The Tennessee Registry of Election Finance is questioning the funding sources of a pro-transit organization in Nashville. (Photo: John Partipilo)
A group pouring more than $2 million into passing Metro Nashville’s transportation referendum is being ordered to register as a political action committee in an effort to show who is funding it.
Whether that will bring transparency remains unclear because numerous groups with nonprofit status, most of them supporters of private-school vouchers, have skirted state campaign finance laws to hide their benefactors.
But the Registry of Election Finance sent a letter Tuesday to the attorney for Nashville Moves Action Fund — a nonprofit entity with a 501(c)4 tax designation that, technically, enables it to avoid listing donors – notifying him the group needs to file as a PAC because of the way it’s operating. The letter from Bill Young, executive director of the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, to attorney Ben Gastel points out Nashville Moves, the entity behind Green Lights for Nashville, has received numerous contributions from registered multi-candidate campaign committees for the third quarter and pre-general reporting periods, factors that make it a political campaign committee under state law and require it to register.
Young’s letter also says a website paid for by Green Lights of Nashville, hownashvillemoves.com, has a donate button that directs people to a page soliciting contributions for Nashville Moves Action Fund. As such, it meets the definition of a referendum committee and must register with the state by Nov. 5, Election Day.
The Registry believes Green Lights for Nashville PAC and Nashville Moves Action Fund are related because they share the same physical address and web address.
In other words, Nashville Moves is doing the same thing for a liberal mayor that dark money forces do for ultra-conservative candidates. If donors were unveiled in this new case, people likely would see a major coalition of businesses and political shakers who think Metro Nashville needs a modern transportation system. Some who are Republicans just don’t want to be linked to Mayor Freddie O’Connell, even if he is good at being the “neighborhood” mayor and a business community backer.
Nashville Moves Action Fund. Registration Demand Letter
Getting lost in all of this is O’Connell’s proposal to pass a referendum raising the local sales tax to 9.75% from 9.25% to pay for miles of new sidewalks, more bus routes and better safety for bicyclists and walkers. It could cost about $3.1 billion, but the city also could receive $1.4 billion from the feds over 15 years, according to Axios.
Green Lights for Nashville PAC reported $707,122 in receipts at the end of September and disbursements totalling $542,342, in addition to $87,221 in in-kind contributions. Of that total, $620,000 came from Nashville Moves Action Fund, then Green Lights paid for nearly $530,000 in TV ads and another $12,000 for digital media and yard signs.
In its defense, in-kind contributions came in from TIRRC Votes PAC (Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition), Stand Up Nashville Inc., the Davidson County Democratic Party and the Equity Alliance Fund, so not all of its support was derived from one group.
The group raised the ante after that.
Green Lights for Nashville PAC’s recent amended filing from Oct. 26 shows another $1.3 million donation from Nashville Moves Action Fund, about $100,000 in in-kind contributions and $1.3 million in expenditures for TV ad buys and $10,300 for radio ads. TIRRC Votes PAC provided $34,689 for canvassing and phone banking and Nashville Moves gave another $65,400 in campaign services and field work.
Because of nonprofit status, the groups declined to show who made contributions. That could be reconsidered, according to Young.
The entity was created solely to support the transit plan, and not identifying contributors to a large group that funnels money from a PAC “seems problematic,” according to Young.
Gastel didn’t return a phone call. Green Lights treasurer Jeff Morris also declined to comment.
Registry letters followed a sworn complaint by Bill Howell of Property Tax 4 Nashville Transit, an opponent of the mayor’s transportation plan, who asked the district attorney general and Registry to look into the matter.
“The refusal of the parties to provide meaningful information about their campaign activities and finances deprives the voters of relevant information for their voting decisions and will adversely affect the confidence of the public in the outcome of the referendum,” Howell’s letter says.
Another opposition group, the Committee to Stop Unfair Tax, which is solely funded with $50,000 from former car dealership magnate Lee Beaman, is said to be bent out of shape, too, about dark money behind Nashville Moves.
The Registry’s next meeting is set for Jan. 23, but members could hold a special session in November if they can drum up support to bring in members from across the state to consider this question: Why not show your donors?
To which Green Lights could answer: Why are we being singled out?
Or are they? At least they haven’t been subpoenaed.
The Lee trip debate
As it tries to follow the money, the Ethics Commission also continues to probe the group and its nonprofit entity that paid for Gov. Bill Lee to speak at its summer conference in sunny South Florida.
Attorneys for the state watchdog group recently sent letters to Alliance Defending Freedom and Alliance Defending Freedom Action asking it a litany of questions about the relationship between the two.
