Tennessee watchdogs are owed more than $1 million in unpaid fines

Tennessee elected officials, candidates and their political organizations owe taxpayers more than $1 million in fines and fees never collected by key state watchdog agencies, according to a review by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee.

The average citizen could lose a driver’s license or home, be subject to liens, face collections agencies or go to jail if tickets or taxes go unpaid.

When elected officials or political candidates don’t pay up, it falls to the state attorney general to collect. But the fines regularly go unpaid, the review found.

Two state oversight agencies have collected only 21 percent of the $730,000 in fines levied since 2010, and there are outstanding fines dating back 26 years. Those findings underline what many Tennessee politicos already know: The public entities tasked with holding officials accountable have little, if any, teeth.

“I do think there’s a pretty compelling public interest in saying … we want a deterrent out there that people know, if this is going to happen,

they’re going to be assessed a penalty that is going to be collected. It’s going to actually hit their bottom line, hit their pocket,” said Justin Pitt, a Franklin attorney and former member of the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

The registry and Tennessee Ethics Commission are supposed to serve as the enforcers of transparency and accountability for local and state political activities. When it comes to issuing and collecting fines though, the data doesn’t back up the mandate.

In 2016, just 7 percent of the nearly $217,000 in penalties assessed by the two state agencies combined has been paid.

Shelby County candidates owe the two state agencies $144,538 combined, the most outstanding debt from any county in the state.

WHO COLLECTS FINES

All fines collected by the registry and ethics commission go back into the state General Fund, said Drew Rawlins, executive director for both the registry and the commission.

Although the outstanding registry fines are for late or unfiled campaign reports, candidates also may be fined for failing to report contributions and using campaign funds for personal gain.

Ethics commission fines run the gamut, from $25 to $10,000. Some are levied against people representing massive companies. Lobbyists for eBay, 3M, Red Bull and other corporations owe menial amounts of money for not filing reports or paying fees on time.

Pitt, who served on the registry from 2010 to 2015, noted that those who do not pay fines are banned from running for office until the fines are paid. But for political action committees, or people with no plans to ever seek office again, he acknowledged an outstanding fine may serve as little recourse to stop inappropriate campaign activity.

At the same time, he suspects many of the fines outstanding would drop substantially if the registry and attorney general actually pursue them.

In an effort to collect unpaid penalties, state law allows the registry to get assistance from the attorney general. A recently released annual report by the registry found that since 2008, about 66 percent of the penalties assessed have been collected or payments have been made.

A spokesman for the attorney general did not provide information before deadline.

“We make an effort to collect every civil penalty we can,” Sharon Curtis-Flair, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, told the Knoxville News Sentinel in 2012. “But when the cost of filing a lawsuit to collect a civil penalty costs the state much more than the amount of the penalty, it makes more sense to rely on the deterrent that they can’t run for office until the penalty is paid.”

The attorney general’s office is allowed to seek interest and court costs on top of the original fine amount, Rawlins said.

If a candidate didn’t respond to a notice when he was on the registry, Pitt said they would typically assess a large fine. At times, that would be a $10,000 fine for not filing a report.

“I don’t think it’s in the public’s interest to go out and collect that $10,000 from that person. But the $10,000 serves as a very good incentive to get all their filings together and close out their account,” Pitt said.

WHO OWES THE MONEY

Patrick Hickey said he didn’t know he owed the two state agencies $31,000 until told by a reporter. Hickey ran unsuccessfully in 2016 as an independent challenger to Hamilton County GOP state Rep. Marc Gravitt.

“I hate that I found out this way,” Hickey said in a recent phone interview.

Rawlins disputes Hickey didn’t know he was fined, noting Hickey signed notices informing him of the penalties. Hickey has since called the registry and is scheduled to appear at the organization’s June meeting.

Pitt said that typically the registry will work to forgive fines in these cases as long as candidates files their reports.

But there will be candidates who are repeat offenders, Pitt said. It would serve the registry to have an attorney who could go after unpaid fines, as opposed to relying on an overtaxed attorney general lawyer, Pitt said.

Hickey, who recently moved, said he hoped the Tennessee fines wouldn’t affect a Georgia statehouse bid he’s mounting.

Lawmakers rarely enhance the ability for the state ethics commission and the campaign finance registry to provide more scrutiny of campaigns and committees. This year, the Legislature passed a measure that would marginally increase the number of random audits of campaign committee reports.

Another bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Towns, D-Memphis, which failed to gain traction, would have required the registry to report to the legislature the amount of penalties collected each year.

Towns, who now owes the two state agencies more than $10,000 for filing his campaign disclosures late, has been fined more than $75,000 since 2006.