Finding Legislative Information

If you are not familiar with some of the legislative resources on the Internet, I have good news for you. Our state General Assembly provides an incredible array of information and services on line. From the main legislative website (www.legislature.state.tn.us), you can find information about your legislative delegation, read bios of members, find out how to contact or e-mail members, read legislation, find out which legislators serve on committees, get status updates and fiscal impact statements on proposed bills, and even watch live streaming video or archived video footage of committee meetings and legislative sessions.

On the legislature's home page, you will find a column on the left hand side of the screen that will guide you into the more substantive parts of the website. Under the headings "Senate" or "House" or will find links to pages of information about members, committees, schedules, and calendars. Under the heading "Legislation," you can look up a bill by number or scan through an index of all legislation filed with the General Assembly during this session. You can also search bills by subject. You can even find all bills sponsored by an individual legislator by looking at the list of members in either the House or Senate and then clicking on the icon on the far right that looks like a hand signing a document.

If you enter a bill number or click on an entry in the bill index, it will take you to a page that gives a brief summary of the legislation and outlines the history of the legislation. From this main page for a bill, you can click on the bill number at the top of the page to open or download a .pdf file of the legislation (this will require Adope Acrobate Reader). If amendments have been added to the bill, you can access those as well. If the staff of the legislature has written a more detailed summary of the legislation, there will be a link to the summary on this page. From this page you can also access something called a "fiscal note." This is a document that analyzes the potential impact of legislation on both state and local governments.

The lower portion of the page tracks the status of the bills under the heading "Bill History." The latest activity on the bill in each house of the General Assembly will be listed at the top with the history working backward from there to the bills initial introduction. In some cases, it is tricky to decipher the exact status of the bills due to the abbreviations used and the dual nature of bills. Each bill has a House and Senate companion. These bills may move through committees simultaneously, or the bill may move all the way through the process in one house will the other bill sits idle.

Of course, this association is here to serve you and provide information about legislative developments. If you have questions about bills, don't hesitate to contact TCCA. But if you want to be better informed and better acquainted with what is going on with your State Legislature, I thought it would be helpful to provide a basic primer here that lets you know all the resources your legislature makes freely available to the public.

Update on Legislative Session

The legislative session is getting into full swing. Bill filing deadlines have passed and the committee calendars are starting to get full. Already this session, several significant issues affecting county government have been discussed. To date, none of these issues have been finally resolved, but several are moving through the committee process. Included in the 1800-plus new bills filed this year are proposals related to open meetings and public records; education funding; jail management; tort liability; water resources; planning and zoning; economic development; and environmental regulation. These are on top of the approximately 2400 bills that were filed in the first year of the session, many of which remain active.

There are bills that would establish new mandates on local governments, bills that would restrict revenue sources for counties and bills that would manage how local budgets are adopted and tax rates are established. There are always exceptions to the rule, but in general, the Tennessee County Commissioners Association stands for the prospect that county governments need the tools, resources, and flexibility to govern effectively. As a result, we often oppose efforts that limit the autonomy that county governments have. Every week I communicate to your Senators and Representatives about how potential legislation enhances or stifles your ability to serve your constituents. As I have been getting to know the members of our General Assembly, I find many members who began their politcal careers on the county commission. These folks are quick to recognize your issues and they are imporant allies for us in the State Legislature. They know well that you have a challenging job to perform and they commend you all for your service.

Board Meeting Scheduled

The Board of Directors of the Tennessee County Commissioners Association is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, February 6, 2008. The meeting will begin at 11:00 AM in the ground floor conference room of the Capitol Boulevard Building at 226 Capitol Blvd. in downtown Nashville.

Apart from a few routine administrative matters, the meeting will focus on pending legislation of interest to the association. If you need further information or directions to the meeting, please contact the association office at (615) 532-3767. If any person desiring to attend the meeting needs special accomodations, please contact the association at the same number to inform us of your needs.

Update on Filing Disclosure Statements

Our organization and several others expressed concerns to the Ethics Commission about the ability of local officials to comply with the electronic filing requirement for disclosure statements. At a meeting earlier this week, the Ethics Commission considered the issue and voted to change the practice for this year. The commission will allow both paper and electronic filing and has stated that it will not pursue sanctions for failure to meet the January 31 deadline so long as the statement is filed, electronically or by paper, by February 15. Printable forms are now available on the ethics commission website: www.state.tn.us/soc/tec

The Ethics Commission was very responsive to our association's concerns and I appreciate very much their consideration on this matter and willingness to work with us. I believe the commission's staff has also been working very hard to assist a great number of officials who called them with problems they were having with the electronic system. According to the commission website, over 2100 local officials have successfully filed electronically since January 8 when the portal was activitated. The commission is still very committed to moving toward electronic based filing for this statement to the extent possible. If you have internet access and an e-mail account (which you probably do if you are reading this post), I encourage you to use the electronic filing system.

