Image: Sen. Adam Lowe said the state is trying to identify the influence of foreign money on Tennessee policy. Image Credit: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout
***Note from The Tennessee Conservative – this article posted here for informational purposes only. Per The Tennessee Lookout’s republishing guidelines, this article has been edited for style and length.
By Sam Stockard [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
A bill brought by Gov. Bill Lee’s administration requiring lobbyists to register when representing foreign adversaries has been derailed for the year.
Senate Bill 2235/House Bill 2549 was removed from consideration in the House in late March and failed to advance from the Senate State and Local Government Committee.
Republican Sen. Adam Lowe of Calhoun, who carried the Senate version of the bill, said the state is trying to identify the influence of foreign money on Tennessee policy but that the methods for identifying that impact are changing.
“Everybody agrees we don’t want foreign adversaries sabotaging what we have going on in Tennessee, or even in America, but we also want good foreign partners in a global economy,” Lowe said.
The federal government determines foreign adversaries based on long-term patterns of conduct considered a threat to U.S. national security and safety, including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
The Foreign Agent Registration Act would have required anyone representing a foreign adversary of the United States, foreign-supported political organization, legal entity organized by a foreign adversary or legal entity with at least 20% ownership by a foreign adversary, or any group whose actions are financed by a foreign adversary to register with the Tennessee Ethics Commission and file quarterly compensation reports, in addition to paying a non-refundable registration fee.
Agents of foreign adversaries would be restricted from typical lobbying actions, and any failure to follow the rules would have led to an Ethics Commission investigation and possibly penalties of up to $10,000.
Sen. Richard Briggs, chairman of the Senate State and Local Government Committee, has criticized an English-only driver’s license bill because of the impact he believes it could have on foreign investors such as Japanese-owned companies. He also expressed concerns about other problems dealing with foreign investors.
Briggs said he met this session with a representative of Cirrus Aircraft, a Chinese-owned company, who flew to Tennessee from Duluth, Minnesota to talk to state officials because it wasn’t receiving any assistance to expand in Tennessee. The company offers aircraft flight training, maintenance and aircraft management at McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville.
Anyone representing that company would have had to register with the Ethics Commission, based on the bill.
“I’m for us putting Americans to work with good jobs,” said Briggs, who called this legislation a form of “harassment.”
Briggs, a Knoxville Republican, inferred that foreign companies are feeling such a “hostile” reception in Washington, D.C., that they’re going straight to state leaders nationwide to make inroads.
Officials representing Ireland, Quebec, Canada and the Netherlands have expressed interest in doing business in Tennessee this year, Briggs said.
Rather than passing legislation that throws up roadblocks to foreign investment, Briggs said, “Let us be the little island of common sense.”
