A bill that would remove the statutory guarantee that citizens cannot be charged fees to view public records revives an idea that was floated in 2015, but received so much public opposition that the sponsors withdrew the legislation.
We are monitoring several bills during the 2022 legislative session, including a bill that would create new fees to inspect public records.
The deputy attorney general for Tennessee argued in court this week that reports by consultant McKinsey and Co. regarding the re-opening of Tennessee and other government responses during the COVID-19 pandemic are exempt from the public records law because revealing them would open up the executive branch to second-guessing by the public.
A new law requires all law enforcement in Tennessee to make monthly reports to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation on the use of force. The data will include information from any police action resulting in death or serious bodily injury to a person or the discharge of a firearm at or in the direction of a person.
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.
