A bill to prohibit public facilities from being named after local public officials while they’re in office is moving through the legislature.
Senate bill 214, sponsored by state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, unanimously passed the senate. The house version, house bill 434, passed a house committee Monday.
“It just keeps some local people from exercising undue pressure on everybody,” Gardenhire said by phone, “and having a nice ego trip to have something named after them.”
The legislation would not allow a public facility to be named after a local public official until the individual has been out of office for two years.
“If they’re really that good,” Gardenhire said, “then after two, three years being out of office, their colleagues will honor them.”