Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
It's Tennessee Matters on the Tennessee RadioNetwork. Welcome to Tennessee Matters. I'm
John Clark from the Tennessee Radio Network. The Tennessee Secretary of State's mission is
to exceed the expectations of their customers, the taxpayers, by operating the highest
levels of accuracy, cost effectiveness,and accountability in a customer centered environment.
(00:25):
Trey Hargett was elected by the TennesseeGeneral Assembly to service Tennessee thirty seventh Secretary
of State in two thousand and nineand re elected in twenty thirteen, twenty
seventeen, and twenty twenty one.Secretary Hargut is also the chief executive officer
of the Department of State, withthe oversight of more than three hundred employees.
And he's our guest today. TreyHargut sits their state for Tennessee.
(00:49):
Nice to be here today. It'snice to be here. What's the latest
Now? The election's coming up.This year is going to be a big
one. What about this year?Yeah, it's our big presidential election year.
It's kind of like churches to somepeople when they show you know,
on Christmas at Easter. We havethose voters who show up every four years
in our presidential election year, sowe'll have our largest turnout that we'll you
(01:11):
know, we'll have every four years, and it's a big one. Obviously.
It's taken up a lot of ourtime and our bandwidth to make sure
that we continue to win elections thatmeet most integrity of Tennessee. Tennessee remains
a place where it's easy to vote, hard to achieve, and we're focused
each and every day on making sureTennessee is can trust and results of the
(01:32):
elections. Now, what dates dopeople need to know about and for this
election, for the the presidential iscoming up in the in November, what
dates do they need to know aboutso they can go ahead and Richard to
vote and it's just if they've gotteninto the state. Yeah, there's a
lot of dates. Okay, that'swhat I figured I have mentioned to you.
(01:55):
So certainly, you know the Augustelection, We've got August first,
where we will have our federal electionin county general elections and vote registration deadlines
are thirty days prior to that,so we know first week at July,
you know, really July first,you need to make sure you have a
vote registration interrupt data at that point, you know, it's certainly be the
(02:16):
same thing and advance an over thrinthelection. There's a thirty day window where
where we're blacked out from registering youvoters. But I just tell people the
best thing to do is, ifit's on your mind, get it done
now. You know, you cango to our website at go vote in
dot gov. Or we have anapp, it's a go Vote ten app.
(02:37):
It's in the Apple Store and aGoogle Play and you can update your
vote registration information. You can registerfor the first time, you know,
assuming that we have a signature onfive with you with Department Homeland Security and
Safety and Homeland Security. Has therebeen easier at Safe Secure it's quick.
Don't put it off until the veryend because one of the most fresh trading
(03:00):
things is we have people who callus, you know, on election day.
We got from election day and sohey, I like to register the
vote. So well that deadline's passed, so we want to get people to
go ahead, get registered now.Then they want to argue with you.
They want to you you know,at the same time we do a lot
(03:20):
or you know, they're trying tomake sure that people are aware what vote
registration deadlines are when early vote startsin what election day is. But you
know, you can't reach everybody's asmuch as you try to. What what
do you want to say to peopleto ensure them that the elections are true
and the integrity of the election andeverything is as it should be, you
(03:45):
know, because I know somebody's goingto go the date they cheated, I
know or something like that. Yeah, you know. And frankly, both
parties over the last especially last eightyears, haven't really talked a lot about,
well, if I don't win,there must be something elegit the right
cur so it there's like both partiesat times work to set the stage for
if we don't and something untoward happened. We're fortunate here in Tennessee. We've
(04:10):
been ranking number one in election integrityfrom the Heritage Foundation for the last two
years. Anticipate you know that we'regoing to be number one again based on
everything that I know. But themost important thing we do, and I
could talk of a lot about thelaws that we have in place that make
that happen. People need to understandthat every county has a bipartison election commission
(04:34):
and very few things come down toa parson issue. They work very well
together to make sure that every boat'scounty wants to war no less. And
by the way, in every county. And these are your county election officials
who are from your home county.You know, they're not from a neighboring
county, a neighboring state, notfor a foreign country. These are the
(04:56):
people you see at football games,you see them at church, you see
them at the bank, you seethem at the grocery store. And so
that really I want to give youa great deal of comfort. These are
people who are living amongst you,walk amongst you, who run these elections.
