A Bad Disclosure
A new national study says Tennessee has some of the worst campaign-finance disclosure laws in the nation. Here is coverage from the Tennessee AP and the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle. The report says:

Accessing campaign finance records in Tennessee is extremely difficult, and there are no filings available on the official disclosure web site. The absence of data is due to a provision of Tennessee's disclosure law that requires people who want to view campaign finance records to first complete a form stating their name, address, home and business phone numbers, driver's license number, and name of the candidate whose records they wish to view. These forms are collected by the Registry of Election Finance and made available to the elected officials whose reports have been accessed.

Tennessee is the only state in the nation with such a system for inspecting or obtaining copies of campaign finance records, and many see the "inspection notice provision" as a major barrier to data accessibility. The Registry of Election Finance itself in its 2002 annual report to the governor and general assembly recognized that the effect of the provision has been "to deter some citizens from reviewing elected officials' reports" and has urged a change in the law.

State officials say the inspection notice provision won't apply in the future to people accessing records that will be posted online - but will still apply to people seeking offices in person at the office of the Registry of Election Finance. It's a lousy provision and should have been scrapped entirely – but too many Tennessee politicians want to continue to try to intimidate Joe Public. No wonder Tennesseans have such low regard for the credibility of their elected officials, leading the Better Government Association to rank Tennessee's legislature 44th out of 50 states on the integrity scale, based on its analysis of the freedom of information laws, whistleblower protection laws, campaign finance laws, conflicts-of-interest laws and laws governing legislators accepting gifts, trips and honoraria. (Not only that - two years ago, the Center for Public Integrity found that a third of Tennessee lawmakers sat on legislative committees that regulated their own professions or businesses, a third received income from a government agency other than the legislature even though the legislature often subsidizes those institutions, and 15 percent of lawmakers had financial ties to businesses or groups that lobby state government) No wonder the politicians want to know who is checking up on them. They're embarrassed. And they ought to be.