB161 / HB1199 by Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, and Rep. Sabi Kumar, R-Springfield)

This new law replaced a provision allowing school boards to select as many as four students to serve as nonvoting, advisory members of the board with language that requires any local education agency that operates a high school to adopt and implement a policy to authorize a high school student to serve on the board in a nonvoting, advisory capacity. The new law makes clear that the student would only participate in meetings that are open to the public. It also exempts any board of education that created a student advisory group before July 1, 2025, with at least one student from each high school that meets regularly to advise the school board. The law allows the school board to establish eligibility requirements.

14 – New Tennessee Juvenile Justice Review Commission

(Public Chapter 281, SB44 / HB 501 by Sen. Ed Jackson, R-Jackson, and Rep. Mary Littleton, R-Dickson)

This law creates a new state commission to review incidents involving delinquent juveniles in state custody, such as juveniles in a detention center or in foster care, and to provide the General Assembly with findings and recommendations. Its investigatory meetings are exempt from the Tennessee Open Meetings Act and defined as any meeting “where information made confidential pursuant to state or federal law is examined by the commission or information is being discussed that is relevant to a pending criminal action or juvenile court proceeding.” The commission must keep minutes, but those minutes are also confidential.

The law states that the commission “shall conduct meetings that are open to the public to periodically make available, in a general manner that does not reveal information made confidential pursuant to state or federal law, the aggregate findings of its reviews and recommendations.”

15 – Adoption records

(Public Chapter 79, SB1267 / HB102 by Sen. Jack Johnson and Rep. William Lamberth)

This bill makes sealed adoption records more available by reducing the age from 21 to 18 in which certain records must be released to an adopted person. It also expands who can get a court order to access adoption records of an adopted person or a person for whom the records are maintained is deceased. Before it was just the lineal descendants of the person; now it includes the adopted person or to the parents, sibling, lineal descendants or lineal ancestors of the adopted person or person for whom the records are maintained.

16 – Marsy’s Law passes final Legislative hurdle, now goes to voters

(HJR 48 by Rep. Cameron Sexton)

A joint resolution for a constitutional amendment that would replace the current victim’s bill of rights in Article 1, Section 35, with a new version that gives a victim and a victim’s family standing to enforce their rights passed its final legislative hurdle. It will now go to voters during the next election for governor, which is in 2026. TCOG has tracked this constitutional amendment as similar amendments in other states have created new limitations on access to police records.

The proposal, known as Marsy’s Law, allows a victim to assert rights “not as a party, but in the manner provided by the General Assembly protecting the victim’s right to standing.” The current constitution doesn’t specify a right of standing.

Marsy’s Law for All, a national organization, has pushed for constitutional changes in all states, including in states like Tennessee that already have some victim rights in their constitutions. The goal is to give victims due process rights equal to defendants and a right of standing to assert their rights in court.

One of the rights to which victims are entitled in Tennessee’s current constitution is “the right to be free from intimidation, harassment and abuse throughout the criminal justice system.” This right is included in a proposed new version along with a new general right of victims to “be treated with fairness for the victim’s safety and dignity.”

Current language in the constitution includes the “right to be heard, when relevant, at all critical stages of the criminal justice process as defined by the General Assembly.” The proposed constitutional amendment would replace that with: “The right upon request to be heard in any proceeding involving release, plea, sentencing, disposition, and parole, as well as any public proceeding when relevant during which a right of the victim is implicated.”

The proposal also states: “The General Assembly has the authority to enact substantive and procedural laws to further define, implement, preserve, and protect the rights guaranteed to victims by this section. This section must be interpreted to preserve and protect the rights of all persons to due process.”

To become part of the constitution, it must be approved by a majority of all the citizens of the state voting for governor.

17 – Foreclosure notices in newspapers

(Public Chapter 515, Sen. Adam Lowe, R-Calhoun, and Rep. Andrew Farmer, R-Sevierville)

This bill changed the advertising requirements for sale of land to foreclose upon a debt. Prior to the change, an advertisement of the sale had to be published three different times in a newspaper published in the county where the sale was to be made, with the first publication at least 20 days prior to the sale.

The bill changed the law to require advertisement in the newspaper to be two times instead of three times and added that the sale also had to be advertised on a “third-party internet posting company for at least twenty (20) consecutive days.” The posting must be “publicly viewable to general internet users.”

Already, newspapers in the state that publish legal notices like foreclosure notices are required to post the notice on the Tennessee Press Association public notice website at no additional cost, as well as the newspaper’s website, remaining there for as long the notice is in the newspaper.

The law also changed how the sale should be advertised when it cannot be made in a newspaper. Prior, the law stated that in those situations the advertisement had to be posted for 30 days in at least five of the most public places in the county, one of which was at the courthouse door and the other in the neighborhood of the person being foreclosed upon or where the land was. Now, the law requires that it simply be posted online by a third-party website.

Also, the new law requires the newspaper ad to identify the internet posting website.

