Tennessee Representative Fights For More Transparency In The House

Image: Pictured Left to Right – Rep. Chris Todd, Tori Venable, Gary Humble Image Credit: The Tennessee Conservative

The Tennessee Conservative [By Jason Vaughn] –

During the Conservative Brain Trust Panel at the Tennessee Freedom Summit last Saturday, August 20th in Nashville, Representative Chris Todd (R-District 73-Madison County) said that he and the legislature are working to increase transparency for those citizens seeking to follow legislation in the Tennessee House.

Tori Venable of Americans for Prosperity Tennessee spoke of the current problems with transparency in the Tennessee legislature. 

“We have a real transparency issue in Nashville…We have a process called ‘caption bills’ and there are good reasons to have them.  However, there is no process to have the amendments published online for public review before those amendments, that can change a bill entirely, are voted on.  We want to see every amendment placed online for public review before it’s voted on…,” Venable said.

In response, Representative Todd revealed, “In the House, at least, we’re about to have it this year where every single amendment that is filed at the clerk’s office goes online immediately.”

Todd stated that once the new process is in place, when citizens visit capitol.tn.gov and go to a bill page, amendments will be clearly visible with the rest of the bill’s information.

“I’ve been working for three and a half years on that, I’ve been the squeaky wheel and I won’t quit squeaking on that,” Todd said.

Todd stated that, as a representative, he currently can’t even see the amendments on his home computer or mobile devices and can only view them on the computer in his office at the capitol that is loaded with a program unavailable outside state government offices.

Todd said that no one could give him a reason why this extra transparency couldn’t be added for the public stating that House Speaker Sexton approved and the rollout should be within the next month or two.

The implementation of this change is not a matter of changing House Rules but is simply a function in the Clerk’s office.

Todd explained that the clerk’s office did not initially know how they would implement the change because it will alter the current steps involved in posting bill information.

However, Todd said, “Every week during Session they publish an Amendment Pack, which is an onerous number of pages, it can be a thousand pages and every citizen just has to go over that and figure out what bills are affected by amendments and so this will simplify that.  At the same point in time that they free the amendment pack, they’ll put the amendments with the bills once and for all and create transparency that will be good for everybody.”

Whether the Senate will follow suit is unknown, but Todd assumes they will probably follow the House’s lead on this issue.

About the Author: Jason Vaughn, Media Coordinator for The Tennessee Conservative  ~ Jason previously worked for a legacy publishing company based in Crossville, TN in a variety of roles through his career.  Most recently, he served as Deputy Director for their flagship publication. Prior, he was a freelance journalist writing articles that appeared in the Herald Citizen, the Crossville Chronicle and The Oracle among others.  He graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a Bachelor’s in English-Journalism, with minors in Broadcast Journalism and History.  Contact Jason at news@TennesseeConservativeNews.com