The records of a new Tennessee centralized immigration enforcement division will largely be secret from the public under an exemption added to a bill in its lightening-speed path to its approval.
The governor's voucher bill, called the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, would provide money, beginning next year at $7,075, for students in private schools to use toward their education. But the bill is not like the pilot voucher plan that the governor started a few years back in Davidson, Shelby and, later, Hamilton counties. And it has no requirements for measuring outcomes, such as how many vouchers go to children already in private schools.
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.
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.
Late last year, the city of Memphis wrote a $7,419.68 check to reimburse the attorney fees of journalist Marc Perrusquia rather than risk losing a public records lawsuit. The city folded before the case got before a judge. Something similar happened this summer in Knoxville when University of Tennessee threw in the towel on the eve of a public hearing in a public records case after stalling for more than a year and half. Tennessee ranked 45th in complying with public records requests, according to one study. We need fewer delays and better compliance with the law.
