SEVIERVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- A lawsuit changed the face of Knox County politics, and now a citizens group in Sevier County is suing their mayor and county commission.

Members of the group claim they have been gaveled down and not allowed to speak or were cut off. The Sevier County Commission voted in new rules to reduce the ability of citizens to speak, but it's how they did it that prompted the law suit to be filed claiming sunshine laws were broken.

Attorney Herb Moncier says, "When they do what they want to do and ignore the law, the government fails."

The attorney, who practices mostly in Knox County, is now representing a group of citizens in Sevier County who feel their county government has broken the law.

The issue involves two suits that revolve around changing meeting rules regarding citizen input. Moncier says the first part revolves around how a commission meeting date was changed after county commissioner Bryan Delius led opposition for a June 16th meeting to vote on those rule changes.

Moncier says, "Mayor Waters rescheduled the June 16th meeting for the next week knowing that Commissioner Delius was going to be out of town."

But a separate action was filed Friday relating to just how the rules were created and how the meeting dates had been changed.

Moncier says, "Now the discussions that occurred before June 23rd were all outside the open meetings act, the sunshine law."

Much like what happened in Knox County, Moncier's group of citizens are hoping for transparency in government and for now that's Sevier County.

Moncier says, "They have no particular agenda. They have no political agenda. Their agenda is a better government for Sevier county Tennessee."

In a statement, Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters says, “It's just more of the same frivolous harassment of public officials by the same few people, and unfortunately the taxpayers end up footing the bill.”

The suit asks a judge from outside the area be appointed to hear the case, and for that judge to declare the rules unlawful and void.