Why choose federal office—and what problems would you try to solve there?

Joshua Ashburn joins Brandon Burley for an archived Civic Conversations interview about his independent campaign for Tennessee’s 1st Congressional District. He introduces himself as a Bristol resident, a parent, and a full-time worker, then explains why he decided to enter the race.

Questions behind a candidacy

Brandon asks about Ashburn’s background and why he chose this office. The discussion moves into health coverage and Medicaid, with Ashburn drawing on his own experiences as he explains what he would like to change.

Where the conversation becomes a debate

The interview also addresses foreign aid, immigration and benefits, redistricting, and voter identification. Brandon raises counterarguments and practical questions. Listeners can consider both the candidate’s answer and the challenge that follows, rather than treating a short excerpt as his entire position.

From Project Forge Books · Our own book

For readers interested in examining justice beyond slogans, Exploring Criminal Justice: The Basics of Ethics and Theory is available from Brandon Burley. This is an advertisement for our own book, separate from the guest’s campaign.

Listen with the recording context in mind

This is an archived interview, not an endorsement. Candidate descriptions, election references, event announcements, figures, and policy claims reflect the conversation at the time. Statements by a speaker are their own and have not all been independently verified. Consult official election sources for current ballot and voting information.

Which question would you ask every candidate, regardless of party?

About a month later, property-tax bills are supposed to go out.

That leaves little room for a ceremonial transition.

In written answers provided Sept. 10 through Executive Administrator Brad Hair, McBride said his first 100 days will focus on transparency, a review of how the office operates and keeping taxpayer services running while he begins looking for changes that could last beyond the opening months of his term.

The immediate test, McBride said, is whether he can change the office without disrupting the work it already has to do.

“The greatest challenge will probably be balancing change with continuity,” McBride said.

That gives the public a fairly specific scorecard.

Start with the money

McBride said his first priority is to strengthen public trust through greater transparency and accountability.

The Trustee’s Office handles more than $1 billion in public funds each year, McBride said, and he believes taxpayers should be able to see how that money is being managed.

His first measurable commitment is monthly financial reporting.

McBride said he intends to publish financial reports from the Trustee’s Office online each month, similar to a transparency practice he said he followed while serving as Knox County Register of Deeds.

That is a promise the public will be able to check.

The question after 100 days will not simply be whether McBride says the office became more transparent. It will be whether those reports were actually published, what information they contain and whether taxpayers can use them to understand the office’s finances.

Then comes the internal review

McBride’s second priority is aimed inside the office.

He said he plans to examine staffing, expenses, policies and procedures to determine whether the Trustee’s Office can operate more efficiently.

That review, McBride said, will include whether staffing levels are appropriate, whether unnecessary expenses can be eliminated and whether internal expectations are clear for employees responsible for public funds.

McBride also pointed to vehicles used by the office as an example of spending he discussed during the campaign.

But there is an important timing distinction.

McBride said all six leased pickup trucks identified during the previous administration were returned before he took office.

That means the returned trucks should not be counted as an efficiency McBride completed during his first 100 days.

His test begins with what the review produces next.

If McBride identifies additional savings, staffing changes or procedural reforms, those decisions — and the dollars attached to them — will provide a clearer measure of what his efficiency pledge actually means.

Property-tax season arrives first

Before those longer-term changes develop, McBride said the office has an immediate operational responsibility.

Property-tax bills need to go out on time.

McBride said maintaining taxpayer service during that process is one of his three primary first-100-day goals. He said taxpayers should continue to receive assistance and have access to the office’s existing locations and payment options while the transition occurs.

That makes continuity measurable too.

Either the tax-billing cycle works as expected or problems emerge.

McBride said the office will also begin evaluating technology that could make transactions easier for residents and potentially reduce costs.

He did not identify a specific new system that has already been selected.

Instead, McBride described the first 100 days as an evaluation period.

Modernization comes with limits

McBride said technology modernization will extend beyond the initial 100 days.

He said his experience in county government has shown him that technology can streamline work, improve access and increase transparency, and he wants to evaluate whether similar changes could work in the Trustee’s Office.

But McBride also identified limits on how quickly that can happen.

Any new technology, he said, has to be evaluated for cost, security, compatibility with Knox County systems and ease of use for taxpayers.

That turns “modernization” from a broad promise into a series of questions.

What system needs changing? What will a replacement cost? What savings would it produce? How will taxpayer information be protected? And will the new process actually be easier for the people using it?

McBride said his goal during the first 100 days is to establish a plan, not necessarily complete the implementation.

Another clock involves tax sales

McBride also identified tax sales as a longer-term priority.

He said he has committed to holding at least one tax sale each year.

That work cannot be done by the Trustee’s Office alone, McBride said. Tax sales require coordination with the Clerk and Master, attorneys, courts and other parties.

McBride said similar coordination is necessary throughout the Trustee’s responsibilities. The office receives information from the Property Assessor and works with the county Finance Department and other offices.

Those relationships, he said, will affect how quickly some changes can move.

What 100 days will actually measure

McBride’s stated goals include broad ideas: trust, accountability, professionalism, modernization and efficiency.

