Dissatisfied with a Tennessee attorney general’s investigation, the Registry of Election Finance is set to subpoena members of two Constitutional Republican groups to have them explain how they operate without registering as a political action committee.

The registry board voted Tuesday to order members of the Tennessee and Sumner County Constitutional Republicans to answer questions about their political activity at an upcoming “show cause” hearing. A sworn complaint filed by Goodlettsville businessman Wes Duenkel in November accuses the groups of acting like a PAC by making expenditures for candidates or issues but refusing to register with the state.

Five people spoke to the state investigator, but three others declined.

Registry board Chair Hank Fincher said Tuesday, “If they’re not going to talk to us, they’re going to have to assert the Fifth Amendment,” the right to avoid self-incrimination.

Registry board members requested the attorney general’s office investigate the matter in February and in late June received the results. The report amounted to short interviews in which four members denied raising or spending money for candidates. The investigation did show the group’s Facebook page at one point offered a link to donate money. The group also vetted and supported candidates for local and state elections, in addition to holding breakfasts and other political gatherings.

(READ MORE: Tennessee Senate incumbents face opponents calling them not conservative enough)

Co-founder Chris Spencer, who is challenging Republican Sen. Ferrell Haile, of Gallatin, in the Aug. 1 primary, caught the ire of some board members because he told the AG’s office investigator, after being asked about monthly meetings and refreshments, “I am done with questions. This is such a waste of time.”

Spencer declined to comment after Tuesday’s meeting.

Kurt Riley, another co-founder, claimed in his interview that breakfasts were free and that the sale of Tennessee Constitutional Republicans merchandise did not benefit candidates or the group’s platform. He also said the group was formed to pay for his travel and expertise.

The attorney general office’s investigation was accompanied by a letter from the deputy attorney general saying the office is not an “investigative agency” and doesn’t have the resources to conduct full-scale probes for the registry. The letter also said the registry, based on a new state law, could use other options for investigations if it is unsatisfied with the AG’s Office.

(READ MORE: Sumner County, Tennessee, poised to scrap human resources department)

Fincher, a Democrat, said Tuesday he was “surprised” at Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s “abdication” of statutory duties to investigate campaign finance issues. He noted the registry board opted to investigate matters itself and added that the board will be seeking more funding from the legislature to hire investigators.

Registry member Tom Lawless, who previously questioned the length of time it took the AG’s office to produce the report, challenged the quality of the investigation and called the AG’s action “repugnant” and “reprehensible.”

If subpoenaed members of the Constitutional Republicans decline to testify before the board, it could take “corrective actions,” Lawless said.

“Nobody is above the law, and they’re required to do certain things. And if they don’t do it, we’ll assist them with the maximum ability that we can,” Lawless added.

The attorney general’s office has declined to respond to questions about the letter it sent to the registry with its investigation.

Read more at TennesseeLookout.com.

LONDON — Britain’s new left-leaning government said Sunday that the nation is “broke and broken,” blaming the situation on its predecessors ahead of a major speech on the state of the public finances that is widely expected to lay the groundwork for higher taxes.

In a sweeping assessment three weeks after taking power, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office professed shock at the situation they inherited after 14 years of Conservative Party rule, while releasing a department-by-department analysis of the perceived failures of the previous government.

The critique comes a day before Treasury chief Rachel Reeves is expected to outline a 20-billion-pound ($26 billion) shortfall in public finances during a speech to the House of Commons.

“We will not shy away from being honest with the public about the reality of what we have inherited,’’ Pat McFadden, a senior member of the new Cabinet, said in a statement. “We are calling time on the false promises that British people have had to put up with and we will do what it takes to fix Britain.”

Starmer’s Labour Party won a landslide election victory earlier this month following a campaign in which critics accused both major parties of a “conspiracy of silence” over the scale of the financial challenges facing the next government.

Labour pledged during the campaign that it wouldn’t raise taxes on “working people,” saying its policies would deliver faster economic growth and generate the additional revenue needed by the government. The Conservatives, meanwhile, promised further tax cuts in the autumn if they were returned to office.

As proof that the previous government wasn’t honest about the challenges facing the country, Starmer’s office pointed to recent comments from former Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt confirming that he wouldn’t have been able to cut taxes this year if the Conservatives had been returned to power.

Those comments came in an interview with the BBC in which Hunt also accused Labour of exaggerating the situation to justify raising taxes now that they’ve won the election.

“The reason we’re getting all this spin about this terrible economic inheritance is because Labour wants to raise taxes,” Hunt said on July 21. “If they wanted to raise taxes, all the numbers were crystal clear before the election. … They should have levelled with the British public.”

The government on Sunday released an overview of the spending assessment Reeves commissioned shortly after taking office. She will deliver the complete report to Parliament on Monday.

Those findings led the new government to accuse the Conservatives of making significant funding commitments for this financial year “without knowing where the money would come from.’’

It argued that the military had been “hollowed out’’ at a time of increasing global threats and the National Health Service was “broken,’’ with some 7.6 million people waiting for care.

And despite billions spent to house migrants and combat the criminal gangs ferrying migrants across the English Channel on dangerous inflatable boats, the number of people making the crossing is still rising, Starmer’s office said. Some 15,832 people have crossed the Channel on small boats already this year, 9% more than during the same period in 2023.

“The assessment will show that Britain is broke and broken — revealing the mess that populist politics has made of the economy and public services,” Downing Street said in a statement.

The quandary the government finds itself in should be no surprise, said Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent think tank focused on Britain’s economic policies.

At the start of the election campaign, the institute said that the U.K. was in a “parlous fiscal position” and the new government would have to either raise taxes, cut spending or relax the rules on public borrowing.

“For a party to enter office and then declare that things are ‘worse than expected’ would be fundamentally dishonest,” the IFS said on May 25. “The next government does not need to enter office to ‘open the books.’ Those books are transparently published and available for all to inspect.”