Filing your 2008 Disclosure of Interest Statement

For elected county officials, the 2008 Disclosure of Interest Statement is due January 31, 2008.

This is the disclosure statement that was formerly filed with your local county election commission office. After the passage of the Comprehensive Governmental Ethics Reform Act of 2006, the form is now filed with the State Ethics Commission. You should have filed a disclosure statement with that office in January 2007.

This year, the Ethics Commission is requiring that the statement be filed electronically. According to the Ethics Commission website, county elected officials should have received an authorization number in the mail which will permit filers to access the system starting on Monday, January 7, 2008. Filers will be required to sign in on the Conflicts portal, establish a TN.gov account with their authorization number and complete the Disclosure of Interest Statement. The Ethics Commission is indicating that it will no longer be accepting paper Statements. The Ethics Commission also has posted a schedule of statewide training seminars to instruct you on how to file your statement electronically. It appears there will be 17 training seminars taught across the state during January, so you should be able to find one near you. You can find that schedule of times and locations here: http://state.tn.us/sos/tec/TrainingClasses.pdf

The primary Ethics Commission Website is here: http://state.tn.us/sos/tec/

If you are reading this information here, you probably will not have substantial difficulty using their websites or filing electronically. Many of your fellow commissioners will not have it as easy. There are still many county commissioners who do not have e-mail or internet access. If you or one of your fellow commissioners has concerns about this requirement for electronic filing, please let me know ASAP. The Ethics Commission will meet on Jan. 15th and there may be a chance to present these concerns to the Ethics Commission at that time.

Constituent Communications

This post builds on the previous one. Besides being useful for communications of statewide associations, I would suggest to you that websites and e-mail are also highly effective and often expected and preferred means of communication for your voters and constituents. I remember the first time I saw a notice about a neighborhood association website, I found it ironic. Why go on the Internet to communicate with the people who live down the street? But more and more, our citizens are communicating with distant relatives and sharing pictures of grandkids through e-mail. Churches and community groups use e-mail and websites to provide information about activities and events. Some people expect and often prefer to go to a website for information rather than calling an office to get the information they need.

I know of at least one county in Tennessee where some of the commissioners are using websites very effectively to communicate with their constituents. Blount County Commissioners Wendy Pitts Reeves and Mike Walker each have blogs (a shortened term for "web - log") where they post information about their work as county commissioners. Wendy set hers up in 2006 when she was first running for the commission and she has used it regularly ever since to interact with her electorate. You can find her website at pittsreeves.blogspot.com. Mike started his in August of this year at commissionerwalker.blogspot.com. I strongly encourage you to check these sites out. The commissioners regularly post information about hearings and meetings in the county. The websites give them the opportunity to express their opinions or explain their positions to consitituents and also to hear comments and concerns back from the voters of their districts. To me, this is a very promising means of increasing voter awareness and citizen involvement with their government. Too many of our people feel uninformed or disenfranchized with their government. Giving them a resource to learn from and communicate readily with their elected representatives helps restore that relationship.

Sites like Wendy's and Mike's (and this one) may be created quickly and hosted for free through on-line hosting services. While they require a little bit of familiarity with using a computer, the hosting sites have sample templates available that let you select a basic format and get a site up and going in a short space of time. There are standard forms and easy instructions for writing and editing content for your posts. If you do take a stab at creating a site of your own, let me know. I'd be happy to link to it here and help publicize your site and the good work you are doing for your community.

Communication in the Modern Era

In the coming weeks, I will be sending a letter to chairs of county commissions across the state. My desire is for each county (or at least each county that does not already have a member on the board of directors of TCCA) to designate a contact person for association communications. Preferably the designees will have an e-mail account that is checked regularly where they can receive communications from the association. In the modern era of legislative work, the time frames are all compressed. It is essential to the effectiveness of our organization for me to be able to quickly get information about legislative developments to our membership. My hope is that the contact person for each county can receive an e-mail and then disseminate the information to the other commissioners in the county. This will not only keep commissioners better informed, but will help our association communicate with State Representatives and Senators in each county about the issues affecting local government. If you are interested in serving in such capacity, contact the chair of your commission or contact my office. Unfortunately, with over 1600 members, it is cost prohibitive for me to regularly send hard copy mailings to the entire membership. To the extent we can utilize electronic communication, we can share much more information for virtually no additional cost.

Also, this website will hopefully serve as a place where commissioners can check regularly for information about the activities at the General Assembly. If you are reading this site and finding it useful and informative, encourage your fellow commissioners to check it out as well or feel free to print out and share content from the site.