His own answers also provide more concrete tests.

McBride said he will consider the opening 100 days successful if property-tax bills go out on time, monthly financial reports become publicly available, staffing and spending receive a meaningful review and the office develops a clear plan for technology and taxpayer service.

He also said he wants residents to see the office as accessible and responsible with public money.

Those outcomes will not answer every question about his tenure.

They do provide a starting record.

One hundred days from now, the most useful comparison will not be between McBride’s administration and the language of a campaign.

It will be between what he said would happen and what the public can see actually changed.

I am a retired detective and criminal justice / government educator based in Tennessee. I founded The Redemption Project, as a place to focus on civics, rebuild non-partisan trust, and provide educational and emotional grace while learning about the news. I also have a column in Knox TN Today. My reporting and commentary have also appeared in other outlets including; Governing, The Arizona Capitol Times, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Police1, among other state and regional outlets.

Subscribe now

Source Library

Source Library is excluded from the article word count.

1. Written responses from Knox County Trustee Nick McBride, transmitted by Executive Administrator Brad Hair to Brandon Burley on Sept. 10, 2026 — DIRECT SOURCE CLAIM / PRIMARY SOURCE.

Read more

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Garrett Holt is not describing his first 100 days on the Knox County Commission as a period for solving Knox County’s largest problems.

He is starting with learning…

Read more

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Earlier this year, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, showed its governing board a straightforward goal: get at least 70% of students t…

Read more

Most institutions can tell you their mission.

The harder question is whether their decisions still match it.

That is the problem underneath A Mission Held in Trust: Stewarding the Church-Related University, edited by Todd C. Ream, Jerry Pattengale, …

Read more

By The Redemption Project Newsroom

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Shelby County tried twice to remove County Clerk Wanda Halbert from office.

Neither attempt removed her.

Now, as Halbert reaches the end of her final term, taxpayers face a bill traveling in the opposite direction.

Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Felicia Corbin-Johnson ordered county government to pay Halbert’s legal fees associated with the second ouster effort, according to The Daily Memphian and Action News 5. The final amount had not been publicly established as of this review, and county attorneys have objected to the payment or indicated that further litigation may follow.

That reimbursement is only one piece of the taxpayer cost.

Shelby County also used government attorneys and outside counsel to pursue the removal case, fought an appeal through the Tennessee Court of Appeals, opposed Halbert’s attempt to take the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court and prepared for a trial that the county ultimately abandoned shortly before Halbert’s term expired.

A complete accounting therefore needs two sides.

What did Shelby County spend trying to remove Halbert, and what will it now spend reimbursing her for defending herself?

Tennessee law allows reimbursement when an official is not removed

Tennessee’s ouster statute recognizes that removing an elected official is an extraordinary government action.

Section 8-47-121 says that after final hearing, a public officer who is not removed from office may be reimbursed reasonable attorney fees by the appropriate state, county, municipality or other political subdivision. If the case is appealed, reimbursement is delayed until final judgment.

The provision does not declare the official competent, vindicated on every allegation or immune from political criticism.

It addresses who may bear the cost of defending an ouster action when the proceeding does not result in removal.

That distinction matters with Halbert.

Her administration faced years of criticism involving financial reporting, office closures, vehicle-registration backlogs, unpaid rent and other operational problems. The first ouster petition itself accused her of willful neglect of official duties, while the investigation that preceded it found no criminal wrongdoing.

The failure to remove her does not erase those controversies.

It means the particular legal remedy Shelby County pursued twice never produced an order removing her from office.

The fee statute itself may become part of the next fight

The exact Aug. 24 fee order is now an essential record.

The statutory text refers to reimbursement “after final hearing.” The second Halbert action did not reach the trial that had been scheduled for Aug. 24. Shelby County filed for voluntary dismissal in July, saying that proceeding with a trial during the final week of Halbert’s term would cost taxpayers money without providing meaningful practical relief.

Corbin-Johnson nevertheless subsequently ordered the county to pay Halbert’s legal fees associated with the case, according to local reporting.

TRP should not attempt to supply the judge’s legal reasoning before obtaining that order.

The document should establish which fees are covered, what proceedings are excluded, what factual and statutory findings support reimbursement and whether the county must pay immediately or can stay payment through another appeal.

That is especially important because the Tennessee Court of Appeals had already discussed Halbert’s fee request while the second case was pending.

In its October 2025 decision, the appeals court said the fee question was premature at that stage because the underlying ouster case remained unresolved.

The case is no longer pending in the same posture.

But the final fee ruling now needs to speak for itself.

The first attempt did not produce the appellate fight

The two ouster efforts need to remain separate.

The first petition was filed May 6, 2024, by Hamilton County District Attorney General Coty Wamp, who had been assigned after Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy recused his office. Wamp’s investigation concluded without criminal allegations against Halbert but produced a civil ouster petition alleging willful neglect of duty.

That petition was dismissed the following month after a Shelby County judge concluded Wamp did not have the legal authority to bring the civil ouster proceeding.

Shelby County then pursued a second route.

