- JB
- Bill Giannini
Bill Giannini, the oft-beleaguered chairman of the Shelby County Election Commission, has been named by Julie McPeak, the Commissioner of the state Department of Commerce and Insurance, to become assistant commissioner of the department, responsible for the oversight of Tennessee’s 25 regulatory boards and commissions.
Giannini, a former Shelby County Republican chairman and a member of Governor Bill Haslam’s 2010 campaign team, will be succeeded as head of the five-member Election Commission by longtime Republican member Robert Myers, who will thereby become only the second Republican chairman in the Commission’s history.
Giannini had assumed the office after Republican victories in the 2008 statewide election gave the GOP majorities in both of the state’s legislative chambers. He had weathered several storms at the helm of SCEC, including the prolonged Democratic protest against alleged irreularities following the GOP sweep of countywide offices in 2010.
