A bill that would stop people from holding more than one local elected office at once is moving through the Tennessee General Assembly after it passed a subcommittee vote this week.
House Bill 699, sponsored by Rep. Ronnie Glynn, D-Clarksville, targets people serving as city council members and county commissioners at the same time.
If the current draft passes, the change would apply to Tennessee’s seven largest counties, which cover areas including Chattanooga, Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Clarksville and Murfreesboro.
In Hamilton County, two sitting county commissioners – Ken Smith, R-Hixson, and Gene-o Shipley, R-Soddy Daisy – also serve on their cities’ councils, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported in January.
(READ MORE: Ken Smith joins others in Hamilton County who have held more than one post)
Glynn said the bill was first proposed by members of the Montgomery County Commission. Commissioners were worried about potential overlapping interests between city and county governments, Glynn said by phone Wednesday.
“Those two (city and county positions) are incompatible with each other, and sometimes have a direct conflict of interest,” Glynn said while presenting the bill Wednesday in the House Cities and Counties Subcommittee.
Glynn said the commissioners’ proposal limited the bill to communities with more than 200,000 people, out of concerns that smaller rural communities sometimes struggle to find people willing to run for local offices in the first place.
It would apply only to city and county councils and commissions and would not bar a local elected official from running for a school board or state lawmaker position.
Glynn said he feels school board and state government positions have more separation from city and county governments.
“The city and county often work in unison where both provide money to support one or the other projects,” a legislative memo from the Montgomery County Commission says. “This could cause a person who holds both offices to be voting on resolutions that allow giving money from one government to the other on to a project that may directly benefit their district/ward for the other office.”
The memo also says the bill would help local governments avoid conflicts, missed attendance at meetings and potential overlapping appointments to joint committees.
“The needs of the county can often differ from the needs of the city,” the memo says. “How does the elected official who holds both offices differentiate between those needs and which body should benefit?”
In Montgomery County, Republican Commissioner Joe Smith said the bill would be a preventative measure. He couldn’t name any examples of double office holders in Montgomery County right now.
“I just don’t think it’s a popular thing for people to hold that much power,” Smith said by phone Thursday, “to hold two seats just because they have a popular name possibly.”
The bill passed out of the subcommittee with just one vote against it, from Rep. John Crawford, R-Kingsport. Subcommittee chairman Rep. Jerome Moon, R-Maryville, called it “a common-sense bill.”
Now, representatives on the Local Government Committee will consider the bill, slated for a hearing next week.
In many states, including Florida and Texas, it’s illegal for an elected official on the taxpayers’ payroll to take on another elected position.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County WWTA spends federal dollars mayor attempted to pull for other projects)
The practice of holding more than one elected position isn’t unusual in Hamilton County.
Shipley and others who held two elected offices in recent years have told the Times Free Press the primary challenge was making enough time for both positions — although the January newspaper report documented repeated instances in which local officials had approved contracts sitting on both sides of the agreement in question.
The Montgomery County commissioners also cited time management as a concern, saying meeting times may overlap and cause officials to miss attendance at one or the other.
In Hamilton County, far-right group Patriots Engage issued a call to action supporting the bill, saying officials holding more than one office are “double dipping” on government salaries. The group named local officials including Shipley and Smith, as well as East Ridge council member and Republican state Rep. Esther Helton-Haynes, and asked residents to call their lawmakers in support of the bill.
Helton-Haynes would not be affected by the legislation, as it would not ban dual service at city hall and the statehouse.
Representatives for Patriots Engage did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Contact Ellen Gerst at egerst@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6319.