A group of Williamson County parents says state campaign finance officials are trying to squelch their free speech rights.They’ve filed a suit in federal court, seeking to reverse a $5,000 fine.
Williamson Strong is asking a Nashville judge to throw out a penalty levied in May by the Registry of Election Finance, the state’s campaign finance watchdog.
Registry officials say the group should have filed as a political action committee for its involvement in the Williamson County school board race. But Williamson Strong argued the Registry is defining a PAC too broadly.
By the Registry’s logic, a PAC could be any group of people sharing their political point of view, says Williamson Strong’s lawyer, Gerard Stranch.
“That means a husband and wife, buy a bumper sticker to put on their car, they got to spend a hundred bucks and register as a PAC.”
The fine grew out of a complaint from school board member Susan Curlee. She alleges Williamson Strong campaigned for her opponents before last August’s vote.
But Williamson Strong responds it never raised money and never endorsed candidates. Members maintain they simply set up an online forum to discuss schools and encouraged parents to vote.
Williamson Strong says the fine violates its members’ First Amendment rights to a free press, free assembly and free speech.
The group also says Registry officials didn’t follow state law in taking the complaint. According to the suit, the Williamson County district attorney general’s office should have investigated the complaint first and then referred it to the Registry.
Instead, the Registry took Curlee’s complaint directly.
The suit was filed this week in the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee. Stranch says the federal court has jurisdiction over free-speech complaints.
Williamson Strong also has filed an appeal with the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, the state organization that oversees the Registry. If that appeal fails, the group could take it up in state courts.