County Lacks Oversight for Local Candidates' Campaign Financing

Election commission administrator says fundraising accountability rests with media, public

The Knox County Election Commission has disclosed first-quarter finance reports of local candidates on its Web site, but no auditing procedure exists in either the Knox County Charter or Tennessee Code Annotated for monitoring the local election candidates’ incoming or outgoing funds.

Elections administrator Greg Mackay says the election commission makes the reports accessible to the public, but the responsibility for holding local candidates accountable for fundraising and spending resides with local media and the voters.

Though candidates seeking state-level offices are responsible for filing their paperwork with the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance, Drew Rawlins, the executive director, says the state does not perform oversight for candidates in local elections and leaves each county with the decision of whether to perform auditing duties. The state is only concerned, he says, with candidates running for higher-profile offices with much larger sums of money than those of local candidates.

At www.knoxcounty.org/election, the reports of all Knox County Commission candidates, with the exception of commissioner 4A candidate Finbarr Saunders, had on-hand balances of no more than $10,000 as of March 31, the latest quarter’s filing date. These sums are greatly out-fundraised by state office-seekers, such as Tennessee Sen. Jamie Woodson, whose latest report with the state’s registry was $141,755 as of April 10.

The highest fundraiser running for office in Knox County is incumbent Sheriff Jimmy “J.J.” Jones — with $54,665 as of March 31 — having approximately 11 times more money than his opponent Randy Tyree.

Corey Johns, vice chairman of the Knox County Republican Party, doesn’t feel uncomfortable with a lack of local campaign finance monitoring.

“In local elections, you’re dealing with such relatively small sums of dollars raised that most of the process is fairly transparent without any excessive oversight,” Johns says. “The Republican Party is more concerned with proper stewardship of taxpayer dollars — more so than campaign finance dollars.”

Rawlins says the state code does not specifically speak to the auditing powers and procedures of local candidates’ campaigns.

“Since it’s not addressed in the statute, we have advised the county election commissions that it is up to them to determine how they handle campaign finance filing reviews,” says Rawlins. “The Registry does not see the reports for local officials so would not be able to review them.”

As chairwoman of the Knox County Election Commission since 2003, Pamela Reeves says as long as she has been involved with the commission, it has never instated an oversight procedure. She says when questions have arisen in the past, they have usually related to “housekeeping issues” resulting from human errors in filing, a candidate who perhaps wants to challenge his or her opponent’s report or a “questionable expenditure” but have never spurred a full investigation.

“I think normally if it was anything that any of us thought was a real issue, we would have contacted the candidate or the candidate’s treasurer to get to the bottom of it,” she says.

But the Tennessee Campaign Financial Disclosure Laws may be difficult to interpret with such sparse context provided in local candidates’ report submissions without the aid of knowledgeable advisory. Rawlins points to statutes that could be seemingly contradictory without more details.

In TCA 2-10-114(b)(2)(H), which discusses one type of prohibited use of campaign funds, the law lists one unacceptable use as “Admission to a sporting event … charitable event or other form of entertainment, unless the event is an expense associated with a legitimate campaign or officeholder activity, where the tickets to such event are provided … to persons involved in the candidate’s or officeholder’s campaign … ”

However, In TCA 2-10-114(a), which defines some permitted uses of campaign money, the law states candidates may expend funds to 501(c)(3) organizations, many of which are charitable groups.

When Knoxville Voice asked Rawlins to comment whether an expenditure listed on Sheriff Jones’ first-quarter report as “Knox Area Rescue Ministries golf tournament” with an entrance fee of $600 was in keeping with the statute prohibiting admission to sporting and charitable events, he wrote in an e-mail: “As to whether the expenditures violate TCA 2-10-114(b)(2)(H), additional information would be necessary.”

Jones did not return KV’s phone calls to his office for a response.

Larry Roe, the administrator of elections in neighboring Union County, says his county’s election commission does not currently have an oversight policy for local elections either but believes that may change for all counties soon.
“I do expect state law to mandate it, though, in the near future,” he says.

Tyree says if Knox County voters wanted to see a provision in the charter for local campaign finance review, it could find its way on a ballot in the form of a citizen referendum. He says he believes in light of recent turmoil within county government regarding term limits, the Open Meetings Act and procurement cards, voters are more engaged now than they have ever been in local politics.

“It is a time when the soil is certainly fertile for any kind of measures that can provide more accountability for the officeholders,” Tyree says.

Despite the lack of charter verbiage to outline local campaign fundraising oversight, the Knox County Election Commission may institute its own practices regardless of a statute, if the community is in favor of such a provision.

 “We will certainly discuss it and see if this is something we need to revisit,” Reeves says.