Tennessee has been chosen as one of seven states to receive just over $5 million to identify, track, and prevent misuse of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits by program recipients, Agriculture Undersecretary Kevin Concannon announced yesterday. These grants will particularly help state agencies reduce SNAP trafficking, primarily the exchange of benefits for cash or other goods or services. “USDA is committed to ensuring that SNAP benefits are used as intended, helping families put food on the table,” Concannon said in a press release. 

Campaign spending is heating up for three of the four Tennessee constitutional amendments proposed on the November ballot, Knoxnews reports. Citing reports filed with the Registry of Election Finance in July, Knoxnews says that the Yes on 1 Ballot committee had collected about $300,000 and spent about $100,000. The Vote No on One Tennessee campaign committee had reported contributions totaling more than $350,000 as of July 1 with only about $10,000 in spending. The Vote Yes on 2 campaign committee reported in July that it had raised more than $400,000 and spent about $50,000. The opposing Vote No on 2 committee, reported zero contributions and expenditures at the time. Yes on 3 PAC reported $10,000 in donations and $1,649 in spending, although last week it began a statewide promotional effort that indicates more money is in the pipeline. Citizens for Fiscal Sanity, the campaign committee opposing Amendment 3, reported less than $2,000 in contributions and $85 in expenditures. No campaign organizations have registered to either support or oppose the proposed Amendment 4.

Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey and House Speaker Beth Harwell responded to criticism last week by a Davidson County grand jury that the two top Republicans did not properly seat the board that reviewed Tennessee Supreme Court justices and appellate judges, WSMV reports. Harwell said that she complied with the law in her House appointments by choosing two females, two males, one African-American and one Hispanic. Ramsey blamed politics. "It's a political action taken by a political activist, John Jay Hooker, trying to achieve headlines," Ramsey said.

The Obama administration is spending $4 million on lawyers for unaccompanied immigrant children in deportation proceedings, a move an influential Republican lawmaker says is illegal and will fuel an increase in illegal immigration. Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families, said Tuesday that it is the first time the office that oversees programs for unaccompanied immigrant children will provide money for direct legal representation. The grants to two organizations are part of a bigger $9 million project that aims to provide lawyers to 2,600 children. WRCB has more from the Associated Press.

Jennings Bryant (J.B.) Loring Sr. died Saturday after almost three years of battling lung cancer. He was 84. Loring served in the Air Force during the Korean War. He studied pre-law at the University of Tennessee and received a Bachelors of Law and J.D. from the Nashville School of Law. Visitation will be held at the Phillips-Robinson Funeral Home, 2707 Gallatin Rd. in Nashville, 12-8 p.m. Wednesday, and Thursday from 10 a.m. until services start at 11:30 a.m. In lieu of flowers, memorials in Loring’s name may be made to the Shriner's Childrens Hospital, the Wounded Warrior Project or the American Legion Boys State.

A project to replace the Rutherford County Circuit Court clerk’s computer system to improve efficiency and save money has instead turned in to a big problem, the Murfreesboro Post reports. The project has taken six months longer than expected and is posing challenges for clerks, who are working with a system that is still being brought online and loaded with information. “This has been the most complex software migration the technology office has been involved with since the department was started in 1996,” said Brian Robertson, director of Rutherford County’s Office of Information and Technology.

After 101 years of operation, the American Judicature Society (AJS) is dissolving, the ABA Journal reports. The AJS Board of Directors voted yesterday to dissolve the fair-courts organization and wind up its affairs. The group’s president, Tom Leighton, cited a challenging “membership model” for nonprofits, including AJS, in the press release. The National Center for State Courts is expected to take over the AJS Center for Judicial Ethics, and homes are being sought for the group’s peer-reviewed journal Judicature and its Internet resource on judicial selection in the states. 

The Tennessee Court of Appeals has denied access to records related to a Vanderbilt University rape case in which four former football players await a November trial, the Tennessean reports. At issue during oral arguments in June was how the state's laws on open records, fair trials and victims' privacy rights intersect as cases move through the courts. The three-judge panel ruled Tuesday that records sought by The Tennessean and a media coalition should not be made public because they are part of a continuing police investigation. The publication’s news director said they are considering an appeal.

Gov. Bill Haslam has ordered state agencies to slash discretionary spending by up to 7 percent as his administration builds the new budget it will present to legislators early next year, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. The move comes with the state’s general fund, which pays for most functions of government including education, showing a $302.4 million revenue shortfall for the fiscal year 2013-2014 budget that ended June 30.

Former TBA President and Memphis attorney Bill Haltom will speak about his new book “The Other Fellow May Be Right: The Civility of Howard Baker” during a luncheon hosted the University of Tennessee Baker Center Friday at 11:30 a.m. in the Toyota Auditorium. The book pays tribute to the late senator for whom the center is named. Tickets are $15. For more information, call (865) 974-0931.