Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Politics / Woods GOP Election Commissioners Call Sunshine Law 'Crazy'
Posted by Jeff Woods on Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 1:20 PM
Those wacky Rutherford County Republicans are at it again. They only just took control of the election commission, and already they're holding secret meetings and calling the cops to toss reporters out on the street. It got so testy last night that Murfreesboro Post publisher Mike Pirtle and Daily News Journal Editor Jimmy Hart arrived. They tried to hand commission chair Tom Walker a copy of the state's Sunshine Law. From the Post:
Walker was informed it is against state law to close a public meeting. He was then offered a copy of the Sunshine Law (T.C.A. 8-44-101), which he declined, claiming he does not care what the law is and is just trying to protect the applicants by closing the meeting. State law says, "the formation of public policy and decisions is public business and shall not be conducted in secret." "We've got some crazy laws in this country," Republican Commissioner Doris Jones said.h/t Christian Grantham
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It's easy to make fun of "wacky Republicans" for thinking that employment matters ought to be handled in private.... but they're right, and we all know it. When the search process is public, the best potential applicants wont apply and risk having their employers know they're job hunting.(More experienced commissioners would have skirted the law by having private, pre-meeting discussions or recruiting a favored applicant and discouraging others from applying.) Don't be so quick to ridicule these neophytes for publicly calling this law "crazy." It is.
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Posted by
Henry Walker
on 06/23/2009 at 3:43 PM