18 – Public notice on websites — additional postings

(Public Chapter 500, Sen. Ken Yager, R-Kingston, and Rep. Dennis Powers, R-Jacksboro)

This bill updated a law passed in 2024 dealing with legal notices that are required to be published in newspapers of general circulation. That 2024 law required such notices to also be published on a “news and information website” that has content updated at least three times a week, does not serve primarily as a platform for a special interest group, and is principally devoted to the dissemination of local or general news with at least 50% of all editorial content reported being original, among other requirements. For most buyers of public notices in newspapers, the website requirement created no additional costs because newspapers were already required by statute to post the notice to their own website and to a statewide free website at no additional cost.

This bill added two more requirements that changes things and likely will add more cost to the purchaser of the public notices. The website:

• Cannot require a fee or subscription for the person to view the website; and
• Must be separate and distinct from the newspaper of general circulation and be owned by an entity other than the newspaper of general circulation.

This means that legal notices that are published on newspaper websites will no longer qualify as the website posting and government entities will need to find an additional website with news and information that meets the law’s requirements where they can post the notice.

The new law outlines how much these websites can charge, saying they must charge by the word. The law regarding the additional website publication does not affect foreclosure notices or the required publication of sample ballots.

Bills that failed or were taken off notice

1 – Efforts to improve public comment periods failed

(HB22 / SB 178 by Rep. Elaine Davis, R-Knoxville, and Sen. Adam Lowe, R-Calhoun)

(HB845 / SB1037 by Rep. Michele Reneau, R-Signal Mountain, and Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma)

In 2023, Rep. Elaine Davis and Sen. Adam Lowe shepherded a new public comment law for meetings under the Open Meetings Act. The law requires governing bodies to reserve a period for public comment at meetings in which there are “actionable items” on the agenda. However, governing bodies were only required to take public comment on “matters that are germane to the items on the agenda for the meeting.”

Many governing bodies already had public comment periods that met this standard. Others had and still have public comment periods that exceeded the standard, allowing for comment on items not on the agenda — usually periods at the end of a meeting in which citizens can bring up any issue.

This year, two public comment bills sought to raise the required minimums. The Davis-Lowe bill sought to require governing bodies to allow citizens to address governing bodies on “any matter that is germane to the jurisdiction of the governing body, regardless of whether such matter is an item on the agenda for the meeting.”

The Reneau/Bowling bill was aimed at reducing restrictions on the time for public comment or the number of citizens allowed to speak when a large number of citizens had shown up to give comment. It authorized government entities to take “written comments from members of the public who are not afforded the opportunity to speak” and required such written comments to be incorporated into the “public record” of the meeting.

The Davis bill, with some tweaks, passed the House floor, but failed to get out of the key Senate committee. The Reneau bill faced much more opposition in the House from lobbyists from cities and counties and did not make it out of its House committee.

Local government lobbyists did not like the bills because they fear it opens up their meetings to citizens who might be critical or speak on things they believe are irrelevant and prolong meetings.

However, the sponsors (and TCOG) believe it’s important that citizens have a direct avenue to speak to their government representatives about issues. Citizens often provide information that the governing body didn’t know. They can add important information to a debate on an issue and diversify who governing body members get information from. There is no better place for citizens to address the governing body as a whole than at public meetings. The fact that you can email your representative (and if you’re lucky, talk to them on the phone) is simply not the same.

2 – Law enforcement investigatory privilege

(SB521/ HB 907 by Rep. Johnny Garrett and Sen. Kerry Roberts)

The sponsors took this bill off notice and did not run it. It was a bill pushed by the District Attorney General’s Conference and would have created a new law enforcement investigatory privilege. The privilege appeared to change and possibly add new problems. An investigative exemption for law enforcement files already exists in state law, created by the Tennessee Supreme Court. TCOG was among multiple organizations concerned about how this might alter access to law enforcement files.

3 – Open meetings exemption for board that takes over Memphis schools

(SB714/HB662 by Sen. Brent Taylor, R-Memphis, and Rep. Mark White, R-Memphis)

A bill by two Memphis lawmakers that would have created an advisory board to oversee or control the Memphis Shelby County School Board, including influence over removing school board members, did not pass as the bills diverged on the details in the House and Senate. One difference, though perhaps not the deal-killer, was that under the Senate version, the advisory board would be exempt from the Open Meetings Act, allowing it to come to its decisions in secret and hold an open meeting only to adopt and announce its decision to the public.

4 – Eliminating public comment before final approval of developments

(SB137/HB183 by Sen. Richard Briggs, R-Knoxville, and Rep. Kelley Keisling, R-Byrdstown)

Public comment periods would have been eliminated at county commission and city council meetings on applications for new property developments when the proposed development substantially complied with previously reviewed zoning regulations or maps under this bill. However, the sponsors pulled the bill after receiving phone calls from the public and did not run it. The bill was aimed at making it easier to build more housing in cities experiencing rising costs and housing shortages.