The Tennessee Legislature, particularly the House of Representatives, has a chronic problem with its concept of transparency. It has a clear history and current character for taking care of “the People’s business” in ways that make it impossible for the People to actually track and monitor what the Legislature is doing. This is not an oversight. The evidence indicates it is by design and with purposeful intent.
At the core of this transparency problem is the conduct of the Legislature, both Houses, that make it difficult for the public to track legislation and particularly amendments. Another core problem is with the intentional concealment of how certain legislators vote – particularly when those votes are of a nature that the public might find objectionable. This is not a new problem but it is one which Lt. Governor Randy McNally and Speaker Cameron Sexton both should be aware of and each of them likely hold the power to have remedied long before now.
A recent news report by Nashville’s NewsChannel 5 and reporter Phil Williams examined the transparency void. The news report looked at two specific issues. One issue is the intentional act of concealing how individual legislators vote on legislation, particularly in the House. The other was the practice of adopting amendments to bill without any public notice of what the proposed amendment would be.
The House, primarily, but in some instances the Senate as well, has a standard practice of taking “voice votes” on matters that are being heard in the standing committees (and in almost all House subcommittees) rather than taking and recording “roll call” votes. Voice votes merely indicate if, in the opinion of the chair of the committee, the voice (or volume) of the votes was a yes or no on the issue. In contrast, a roll call vote requires each legislator to vote or abstain when his or her name is called and that individual vote is recorded. Voice votes have one functional characteristic – lack of transparency regarding how each legislator actually voted, if at all.
The problem is that the published Tennessee House Rules clearly show an intent and appear to expressly require a roll call vote in House committees on the final vote on any bill being considered. House Rule 83 provides in subpart (10), in relevant part:
(10) No bill or resolution shall be reported from a standing committee unless it shall have received a recommendation for passage as written or for passage with a recommended amendment by a majority of those members of the committee present and voting thereon, a quorum being present. All votes constituting final action on any bill or resolution shall be by roll call vote, and a roll call vote shall be taken at the request of the sponsor of the bill or resolution under consideration prior to any vote or at the request of any three (3) members of the committee. Every bill or resolution reported out of the committee shall contain on the cover a notation in ink, signed by the chair, or other presiding officer, recommending the measure for passage as written or recommending it for passage with an amendment or amendments recommended by the committee
Tennessee House Rule 83
In the Channel 5 investigation, reporter Phil Williams details his interviews with Speaker Cameron Sexton and other House Republican leaders on this issue and, well, they did give answers. But, those answers appear to be efforts to explain why their pattern of using voice votes was permissible under their rules.
What they did not address was why do the House Rules, which are totally under the control of the House Republicans if not Speaker Cameron Sexton himself, even allow for any voice votes on the final merits of any bill that is considered in any committee, subcommittee or, if applicable, even on the floor. On the issue of transparency in attending to the “Peoples’ business”, there should never be concealment of how any legislator votes on the merits of substantive significance of legislation – never.
Tennessee Firearms Association has seen this issue abused over and over and over again by members of both parties but in particular by the Republicans in the last decade. As an example, TFA reported in 2015 on an incident where House Republican, Jim Colely, chaired the House Civil Justice Subcommittee. On March 11, 2015, Rep. Micah VanHuss presented House Bill 0684, which was a TFA supported bill that would have enacted a permitless open carry law, to that subcommittee. The subcommittee had 6 members, 4 of them were Republicans. The subcommittee video (approximately time mark 1:10) shows Rep. Jim Colely taking a voice vote in which he personally votes “no” on the video and then he gavels the bill failed on a voice vote. Reports from Rep. Colely immediately after the vote was that the vote was 4 no votes (which had to be 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans) and 2 yes votes (that we confirmed were Republicans).
However, the state’s website on this bill shows that Representatives Jim Colely and Jon Lundberg (now a senator) both were at some later point “recorded” as not voting. But wait! That would that the vote was 2 yes, 2 no, and 2 not voting for a tie which meant that the bill did not fail but could have been reconsidered at a later point!
But there is more fraud in the story! Shortly after the vote, a reporter from TNREPORT.COM (no longer available online) went to Rep. Colely with video to ask a few questions about the bill. The TNReport report stated:
Coley acknowledged to TNReport following the failure of Van Huss’s open-carry bill last week that he requested his vote be changed after the fact, and suggested Lundberg did the same.
A tie vote in a legislative committee means a bill stalls where it is, although Speaker Beth Harwell or Speaker Pro Tem Curtis Johnson can choose to vote to move a bill along. After a tie vote, a bill can later be brought up for reconsideration if the sponsor can convince someone on the committee who didn’t vote in favor of it to commit support.
Coley told TNReport he changed how his vote was recorded because he didn’t want his constituents to draw the conclusion that he’s “not in favor of firearms.” To the contrary, Coley asserted that he’s “very strongly in favor of firearms,” but also believes gun-owners should obtain a permit from the government in order to carry in public, in keeping with current law.
The TNReport website might no longer exist but its video interview does!
The fact that Speaker Cameron Sexton and House Republicans continue to allow voice votes on the merits of bills in committees and subcommittees – despite the existence of the House’s own rules which mandate otherwise – continues to allow fraudulent misrepresentations by legislators of their votes and voting histories when it is clear that they, at least some of them, are willing to deceive voters as to their voting records.
The continued existence of this transparency hypocrisy has to be contrasted against the enormous effort made in the 2022 legislative session by House and Senate leaders to pass draconian legislation that they claimed was necessary to impose transparency requirements on 501c4 nonprofit entities during election cycles. Legislators forced through, using a last minute amendment process, overbearing disclosure requirements on the People but they refuse to be transparent on their votes on pending legislation? Sounds about par for the course… at least in Tennessee Establishment Republican playbooks.
Tennesseans must demand true transparency of our legislators. So what should we demand? Consider these as mere threshold requirements that they should have imposed without a demand!
- Require that all votes in any subcommittee, committee or floor vote on the merits of any bill or proposed amendment be by roll call vote.
- Require that any roll call vote is final – that is the legislators cannot pull a “Jim Coley” and change their vote – once the chair or speaker calls the vote as final and “takes the vote”.
- Require that all bills, as filed, be made available and word-search available on the state’s website within 24 hours of when they are filed.
- Require that all proposed amendments to bills be posted on the bill’s “page” on the legislative website (and be word searchable) at least 5 business days prior to being considered in any subcommittee, committee or floor vote.
- Require that any amendments not filed within the 5 business day rule can be considered only if the hearing on the bill and the amendments are delayed for at least 5 business days.
- Require that all fiscal notes remain posted on a bill’s website page even if the fiscal note is amended or revised
These are suggest mere minimums for the Tennessee Legislature to show even basic transparency in its handling of the People’s business. If these legislators and legislators leaders are unwilling to do this, then they have no business seeking office or pretending to be the steward of our rights or interests.
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.