(Photo: Metro Nashville Police)
The recent introduction — and rapid withdrawal — of legislation to eliminate local authority over police surveillance cameras by a Democratic lawmaker in the state legislature has raised eyebrows in Nashville.
State Rep. John Ray Clemmons, a Nashville Democrat, introduced a bill that would effectively gut local oversight of controversial surveillance technology like license plate readers (LPRs) — automated cameras that capture and analyze images of vehicle license plates.
Nashville’s Metro Council spent nearly two years debating LPR regulations. The prolonged debate, which included a series of community meetings and a six-month pilot program in 2023, resulted in a regulatory framework limiting local police use of the cameras and requiring the department to delete all data after 10 days.
LPRs remain a divisive issue in the city. The Metro Nashville Police Department has yet to present any vendor contracts for the council’s approval, the last step that’s needed to deploy the cameras countywide.
I don’t know where Clemmons lives, but I’d have to assume it’s somewhere under a rock. That’s where you’d have to be to have missed the intense public debate the city has had over this very issue. To think bypassing your own damn city’s governing body on this hyperlocal, incredibly emotionally fraught debate is a good idea?
The silent treatment
But writing about the bill became unexpectedly complicated. I reached out to Clemmons, asked for comment on why he introduced the bill and why he was walking it back.
Clemmons at first called the bill a “non-issue” via text message, then, through his spokesperson, said he’d have a call with me. A couple of days later, Clemmons changed his mind. Since Clemmons planned to withdraw the bill, his spokesperson said, he wouldn’t be fielding questions about it.
But no one else would talk either, not even people who appeared to be instrumental in talking to Clemmons about the wisdom of pulling the bill. Not even a “no comment.” Just crickets.
Not a non-issue
Local Democrats and anti-surveillance activists see the non-bill as worthy of discussion. The seven or eight people who did talk to me — off the record — maintain that the story is worth telling, lest another state lawmaker get any bright ideas about trampling all over Nashville’s efforts to direct the ways and reasons for which the police are authorized to use surveillance technology.
Councilmember Rollin Horton said he was surprised to see a Nashville lawmaker file a bill to preempt a local measure, especially in such sweeping fashion. In addition to preempting Nashville’s existing regulations of surveillance technology, the bill would have allowed the police to bypass local procurement requirements and enter into contracts without the Metro Council’s approval.
“How can we condemn state preemption on other issues when this bill is, in fact, state preemption,” said Horton. Clemmons’ bill or any similar effort by a local Democrat in the future could set a “dangerous precedent” and “silence our city’s discussions and concerns,” Horton added.
Anti-surveillance activist Lydia Yousief, who runs the Elmahaba Center in Nashville, said Clemmons’ withdrawal of the bill is not cause for celebration.
How can we condemn state preemption on other issues when this bill is, in fact, state preemption?
– Metro Nashville Councilmember Rollin Horton
“You can’t slap somebody in the face and say, ‘Oh, my bad,’ without a full discussion as to why you thought this was appropriate,” said Yousief. “It doesn’t necessarily matter that the bill doesn’t exist anymore. What is concerning is the lack of transparency about why you think these are good ideas.”
Ceding the high ground
Democrats in the state legislature have, for years, bemoaned the Republican supermajority’s efforts to preempt local control over all manner of issues, from short-term rentals to school vouchers.
Given this history, local Democrats were surprised to see one of their own looking to preempt Nashville’s rules governing police use of surveillance technology. Nashville Democrats wouldn’t have been surprised if the bill had come from a Republican lawmaker; in 2022, two Republicans filed, but ultimately withdrew, a preemption bill similar to the one Clemmons proposed last month.
Nashville Metro Council passes controversial license plate readers
In his “prebuttal” to the governor’s state of the state address this year, Clemmons spoke about Democrats’ focus on strengthening public safety “by addressing the root causes of crime — poverty, lack of health services, unsafe housing, and easy access to illegal guns.”
Conspicuously missing from that list: allowing local police to bypass the local governing body to unilaterally implement a massive surveillance network free of any oversight or accountability.
But that’s just what Clemmons was looking to do, and withdrawing the bill – or refusing to talk about it — won’t make the issue go away.
Clemmons ended his prebuttal with a call to action: “We can get our state back on track…But we need your voice. Demand better.”
On this, I’ll agree: we should demand better. But those demands shouldn’t be limited to the Republicans in the room. Democrats shouldn’t get a pass just because they don’t want to turn Guantanamo Bay into a glorified concentration camp for undocumented immigrants.
If you want to claim the moral high ground, you’ve got to be willing to acknowledge when you’ve lost it.
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