Judge Williams has served in Division III of Hamilton County Circuit Court since 1995.
The most recent campaign disclosure statements for Judge Williams list "Frederick Decosimo" as the Campaign Treasurer. Decosimo, who is listed as being "one the most powerful people in Tennessee" donated heavily to the Littlefield campaign in 2008/2009. Since the donations to the Littlefield Defense Fund have been kept private, there is no way of knowing whether Decosimo has continued to make contributions to Littlefield.
I had previously discussed what I felt to be very serious and substantive concerns about Judge Jeff Hollingsworth's connections to the lawfirm hired by Ron Littlefield. While I do not currently share anything approaching the same level of concern over Judge Williams, I do believe that it would be in the best interest of the citizens of Chattanooga for all the Circuit Court Judges to recuse themsevles and ask a Judge from another county in the state of Tennessee to preside over the case. This is not an uncommon practice and would certainly begin to alleviate many concerns that citizens such as myself might have about the ability for Littlefield v. Election Commission to be given a fair hearing.
In related news, the Legal and Legislative Committee of the Chattanooga City Council met this week and discussed proposals for a ballot measure that would change the foundational document of our city government, the City Charter, and most likely seek to restrict the rights of citizens to engage in Direct Democracy (recall, referendum and initiative).
The Chattanooga City Council debated having broader, public input into the process of changing the Chattanooga City Charter, changing the recall provision to make recalls more difficult if not impossible, they asked the City Attorney to compare Chattanooga's recall provisions to those of other cities from across the state of Tennessee, and they discussed adding clauses that would restrict citizens from recalling politicians for reasons outside of criminal and unethical activity.
The City Council has officially spent more time debating changes to the City Charter that would restrict the rights of citizens to hold our government accountable than they have spent publicly investigating and reviewing the sexual harassment of city employees and retaliation against them for reporting it, by former Director of General Services Paul Page, who was appointed by Mayor Ron Littlefield with the approval of this Council.