Republican State Senator McNally heads the committee about to release a bill that would weaken The Sunshine Law.

The Tennessee Sunshine Law is the one that basically says elected officials shouldn't get together and make back room deals amongst themselves. Messing with it is turning into a bad deal for Republicans, who want to get rid of some of the restraints. Now, after taking a drubbing from public opinion, even Senator McNally seems to be backing away from his own committee's bill.

State Senator Tommy Kilby and I had a good conversation about his position on all this. Tommy seems to think government in the sunshine is a good idea and it ought to stay that way. He said that a lot of misinformation get's put out about how hard the sunshine laws are on elected officials, even noting how silly it was for Knox County officials to skip their Christmas parade, "There's nothing in the law that says we can't be at the same place at the same time...We just can't deliberate."

Kilby has expressed his opinion on this to Governor Bredesen who is like minded on seeing no reason why the public's business can't be conducted in public.