The
State of Disclosure in Tennessee
Tennessee
improved from a D- to a C in 2007, with
improvements in the Campaign Disclosure
Law and Electronic Filing categories
strengthening the state’s overall
disclosure program.
Following
the governor’s formation
of a Citizen’s Advisory Group on
Ethics, and the formation of a new legislative
ethics committee, the focus on reform in
Tennessee resulted in the passage of the “Comprehensive
Governmental Ethics Reform Act of 2006”.
The new law expands candidate disclosure
requirements to include: additional non-election
year and pre-election campaign reporting;
occupation and employer reporting for contributions
over $100; and disclosure of subvendor
payments. The new law also made electronic
filing mandatory for all candidates who
raise or spend $1,000 for an election,
moving Tennessee from and F to an A in
the Electronic Filing category.
Tennessee
improved from a D- to a D in the accessibility
category in 2007, though the state slipped
five places in the rankings as other
states made improvements. The Tennessee
Registry of Election Finance (TREF) has
cut the time it takes for paper-filed
reports to be posted online. The state
has also made public review of documents
easier by eliminating the need to provide
name, address and identification before
reviewing records. The disclosure site
offers the public the ability to search
a database of contributions by donor name
and date but does not yet offer a searchable
database of expenditures. TREF’s
2006 Annual Report notes that the agency
is working on plans to allow “the
public to conduct searches on almost all
of the information disclosed by candidates… including
occupation, employer, zip codes… and
to download the information.” For
those seeking to receive large amounts
of campaign data on disk, TREF now fulfills
such requests at no cost.
Tennessee’s grade dropped again
in the area of Online Contextual and Technical
Usability as accessing data on the site
was more difficult for usability testers
than in 2005. Testers rated their experiences
on the site as below average again in 2007,
and Project researchers found it difficult
to access the governor’s 2005 filings
through the “Search Candidate” feature.
The TREF site contains a good amount of
contextual information for the public,
including excellent overviews of campaign
finance trends, candidate lists, information
about campaign disclosure requirements
and an online demonstration of how to navigate
the database.
→ Quick
Fix: Add additional search
fields to the contributions database,
such as donor employer and zip
code, and contribution amount.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Summaries of candidates’ campaign
financing are available from 1996
through 2006 and include totals raised
and spent by each candidate, including
totals from each reporting period. View
image
 Disclosure Agency: Tennessee Registry of Election Finance
Disclosure Web Site: http://www.state.tn.us/tref
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