On Aug. 2, 2024, the State of Tennessee, upon the relation of Shelby County Attorney Marlinee Iverson, filed another petition seeking Halbert’s removal. Iverson cited a conflict and delegated the matter to Deputy County Attorney Lee Whitwell, who retained Robert D. Meyers of Glankler Brown PLLC as special outside counsel to prosecute the action.

That second action created the lengthy appellate litigation.

The second case was dismissed, revived and then abandoned

Corbin-Johnson initially dismissed the second petition after finding problems with the county’s standing and use of outside counsel.

The Tennessee Court of Appeals reversed that portion of her ruling in October 2025, concluding that the Shelby County Attorney remained the statutory relator and could act through delegated and retained counsel. The appellate court sent the case back for further proceedings.

Halbert then sought Tennessee Supreme Court review.

The Supreme Court denied permission to appeal March 31, 2026, and the case returned to Shelby County Circuit Court.

A trial eventually was scheduled for Aug. 24 — one week before Halbert’s term ended.

But Shelby County did not take the case to trial.

The county filed a notice seeking voluntary dismissal July 17. Chief Litigating Attorney Lee Whitwell later said the county had wanted an earlier trial but concluded that spending additional public money on a proceeding during Halbert’s final days in office would no longer provide meaningful relief.

That decision prevented the second ouster effort from producing a trial verdict on whether Halbert’s conduct legally justified removal.

It did not prevent a dispute about the money spent getting there.

The public needs the prosecution bill, too

Most of the public attention now is understandably on what Shelby County may have to reimburse Halbert.

That can produce a misleading denominator.

Halbert’s invoice is the defense cost.

The county’s own expenditures are the prosecution cost.

Both belong in the taxpayer ledger.

The second case plainly involved outside counsel. The Court of Appeals opinion identifies Meyers, Danielle Rassoul and Aubrey Greer, all of Glankler Brown, as counsel for the county on appeal.

Those services were not free.

Neither were transcripts, appellate-record preparation, service costs or other litigation expenses.

The first case had a separate procedural history and may have involved different government resources and outside costs.

The county should therefore publish the direct expenditures for each proceeding rather than presenting one combined legal-services account that cannot be traced back to the litigation.

Staff time and actual spending are different numbers

Government accounting can make litigation appear cheaper or more expensive depending on what is included.

An outside-law-firm invoice is a direct expenditure attributable to a case.

A transcript purchased specifically for the appeal is another.

A filing fee, expert invoice or special litigation expense can be treated similarly.

An in-house county attorney’s salary is different.

The county would ordinarily pay that salary whether or not the attorney spent 100 hours on the Halbert case. Those hours still represent taxpayer resources and an opportunity cost — work performed on one matter instead of another — but they should not automatically be added to the direct cash cost as though the salary existed only because of the litigation.

The clean ledger therefore should publish at least two figures:

Direct incremental expenditures, including outside counsel, court-related expenses and reimbursement to Halbert.

And government staff time, reported separately in hours or an expressly labeled allocated-cost estimate.

That prevents a legitimate Follow the Dollar project from creating its own misleading total.

“Reasonable” does not necessarily mean every dollar billed

The reimbursement statute uses the word reasonable.

That matters.

A court considering a fee award can examine billing records, hourly rates, time spent, duplication and whether particular work was connected to the litigation for which fees may lawfully be recovered.

The public therefore needs more than a final lump sum.

It needs the fee petition, billing exhibits, county objections, court order and any reductions.

Appropriate redactions can protect privileged communications and litigation strategy without concealing the lawyers’ rates, overall hours, broad work categories and total amount requested.

If the county appeals the fee award, that appeal should receive its own cost line.

Otherwise Shelby County could spend more money litigating over how much money it owes for litigation it already stopped pursuing.

Two cases need two ledgers

The first ouster petition and the second were legally distinct proceedings.

They had different initiating authority, different procedural paths and potentially different expense structures.

A useful public accounting would therefore identify the cost of:

Attempt One — Wamp proceeding

• investigation-related expenses attributable to the ouster process;

• litigation and court costs;

• any county legal work or outside assistance;

• Halbert defense reimbursement, if any was sought or paid.

Attempt Two — Iverson/Meyers proceeding

• Glankler Brown contracts and invoices;

• County Attorney staff time;

• trial-court expenses;

• Court of Appeals work;

• Tennessee Supreme Court work;

• post-remand trial preparation;

• Halbert fee reimbursement;

• any appeal of that reimbursement.

Only after those amounts are separated should they be combined.

The financial question survives Halbert’s departure

Halbert’s tenure as Shelby County clerk ends Aug. 31. Clerk-elect LaSonya Hall takes office Sept. 1.

That closes the political chapter.

It does not close the public-finance one.

Residents can reach different conclusions about Halbert’s performance. They can believe county officials were justified in trying to remove her, believe the cases were mishandled, or believe both things simultaneously.

The ledger does not require resolving that argument.

The accounting question is simpler.

Shelby County invoked one of Tennessee government’s strongest legal remedies against an elected official — twice.

Neither proceeding removed her.

The second generated litigation through two appellate courts before the county withdrew it shortly before trial, and a judge has now said Shelby County must reimburse at least some of the defense costs generated by that effort.