Yeah, there your election to peopletoo. Also, do you need
election people? You probably need somepeople absolutely. You know it's a big
(05:17):
operation. You can't name another businessthat has, you know, thousands of
employees that work you know, threedays every two years and then we say,
hey, you did a great job, hope you'll come back in two
years, right, right, Socertainly every county election commission in the state
would love to have more poll workers. We've changed a lot recently that allows
(05:41):
even you know, teenagers, ifyou're sixteen years and above, you can
come and work work with the polls. In some counties you can earn credit
towards your Tennessee Promise hours that you'rerequired to get. And we're trying to
build the next generation of poll workers. You know, we're really excited when
we think young people that want tocome in to work with the polls.
They bring fresh air into the place. Yeah, really good. So if
(06:02):
they if they want to, ifthey're looking right now to so they want
to get involved in the elections,they should contact you or someone locally.
They can do the one that cancontact the local elections commission. That can
also go to our website and govote in dot there's a way to sign
up there. They call it bea hero, become an election worker,
(06:23):
and they can sign up on thereand we'll make sure their local election commission
gets that information. That's great,that's great. Anything else we need to
know as far as the elections comingup, well I would add this.
You know, we mentioned Paul Walksa minute ago. It's about parisan effort.
Yeah, you know, so youmay live and what you consider to
be a Democrat county, they needRepublicans, right, you know, to
(06:45):
work the polls. You may liveand once you think is a Republican county.
They need Democrats to work and that'spart of the safety of our our
system and own elections. You know. One more thing I would add is
that we we have a room calledthe Honor Vote program where people can go
that website to go vote to youand doc up and they can sign up
(07:06):
to cast their vote in honor ofa loved one, you know, living
or deceased. We know that themany women who have served our military have
protected our freedoms that give us theirright and the opportunity to vote. And
so it's a small way that youcan go in and all that person.
(07:26):
We mail you a button that youcan wear the polls you can say you're
voting in all that person. Soit's a really special program that we've been
doing for quite some time now andhope that people will will think about honoring
others. That's definitely a good thing. Well, I know, you know,
elections are I can't I say theelections are the biggest thing you do,
and they probably are, but youdo some other things too. Certainly,
(07:50):
elections tend to be the top ofthe vote, right. You know,
we have our division of business,business and churn of organizations. I
mean each year we hand over onehundred thousand transactions from businesses that are even
either going through formation finally a reportwith us we do what to call U
see see filings. That's not somethingthat major basketball conference a tournament. It's
(08:16):
a way of a lender affecting theirinterests in the piece of collateral. We
also oversee charitable organizations where we havecriminal investigators who go out and they investigate
allegations of nonprofit organizations that might beabusing thempetue they have to raise charitable funds.
(08:37):
Tennessee it's one of the most charitablestates in the country and that national
Ommphis boat are ranked at top fiveamong I guess a generosity index and how
how people give to charitable organizations.So we do a lot of things in
those worlds, you know, inthe business charitable organizations. Not to mention,
(09:01):
some people who are listening may recognizethe Tennessee Blue Book. It's typically
blue Okay, it's a it's alongstanding almanac of state government that we publish
every two years that really kind ofgives you the who's who state That helps
you navigate the bureaucracy of state government. If you if you've never had to
interact with it. And also it'sa history book as well, and many
(09:24):
school teachers use to teach Tennessee governmentand history. Oh so that's that's is
it out now? And you knowwe've, like I said, we published
every two years and Edison came outin January. You can certainly if people
want to copy of that, youcontact your local legislator or you can contact
(09:45):
me at our office too for togive us a call, email us,
and we're more happy to get onein the mail to you. Good.
