For Newly Elected County Commissioners

Congratulations to all those who were elected to serve on county commissions across the state last Thursday. Many are returning to continue their service to the communities. Many will be embarking on their first experience with holding elected office.

For those newly elected county commissioners, I strongly recommend you consider attending the County Officials Orientation Program in Nashville the last week of August. This event is a joint effort between the various statewide county officials organizations and the University of Tennessee County Technical Assistance Service (CTAS). If you are not familiar with CTAS, it is a very valuable resource for county officials in Tennessee. Check out their website at http://www.ctas.tennessee.edu/. for a wealth of training manuals, statistical information and training opportunities. The County Officials Orientation Program for county mayors, county commissioners and county highway officials will be held the afternoon of August 24th and the morning of August 25th at the Nashville Airport Marriot. Registration is free for all newly elected county officials. For more details, see the registration brochure
here.

Agenda for the County Officials Orientation Program

After this Thursday, there will be an entire new crop of elected county officials. One of the best things a newly elected county official can do is attend a workshop in Nashville later this month sponsored by the University of Tennessee County Technical Assistance Service. This training event is held from August 24th through 26th in Nashville. Different officials will attend different days. The program is set up so that an official would attend a general session one afternoon and an office specific program the next morning.

A basic agenda for the session can be found here.

Early Voting by County

Secretary of State Tre Hargett has posted the numbers for early voting through the 28th and projects that we may set a record.
See the rate of voting by county and by day here.

Primary Elections for County Commission

As we move closer to the 2010 county elections in Tennessee, I have been asked how many counties in Tennessee hold primary elections for the position of county commissioner. While municipal elections in Tennessee are by law non-partisan, the decision of whether or not to conduct primary elections for county offices is up to the individual county executive committees of the political parties. A clear majority of counties in Tennessee do not hold a primary election for the office of county commissioner. In 2006, 57 counties held no primary. For 2010, 58 counties are not holding a primary election for the office. There are 24 counties that hold both Democratic and Republican primaries for county commission. Six counties hold a Democratic primary only and seven hold a Republican primary only. From 2006, to 2010 there have been only marginal changes to this practice. For a larger view of the chart, click on the image.

General Assembly Re-Convenes - Special Session Begins

On January 12th, the General Assembly returned to Nashville for the 2010 legislative session. Many legislators actually returned the previous day to House and Senate Education and Finance meetings related to a Special Session on education. Governor Bredesen called the legislature into a special session in order to rapidly consider the adoption of certain education reforms that would better position the state in its application for Federal Race to the Top education grants. The state's application is due on January 19th.

Before the special session began, the House and Senate held regular floor sessions at noon today. Of note to county governments, the Senate took up legislation to delay the implementation of the Voter Confidence Act to 2012. The House passed legislation to delay implementation last year, but the Senate fell one vote short on passing the bill on the last day of session. After lengthy discussion and debate and consideration of several amendments, the Senate voted 22-10 to delay implementation of the act to the 2012 election cycle. The legislation will now go to the Governor for his consideration.

New Materials on Main TCCA Website

Two new information tabs have been added to the TCCA website, http://www.tncountycommissioners.org/.

One tab includes a basic office description for the office of county commissioner in Tennessee. It describes the qualifications, oath of office, compensation, duties and other aspects of the office of county commissioner. This material is adapted from information provided by the Univeristy of Tennessee County Technical Assistance Service and is used with their permission.

The other new tab includes information about the 2010 County Election. For now, there are only basic calendars of important dates and deadlines. We plan to add additional information.

I should also note that the results of the county commission survey are available under the "Information and Resources" tab of the page, or you can link directly to the results here. This material is the same as was reported in the December issue of our newsletter.


If there are other resources or information that you would like to see on our website, please let us know and we will see what we can do.

TN SCORE Announces Statewide Gubernatorial Forum on Education

The Tennessee County Commissioners Association is partnering with the Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) and other partners to host next year's first statewide gubernatorial forum, focusing on education and economic development. The forum will be held on January 14, 2010, at 7:00 p.m. central time at the Curb Event Center on the Belmont University campus in Nashville. The forum will be broadcast live on CBS affilaites across the state.

If you are interested in attending this event in person, please contact me. Attendance will be limited, but our association will be able to provide tickets to interested officials.

Voter Confidence Act Lawsuit

Davidson County Chancellor Russell Perkins today denied an injunction to force the Secretary of State to comply with the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act immediately. For more information, see the Nashville City Paper article here:

http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/chancellor-denies-injunction-paper-ballot-case