Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Civil Penalties And Filing Compliance topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Ethics Commission reconsiders and largely waives multiple late-filing civil penalties; some chronic cases assessed
Summary
The Tennessee Ethics Commission voted to reconsider and in many cases waive civil penalties for late filings and late payments by candidates, employers of lobbyists and organizations; commissioners also directed modest penalties in specific chronic or very late cases and recorded roll-call votes on assessments.
Following its advisory-opinion item, the commission took up a series of reconsideration requests and informal civil-penalty assessment proceedings for late filings by candidates, lobbyists and employers of lobbyists.
Members voted to reconsider a block of civil-penalty cases (listed in materials as cases 2024-006 through 2024-071) and then voted to waive the assessments for those cases. The chair recorded a roll-call in which members responded "Aye," and the chair declared the action unanimous.
The commission discussed precedent for assessing modest penalties to prompt compliance, noting the commission has historically assessed $1,000 in some late-filing matters and sometimes smaller amounts to incentivize timely filings. For a group of employer filings the body elected to assess $250 in one example and to waive or reduce fees in many others after reviewing individual circumstances such as postal delays, inadvertent clerical errors and corporate restructuring.
Tom Lee, attorney for Noble Education Initiative, told the commission his client had registered a lobbyist and filed an employer statement four days late, apologized for the inadvertent error and asked for leniency. "We apologize for the inadvertent error, and we are at the will of the commission," Lee said. The commission waived the penalty for that four-day late filing.
The commission treated some chronically late entities differently. One employer that had been hundreds of days late on filings (identified in materials as Fintina) recently paid outstanding fees and past penalties, but commissioners voted to assess $250 per case for several matters because of the extended delay. For a shorter delay by CC Distribution, members voted to waive the penalty.
The meeting included other routine votes to waive or assess civil penalties across multiple tabs in the packet; staff will record and implement the roll-call assessments and notify affected parties per normal procedure.
Next steps: staff will record final orders for the cases acted on, notify the parties, and proceed with collection or closure as applicable.
