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25 Sep, 2020

Judge: Registry of Election Finance board violated Open Meetings Act with secret vote by email

By |2020-10-09T15:15:18-05:00September 25, 2020|Categories: Open Meetings, open meetings lawsuits, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ruled today that the Registry of Election Finance violated the Open Meetings Act when it voted by email outside of a public meeting to accept a settlement to reduce the fines of a state lawmaker. (See final order.) Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle The board's executive director, Bill Young, has said that he followed the process outlined by the Attorney General's Office in coordinating the email vote of the six-member election finance board. In addition to voting outside the public eye by email, there was no public notice of the meeting. The lawsuit was filed by several news media organizations and Tennessee Coalition for Open Government in [...]

25 Sep, 2020

Chancellor to hear arguments in open meetings case against election finance board at 10 a.m. today

By |2020-09-25T09:59:17-05:00September 25, 2020|Categories: Open Meetings, open meetings lawsuits, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

Chancellor Ellen Lyle is scheduled to hear arguments today in an open meetings lawsuit filed by several news media organizations and Tennessee Coalition for Open Government against the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance. Attorney Paul McAdoo The plaintiffs argue in The Associated Press, et al., v. The Tennessee Registry of Election Finance that the election finance board violated the open meetings law when it voted on reducing $65,000 in civil penalties that it had levied against Rep. Joe Towns, D-Memphis. The penalties had accumulated over two years as Towns repeatedly failed to file campaign finance disclosures required by law. The board took the vote by email to settle the penalties [...]

8 Jul, 2020

Joe Towns’ threat to challenge finance disclosure law influenced secret vote to reduce his fines

By |2020-09-17T18:04:49-05:00July 8, 2020|Categories: open meetings lawsuits|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments

Longtime Memphis lawmaker Joe Towns threatened to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Tennessee's campaign finance disclosure laws if a settlement of Towns' outstanding fines was not accepted, members of the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance board said Wednesday at a public meeting. State Rep. Joe Towns, D-Memphis, threatened to challenge the constitutionality of the state's financial disclosure laws if the board did not approve a settlement to reduce fines he had accumulated for not filing reports, board members said today in a public meeting. House Democratic Chair Mike Stewart, D-Nashville, was his attorney. The new information shed more light on a secret April 1 vote in which the [...]

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