Good. So, the the charitablecontributions and the the for the to that
purpose, they go through you.Everybody who's a charity should go through you
too. If you're going to raiseif you're going to raise funds and the
(10:07):
name of the charity, you're supposedto be registered with us. And we
do have a you know, asmaller threshold. You know, if you
are raising you know, a smallamount each year, we'll give you a
waiver to do that. We've alsoin recent years, this is now the
full consecutive year year, we passeda law through the legislature that's helped us
(10:33):
reduce the fees for charitab organizations downto a flat ten dollars a year.
We kind of looked, we lookedour bank a kind of four years ago.
Four years ago at least I did. And we're running a surplus.
And if we're running a surplus,it means we're taking too much money from
taxpayers. And so we figured outa way. We've cut those fees to
ten dollars and we've returned almost eightmillion dollars. Oh man, well she's
(10:58):
been. At the end of thenext week, we have returned almost eight
million dollars. We're over six milliondollars now, it'll be close to eight
million dollars by this time next year. Of the avoidance for nonprofit organizations because
I don't know anybody's giving money toa charity, and says, now,
make sure the government gets some ofthis right, right, So on we
take we take being good stewards atax payer of dollars and time very seriously
(11:22):
in our office. Oh that's that'sthat's good to find out that again.
Now you also do gaming. Youristar the gaming talking about the gaming.
Yeah, glad, you know.We you know, if you're trying to
figure out how many points Lebron Jamesgot a bet on that. That's a
totally different world. That's the SportsWager and Council that does that. But
(11:43):
there are nonprofit organizations in this statethat meet certain criteria that apply to have
what's called an annual event, andour constitution allows for it to be an
annual event. You can have tobe a five to one C three or
five to one seed nineteen and youcan conduct that charitable event. You know,
it's a golf ball drop can thengo raffle something like that. They
(12:05):
apply to our office. We inturn vent those applications and send a list
over to the legislature. The legislaturethen boats that up or down so that
those organizations is going to have thatonce a year event. You know,
not to plug any particular organization.You know, a prominent organization is Saint
(12:26):
Jude. You're allowed to do onein each Grand Division. They do one
of these events in each Grand Divisioneach year. You don't know, it's
a true home getaway. It's whatthey do. But there are two hundred
plus other organizations that use those oncea year events to raise money for their
good calls. Okay, and thennow other business services that you do too
(12:50):
for businesses because you want them tobe nice and legal and everything to you
do a number of things for themtoo. What are some of the other
business services you do Earlier business Formation'sannual reports u see sees there's some smaller
things like trademarks, summons, APPAstills, APPA stills are not to be
confuseder matth view mark, luke andjohn sounds different, it's spell different.
(13:16):
Typically, how people would anybody's everdone an international adoption or studied abroad you
or done thissits abroad. You mightnotice that you had to get it.
You've got your documents or rised herein Tennessee, your home county in Tennessee,
but you also need to have anauthentication or app is still placed on
that sort of that form. Governmentwould recognize that that documents. So that
(13:39):
that's something small we do and somethingwe undertook about a decade ago. We
take all those business Formation that thatinformation, the annual reports and whatnot,
and we compile that a coarly Economicindicator report. We worked with the University
of Tennessee Center for Business Economic Researchand look at those those numbers to see
(14:05):
how our economy is doing. Andyou know, we know that because of
how businesses form and when they form. That's a good leading economic indicator of
tax revenues, of employment growth,of just the overall state of the economy.
