The Tennessee Secretary of State is an office created by the Tennessee State Constitution. The Secretary of State is responsible for many of the administrative aspects of the operation of state government of

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. The current Secretary of State is Tre Hargett.

Selection process

According to the Tennessee Constitution of 1870, the Secretary of State is to be elected to a four-year term by the General Assembly in a

joint convention A joint session or joint convention is, most broadly, when two normally separate decision-making groups meet, often in a special session or other extraordinary meeting, for a specific purpose. Most often it refers to when both houses of a bicamer ...

. "Joint convention" means that the 99 state Representatives and 33 state Senators sit as a single body and cast individual votes. A majority of the 132 votes (67) is thus required for election. As this office is elected on a partisan basis, this means that the party having an overall majority of members in the two houses will elect its nominee secretary of state. Since

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

, in Tennessee this invariably resulted in the secretary of state being a Democrat until 2009, when the Republicans gained the majority of seats in the General Assembly. The election of the secretary of state occurs in the cycle opposite to that of the election of the governor of Tennessee; in other words the term of the Tennessee Secretary of State is roughly coincident with that of the

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

, generally beginning and ending only a few days earlier. Tennessee's method of selection stands in contrast to that of nearly all other U.S. states, where the secretary of state is generally either popularly elected on a statewide basis or appointed by the Governor of the state. In contrast to the practice of some states, in Tennessee the secretary of state is not high in the

order of succession An order of succession or right of succession is the line of individuals necessitated to hold a high office when it becomes vacated such as head of state or an honour such as a title of nobility.speakers Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** I ...

of the Senate and House are the first two in line. Secretary of State is one of only three state "constitutional officers" other than governor under the Tennessee Constitution; most other states have more. In contrast to this office, the other two, the State Treasurer and the Comptroller of the Treasury (a position similar to State Auditor in many other states), are elected by the joint convention to two-year terms. There are no constitutional limits on the number of terms to which a person can be elected to any of these offices. The office headed by the secretary of state is officially styled the "Tennessee Department of State".

Duties

As the secretary of state is elected by the legislature, the secretary of state's office is considered to be part of the

legislative branch A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known ...

, not the executive branch, of government in Tennessee. Duties of the secretary of state's office include the chartering of

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...

s, the registration of

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...

s and

service mark A service mark or servicemark is a trademark used in the United States and several other countries to identify a service rather than a product. When a service mark is federally registered, the standard registration symbol ® or "Reg U.S. ...

s, and the administration of

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

s. The secretary of state also publishes the biennial ''

Tennessee Blue Book The ''Tennessee Blue Book'' is an official government manual for the U.S. state of Tennessee, published by the Secretary of State of Tennessee. The ''Blue Book'' is typically published on a biennial basis. Its contents include details on the organ ...

'', the official guide to all three branches of Tennessee State Government, and other state publications including the publication of all public and private acts enacted by the General Assembly. The secretary of state is further charged with the regulation of charitable solicitations, the operations of the state library and archives, and the administration of the state Economic Commission on Women. To discharge the above duties, the Tennessee Department of State employs several

administrative law judge An administrative law judge (ALJ) in the United States is a judge and trier of fact who both presides over trials and adjudicates claims or disputes involving administrative law. ALJs can administer oaths, take testimony, rule on questions of evi ...

In history

According to some historians, during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

, Secretary of State Edward H. East succeeded to the governorship when Andrew Johnson, who had served as military governor, became

Vice President of the United States The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice ...

on March 4, 1865, and served as governor until April 5, when William "Parson" Brownlow was inaugurated as governor. The official ''Tennessee Blue Book'', published by the secretary of state's office, does not include East on its list of governors. As the Tennessee General Assembly ceased to meet during the Civil War and much of the ordinary process of government ceased effective function in the state, East had been appointed Secretary of State by Johnson. Those who recognize East's governorship do so on the theory that he was the highest-ranking remaining state official once Johnson had become Vice President. The most prominent secretary of state in Tennessee history was probably Joe C. Carr. Carr served on three occasions for a total of 27 years in the office, far longer than anyone else; in addition, his wife held the office while he was in military service during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. As secretary of state and thus the official responsible for conducting elections in the state, he was the nominal defendant in the famous 1962 Supreme Court case '' Baker v. Carr'', in which the Supreme Court held that Congressional and legislative districts had to be of substantially equal populations in order to comply with the "equal protection" provision of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (the so-called "one man one vote" decision). (Carr's name as defendant was merely '' ex officio''; the General Assembly, not the secretary of state, was responsible for setting the district boundaries, Carr's responsibility was to publish the resulting map and conduct elections accordingly.) In the 1970s and 1980s the secretary of state's office was given the responsibility for issuing and administering

bingo Bingo or B-I-N-G-O may refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * Bingo, a game using a printed card of numbers ** Bingo (British version), a game using a printed card of 15 numbers on three lines; most commonly played in the UK and Ireland ** Bi ...

licenses. An investigation into irregularities in the issuance of these licenses ( Operation Rocky Top) resulted in several

indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of a ...

s and the suicide of then-Secretary of State Gentry Crowell. As a result, bingo was made illegal in Tennessee, which it remains, except that it has been legal as an annual fundraising event for a recognized 501c(19) war veteran's organization since a 2014 amendment to the state constitution. The current secretary of state, Tre Hargett, has served since January 2009. He had previously served as Minority Leader in the Tennessee House of Representatives.

List of past secretaries of state

The following have held the office of Secretary of State in Tennessee:Secretaries of State
Tennessee Blue Book 2007-2008, page 507 * Daniel Smith, Territorial Secretary of Territory South of the River Ohio, 1792–1796 * William Maclin, 1796–1807 * Robert Houston, 1807–1811 * William Grainger Blount, 1811–1815 * William Alexander, 1815–1818 * Daniel Graham, 1818–1830 * Thomas H. Fletcher, 1830–1832 * Samuel G. Smith, 1832–1835 * Luke Lea, 1835–1839 * John S. Young, 1839–1847 * W .B. A. Ramsey, 1847–1855 * F. N. W. Burton, 1855–1859 * J. E. R. Ray, 1859–1862 * Edward H. East, 1862–1865 (appointed by Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of Tennessee) * A. J. Fletcher, 1865–1870 * T. H. Butler, 1870–1873 * Charles N. Gibbs, 1873–1881 *David A. Nunn, 1881–1885 *John Allison, 1885–1889 *Charles A. Miller, 1889–1893 * William S. Morgan, 1893–1901 * John W. Morton, 1901–1909 *Hallum W. Goodloe, 1909–1913 * R. R. Sneed, 1913–1917 *Ike B. Stevens, 1917–1921 * Ernest N. Hasten, 1921–1937 * Ambrose B. Broadbent, 1937–1941 * Joe C. Carr, 1941–1944 * Mrs. Joe C. Carr (Mary Hart Carr), 1944–1945 * Joe C. Carr, 1945–1949 * James H. Cummings, 1949–1953 * George Edward Friar, 1953–1957 * Joe C. Carr, 1957–1977 * Gentry Crowell, 1977–1989 * Milton P. Rice, 1989–1990 * Bryant Millsaps, 1990–1993 *

Riley Darnell Riley Carlisle Darnell (May 13, 1940 – October 2, 2020) was an American politician and lawyer who served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from the 67th district, Tennessee Senate from the 22nd district, Majority Leader of the Tenne ...

, 1993–2009 * Tre Hargett, 2009–present

References

External links

{{authority control State agencies of Tennessee 1792 establishments in the United States