State Sen. Ferrell Haile Archives - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

24 Mar, 2025

Comptroller’s Report: DA’s Conference has been violating Open Meetings law
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Comptroller’s Report: DA’s Conference has been violating Open Meetings law

adequate public notice, Legislature, minutes, Open Meetings

Comptroller’s Report: DA’s Conference has been violating Open Meetings law

By Deborah Fisher|2025-03-24T15:31:46-05:00March 24, 2025|Categories: adequate public notice, Legislature, minutes, Open Meetings|Tags: District Attorneys General Conference, Rep. Elaine Davis, State Sen. Ferrell Haile|0 Comments

Just days after the District Attorneys General Conference pushed a bill through committee to exempt many of their meetings from the Open Meetings Act, a Comptroller's audit of the DA's General Conference was released that found that the conference and its committees have largely been violating the open meetings act. The Open Meetings Act requires governing bodies, including governing bodies created by the Legislature, such as the district attorney general's conference, to give adequate public notice of meetings and record and maintain minutes. However, the DA's Conference gave public notice for only a handful of its meetings from 2021 to 2023. For example, its executive committee met 30 times but [...]

28 Apr, 2022

Legislature invigorates campaign finance reporting, ethics rules
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Legislature invigorates campaign finance reporting, ethics rules

Legislature, Open Meetings

Legislature invigorates campaign finance reporting, ethics rules

By Deborah Fisher|2022-04-29T10:23:03-05:00April 28, 2022|Categories: Legislature, Open Meetings|Tags: campaign finance, ethics, political candidates, Rep. Glen Casada, Rep. Robin Smith, State Rep. Cameron Sexton, State Rep. Sam Whitson, State Sen. Ferrell Haile, State Sen. Randy McNally, Tennessee Ethics Commission, Tennessee Registry of Election Finance|0 Comments

The Legislature passed comprehensive legislation closing several loopholes and adding more transparency and accountability to campaign finance reporting and ethics measures Thursday. House Speaker Cameron Sexton describes the bill as bringing money flows "from the dark into the light." One provision of the bill requires nonprofits organized under IRS code 501(c)(4), (5) and (6) to report expenditures related to a candidate during election periods, causing pushback from such groups, but the bill goes much farther than this one change.

31 May, 2021

New law targets people who try to disrupt government operations with public records requests

By Deborah Fisher|2021-06-22T16:31:04-05:00May 31, 2021|Categories: Legislature, requests|Tags: harassment, public records requests, State Rep. Jason Zachary, State Sen. Ferrell Haile|0 Comments

A new law that went into effect in late April will allow government officials to seek relief in court from people who use the public records process with an intent to disrupt government operations. The bill was aimed at curbing public records requests from so-called "bad actors." [...]

7 Sep, 2020

Advisory committee to meet on legislation to limit ‘harassing’ requesters

By Deborah Fisher|2020-09-07T11:33:08-05:00September 7, 2020|Categories: Advisory Committee on Open Government, Legislature, requests|Tags: ACOG, harassment, legislation, public records requests, State Sen. Ferrell Haile|1 Comment

The Advisory Committee on Open Government will meet at 1 p.m. Wednesday to discuss legislation that would limit public records requests from people found to be harassing the government. The meeting will be livestreamed and can be viewed by the public through the following link: https://tngov.webex.com/tngov/onstage/g.php?MTID=ebf38667b9ad074a64ca63d6e491c9ab1. Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin, asked the 14-member committee to review his proposed bill that would allow a government entity to seek an injunction against a person whose behavior met a harassment definition outlined in the bill. Haile has worked on the bill for two years. He introduced it in 2019 and presented an amended version in February to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee [...]

23 Feb, 2020

Harassment bill fails on 5-4 vote

By Deborah Fisher|2020-02-23T16:38:31-06:00February 23, 2020|Categories: requests, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: harassment, legislation, public records requests, State Sen. Ferrell Haile, State Sen. Mike Bell|0 Comments

A bill that would allow a government entity to petition a court for an injunction against someone who was using the public records process to harass government employees failed in a Senate committee last week. Sen. Ferrell Haile, R- Gallatin. The harassment bill, sponsored by Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin, arose last year after reports of a man who city officials in Gallatin and others believe is abusing the process and wasting government time through multiple and voluminous requests with seemingly no purpose. Haile amended the bill, working with stakeholders including Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, which eventually supported the amended version of the bill. Haile characterized the bill as an [...]