Holt drops traffic camera bill amid unpaid ticket talk

State Rep. Andy Holt, the legislature’s leading crusader against traffic camera tickets, dropped a push for  passage of his latest bill on the subject (HB779) Tuesday after the House Transportation Committee rejected an amendment the Dresden Republican had proposed. He also had a bit of back-and-forth banter with a TV reporter later.

The amendment included deletion of a provision that required law enforcement agencies to keep secret the names of persons receiving traffic camera tickets. Holt has 13 unpaid traffic camera tickets, according to WTVF-TV – 10 from the City of McKenzie, two from Medina and one from Huntingdon.

The Nashville station says Holt’s unpaid tickets came up for questions in the committee hearing with Holt replying “couldn’t tell you” when asked the number of tickets he had received by Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville.

Rep. Bo Mitchell (D) Davidson County said during the committee hearing, “I have a problem with that (unpaid tickets), and we as a General Assembly should have a problem with that when we know it’s occurring.”

…NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked (afterwards), “Why did you change your bill to allow those names to be published?”

Holt responded, “Well obviously I didn’t change the bill, it (the amendment) failed.”

After our last report, when Holt refused to even stop and talk, he sent out a news release calling our report — “fake news.”

Holt asked, “My turn for a question, so you know what right now mass media on television, what the approval rating is for those folks?

NewsChannel 5 Investigates responded, “About the same as for lawmakers?”

He ended this interview after hurling accusations that lawmakers, lobbyists and some in the media were against him.

Holt promises to bring the traffic camera bill back up next year.