Tennessee Candidate Calls for Investigation of State Ethics Board
Elliott Schuchardt says that his adversary, Elaine Davis, has refused to investigate alleged misconduct at the Board.
Elliott Schuchardt, a candidate for the Tennessee General Assembly, is calling for an investigation of the state board that regulates lawyers.
Tennessee supervises lawyers through a Board of Professional Responsibility. The Board handles lawyer licensing. It also investigates complaints made against lawyers by members of the public.
Schuchardt says that the Board appears to be straying from its mission of enforcing the rules of ethics.
According to Schuchardt, the Board is filing ethics cases against political candidates in Tennessee. Schuchardt has a list of more than fifty candidates attacked by the Board in recent years. According to Schuchardt, 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.
“Personally, I am astonished that our ethics board is filing cases against presidents of county bar associations,” Schuchardt says. “These are the kind of people that we generally want to have in our legal system,” he says.
Schuchardt says that the Board of Professional Responsibility has a history of filing cases against people running for judge. He says that this is particularly concerning, because it borders on election interference. In recent years, the Board has filed cases against at least sixteen candidates for General Sessions judge and at least a dozen candidates for Circuit Court positions, in Tennessee. The Board has also attacked the law licenses of at least nine candidates for local judicial office.
Schuchardt thinks the Board may be doing this to disqualify persons who are running for office. Under Tennessee state law, a person is not permitted to be a candidate for judge if their law license is not in good standing.
According to Schuchardt, the Board is also filing cases against 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 been a candidate for Tennessee State Representative.
Schuchardt says that the State Legislature needs to investigate these cases, and see whether the respondents believe that they have been unfairly attacked by the Board. Schuchardt knows of at least two judicial candidates who believe that the Board attacked their law licenses for political reasons.
According to Schuchardt, there is also an appearance that the Board is filing cases to interfere with civil litigation involving government officials. Nearly a dozen attorneys have sued the Board or its employees, alleging harassment for political reasons. For example, attorney David Danner filed a lawsuit, saying that the Board attacked his law license after Danner 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 lawyers.
Schuchardt has also filed a lawsuit. In his case, filed in federal court in Nashville, Schuchardt says that the chief attorney at the Board, Sandra Garrett, attacked his law license to interfere with a case that Schuchardt was defending against government officials in Knox County, Tennessee. When Schuchardt sought to defend against the Board’s attacks on his law license, the Board refused to allow Schuchardt to interview witnesses or present evidence.
Schuchardt says that the State Legislature needs to intervene, and impose due process on the Board. He says that the Tennessee Supreme Court is aware of the problems with the Board, but has not taken action to address the issues.
According to Schuchardt, the Board does not provide a neutral decision-maker in attorney ethics cases. Court rules allow the board to select the fact-finder on ethics cases from members of the Board’s own organization. In other words, the Board selects its own judge. There is no random selection or rotating system in place, as in other states.
Schuchardt says that this creates a conflict of interest, because the fact-finder is a member of one of the parties. Schuchardt says that ethics cases should be decided by an elected judge, or by a panel of citizens who are not affiliated with the court system.
Schuchardt says that there is a precedent for this type of system in Tennessee. In the early 1970s, there were complaints that the Knox County Sheriff’s Office was firing police officers for political reasons. In response, Knox County established a citizens board to review employment issues at the Sheriff’s office. Schuchardt says that we need a similar panel of disinterested citizens to supervise the conduct of the Board of Professional Responsibility.
Schuchardt says that change must come from the Tennessee Legislature, and not from the Tennessee Supreme Court. Under the existing court rules, Schuchardt is not permitted to present evidence to defend his license or reputation. “This is not how our system is supposed to work,” he says. “According to the Constitution, court decisions are supposed to be based on evidence presented in court,” he says. “That is not happening.”
Before running for office, Schuchardt discussed these problems with his State Representative, Elaine Davis. Davis has served two terms in the Tennessee General Assembly. During the past two legislature sessions, Davis served as the Vice Chair of the Judiciary Committee in the General Assembly. According to Schuchardt, Davis has the power to investigate the allegations of misconduct at the state ethics board. She also has the ability to call for greater due process in the system.
To Schuchardt’s knowledge, Davis has taken no action to investigate his allegations of misconduct at the Board of Professional Responsibility, or to call for changes in the court’s rules. He attributes this to Davis’s lack of training as a lawyer. “If we had a lawyer running the Judiciary Committee, that person would not permit the Board to refuse to hold hearings regarding professional licenses,” he says. “We are dealing with people’s livelihoods here.”
To deal with the problem, Schuchardt decided to run for office directly against Elaine Davis. “We need people in office who understand the Constitution and the importance of enforcing the law, he says. “Ultimately, its a matter of respect,” he says.
Schuchardt says that he is the best person to represent Knox County in the Tennessee General Assembly. Schuchardt studied law at Columbia Law School, and government at Cornell University. He practiced law for nearly thirty years, before running for office. Schuchardt focused his legal practice on civil liberties issues in the courts.
In 2014, Schuchardt sued the federal government for allegedly collecting the nation’s e-mail, without first obtaining a warrant. In 2015, Schuchardt sued to prevent Sweet Briar College, located in Virginia, from closing. Schuchardt obtained the injunction that kept the college open.
More recently, Schuchardt has addressed the U.S. currency. Schuchardt is the author of America’s Achilles Heel: How to Protect Your Family When America Loses the Reserve Currency. The book argues that the United States needs to devalue the dollar to remain competitive in the world economy. “If we don’t devalue the dollar now,” he says, “we could experience a dramatic drop in the value of the dollar in the future. We don’t want gasoline prices to double overnight.”
The primary election will be held on August 6, 2026. Early voting will begin on July 16, 2026.
About the Creator
Elliott Schuchardt
Elliott Schuchardt is the author of America's Achilles Heel: How to Protect Your Family When America Loses the Reserve Currency. He is a candidate for the Tennessee General Assembly, in the August 2026 primary.
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