People chat in front of Chattanooga city hall, wherein Mayor Andy Berke has been advised of the limits of Tenn. Code Ann. § Title 55 and asked to halt enforcement against noncommercial users of the roadways such as hiphop artist “C-Grimey” Cameron Williams, photo below, giving me an interview at Wildflower Cafe, a man whose driver license status is “revoked.” (Photos David Tulis)
Since Feb. 20 city government has been under administrative notice about the requirement to obey the statute at TCA 55 (transportation law) and also U.S.C. 49, the U.S. transportation statute.
By David Tulis / 92.7 NoogaRadio
The city is overenforcing the statute against blacks, the poor, immigrants, and orphans and widows — and other people like you and me — who are not involved in commercial for-profit use of the highways.
But the high court and state policy declare all travel = transportation, and by inference that nothing in practice in every last state municipal jurisdiction is amiss. So there’s reason to ignore TAN.
New cause of tort action
The conflict between policy and actual statute (and most case law about travel/transportation) is in our favor, because I propose we as members of the victim class leverage the law as against practice.
My reform plan is already in effect, and refocuses liability for bad traffic stops (ultra vires enforcement outside scope of authority) on the individual cop/deputy/trooper.
Each officer is personally liable for abusive/harassing enforcement, as he is under notice about the constitutional right of travel and the correct scope of the statutory authority at Title 55.
I’m focusing this reform program on the African-American, given my long complicity as a southerner and Christian with the abuse of this group of people the scriptures identify for us in our day as strangers in the land. Impetus for my concern about blacks is practical, as probably half the black population has no or suspended driver licenses. More so, it is theological and personal, as I have been convicted as a Christian by a close reading of Joel McDurmon’s book, The Problem of Slavery in Christian America, a history of my religious forebears in American slavery.
Fresh power to argue ‘bad faith’
If we can free minorities first from outside-the-scope enforcement, the rest of us will eventually benefit. As the white majority accepts police-state and enslavement tactics foisted upon blacks and minorities, our efforts to rescue them first is the proper step is restoring law and order, and bringing into our realms in Tennessee more freedom, liberty and prosperity.
The project creates a new cause of action vs. individual cops, and the work over the next two years is to inform the Hamilton County bar about it and the citizenry.
I should say a clarified cause of action; it has always been there, but with notice, cops and other state actors will not be able to claim the traditional “good faith” defense for their actions (“I didn’t know about that person’s rights,” and, “I didn’t intend to oppress that person in his exercise of rights”). With administrative notice, it will be easier to argue bad faith on the part of the state actor harassing some person on the side of the road.
The project requires more and more people’s understanding that to exercise any right (voting, religion, free assembly, free speech, press, abortion), they have to be free to travel to and fro, apart from any tax, levy, license or state claim. If I have to have a driver license to “drive” to vote, then voting is not a real right, only a benefit premised on a state privilege.
In this fissure created by an activist judiciary as against law and legal principle, I propose creating a sanctuary city here (or in other jurisdictions willing to obey the law) from Tenn. Code Ann. § Title 55, a concept that lefty Dems and libertarian GOPers are sure to love (once they understand it).
Notice has powerful legal effects
Here’s a recent text explaining how getting a TAN would work in East Ridge. Its claims are identical on other jurisdictions — Red Bank, Chattanooga, Gov. Bill Haslam, Hamilton County.
Just do a find here on Nooganomics “administrative notice” and read any of numerous analyses about this lococentric solution to abusive commercial government.
I am nearly done with a review of Tennessee court cases on the power of notice to affect change in legal relations among parties, and will be publishing it soon, as God wills. I will post it when I get returns from open records requests for city and county, document returns I expect to be scant. Carole Miller, Sheriff Hammond’s personnel director, says she is fulfilling my data request for TAN-related departmental commkunications.
I will send my analysis on notice to various city attorneys such as Arnold Stulce in Red Bank, Mark Litchford in East Ridge, Phil Noblett in Chattanooga and to Sheriff Jim Hammond of Hamilton County as a gratis help as they decide how properly to enforce Title 55. Legal notice requires action, I will suggest. Proper notice lay groundwork for major change. Either that or bad-faith digging in to defend and justify current traffic stop and enforcement practices.
With notice we force these governments to make a commitment. Obey the law, or make yourself secure in a policy that violates the law and the lawful rights and immunities of the people.
Cities and counties can enforce Title 55 within its scope. Or they can continue abusing the people under it in the interest of the status quo and commercial government.
I am not a licensed attorney, do not give legal advice nor in any way engage in the practice of law. But administrative notice’s benefits as an idea are increasingly clear. Administrative notice is an entirely new idea and allows a lococentric redress of grievance that cannot be brought about either through the legislature or the courts.
The issues of transportation and travel cannot be argued directly on appeal, given the Tennessee appellate courts’ position ( one that is clearly a legal fiction) that travel does not exist in any way except for the change of domicile from one state to another.
But TAN will gain ground as authority once a single local police officer or deputy in a jurisdiction under notice is sued in this personal capacity for an oppressive act.
