NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Knoxville, Tennessee – December 15,
2025 – Elliott Schuchardt, a candidate for the
Tennessee General Assembly, is calling for reform of the state’s law for
election of judges.
In Tennessee, to be qualified to run as a judge, a candidate must
be authorized to practice law in the state of Tennessee.
Schuchardt has filed a lawsuit that challenges the state’s
requirement that judicial candidates be lawyers.
Schuchardt says that Tennessee does not use due process in deciding who
can practice law in the state. According to the complaint, the Tennessee
Supreme Court has held that it can suspend a lawyer’s license without
considering any evidence against the lawyer. Schuchardt says that this
system is arbitrary, and is being used for political purposes.
Schuchardt has a list of more than fifty candidates attacked by the
Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility, in recent years. Many of
these people were running against sitting judges. Others were running for
higher office. According to Schuchardt, there is an appearance that the
Board is filing cases against lawyers to disqualify them from office.
The Board has filed ethics cases against two candidates for President of
the United States, two candidates for governor of Tennessee, a former clerk for
the U.S. Supreme Court, and two presidents of their county bar associations.
“These are the kind of people that we would want to run for office,” he
says. “However, the Tennessee ethics board is working to keep them off
the ballot," he says.
The Tennessee ethics board has also filed ethics cases against a number
of prominent African-American attorneys. For example, in 2024, the Board
publicly censured the president of the Nashville chapter of the NAACP, Sheryl
D. Guinn. Guinn twice ran for office as General Sessions Judge in
Davidson County, Tennessee. The board has also attacked the law license
of African-American candidate, Terry Renease Clayton. In 2015, Clayton
was a candidate for the Nashville City Council. Since then, he has twice
run for the office of State Representative.
According to Schuchardt, nearly a dozen attorneys have sued the Board or
its employees, alleging harassment for political reasons. For example,
attorney David Danner alleged that the Board retaliated against his license to
practice law, after he published an opinion in the Nashville City Paper
criticizing the state's system for selecting judges. Attorney Carol Dawn
Deaner claimed the Board retaliated against her law license, after she
criticized Tennessee's system for selecting court-appointed counsel.
Schuchardt’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle
District of Tennessee, says that Schuchardt has been a victim of political
misconduct at the board. The complaint says that the chief lawyer at the
board – Sandra Garrett -- has filed seven petitions against Schuchardt, to
interfere with Schuchardt’s representation of a lawsuit against a group of
court insiders. The complaint alleges that Garrett is using her state office to
interfere with Schuchardt’s constitutional right to due process. According
to Schuchardt, the Tennessee Supreme Court has refused to allow him to present
evidence, in connection with the board’s attacks on his license and
reputation.
Schuchardt has asked the federal court in Nashville to find Tennessee’s
election law for judges to be unconstitutional, given the lack of due process
in the state’s ethics law. Schuchardt points to numerous problems
with the ethics law. Under existing law, he says, the state is permitted
to choose the fact-finder from members of its own organization. "It
is impossible," he says, "to get a fair trial in an ethics case when
your adversary gets to appoint the trial court judge." Schuchardt
says that the fact finder should be an elected judge, or a panel of persons who
are not affiliated with the system.
According to Schuchardt, there is a precedent for this type of
system. In the early 1970s, there were complaints that the Knox County
Sheriff's Office was firing people for political reasons. Knox County,
Tennessee adopted a system to review employment-related decisions. Today,
the Knox County Merits Board is made up entirely of persons who are not affiliated with the
sheriff's office. "We need a similar system for looking at lawyer
ethics cases in Tennessee," he says. "If a majority of the
persons on a hearing panel were non-lawyers," he says, "then we would
get better decisions from the panels."
Schuchardt also objects to the state's "fee-shifting" rule, in
ethics cases. Tennessee has a rule that requires an attorney to pay the
state's legal fees, in an ethics case. According to Schuchardt, this can
result in a judgment of tens of thousands of dollars, against the defending
attorney. "The existing law is not fair," he says. "It is
designed to discourage lawyers from defending their law license, against court
insiders," he argues. "If we want the facts to come out, then
we should not penalize attorneys for presenting the evidence," he
says.
*
* *
Elliott J. Schuchardt is a candidate for the Tennessee General Assembly
in the August 2026 election. Schuchardt is the author of America’s Achilles Heel: How to Protect Your
Family When America Loses the Reserve Currency.
Schuchardt studied government at Cornell University and Oxford
University. He is also a graduate of Columbia Law School.
Schuchardt practiced law for nearly thirty years, before running for
office. He focused his legal practice on civil liberties issues in
the courts.
CONTACT:
Elliott J.
Schuchardt
2322 Jockey Run
Trail
Knoxville, TN
37920
Call or Text:
(865) 304-4374
E-mail:
elliott016@gmail.com
Twitter or
X: https://x.com/EJSchuchardt
Book
Website: www.elliott-author.com
Campaign Blog: https//elliottschuchardt.blogspot.com
#
# #
