tennessee

About Deborah Fisher

Deborah Fisher has been executive director of Tennessee Coalition for Open Government since 2013. Previously she spent 25 years in the news industry as a journalist.
16 Jan, 2025

Davis, Lowe seek to expand public comment law

By |2025-01-16T08:33:49-06:00January 16, 2025|Categories: Legislature, public comment|Tags: , |0 Comments

A pair of lawmakers are seeking to expand public comment periods to require governing bodies to allow comment on items that are not on the agenda but germane to the governing body's work. The lawmakers — state Rep. Elaine Davis of Knoxville and state Sen. Adam Lowe of Calhoun — passed the first public comment requirement bill in 2023. Davis said this would allow members of the public to let the governing body know of issues that they may not be aware of.

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15 Jan, 2025

Electronic roll call for House committee votes will replace controversial voice votes

By |2025-01-16T09:59:59-06:00January 15, 2025|Categories: Legislature|Tags: , , |0 Comments

House committees in the Tennessee legislature will have electronic roll call votes beginning this year if the recommendation from the House Select Committee on Rules is adopted. The change will get rid of controversial voice votes in which the chair decides if he or she heard more ayes or nays.

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11 Jan, 2025

Tussle over secrecy of lethal injection protocol shakes loose some records

By |2025-01-11T10:01:35-06:00January 11, 2025|Categories: execution drugs|0 Comments

The Tennessee Department of Correction tried to keep its new execution protocol for lethal injection secret. But after a week of wide news reporting of the state's refusal to release the document, it changed its mind and provided the document with redactions. The tussle shows how secrecy about lethal injection as a method of execution continues to be a problem.

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22 Nov, 2024

Tennessee Supreme Court to hear case on sealed court records

By |2024-11-22T11:08:52-06:00November 22, 2024|Categories: court records, First Amendment, public records lawsuits Tennessee, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments

The Tennessee Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case in which a lower court judge refused to unseal court records in a test of the First Amendment right of access by the public to court proceedings and court documents.

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30 Oct, 2024

TVA fights public records lawsuit over its grants to cryptocurrency mines

By |2024-10-30T12:25:51-05:00October 30, 2024|Categories: Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments

The Tennessee Valley Authority has refused to release documents about its grants to cryptocurrency companies, including one in Knoxville, and is now fighting a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from a journalist and UT professor over it. TVA claims that releasing how much it gave the company in economic incentives would reveal its own trade secrets and violate the privacy rights of the employees in the companies that received the grants.

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