So you know, we've enjoyed doingthat and making sure that we take
(14:30):
the things that we're doing and providevalue for Tennessee. So I think that's
something that's very useful for people inthe public and private sector, is to
be a place where we gave allthat information and what are some of the
other things that you do that wedon't even know about? Yeah, well,
well some of you may not knowabout and really don't want to know
about. A couple of things thatwe've started since I've taken all this recently,
(14:56):
we sort of safe at home program. Yeah, that's what I want
to talk about. So let's intheir own program. And it's like a
lot of good ideas. It wasstolen from somebody, right, Okay,
sitting in a national association a secretaryof state meeting and a good friend,
Jay ash Crawl, These secretary ofstate in Missouri is talking about their program,
and I come back home and Isaid, well, somebody already doing
this bout us. And so wecreate an address Companenci outing program for those
(15:22):
who had been victims of domestic violence, of sexual abuse, human trafficking,
that they can register with our officeand we will collect their mail for them
at a central location and then wewill send their mail back out to them
at their address. What that prevents. That prevents the perpetrator from going to
(15:46):
the utility company or the election commissionor other places where your address is typically
publicly available, and prevents them frombeing able to do that so they can
continue to victim. Miyes exploit whenI have view those victims. So it's
a small way that we're protecting rightnow, it gets close to a thousand
(16:08):
Tennessee families. We've got application assistance, rereadicals, the stage build the training
process and know how to help theseindividuals. And the program has been successful.
Yeah, and you know we Iwould love to have a day where
nobody needed that, but until theend, you know, we're playing a
role in that. And then nowin the last couple of years, what
(16:32):
we've done we just now I said, that's a couple of years. We've
got the authority last year in thelegislature, but just rolled it out recently.
As we create a program called theTennessee Business It's trafficking program, which
it's helping engage the business community inthe Audi ex unit trafficking, which is
the second fastest growing criminal enterprise inthe country, exceeded only drug trafficking.
(16:57):
And we know there's instances of thisin all ninety five counties. It's not
just the urban issue, it's everywhere, right, And so we created this
program that allows a company to traintheir employees on two important things. Number
one, what is you know,what is human trafficking? How do I
(17:18):
spot it? So that that's critical. You got to know what to look
for. And then you know,it's great to know what to look for,
but you if you don't know whatto do when you see it right
right, you know, And that'sthe other part of the battle. So
then training people also to when theysuspect something, what do they go do
after they they suspect something or whenthey see something. So we're we're really
(17:41):
excited about that. Once again,we're we wish there was no need for
that program, but we are veryenergized by how many organizations are already reaching
out to us saying, hey,come train our employees. Wow, because
people really want to engage in thisfight. And so we work very well
with the ad advocat SEE community whothey have been fantastic in helping us write
(18:04):
the rules for the program and reallyget the ball rolling man who does the
training, who does that for WEEwho she spearheads the program. So we
have a coordinator of that program anduh, and then also we outline you
know, that's where you come signup for it, and we've got a
video that you know, people willbe able to shoulder their employees that we
(18:27):
work really hard to make sure it'spermanent. It tell us a true story
of what human track it looks like, the faces of it, and what
a really dark side of our societyit is. And it really is,
it really is. And that's greatthat you do that, that you have
this area. We're fortunate to playa role in that. You know,
(18:47):
we're just sometimes I found in ouroffice, our our role is to be
a convener and trying to really putour shoulder and our political cloud into something
to get it going. I'm justyou know, not not to try fallshumility
or anything. Right. Uh,there's a lot of people who've been in
gates in a fight for a longtime and we're just glad to join join
(19:07):
the end of the fight. Wejust did a show about some uh,
the tattoo removal companies that this companyis a nonprofit that it goes out and
removes the tattoos and the trafficking victims. You know, just so things like
that, you know, just anythingyou could do for traffickers is amazing.
(19:29):
We've got to get a point toowhere we have those who have been traffic
be reintegrated full of us workplace right, you know, and for different reasons
sometimes that's that's harder. And weare looking forward to being the next step
and how to help move that forwardas well. Do that and safe at
home program work together anyway they dosomething. They are too very they are
(19:53):
take the state programs. But wedo think there are ways are going to
be able to work together. Yeah. Yeah, that's talk about the Safe
at Home some more though, sothat people know, because I want to
get his I want to get everybodyrichister for that that can is in that.
