Tag: Martin Daniel

Three Members of the Tennessee General Assembly Voice Support for Amy Coney Barrett

Chris Butler

Three members of the Tennessee General Assembly co-signed a letter this week calling for the swift confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

This, they said, because of her support for limited government, free markets, and federalism.

The three Tennessee legislators — State Rep. Martin Daniel (R-Knoxville), State Sen. Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma), and State Sen. Shane Reeves (R-Murfreesboro) — co-signed the letter alongside several other state legislators nationwide. The Arlington, Virginia-based American Legislative Exchange Council published the letter on their website Monday.

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Special Interests in Auctioneering World Want to Use Tennessee Government to Regulate Their Competitors, Experts Say

Chris Butler

Members of the Tennessee General Assembly will likely pass a bill into law that would require certain types of online auctioneers in the state to get a license to do business, said a state legislator. That man, State Rep. Martin Daniel, R-Knoxville, and others told The Tennessee Star this week that legislators are acting at the behest of special interest groups and other lobbyists. These groups compete with online auctioneers and want the government to either regulate their rivals or possibly snuff them out of business outright, said Daniel and other experts, including a Tennessee-based online auctioneer. “This thing got out of committee, so I would assume the chances (of it passing into law) are pretty good,” Daniel said. “As far as the special interest groups are concerned, online auctioneers are diminishing their business and their very lives.” Meanwhile, online auctioneer Will McLemore told The Star those special interest groups include the Tennessee Auctioneers Association. Members of the Tennessee Auctioneers Association did not return our repeated requests for comment Tuesday. According to that group’s website, members of the group represent auctioneering interests throughout the state. McLemore said members of the group have tried hard to get the state government to…

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Tennessee Legislators Scared to Fight Civil Asset Forfeiture Abuse, Says State Rep. Martin Daniel

Chris Butler

Members of the Tennessee General Assembly won’t tackle civil asset forfeiture abuse because they fear a backlash from law enforcement, said State Rep. Martin Daniel  (R-Knoxville). Daniel serves on the legislature’s Civil Justice Subcommittee. Daniel told The Tennessee Star Monday that for the past three years he’s filed bills “that would have substantially reformed the problem.” Daniel said his colleagues don’t show his bill much, if any, support. And there’s a reason for that, Daniel said. “Law enforcement likes to have this revenue, I would assume, because there’s not a lot of accountability and transparency. They can use this money to spend it any way they want to without the legislature’s or a county commission’s oversight,” Daniel said. According to Justiceactionnetwork.org, Tennessee law enforcement officers can use civil asset forfeiture to seize and sell people’s property. They can do this “based only on their suspicion that it has been involved in criminal activity, without having to charge the citizen with a crime.” Law enforcement officers can sell or auction this property to supplement their budgets. Officials in Tennessee, Justiceactionnetwork.org went on to say, have seized and forfeited more than $85.9 million dollars in property between 2009 and 2014. These same…

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New Tennessee Bill Goes After Civil Forfeiture Laws

Chris Butler

State Rep. Martin Daniel, R-Knoxville has proposed a new law that, if enacted, would change Tennessee’s civil forfeiture laws. Specifically, the proposed law would require that local district attorneys general review the underlying circumstances of a seizure to determine if probable cause exists to justify forfeiture. When appropriate, the law requires that he or she “file a motion to dismiss the application for forfeiture warrant, upon which the court shall dismiss the application and return the seized property.” As The Tennessee Star reported last year, a State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said Tennessee’s civil forfeiture laws remain among the least protective of property owners in the nation.” Daniel told The Star that civil asset forfeiture in Tennessee “has gotten out of hand.” “We need to impose safeguards to ensure innocent persons are not swept up in this effort. We can do that by making sure law enforcement is subject to Tennessee law and limit their ability to hand the matter off, via the equitable sharing process the federal government allows,” Daniel said. According to Recuro.org, a federal program known as “Equitable Sharing” “allows prosecutors to bypass more stringent state asset forfeiture laws by passing cases…

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