Campaign Finance Appointee Tom Lawless Wants State Regulating Conservative Groups In Tennessee

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The Tennessee Conservative Staff –

Senate Republican Caucus appointee Tom Lawless wants the state to monitor and control conservative groups in Tennessee.

First appointed to his position on the board in 2014, over the last ten years, Lawless has been an influential member of the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance (TREF) while gaining a reputation for going after conservatives who challenge the GOP establishment.

A Nashville based attorney, Lawless is also the founder of Lawless & Associates, P.C. A certified creditor’s rights specialist, Lawless has decades of experience in the field and his law firm specializes in bankruptcy litigation, commercial real estate, creditor’s rights defense, and debt restructuring.

Lawless was involved in a significant way in a case against parent group Williamson Strong in Williamson County which began when a former county school board member filed a complaint against the group in December 2014.

Susan Curlee alleged that Williamson Strong acted illegally as a political action committee (PAC) during the elections in 2014.

While not necessarily considered a “conservative” group, Williamson Strong formed in 2014 to discuss issues relating to Williamson County schools and have denied endorsing candidates or spending money in support of any candidate or ballot measure.

Nonetheless, Lawless argued that the group had violated campaign finance laws and proposed fining the group $20,000. While his motion did not pass, TREF ultimately voted 4-1 to fine the group $5,000. Williamson Strong found this action to be unjust, politically motivated, and chilling to their constitutional right to political speech.

Williamson Strong sued TREF and four members of the board, including Lawless, in federal court in 2015 saying that the board had wrongfully labeled a group of parents a PAC and essentially fined them for posting protected first amendment speech on the internet.

Curlee had taken issue with some posts about her candidacy on Williamson Strong’s Facebook page before filing her complaint with TREF. Despite a county attorney general finding her allegations lacking in merit, TREF chose to hear her complaint, holding a hearing in January 2015 at which a show cause order was issued. Two more hearings followed, in March, and again in May.

At the May hearing, personal emails from Williamson Strong members discussing the upcoming school board election were cited by board members as proof that the group was up to no good and needed to be reprimanded.

Along with the group’s social media posts, TREF classified the personal non-public emails – which would have been technically inadmissible as evidence – as “political expenditures against particular candidates’ candidacies.”

Judge Michael Begley later ruled that Williamson Strong did not act as a PAC. TREF chose not to appeal the 2017 decision.

Lawless was also behind the investigation into Gary Humble’s campaign challenging Jack Johnson for his District 27 State Senate seat in 2022. Lawless called for an audit despite the lack of any tangible evidence or complaints filed against Humble’s campaign.

The reason for auditing Humble, who lost by a very narrow margin to Johnson, was to make sure that no illegal coordination between Humble’s campaign, and Tennessee Stands, his non-profit 501(c) 4 organization had taken place. Humble stated at the time that there would have been no reason at all to use Tennessee Stands as a PAC as he already had a PAC.

Lawless made statements to the effect that Tennessee Stands events and Humble’s campaign stops were intertwined, statements that Humble called “incendiary and emphatically false.”

Humble also called out comments from Lawless that he made in January of 2022, calling Williamson County, “the hotbed of the cesspool.”

Regarding Humble, Lawless said to other members of the Registry, “There’s some smoke there, which usually means there’s something underneath that causes it to rise. And I just want you all to dig into it.”

After an 18-month inquiry, TREF voted to cease the investigation after finding no wrongdoing.

“The work of the Registry is important and the people of Tennessee certainly deserve transparency,” said Humble. “But candidates should also have the ability to run for public office without fear of reprisal or retribution by the political establishment.”

While Lawless has seemingly influenced other members of TREF to use their authority to harass conservative Tennesseans in an attempt to infringe upon their constitutional rights, he has also come to the aid of at least one establishment Republican.

In 2018, Bill Ketron, former Republican State Senator representing District 13, who resigned to become Rutherford County Mayor, was facing $60,000 in fines related in part to late filings of his campaign finance reports. When the case was sent to the Attorney General’s Office for collection the next year, Lawless – who has Ketron to thank for his seat on the registry –  interceded on Ketron’s behalf and asked for the lawsuit to be called off.

Despite the AG’s office reminding Lawless that he had no jurisdiction over cases once turned over, he nevertheless persisted in emails to the office, even telling them that then Attorney General Herbert Slatery had his cell number if there was an issue.

Lawless not only wanted the AG’s lawsuit against Ketron stopped, he wanted the registry to reconsider the $60,000 in fines and reduce or even eliminate them altogether, despite rules that say if a fine has not been appealed or paid within 30 days that it becomes final. Lawless insisted that this was something TREF did “all of the time.” 

In a statement, the AG’s office said the opposite. “We can’t recall another time recently when that has happened.”

Registry rules also say that for fines to be reconsidered, a candidate or PAC has to make a written request, something Ketron had not done, but that Lawless claimed had been done verbally when Ketron had visited the registry early in 2019.

“I think he was here in February or in March. Somewhere along in there and he said, ‘I’d like you to reconsider it. I’d like you guys to re-look at it,’” Lawless said to fellow TREF members.

Registry minutes showed no such appearance of Ketron at any meetings.

More recently, Lawless has turned his attention to the Sumner County and Tennessee Constitutional Republicans.

After a five-month investigation involving seven interviews and the review of websites, Lawless is far from satisfied after receiving what he deemed a lackluster report from the Attorney General’s Office. He now plans for leaders of the two groups to appear before the board to further explain their operations.