We had that on a couple ofyears ago. The lady that runs
at we had her own and thatwas it was a fascinating show and she
(20:15):
just talked about safe at Home andwhat they do and then you wouldn't think
about that, but it's in need, you know what it is, you
know, and so try to imaginethat you have your spouse and you've been
caught up in a very turbulent,violent right home atmosphere. You're trying to
(20:37):
escape and I hate to use theword escape, but that's truly what is
that. That is a situation.And you know, then you get ready
to you go get an apartment somewhereand you have to cut you tooke his
own obviously, you know, theperson who has been the perpetrator of those
(21:00):
those acts, what have the abilityto go to the utility company and then
find your address and they're how tohunt you down. Yeah, yeah,
I have to say it that way, and it would you know, this
allows for a way to protect thatindividual for continue to be fifty five Yeah,
over and over and over again.Yeah, it doesn't so, and
it just it's for their their mailgoes to you and then comes those to
(21:26):
them. That's right. So youknow, we collect their mail and then
you know, at a minimum twotimes a week we in turn send that
mail back out to them. Okay, so they get that and you get
that and you get the trafficking stuffthat you got a lot a lot of
going on then, and we doyou know, one of the things that
we have to bring to the pridein this we're gone for four to and
(21:48):
forty five employees, drive through threehundred and fifty five five hundud employees in
office. I think today we've probablygot about three hundred and sixty people in
a payroll. Oh wow. Andbut we don't measure ourselves based on number
of our employees. We measure ourselveshow do we make a difference allows our
foltusiness business all it Sometimes it's conductingan election that being some people will voneum.
(22:14):
And sometimes it's about that one familythat's affected by you know, the
best in violence, sexual abuse,human traffick and what have you. Sometimes
it's that person who's just trying tostart a business for the very first time
and realize an entrepreneurial dream. Youknow. All the things that we do,
we're trying to be who the customeris and you're one of those transactions.
And if we can't identify who isthe customer and a transaction or a
(22:38):
process, we look at our departmentfigure out how do we quit doing those
things and use that bandwidth actually godo something that matters to people, right
right, So you use it.You know, I think a lot of
people they go, oh, no, I got to get the other secretary
of State's office, so they sous, it's to use it for not for
(23:00):
that reason, but for reasons thatare good that I'm now, you're sixteen
of doing this job. So I'min my fourth term. And one of
the shocking things that happened to meit still happens to me, is people
say, no, gosh, Ihad to deal with y'all twenty years ago.
I had a horrible experience dreaded callingyou. And you know what the
(23:23):
old expressions is, Hey, it'sclose enough for government work. And we
don't think just because we're dealing withthe government, you should have to deal
with sub standard customer service. We'vebeen given an opportunity for our belitenancy as
a way as big and small,and sometimes we're never going to meet that
person who interacts with us, andmaybe a phone call, email or or
(23:47):
snail email, what have you.That doesn't make it any less important.
Just because we don't stake government youhave doesn't make it less important. In
my mind. It makes it thatmuch more important, right because we're only
game in town. Right. Ifyou're talking about a restaurant or a radio
station or a bank or what haveyou, you've got choices. Right with
(24:10):
state government, you know, we'realong when you've got So that's what makes
it that much more critical. Dayin and day out, we're going Stewart's
a tax period all the time.And we also understand the privilege we have
in serving our developed and a SEMsand so let's get it right. That's
that's a great way to look atit. Well, I never have had
it explained that way. It's agreat way look at Yeah. Well,
(24:34):
and one thing you're doing is stateis Statehood Day June first, you talk
about that, you know, celebrateyou know, so I didn't mention this
earlier. The State Library of ourguys is review okay, it's we have
the largest collection geological searching maation downanywhere in the state of Tennessee. It's
down to Bisitenium ma All. Wemoved into a new building a couple of
(24:56):
years ago and it's open to thepublic. And one of the things that
we do with Statehood Day is webring out the three constitutions from the State
of Tennessee. And it's really coolto see. I mean, we have
a sense how we patrol, honorguard comes their precious documents, staying guard
(25:17):
for those all day. But everyTennessee and you don't have to be a
Tennessee and just a visitor can comeand actually see the actual constitutions that we
have. And our Statehood Day willalso we'll have something for all agency if
people are coming to do research aboutour great state. We've got all kinds
of things we can lead you toand we'll have exhibits that will also have
(25:41):
games and different activities for children too, so parents can bring their children down
where fortunate last year have great weather. I hope we do again this year.