All of this is geared toward a decision by the Tennessee Ethics Commission, which Lee asked to determine whether he broke any rules.
The entities defend themselves by saying the nonprofit entity employs a Tennessee-registered lobbyist, Matt Lorimar, but that the main entity paid for the governor’s trip to an upscale beach for a conference speech.
Ethics staff, though, asks whether the two groups are “affiliates” as defined in a court case over whether corporations are related as subsidiaries, parents or siblings.
The letter also seeks a list of the entities’ officers to determine whether any are shared and a copy of a shared services agreement. It also wants to know amounts paid from one entity to the nonprofit, and the percentage of funding the operating group receives from the action group.
In addition, it asks several questions about Lorimar and whether he attended the event or had any part in it. Other queries focus on the groups’ missions, the location of physical offices, dates and places for board meetings and even whether the two file consolidated or separate tax returns.
Ethics staff wants answers returned by Nov. 4.
Special session for what?
Lawmakers can be an irritable sort, especially when they feel they’re being forced to vote for something that could hurt them at the ballot box.
The idea that the governor could call a special session to take up private-school vouchers – whether before Christmas or in early January – has them grabbing at their throats like someone who needs the Heimlich maneuver.
Key lawmakers have floated the governor’s plan to pass universal vouchers, even as eight counties in East Tennessee try to survive the Hurricane Helene flood. But rather than use untouched voucher money, Gov. Lee’s plan is to tap $100 million in TennCare funds to provide no-interest loans to damaged counties.
That’s not cutting it for some.
Most lawmakers call talk of a special session “pure speculation.”
If anything, though, they say a special session should be called to approve grants for damaged counties, not loans.
Customarily, an early January session would be for emergency situations, such as the special session Lee called in early 2021 to deal with the effects of COVID-19 on public schools.
The jury is still out on whether that yielded anything consequential. Another session called by lawmakers in October 2021 tried to bend the business community to the Legislature’s will, forcing some lawmakers to question whether they were giving up their deeply held beliefs. But when they wanted to tell businesses how to handle the pandemic, they almost sent Ford Motor Co. running back to Michigan, just after giving the company nearly $1 billion for an electric pickup truck plant in West Tennessee on state property.
In this era, lawmakers seem more interested in getting out of sessions and going home to raise money — or at least make money off ham breakfasts. Talk about a special session for private school vouchers is making them antsy, especially when it’s not clear the plan has enough House votes to pass. The Senate likely would be much easier work.
While people are still uncovering from flood-swept rubble in East Tennessee, lawmakers really don’t want to think about spending a big chunk of the budget on shipping students and funds to private schools.
Pressuring the DA
Republican Sen. Brent Taylor of Memphis is continuing to put heat on Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, a Democrat, this time urging him to seek the death penalty in connection with a recent murder.
Taylor started threatening to remove Mulroy from the post earlier this year, claiming he is soft on crime. He says he can oust Mulroy for “cause,” and he likely has enough votes in the Senate to do it — that is if Republican senators feel they should micromanage the Shelby County DA.
In his latest, missive, Taylor says the district attorney should go for capital punishment against the man charged with killing 22-year-old Ellie Claire Young of Hennings during a breast cancer awareness fundraising event at Shelby Farms Park on Oct. 23.
Asked Thursday whether he thinks it’s appropriate for a senator to get involved in the day-to-day operations of the district attorney, Taylor said if Mulroy had done his job the last two years, the ouster threat wouldn’t be necessary.
“It’s amazing, when I started putting the pressure on back last June, he suddenly found religion on prosecutions, so my pressure works, and as long as it’s working, I’m going to continue to keep it up,” Taylor said.
Mulroy recently got a guilty plea with life without parole in the murder of Eliza Fletcher. Her killer gave up his right to appeal.
Taylor points out he didn’t relinquish his right to have an opinion on criminal matters when he became a senator. The question is whether district attorneys across the state should be forced to worry about where lawmakers — none of whom are trained prosecutors — stand on high-profile cases as they try to execute the law.
“What, me worry?”
Gov. Lee is set to start budget hearings Tuesday at the Capitol for the fiscal 2025-26 spending plan, according to the Tennessee Journal, setting up a bit of a conflict with another little affair happening that day: the 2024 election.
The governor’s super-scintillating, sensational hearings provide a bit of a window into the coming year’s budget, as long as you can stand the excitement. This exercise in openness, though, will go head-to-head with a somewhat important day of American political life.
Love it or not, the daylong tour will help journalistic types get in shape for the 2025 session, which is critical when you’re getting a little long in the tooth.
“So don’t double-dog dare me now / Cause I’d have to call your bluff.” *
*”As Good As I Once Was,” Toby Keith
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