Tennessee Campaign Finance Watchdog Rejects Settlement Offer On Lawmaker Complaint

Rep. Michele Reneau says 2024 attack ads violated state law.

Image: A political action committee ran ads attacking Rep. Michelle Reneau, a Chattanooga Republican, in her 2024 race against former Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, also a Republican. Image Credit: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout

By Sam Stockard [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –

Tennessee’s campaign finance watchdog is balking at a political action committee’s offer to pay a $2,500 settlement in connection with illicit attack ads against a 2024 Republican House candidate.

Tom Lawless, chairman of the Registry of Election Finance, questioned the proposal in last week’s board meeting and told the Lookout the offer isn’t high enough. He added that political professionals know the state’s rules for running campaigns yet try to skirt them and then get away with paying a small penalty.

Attorneys for Civic Engagement Forum and its officer, Thomas Datwyler, admitted in a letter to the Registry of Election Finance that the group constituted a political campaign committee for activity from July through August last year and should have registered and filed expenditure reports with the state.

To settle the matter and avoid further costs and uncertainty, attorney Edward Greim of Kansas City, Missouri, proposed a $2,500 payment. 

In its July meeting, though, the board opted against accepting the settlement and decided to delve further into claims by Republican Rep. Michele Reneau that Datwyler, a political operative connected to several Tennessee officials, illegally ran attack ads against her.

Reneau, of Signal Mountain, filed the complaint with the Registry last year after narrowly defeating veteran Republican Rep. Patsy Hazlewood in the August primary.

The filing claims groups identified as Civic Engagement Forum and Citizen Engagement Forum, both linked to Wisconsin-based Datwyler, ran a website dedicated to defeating Reneau and sent out text messages critical of her without registering in Tennessee as a political action committee or disclosing expenses. The Tennessee Journal reported on the matter initially.

“They admitted that they should have filed, which is a real, big problem,” Lawless told the Lookout this week.

Civic Engagement Forum ran Facebook posts saying Reneau was “Too dangerous for TN” and pictured her wearing a tin-foil hat and tying her to an organization called the Weston Price Foundation and saying the head coverings protect people from radiation and COVID-19. The group advocates for raw milk and a ban on childhood vaccinations and soy products.

Reneau reportedly told the Registry board last week she spent three days during the 2024 campaign telling voters the mailers were false. She estimated Facebook ads, text messaging and roughly 3,500 print mailers cost nearly $7,000. If a group’s expenditures exceed $1,000, it must register with the state. 

Datwyler also works for U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles of Culleoka and U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger of East Tennessee and was the focus of a collusion complaint filed last year by Sen. Ken Yager of Kingston against first-year Sen. Bobby Harshbarger when he defeated incumbent Sen. Jon Lundberg of Bristol. Datwyler ran the East Tennessee Conservatives, a dark-money group that spent more than a half-million dollars to defeat Lundberg, while also serving as treasurer for U.S. Rep. Harshbarger, the mother of state Sen. Harshbarger.

The Registry dismissed the matter this spring at Yager’s request, even though Lawless and other members wanted to subpoena Datwyler last fall to question him about his role in the Harshbarger-Lundberg campaign.

The Reneau complaint could have taken the same turn, but the Registry turned the case over to the Attorney General’s office, which subpoenaed and interviewed Datwyler, the treasurer of Civic Engagement Forum.

Datwyler denied personal knowledge of Citizen Engagement Forum, Reneau’s candidacy or the group’s actions as a political action committee, according to a report by the Attorney General’s office.

He also said he knew nothing about Citizen Engagement Forum’s distribution of print materials opposing Reneau but sent the AG’s office four documents created by the group in response to an information request. He told investigators he didn’t look at the documents and had no idea why Civic Engagement Forum sent him documents belonging to Citizen Engagement Forum, saying only that it was possible the groups collaborated on materials opposing Reneau’s candidacy.

He declined to provide contact information about three board members for Civic Engagement Forum, telling investigators the organization had no physical location.

The Attorney General’s office determined Citizen Engagement and Civic Engagement are connected because they use the same content and graphics and cite the same articles about Weston Price. Investigators also found that even though Datwyler claimed no connection to Citizen Engagement Forum or knowledge of its campaign activity opposing Reneau, he confirmed he had campaign materials nearly identical to those sent out by Citizen Engagement Forum and received them from “the client,” Civic Engagement Forum.

The Registry board might not have latched on to the matter if former member Tom Morton of East Tennessee hadn’t noted that Reneau’s complaint detailed mailers and other documents with the same Wisconsin address as those used by Datwyler and the East Tennessee Conservatives PAC, the Tennessee Journal reported.