Yeah, And it's a great dayon the grounds of the State Library,
and our gives to really engage inour states street learn more about building
(26:03):
the next generational library users. Welove. We love doing that and also
hoping that people understand that our roleis to preserve these important documents from the
State of Tennessee, but just importantmake them accessible. So Statehood Day really
helped shine a bright light on that. And that's June the first, and
where is it again at the StateLibrary and Archives on the Bistonia Mall and
(26:27):
in the State Museum will have activitiesas well. The Park Service that oversees
the Bistonia Mall, they'll have thingsgoing on. So you know, I
will tell you if you're a parentyou're looking for something to do with your
kids that day, the price isright to it's free, okay, perfect,
perfect, see, you know,come on down and that's here in
(26:48):
Nashville. You're here in Nashville,all right. And the state Statehood day
June first, here in Nashville.That's great State Library and Archives and by
them always at the corner of JohnL. Lewis Way and Jefferson. Okay,
all right, Well, if someonewants to get in touch with your
office, give me all the numbers, because I know you think you've got
(27:10):
lots of numbers calling. The numberanywhere is my phone number at six one,
five, seventy four, one two, eight, one nine. Okay,
now right now, I'm sure whatevermy assistant here is that she's gonna
craze because there's a lot of otherphones. Oh no, I think one
important number to call is if youhave an election issue, Yeah, you
(27:30):
know, to call eighty seven seveneight five zero four nine five nine.
We have a total free number.Obviously, if someone needs election assistance anyway,
they they see election crawl or Ithink they see election fraud, something
something untourd call us there. Ifyou see charitable fraul call us a sixty
(27:52):
one five five three two five sixzero five. You know, we really
enjoy the opportunity to interact with ourpelaton a seat, because that's that's what
we're about, is how we startour platon of seats and for the elections.
The elections are coming up and forthem an important dates again that they'll
need to know. You know,if we're going to have August first,
(28:15):
it's an election day first, stateand federal primary and county general elections in
many counties across the state. Novemberfifth is election day. That's going to
be the state and federal general election. A huge day, big day in
our state and our country. Ofcourse, early voting will be starting roughly
two and a half weeks before that. You know, the best thing you
(28:37):
can do, honestly is go togo vote in dot com and there's a
wealth or the app that go votein, there's a wealth information on there,
even down to showing you what isgoing to be on your unique ballot.
Okay, okay, you know youcan type in your address and you
can see right then what's going tobe on your ballot and the upcoming elections.
And of course if you want toget involved in your election, then
(29:00):
you need to call your elections people. If you were to work the post
for your election commissioner, reach outto us. You can go to go
vot dot gov. There's a greatplace to sign up on our West site
and we'll get you plugged in greatsay, State Trade Harget, thank you
so much, my prinvilege. Thankyou for you talk about how we're serving
(29:22):
our fellow Tennessee Is and I appreciatewhat y'all do here as well. Thank
you very much. That's Trade Harget, Tennessee Secretary of State so OS dot
Tennessee dot gov. For questions andcomments about today's program, you can email
me John Clark at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to
you next week right here on yourlocal radio station on Tennessee Matters