exemptions Archives - Page 9 of 12 - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

16 Feb, 2016

Vendor confidentiality bill moves out of key House committee

By Deborah Fisher|2016-02-17T08:42:46-06:00February 16, 2016|Categories: exemptions, Legislature|Tags: cybersecurity, legislature, State Rep. Bill Sanderson, State Rep. Cameron Sexton, vendor confidentiality|0 Comments

A Haslam administration bill that would make confidential the names of vendors who provide goods and services "used to protect government property, government employee information, or citizen information" passed out of the House State Government Committee. The bill was amended so that it applied to all state government, and allowed local government to opt into the exemption if a local governing body "voted affirmatively to make such information confidential." The amendment also allowed for a governmental entity to provide the identity of the vendor to the comptroller of the treasury and to lawmakers on the fiscal review committee, but said those people should not share the vendor identities with others. The [...]

11 Feb, 2016

Nashville General hospital report outlining deficiencies exempt from public records law, attorney says

By Deborah Fisher|2016-02-11T07:35:41-06:00February 11, 2016|Categories: exemptions|Tags: hospital, Metro Nashville, Nashville General, Walter F. Roche Jr.|0 Comments

Nashville General has declined to release its report from the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation that identified "serious deficiencies in several areas including patient safety, infection control and staffing," reports Walter F. Roche Jr. on his blog. Roche, a former investigative editor and reporter with The Tennessean who now writes a blog on Tennessee issues, requested to see the report after the hospital received an emergency infusion of $10 million from Davidson County Metro Council, part of which will be used to address the problems. In the blog post, Nashville General won't release critical report, Roche writes also that council members only received a summary of the report: Citing an exception [...]

10 Mar, 2015

Tennessee Supreme Court rules against identifying those involved with lethal injection process

By Deborah Fisher|2019-09-11T18:54:37-05:00March 10, 2015|Categories: exemptions|Tags: execution drugs, Justice Jeffrey S. Bivins, Tennessee Supreme Court|0 Comments

News release from Administrative Office of the Court: The Tennessee Supreme Court has reversed a trial court ruling ordering the State to disclose the names of those involved in the execution process in a lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol as unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. The case – a lawsuit filed by death row inmates – comes to the Supreme Court via an interlocutory appeal, an appeal concerning a particular issue while the case is still pending in a lower court. The dispute over the identity disclosures arose during the discovery process, the legal method by which opposing parties in a lawsuit gather information from one another. The plaintiffs [...]

5 Mar, 2015

TSSAA seeks carve-out from Tennessee Public Records Act

By Deborah Fisher|2020-02-23T10:10:43-06:00March 5, 2015|Categories: exemptions, functional equivalent, Legislature|Tags: Frank G. Clement Jr., functional equivalent, legislature, public records exemption, Southcomm, TSSAA|0 Comments

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association is asking the Legislature on Tuesday to close records that in the past were used to expose possible cheating in recruiting high school athletes. It appears the people who regulate athletics for thousands of Tennessee youth want to be able to hide what they do and don’t do. The TSSAA, until last year, did not believe it was subject to the Tennessee Public Records Act. But a trial court and the Court of Appeals in Nashville courts affirmed that it is. Now a proposal in the Legislature, which is scheduled for the Senate State and Local Committee on Tuesday, seeks to statutorily relieve them [...]

22 Feb, 2015

Editorial: Bills would keep citizens in dark on public records

By Deborah Fisher|2015-03-02T07:39:27-06:00February 22, 2015|Categories: exemptions, fees|Tags: fees for public records, Knoxville News Sentinel, legislature, performance evaluations, TSSAA|0 Comments

Awesome editorial about need for transparency and accountability in government by Knoxville News Sentinel, reprinted here with permission: Three bills now pending in the Tennessee Legislature would combine to cripple the public's access to government records. One would make citizens pay to see official documents. Another would prevent the public from reviewing state employee performance evaluations. The third would shield from scrutiny the organization that regulates school sports statewide. The bills' sponsors and other lawmakers should reconsider these proposals in the context of transparency and accountability. One bill being pushed by the Tennessee School Boards Association would allow state and local government agencies to charge citizens a fee to inspect [...]