Senate version of police oversight bill OK’d

NASHVILLE — The Tennessee Senate on Monday passed legislation to restrict independent subpoena powers for cities’ police oversight boards, but members took what they say they believe is a less draconian approach to the issue than their House counterparts.

The GOP-controlled chamber approved the bill, House Bill 658, sponsored in the upper chamber by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Mike Bell, R-Riceville, on a 27-4 vote. Four of the chamber’s five Democrats voted no, and a fifth Democrat simply voted present.

Bell explained senators are trying to “preserve a board’s subpoena power” by allowing an independent investigator employed by a police or community oversight board, the chief of police or head of a department’s internal affairs division to file a petition with a judge to issue a subpoena.

It is “somewhat of a burdensome process,” Bell said, but added “it should be tough.”

The House-passed version strips away oversight boards’ subpoena powers, with proponents saying it still allows the appointed boards to ask elected city councils to exercise subpoena powers on their behalf when it comes to compelling the production of documents, evidents and witness testimony.

House proponents don’t like the Senate approach, and the bill at this point looks to be headed to a joint conference

committee where members seek to iron out differences.

House Republicans brought the bill after Metro Nashville voters last year approved creation of a community oversight board with subpoena powers in the wake of a number of police incidents.

The cities of Knoxville and Memphis have long had police or community oversight boards. In Memphis, the board can go through the city council for subpoena powers. In Knoxville, the board has subpoena power but is not believed to have ever exercised it.

It comes as some Chattanooga City Council members look at creating a police oversight board.

Bell said the Senate version, Senate bill 1407, acknowledges the boards’ role and “creates checks and balances, common standards for the board’s authority.”

Sen. Becky Duncan Massey, R-Knoxville, thanked Bell and Senate leaders for the amendment, saying that with the approach the process “will remain workable.”

Sen. Brenda Gilmore, D-Nashville, said her “first preference” was to let Nashville’s board “be in existence for at least a year” before state lawmakers stepped in with a law.

She and Sen. Steve Dickerson, R-Nashville, simply voted “present.” In addition to Bell, Sens. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, and Bo Watson, R-Hixson, voted yes on the bill.

“I think the compromise Sen. Bell came up with is a very reasonable compromise,” Gardenhire later said. “It still gave the power to issue a subpoena but it did it through the traditional system.”