Constitutional Law

Ohio activist challenges Tenn. open-records law

By By The Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. ? The Midwest director of the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network is suing the state of Tennessee after he was denied access to public records because he is not a resident of the state.

A lawsuit filed yesterday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee on behalf of Richard Jones claims the state's Open Records Act violates the privileges and immunities clause of the U.S. Constitution, which "prevents a state from discriminating against citizens of other states in favor of its own."

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Nashville, also claims the state law violates the commerce clause of the Constitution.

The suit came after Jones, a resident of Solon, Ohio, was denied a copy of the December 2008 winning bid for a lobbyist job for the city of Memphis.

The city's response, quoted in the lawsuit, reads, in part, "Since it does not appear that you are a Tennessee resident, I must deny your request." It cites Tennessee's Open Records Act, which states, "All state county and municipal records ... shall at all times, during business hours, be open for public inspection by any citizen of Tennessee."

Jones says he wants a copy of the winning bid because he is putting together a website that shows minority and women business owners how to write bids and win contracts. The National Action Network has a chapter in Memphis and Jones said he could have asked someone in that office to get the record for him, but he felt he had a right to the record.

"Public records are my absolute passion," he said.

The ACLU of Tennessee nearly filed a similar lawsuit a year ago when freelance journalist Joseph Rosenbloom of Newton, Mass., was denied records related to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. In that case, the attorney general's office reversed its position just hours before the lawsuit was filed, saying it had no basis to object to the release of the records after Rosenbloom began using a Tennessee lawyer.

Jones referred to that near lawsuit yesterday, saying, "Before, they just sent the records and hoped it would go away. We want the law changed, period."

Jones wants the court to void the part of the Open Records Act declaring records to be open only to citizens of Tennessee.

A spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office, Sharon Curtis-Flair, said attorneys there had not yet been served with the lawsuit and had no comment on it.

Full post as published by First Amendment Center on August 24, 2010 (boomark / email).