Taxpayers should be able to see one number for what the government spent pursuing removal, another for what it must pay the official who defended against it, and a final total showing what both unsuccessful attempts actually cost.

Behind the Reporting: Building the Halbert Ouster Cost Ledger

Paid subscribers get the two-case chronology, fee-law audit, cost-accounting framework, records requests and source documents behind this report.

The statute does not say “automatic reimbursement”

Tennessee Code §8-47-121 says:

Read more

By Brandon L. Burley
The Redemption Project Newsroom | Systems Explained / Accountability

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Knox County commissioners went into Monday’s Flock Safety workshop asking who can search license plate data, how long the information is kept, who can receive it and what happens when somebody misuses the system. They left with an even more basic question: Was the system itself properly authorized?

The question emerged after an Aug. 12 letter from Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs challenged the validity of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office’s longstanding agreement with Flock. A day after the workshop, Mayor-elect Betsy Henderson said she believes the cameras should be removed.

Commissioners are now preparing for an Aug. 31 vote on legislation that could ultimately require the existing Flock network to come down and keep the Sheriff’s Office’s Advanced Research & Communications Center, or ARC, closed until the incoming sheriff returns with a new plan.

The privacy questions did not disappear during Monday’s workshop. Procurement and oversight questions joined them, changing what Knox County is being asked to decide.

The county already had a checklist

Before Flock executives and Sheriff’s Office representatives met with commissioners, the county had already established its standard for reviewing the system.

Resolution R-26-7-905, adopted unanimously in July, requested a comprehensive review of ARC and its associated automated license plate readers before the center becomes operational. It asks what information the cameras collect, how long it is retained, who can search it, who else can receive it, how access is controlled and whether searches are audited.

Commissioners also asked about cybersecurity, erroneous information, vendor access, misuse and discipline, training, costs, contracts and the written policies governing the operation. The resolution requested policies, standard operating procedures, training requirements, audit protocols and governance documents, and asked that ARC not become operational until commissioners had completed the review and had a reasonable opportunity to consider the information publicly.

The resolution acknowledged the legitimate law-enforcement uses of license plate readers while also calling for protection of constitutional liberties. Monday’s workshop added another question to that checklist: What agreement authorized the system being reviewed?

Jacobs says the original agreement is not valid

Jacobs’ letter traces the Flock relationship to 2020, when the Sheriff’s Office entered into an agreement for five cameras and installation costing $13,750. According to the mayor, subsequent equipment and services purchased under that agreement eventually totaled approximately $274,720.

That figure does not include a separate $800,000 purchase made through Omnia, a cooperative purchasing organization. Jacobs argues that purchases under the earlier agreement eventually crossed the $100,000 threshold at which County Commission approval was required.

Jacobs concluded that he does not believe the 2020 agreement is valid and said he believes no current service agreement is in place. He also questioned what contractual terms governed the cameras after the original agreement, which he says should have expired in 2024.

That is the mayor’s legal position, not a court ruling. But it creates a significant governance question while the existing camera network remains operational: What agreement currently controls Knox County’s relationship with Flock?

Purchases just below a review threshold drew scrutiny

Commissioner Larsen Jay raised another issue during Monday’s workshop, saying records showed multiple Flock purchases of $24,990. The amount matters because Sheriff’s Office purchases of $25,000 or more trigger additional mayoral review.

Jay also said he identified pairs of $12,500 purchases that would have crossed the threshold if considered together. A Sheriff’s Office representative acknowledged during the workshop that he understood commissioners’ concern about how the transactions appeared.

The records do not establish why the purchases were structured that way, and they do not prove someone deliberately attempted to avoid oversight. Repeated transactions landing immediately below an oversight threshold nevertheless warrant an explanation.

The issue also goes beyond accounting. Procurement review is one of the places elected officials can ask what government is buying, what powers a technology creates, how much it will ultimately cost and what safeguards accompany it.

There are already 143 cameras

The controversy intensified over the Sheriff’s Office’s plan to install roughly 270 additional cameras using state grant money. Those new installations have been paused, but Knox County is not debating a surveillance network that exists only on paper.

Information presented at Monday’s workshop put the current KCSO network at 143 active Flock cameras.

That makes questions about retention, access, sharing and auditing immediate rather than theoretical. The existing system is already creating searchable records showing that vehicles were observed at particular places and times.

The county therefore is not simply asking whether it should build a Flock network. It is deciding what to do with one it already has.

The incoming mayor wants the cameras removed

The dispute crossed into the incoming county administration Tuesday when Henderson said she supports removing the cameras. She told WVLT that supporting law enforcement must be balanced with protecting individual rights and said the situation had become more disturbing as she learned more.

That creates an unusual transition. The outgoing mayor disputes the validity of the underlying Flock agreement and does not want it renewed. The incoming mayor wants the cameras removed. Commissioners are considering legislation that could dismantle the current network.

Sheriff-elect Brent Gibson could therefore inherit either an operating 143-camera system or the responsibility of deciding whether to build a new surveillance program through a different public process.

The original privacy questions still need answers

The procurement dispute should not swallow the issues that prompted the July resolution.

