Three bills on open-records law exemptions advance

The House and Senate advanced three bills Tuesday that would curtail public access to some state information.

Sponsors of the bills — which prohibit disclosure of security records at schools, the Capitol and the Governor’s Mansion — said the measures are aimed at protecting people at those facilities.

But when it came to Senate Bill 12 by Sen. Gary Stubblefield, R-Branch, some lawmakers said the legislation could be abused. The measure passed in the House in a 52-7 vote. The bill heads back to the Senate for approval of a House amendment.

SB12 would make secret the personal information about security officials at colleges and universities and at every public school that operates a pre-kindergarten program or serves students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

The bill also would exempt from the Freedom of Information Act information or records that would “reasonably be expected to be detrimental to the public safety, including without limitation records or other information concerning emergency or security plans, school safety plans, procedures, risk assessments, studies, measures, or systems.”

“Right now, it is important that we protect that information and allow schools — those higher-education institutions — to protect us when we’re at the Razorback football game or wherever,” said Rep. Robin Lundstrum, R-Elm Springs, who presented the bill Tuesday. “We don’t need to be releasing the number of police officers, their location.”

But Rep. Stephen Meeks, R-Greenbrier, asked representatives to vote “present” to secure an amendment to the bill.

“The fox is guarding the hen house, so to speak. The universities and public schools — those are the ones who are going to be making the determinations on what is or is not security,” he said. “Unfortunately, there are going to be those cases where this authority is abused.”

He said that while there needs to be security information that’s withheld, an independent arbiter should make judgments about what “security” is, and lawmakers should still be able to request the information.

Colleges were added to SB12 because of a request from a woman who wanted to know the names of police officers assigned to provide security at a 2015 football game.

Rep. Trevor Drown, R-Dover, said the bill originally came about because local media wanted to know which teachers were armed at Clarksville public schools.

“You’re going to make those folks the first target,” he said.

The House also approved Senate Bill 131, also by Stubblefield, to exempt a “record or other information related to the operations, emergency procedure, and security personnel of the State Capitol Police.”

The House voted 73-5 to send the bill to Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

Rep. Dwight Tosh, R-Jonesboro, said the bill would exempt contingency plans from records requests.

The Senate approved legislation that would exempt certain records of the Arkansas State Police regarding the Governor’s Mansion and its grounds from public disclosure.

The Senate voted 20-7 to send House Bill 1590 by Rep. DeAnn Vaught, R-Horatio, to Hutchinson. The bill would exempt from public disclosure “data, records, surveillance footage, security procedures, emergency plans and other information compiled or possessed by the Department of Arkansas State Police.”