Arkansas citizens deserve transparency
During the recent special session in the Legislature, our elected representatives debated adding additional exemptions into our Freedom of Information Act. Legislators opposing this effort recognized that: 1. government records belong to the public, 2. the FOIA already is laden with exceptions, 3. every time we weaken the FOIA, it’s more likely to collapse, and 4. government often doesn’t play fair with citizens requesting public records.
Those pushing to reduce public oversight, in contrast, introduced new FOIA-exemptions legislation without first vetting it with the public, the legislatively created FOIA Taskforce, or transparency advocates.
And many legislators fell somewhere in between—challenged to learn the intricacies of a complex area of law in three days. I’ve been researching FOIA for years, and still find it complicated.
While much of the debate subsided, the question of replacing legislators who actively worked to weaken the FOIA persists.
Ronald Reagan famously quipped that allies need only agree 80 percent of the time. The difficulty in applying this maxim is assigning percentages to each issue. For conservatives, core principles aren’t negotiable no matter how many tax breaks we deservedly get. You wouldn’t hear a conservative say, “Jesse’s a wonderful candidate but for his stance on life issues.”
Joe Maynard, co-founder with Brenda Vassaur Taylor of Conduit for Commerce, an Arkansas-based conservative-policy and news organization, relates that “for every vote legislators make, they should be able to draw a straight line back to a core principle; and if they can’t, they need to step back and rethink that position.”
Conduit has consistently mobilized grass-roots efforts to protect transparency and economic freedom for families and small businesses through outlets including its public-information arm, Conduit News, operated by Ginny Lauren Dowden, who provided real-time updates and interviews from the Capitol to keep Arkansans informed during the lightning-paced special session.
Conduit’s consistent commitment to freedom and limited government established it as a leading voice in Arkansas’ conservative movement. And its recent efforts demonstrated a willingness to act to protect the core-conservative ideals of government transparency, citizen empowerment, and accountability.
Traditional media was similarly involved during the special session. This paper and others, broadcast news, and talk radio covered the FOIA debate in real time. And the people were paying close attention.
Time and again, FOIA foes misleadingly maligned our envied transparency regime as old, inefficient, and misused without ever examining government’s frequent efforts to evade the existing law, no less a further enfeebled one.
Recently someone I don’t know contacted me after the city attorney in Hoxie, Nancy Hall, proclaimed she wasn’t providing a police officer’s personnel file and body-camera video (one day’s worth) because of the pendency of the special session, notwithstanding the Legislature never even considered modifying FOIA obligations regarding these records.
Moreover, that’s not how law works; potential changes don’t alter existing obligations. “Hey officer, I hear selling marijuana may be legal soon. So don’t arrest me now.” Uh, no.
Following the end of the session, the stymied requester copied me into his ongoing exchange with Hall. I implored her to comply with the FOIA. Shortly after, she provided the personnel file (huzzah!) but not the video—claiming that because the city didn’t buy redaction software, she somehow wasn’t required to produce these records. Wouldn’t that be perfectly convenient, if it wasn’t wrong?
I referred Hall to my FOIA treatise. She responded by: calling me an ass, declaring she wasn’t interested in my book, and demanding I not write her at the email she was using all along—which she signed “City Attorney”—because now it was her personal account. That’s a succinct display of government indolence and ignorance.
To add insult to, well, insult, Hall then ignored the requester’s subsequent entreaty for her “work” email.
Recall the responsiveness of Pulaski County Clerk Terri Hollingsworth, who I complimented in a recent column? Hall was the exact opposite.
This was just one of the countless times never mentioned by FOIA foes that private FOIA advocates helped—for free—Arkansans facing FOIA deniers. The attorney general’s office doesn’t provide this public service. Local prosecutors generally don’t either, save Fort Smith FOIA guardian Daniel Shue.
The public pays for all these government attorneys, yet citizens are forced to call FOIA defenders like me for help.
I pray more officials adopt Conduit’s transparency philosophy: If you’re elected by the people, everything you do in their name should be on the record. And if you’re not willing to do that, you shouldn’t serve.
Given recent events, Conduit added transparency to its influential legislative scorecard to ensure that its highly coveted imprimatur is appropriately bestowed. Get ready for a rankings shakeup!
In the end, every voter needs to decide individually whether transparency is a valence issue warranting replacing elected officials. For me, it’s the right that precedes all others. If you can’t see what your government is doing, it’s impossible to uncover wrongdoing, which I’ve repeatedly done using the FOIA.
So, you know how I’ll vote. How about you?
This is your right to know.