Tennessee law generally allows governmental ALPR data to be retained for no more than 90 days unless information is preserved as part of an ongoing investigation. That is the legal ceiling, not necessarily Knox County’s actual retention period.

The Sheriff’s Office system has previously been described as retaining information for 30 days. Flock announced Aug. 13 that it was changing its recommended default from 30 days to seven and creating an “Evidence Mode” for preserving specific records associated with investigations.

Existing customers, however, do not automatically move to seven days. The local question remains how long Knox County keeps its data, whether that period is fixed in written policy, who can change it and what is required to preserve information beyond the ordinary retention period.

The same distinction applies to federal sharing. Flock says ICE does not have automatic nationwide access to customer data and says federal sharing is disabled by default. But the company also allows local customers to authorize direct sharing relationships with federal agencies.

That means the useful question is not simply whether Flock gives ICE Knox County data. It is which outside agencies KCSO has authorized to access or receive its information, who can change those relationships and whether the restrictions exist in written policy rather than only in software settings.

A search log is not the same thing as oversight

Flock says searches are associated with individual users and logged, and the company has announced additional safeguards it plans to require of law-enforcement customers by the end of 2026, including stronger misuse detection and required case codes.

Those vendor controls do not eliminate the need for local policy.

Knox County still needs to know who reviews KCSO search logs, how often they are examined, whether every search is tied to a case or legitimate law-enforcement purpose, who audits supervisors and administrators and what happens when misuse is discovered.

A search log provides a record. Accountability requires someone to examine it and act when that record shows a problem.

Vendor access presents a similar issue. Flock’s current terms say customers retain ownership of their data while granting Flock a license, limited to specified purposes but perpetual and irrevocable, to use the information in providing its services and supporting or improving its products.

That makes ownership an important contractual protection, but it does not fully answer who can technically access Knox County information for support, maintenance or other purposes, whether that access is logged or what happens to the information when the relationship ends.

Aug. 31 is the next step, not necessarily the last

Read more

The Supreme Court has just strengthened constitutional protection for cellphone location data. The FBI acknowledges purchasing commercially available information. Between those two facts sits a private data economy capable of recording pieces of ordinary American life.

SYSTEMS EXPLAINED | NATIONAL ANALYSIS

On March 18, FBI Director Kash Patel sat before the Senate Intelligence Committee and was asked whether the bureau would stop buying Americans’ location data.

Patel did not make that commitment.

Instead, he acknowledged that the FBI purchases commercially available information, defended that practice as consistent with the Constitution and federal law, and said it had produced valuable intelligence.

Three months later, the Supreme Court drew an important constitutional line in a different kind of location-data case.

In Chatrie v. United States, decided June 29, the Court held that police conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they acquired Okello Chatrie’s cellphone location information from Google. The fact that Google possessed the information did not erase Chatrie’s reasonable expectation of privacy in it.

Those two events do not answer the same legal question.

But put them beside each other and the larger problem becomes difficult to miss.

The government can face constitutional limits when it demands sensitive information from a company.

Meanwhile, an enormous private marketplace already collects, aggregates and sells information about where people go, what devices they use and pieces of how they live.

What happens when government does not compel the information?

What happens when it becomes a customer?

That may be one of the defining Fourth Amendment questions of the digital age.

The middle of the cradle

A Newton’s cradle looks simple.

Pull back the steel ball on one end and let it go. It strikes the others, the force passes through the center, and the ball at the opposite end swings outward.

Americans have debated freedom and security in roughly the same rhythm for generations.

A terrorist attack, mass shooting, violent crime or foreign threat pushes public policy toward security.

An unconstitutional search, surveillance scandal or abuse of government power pushes it back toward liberty.

We tend to watch the two ends.

Freedom.

Security.

But in the digital age, what sits between them increasingly matters just as much.

Phones.

Apps.

Vehicles.

Advertising networks.

Technology companies.

Data brokers.

Government contractors.

The force no longer travels directly from the citizen to the state.

There is an information economy in the middle.

Your life does not have to be suspicious to create data

Consider an ordinary day.

You wake up and check the weather.

You drive to work with a navigation app running. Your phone connects to your vehicle. You stop at a pharmacy. At lunch, you search for information about a medical problem.

Read more

People hear the word lobbyist and often picture money changing hands, private dinners and powerful corporations attempting to buy political influence.

That picture is not entirely invented. It is also far from complete.

The better question is not simply whether lobbying is good or bad. It is: Who is attempting to influence public policy, whom do they represent, and what are they asking the government to do?

Subscribe now

In this Season 4 Civic Conversation, Brandon Burley speaks with Genevieve Turner, founder of Opal Advocacy, about what lobbyists actually do inside Tennessee’s legislative and government systems.

Turner explains the difference between an in-house lobbyist representing one organization and a contract lobbyist working with several clients. Those clients may include corporations, nonprofits, community organizations, service providers or advocates seeking changes involving education, healthcare, corrections, disability services and other public-policy concerns.

The conversation examines how lobbyists research legislation, follow committee hearings, monitor amendments, seek state appropriations and help clients communicate with legislators and government agencies. Lobbying may involve supporting a proposal, negotiating changes or attempting to stop legislation that a client believes would cause harm.

