Tennessee lawmakers are exploring a move to block the public
from accessing records from the Department of Tourist Development.
Now the move comes as Nashville begins construction on its
new football stadium.
Amid conversations that it'll push to bring in the Super
Bowl as well,
State Capitol reporter Chris O'Brien explores the move that's facing
even some Republican opposition.
It's the worst kept secret out there.
As the state celebrated the groundbreaking of the new Titan
stadium last week,
dreams of the Super Bowl dancing lawmakers heads.
When we get this stadium built here in Nashville,
this could help us get the Super Bowl.
But if you wanted to know about the process and
how much it might cost soon,
you could be out of luck.
The governor's administration is pushing a bill to allow the
commissioner of tourism to decide if public information is too
sensitive to disclose.
If he does, and the attorney general signs off on
it,
any tourism information could be kept secret for up to
10 years.
The state does negotiate with private sector entities,
and and when those negotiations are in the early stages,
we don't want to put private companies proprietary information available.
Democrats pushed back against the bill,
arguing taxpayers have a right to know how the state
is spending their tax dollars.
Call me old fashioned, but I believe that the public,
taxpayers and our constituents deserve to know what the state
is spending money on.
And this diminishes transparency. Even some Senate Republicans were a
little leery.
I think keeping documents out of the view of the
public for any length of time is certainly deserves a
lot of scrutiny.
A few House Republicans also voted against the bill,
though it did ultimately pass.
One Democrat, Bolivar Representative Johnny Shaw,
joined the majority of Republicans in seeing the bill through.
In Nashville, Chris O'Brien.
Chris, thank you so much.
Now the Senate has yet to take up discussions on
the bill.
It's set to start the committee process next week.