Republican candidate for governor Bill Gibbons amped up his call for primary opponent Bill Haslam to disclose his own personal wealth Thursday. As governor, Gibbons says he would propose legislation to force all key state officials to disclose not only their sources of income and investments, but the amounts of each.
Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam has summarized his personal investments but not disclosed how much he makes from his part ownership of Pilot Oil. Tennessee law doesn’t require him to.
Bill Gibbons, who is the DA in Shelby County, says it’s important to get specific.
“Governor Bredesen was absolutely right when he said it is an invasion of our privacy. But it’s something we should expect to do if we want to be governor of this state.”
Gibbons says the only way Tennesseans can know if Haslam has a conflict of interest related to highway projects is if he discloses his investment in the company.
“Is that a big conflict for mayor Haslam or a small conflict? Frankly, we don’t know because he will not tell us the amount of income he’s getting from Pilot Oil.”
Gibbons, himself, has released five years of tax returns to the media, though he’s not suggesting that state law require full tax returns to be made public
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