Brandon and Genevieve also discuss ethics, conflicts of interest and transparency. Tennessee lobbyists must register with the state, and members of the public can search for lobbyists and the organizations employing them. That does not resolve every concern about political influence, but it gives citizens a place to begin examining who is involved.

The episode also draws an important distinction between professional lobbying and citizen advocacy.

A citizen may contact a legislator, testify before a committee or explain how a proposal affects their family or community. A lobbyist typically brings ongoing relationships, procedural knowledge and experience navigating the legislative process. One does not replace the other.

Ultimately, this conversation is about how influence works before a bill becomes law—and why understanding that process helps citizens evaluate it more responsibly.

I am a retired detective and criminal justice / government educator based in Tennessee. I am a commentary write for Tennessee Lookout and a weekly columnist with Knox TN Today. My work examines public policy, public safety systems and civic responsibility. My reporting and commentary have also appeared in Governing, The Arizona Capitol Times, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Police1, among other state and regional outlets.

Subscribe now

By Brandon L. Burley
The Redemption Project Newsro…

Read more

The Redemption Project Newsroom

A Washington resident asked the city of Stanwood for one hour of images captured by its Flock license plate readers.

The request covered every vehicle photographed during a specific period in March 2025.

Stanwood and the nearby city of Sedro-Woolley went to court rather than release the records.

Their argument was not simply that the images were sensitive.

The cities argued that the images were not government records at all because Flock Safety stored them on the company’s servers. Unless a city employee searched for an image and downloaded it, they said, the record remained in the vendor’s possession.

A Skagit County Superior Court judge rejected that argument in November 2025.

The cameras had been purchased by the cities. The images were created for the cities and used for a governmental purpose. Storing them with a private company did not place them beyond Washington’s public-records law.

The ruling answered one important question.

Government cannot necessarily outsource a public record and then claim the record does not exist.

It raised another.

Should a public-records request allow someone to obtain the time, location and image of every vehicle that passed a police camera?

Less than five months later, Washington lawmakers supplied a different statewide answer.

A new law signed March 30, 2026, exempts automated license plate reader data from public disclosure while requiring agencies to preserve audit trails and eventually publish policies, camera locations, sharing information, audit results and statistics showing how the systems are used.

That distinction sits at the center of the fifth article in this series.

The public has a legitimate right to know how government surveillance operates.

That does not necessarily mean the public should receive a searchable history of where every driver went.

Subscribe now

The first question is whether the record belongs to government

Public-records disputes often begin with two separate questions.

First: Is the material a government record?

Second: If it is, must the government disclose it?

Those questions are not the same.

A police report may be a public record while portions remain withheld to protect a victim, witness, juvenile or active investigation. A personnel file may be a government record while medical information and other protected details are redacted.

Calling something a public record does not mean posting every unedited detail online.

It means the government cannot avoid accountability merely because the information is inconvenient, sensitive or stored by a contractor.

That vendor-custody issue extends well beyond Flock.

Government agencies increasingly use private companies to store emails, manage body-camera footage, operate cloud databases, process emergency communications and maintain digital evidence.

If government could avoid public-records laws simply by leaving information on a vendor’s server, transparency would depend less on what the government did than on where it saved the file.

The Washington trial court rejected that approach. It found that Flock images created and used for the cities’ governmental purposes were public records even though Flock retained them.

That principle matters.

So does the privacy problem created by releasing the images.

Secrecy would hide the evidence of misuse

The second article in this series examined officers who allegedly used license plate reader systems to monitor former spouses, dating partners and romantic rivals.

Many of those cases were established through audit records showing which officer searched which plate, when the search occurred and what reason the officer entered.

One Milwaukee victim discovered repeated searches through HaveIBeenFlocked.com, a privately operated project built from audit records obtained through public-records requests.

Read more

The Aug. 6 election chose nominees for governor, Congress and the General Assembly while settling local races from Knoxville to Memphis

By The Redemption Project Newsroom
Elections Desk

Tennessee’s Aug. 6 election did not produce one political story.

It produced several.

Marsha Blackburn won the Republican nomination for governor. Jerri Green won for Democrats. Bill Hagerty and Marquita Bradshaw will meet again in a U.S. Senate race. A sitting congressman lost his primary. Memphis voters entered a newly redrawn congressional landscape. Legislative candidates advanced toward November, while county and school-board elections actually put people into local office.

The easiest way to understand Thursday is to separate what ended from what began.

For governor, U.S. Senate, Congress and the Tennessee General Assembly, Thursday selected party nominees. The general election is Nov. 3.

For many county and school-board races, Thursday was the final election.

Those are very different consequences.

Blackburn won. Now she has to unify Republicans.

Blackburn defeated U.S. Rep. John Rose and state Rep. Monty Fritts for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Green emerged from a five-candidate Democratic field. Thirteen independent candidates have also qualified for November.

Blackburn enters the general election as the favorite in a state Republicans have dominated statewide for years.

But her primary produced another question.

