You may recall the story from back in September about the "Sportsman's Wildlife Foundation", which was founded by State Rep. H. E. Bittle Jr. (R-Knoxville) who is the foundation's CEO. Five of its six board members are members of his family.

Rep. Bittle had pushed through legislation for a new "Tennessee Sportsman" specialty license plate. Some of the proceeds were designated to fund his foundation. Through September of last year, the foundation had received over $900,000 from sale of the specialty plates.

The money was used to purchase 329 acres in Cumberland County and build a luxury "hunting lodge" (appraised at $319K) to promote "hunter safety instruction."

This week, State Rep. Gary Odom (D-Nashville) filed HB2435, which "Redesignates portion of revenue from sportsman new specialty earmarked license plates to TWRA for hunter education instead of Sportsman's Wildlife Foundation."

Rep. Odom also filed HB2434, which "Requires that all nonprofit organizations for which new specialty earmarked license plates are issued on or after July 1, 2008, be certified for nonprofit status by the secretary of state prior to such plates' initial issuance; any plate authorized for organization that is not certified is deemed obsolete and invalid."

(When we first mentioned this story at KnoxViews, we checked the Tennessee Secretary of State's website and found that the foundation's charter had been administratively dissolved in 1999, just four months after the legislation funding it was passed. It's charter was reinstated in December 2001, but the foundation continued to receive funds from sale of specialty license plates during that period.)

Thanks to Rep. Odom and Tennessee Democrats for their oversight to make sure state funds are spent as intended instead of on a luxury hunting lodge that benefits a former Republican legislator.