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Vox Populi
Oct. 3rd, 2007 02:50 amI don't know if the word is getting out nationally, but the government for the county surrounding Knoxville has been the focus of a constitutional crisis which is now in court.
The Tennessee state voters put in place limits on how many terms a politician can hold an office. Well, many of the Knox county politicos believed that either 1) that law didn't apply to THEM; 2) if it did, they could have it overturned. So they ran for re-election to their incumbent offices and won them--and soon learned that the law DID apply and because the term limits disqualified them they were forced out of office. This included many county commissioners, the sheriff, and several other key county office positions.
In an attempt to minimize the "damage", they held a quickie session, and appointed their own successors---often relatives, friends, and underlings loyal to them. This alone should have been easily seen as odious. The problem that did them all in was the fact that parts of the process that should have been subject (BY LAW) to public debate were in fact done by out-of-chambers "horse trading"--some of which was caught on video by roving reporters.
The local newspaper and a group of concerned citizens sued the government for breach of what is called the "Sunshine Law", the law I alluded to in the previous paragraph. Public policy must be decided in a public manner. The suit went to jury, and the government LOST. All the appointments were rendered null and void. As of now, the county government there is a "lame duck" government, and there may need to be a special election to re-fill all those county offices. Who knows?--maybe Knoxville metro government will just annex the remainder of the county and abolish the county government!
You say you want a revolution? Well, you know...
FP
The Tennessee state voters put in place limits on how many terms a politician can hold an office. Well, many of the Knox county politicos believed that either 1) that law didn't apply to THEM; 2) if it did, they could have it overturned. So they ran for re-election to their incumbent offices and won them--and soon learned that the law DID apply and because the term limits disqualified them they were forced out of office. This included many county commissioners, the sheriff, and several other key county office positions.
In an attempt to minimize the "damage", they held a quickie session, and appointed their own successors---often relatives, friends, and underlings loyal to them. This alone should have been easily seen as odious. The problem that did them all in was the fact that parts of the process that should have been subject (BY LAW) to public debate were in fact done by out-of-chambers "horse trading"--some of which was caught on video by roving reporters.
The local newspaper and a group of concerned citizens sued the government for breach of what is called the "Sunshine Law", the law I alluded to in the previous paragraph. Public policy must be decided in a public manner. The suit went to jury, and the government LOST. All the appointments were rendered null and void. As of now, the county government there is a "lame duck" government, and there may need to be a special election to re-fill all those county offices. Who knows?--maybe Knoxville metro government will just annex the remainder of the county and abolish the county government!
You say you want a revolution? Well, you know...
FP