Rose and Fritts together represented a substantial bloc of Republican voters who deliberately chose someone other than Blackburn. November will test whether those voters simply return to the Republican nominee, stay home or consider Green or one of the independent candidates.

Winning the primary gave Blackburn the nomination.

Building the November coalition is the next job.

Subscribe now

Hagerty and Bradshaw get a rematch

Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty advanced without primary opposition and will face Democratic nominee Marquita Bradshaw in November. The matchup repeats their 2020 contest, when Hagerty won decisively. Republicans have won every Tennessee U.S. Senate election since 1994.

That makes Bradshaw’s challenge less about winning the Democratic argument and more about changing Tennessee’s statewide political math.

Read more

For Breanna Houston, the debate over abortion is not theoretical.

At 18 years old, away at college and frightened about what an unexpected pregnancy might mean for her future, she had an abortion. Years later, after becoming a Christian and walking through a post-abortion Bible study, she began confronting the grief, shame and questions she had carried with her.

That experience now shapes the work she believes she has been called to do.

In this Season 4 Civic Conversation, Brandon Burley speaks with Houston about the planned Alliance Women’s Clinic in downtown Lenoir City—a nonprofit, Christian pregnancy center intended to provide free services and support to women and families facing pregnancy-related decisions.

Houston explains how her personal story, faith and previous nonprofit work led her to Alliance Family Services, a growing national network of pregnancy centers. She describes the planned clinic, its fundraising and construction needs, the services organizers hope to provide and the role volunteers, churches, medical professionals and community partners may play.

The conversation also enters difficult territory.

Brandon and Breanna discuss abortion, post-abortion healing, the responsibilities of churches, support for young mothers, fathers and families, foster care, addiction recovery and the tension between speaking from deeply held convictions and treating people with compassion.

Houston is direct about her beliefs. She identifies as unapologetically pro-life and argues that Christian opposition to abortion must involve more than political statements. It must include material support, mentorship, healthcare connections, recovery resources and a willingness to walk beside women and families for the long term.

The episode does not avoid controversy or pretend that everyone will agree.

Instead, it asks a more practical question: If a community says that every life has value, what responsibilities follow from that belief?

Alliance Women’s Clinic is planned for 118 North A Street in Lenoir City. The organization is currently raising funds, preparing the building and developing its network of staff, volunteers and community partners.

Subscribe now

I am a retired detective and criminal justice / government educator based in Tennessee. I am a commentary write for Tennessee Lookout and a weekly columnist with Knox TN Today. My work examines public policy, public safety systems and civic responsibility. My reporting and commentary have also appeared in Governing, The Arizona Capitol Times, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Police1, among other state and regional outlets.

Subscribe now

Two incumbents were unopposed throughout the cycle. Two others survived contested Democratic primaries in May. By the August general election, none faced a named opponent.

By The Redemption Project Newsroom
Elections Desk

Nashville voters formally elected four school-board members Thursday.

But by the time the county general-election ballot arrived, voters in Districts 2, 4, 6 and 8 each saw the same basic choice: one named candidate and a write-in line.

The four named candidates were Democratic incumbents Rachael Anne Elrod, Berthena Nabaa-McKinney, Cheryl Mayes and Erin O’Hara Block. No Republican or independent candidate appeared against them on the Aug. 6 ballot.

That makes these elections useful for understanding something larger than who won.

Election Day and decision day are not always the same thing.

Subscribe now

In two districts, the competitive election happened in May

Districts 4 and 6 did give voters a choice among named candidates.

They just did it three months earlier.

In District 4, Nabaa-McKinney defeated Jennifer Bell in the May 5 Democratic primary, receiving 3,165 votes to Bell’s 1,678. In District 6, Mayes received 2,323 votes, defeating former board member Fran Bush with 1,343 and Mary Bernice Polk with 485. Those results were later certified by the Davidson County Election Commission.

The Republican side looked very different. Election Commission results show that no Republican candidate qualified for school-board Districts 2, 4, 6 or 8; the Republican primary ballots offered only write-in opportunities.

By August, the competitive choices from Districts 4 and 6 were gone.

Nabaa-McKinney and Mayes remained on the general-election ballot as the only named candidates for their seats.

For voters who waited until the election labeled “general” to begin comparing candidates, the meaningful contest had already happened.

In two districts, there was never a named challenger

Districts 2 and 8 reveal something different.

Elrod was unopposed in the Democratic primary and received 2,845 votes. O’Hara Block was also unopposed and received 4,684. Neither faced a named Republican primary candidate, and neither had a named opponent waiting in the August general election.

That means those districts did not simply have an early decisive election.

Read more

In this Season 4 Civic Conversation, Brandon Burley talks with Nick Nugent, chair of the Tennessee Forward Party, about what the Forward Party is, why it wants to challenge the two-party system, how third parties try to gain ballot access, and why the party believes Tennessee voters may be hungry for another option.

The conversation covers open primaries, ranked-choice and approval voting, gerrymandering, local races, candidate endorsements, Lauren Pinkston, and the Forward Party’s long-term goal of building from the ground up.

This is not a campaign ad.

It is a civic conversation about how political parties form, how voters get choices and what it would take for a third party to become viable in Tennessee.

I am a retired detective and criminal justice / government educator based in Tennessee. I am a commentary write for Tennessee Lookout and a weekly columnist with Knox TN Today. My work examines public policy, public safety systems and civic responsibility. My reporting and commentary have also appeared in Governing, The Arizona Capitol Times, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Police1, among other state and regional outlets.

Subscribe now

The Redemption Project Newsroom
UPDATE — Sept. 1, 2026: New responses obtained by The Redemption Project provide an unusually clear demonstration of why cychlorphine counts from different jurisdictions cannot be compared without first understanding what each jurisdiction actually counted.

Dallas County reports one confirmed postmortem ca…

Read more

The Redemption Project Newsroom

UPDATE — Sept. 1, 2026: Dallas County has now confirmed one 2026 postmortem case in which cychlorphine was detected.

“1 confirmed case,” Dr. Sara K. Dempsey, chief of forensic chemistry at the Dallas County Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences, told The Redemption Project.

Dempsey said the case conta…

Read more

The numbers are interesting.

They are also easy to overread.

A poll can tell us something useful about public opinion at a particular moment. It cannot guarantee what voters will do weeks or months later, predict every change in a campaign or turn a small lead into a certain election result.

In this Season 4 Civic Conversation, Brandon Burley speaks with pollster Mark Cunningham about what polls actually measure, how scientific surveys are constructed and why the public should be cautious when campaigns, media outlets and social media accounts turn numbers into narratives.

Cunningham is the director of polling at Overton Insights and the original founder of the Beacon Poll. He explains sample sizes, margins of error, toplines, crosstabs, likely-voter models and the difference between public polling, internal campaign polling, online surveys and straw polls.

The conversation also examines push polling, question wording, demographic weighting and the ways even a professionally conducted poll can be selectively quoted or misunderstood. A topline may show the overall result, while the underlying groups reveal a much more complicated story. A candidate may lead today and lose later—not necessarily because the poll was fraudulent, but because voters, events and conditions changed.

Brandon and Mark also discuss prediction markets, exit polling and why people become defensive when polling does not support the candidate or outcome they want.

The most important lesson is not that every poll is right or that every poll should be trusted.

It is that polls should be read carefully.

Who paid for the research? How were the questions worded? Who was surveyed? Does the sample resemble the population being discussed? What is the margin of error? Does the polling organization have a reliable record?

Before celebrating a poll—or dismissing it—slow down and look at what the numbers actually say.

A poll is a snapshot in time.

It is not the election result.

Subscribe now

I am a retired detective and criminal justice / government educator based in Tennessee. I am a commentary write for Tennessee Lookout and a weekly columnist with Knox TN Today. My work examines public policy, public safety systems and civic responsibility. My reporting and commentary have also appeared in Governing, The Arizona Capitol Times, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Police1, among other state and regional outlets.

Subscribe now

The Redemption Project Newsroom

UPDATE — Sept. 1, 2026: Since this story was published, The Redemption Project has received responses from seven additional forensic and medical-examiner jurisdictions showing that cychlorphine testing remains highly uneven.

Dallas County added the drug to its routine LC-QTOF-MS/MS screen on Feb. 13 and ha…

Read more

The Redemption Project Newsroom
Commentary / Civic Analysis

Americans rarely vote directly on “freedom.”

They vote for presidents, governors, lawmakers, judges, prosecutors, sheriffs, school boards and city councils. Those officials then decide what freedom means in practice: when police need warrants, when emergencies justify new powers, when schools can restrict speech, when agencies can collect data and when public safety outweighs personal liberty.

That is the part of civic life voters can miss.

Freedom is not only written in founding documents. It is expanded, limited, protected, narrowed and reinterpreted through legislation, courts, emergency powers, budgets, agency rules and elections.

The Constitution protects speech, religion, due process, privacy, arms, property, jury trials, voting rights and equal protection. But the practical boundaries of those rights are often set later, in places voters may not watch closely.

A legislature can protect liberty by requiring warrants, limiting executive power, protecting voting access, barring discrimination or strengthening due process. It can also narrow liberty by expanding surveillance, creating vague criminal offenses, limiting protest, increasing emergency authority or allowing government agencies to collect more information with less oversight.

That does not mean safety is unimportant.

Government exists, in part, to protect people. Schools, airports, courts, voting places, public buildings and critical infrastructure all need security. Police need tools to investigate real threats. Intelligence agencies need authority to monitor foreign adversaries. Emergency officials need room to act when lives are at risk.

But the better question is not simply “freedom or safety?”

The better question is: What power is being given, to whom, for how long, under what oversight, with what evidence, and what happens when the emergency is over?

That question became unavoidable after Sept. 11, 2001.

Before 9/11, the United States already had surveillance laws, intelligence agencies, airport screening, immigration enforcement and anti-terrorism tools. But the attacks exposed failures in intelligence sharing, aviation security, interagency coordination and threat detection.

After 9/11, the federal government changed quickly.

Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act. Airport security was federalized through the creation of the Transportation Security Administration. The Department of Homeland Security was created by combining all or part of 22 agencies. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was later created to improve coordination across the intelligence community.

Subscribe now

Read more