Profiles in courage
As articulated previously, this column exposes the exploits of self-aggrandizing (or is it self-important?) public officials failing in their obligation to serve Arkansans. I zealously call our dear leaders to account by informing you of their misdeeds not because it gratifies me. Rather, I believe that this core function of journalism recognizes sunlight as the best disinfectant, as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said.
But I have—less often—been able to report on government officials not acting out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Today is one such glorious day.
First-term Arkansas State Rep. Matt Duffield represents Russellville and adjacent areas of Pope County. As a populist Republican—something I know a little about—he demonstrates his commitment to citizens of Arkansas by boldly supporting government disclosure inside and outside the Legislature.
Duffield graduated from Harding University with a degree in broadcast journalism—huzzah!—and is a small-business owner, operating a gravel and dirt business. No better a background to be able to suffer the stone-throwing and mud-rolling of politics.
However, Duffield’s prior occupation as a professional wrestler is far more colorful and interesting. (Did you know that Paris, Arkansas, has a professional-wrestling school? I didn’t.) This guy knows how to take a punch—or is it an Argentine piledriver?—and get up.
But Duffield’s real courage isn’t facing Jerry Lawler in technicolor Spandex. It’s his early support of the Arkansas Disclosure Amendment and Arkansas Disclosure Act, the two ballot initiatives coordinated by the group on which I serve: Arkansas Citizens for Transparency.
These ballot initiatives will create a constitutional amendment and an “initiated act” (a statute) to enshrine both the principles and details undergirding the Freedom of Information Act in the Arkansas constitution and code, respectively.
The proposals will give the people final say over future changes to the FOIA, continue to provide citizens modest reimbursement for attorney’s fees if they win a disclosure lawsuit, add extra privacy protections for Arkansans whose information is enmeshed in government records, clarify the definition of a public meeting, create a personal-penalty provision for officials who intentionally violate the FOIA, continue to ensure the security of government officials and their families, and establish an alternative-resolution method to having to file a lawsuit in court for Arkansans whose transparency rights have been violated.
Duffield’s commitment to government disclosure and limited government is as genuine as it is inveterate. He described to me how he and many House members refused to support “suspending the rules” during the last special session when the Legislature was considering a bill sponsored by David Ray to gut the Freedom of Information Act.
That procedure would’ve short-circuited debate and allowed for an expedited vote. (Not very transparent.) Thank goodness that Duffield and his colleagues were unwilling to make hasty decisions about legislation as fundamental to freedom as government disclosure.
I recall one government official dismissively proclaiming on these very pages that the FOIA isn’t the Declaration of Independence. That tautology is true enough. But our effective FOIA is what ensures our independence from today’s crown. Politicos’ present perfidy to the public to whom they owe “the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive,” as Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo once wrote, foretells future failure in serving the people.
Duffield, in contrast, understands the meaning of public service: “We need government transparency for generations to come; we don’t know who will be in office 10 years from now, no less after that,” he said. And he reflected solemnly on the notion that we can’t afford to make decisions out of political expediency at the expense of our progeny.
Listen very closely to politicians opposing the Arkansas Disclosure Amendment and the Arkansas Disclosure Act as these establishmentarians claim they’re trying to keep government small. In reality, these royalist Gardes Françaises are seeking to insulate government from your public gaze! No thank you, Goliath. I’m with David. And my slingshot’s name is FOIA.
Big government loves the status quo—where unresponsive officials indiscriminately deny records requests and dismissively dare the public to sue the leviathan safely shielded behind a cadre of taxpayer-funded lawyers, all while Joe Citizen pays privately and prodigiously for his barrister to prosecute a FOIA case.
To slay that dragon, the Arkansas Disclosure Act will create a board of unpaid commissioners to afford citizens an alternative route to address their FOIA disputes without the need to hire an attorney at all. Now, that’s veritable small-government conservativism.
Duffield puts his words into action. His business, Big River Materials (571 Robinson Lane, Russellville), serves as a hub for all registered voters in the Pope County area to sign the two petitions to get the Arkansas Disclosure Amendment and Arkansas Disclosure Act on November’s ballot.
Duffield reflected on Arkansas’ historic position in the government-disclosure landscape: “The late, great Winthrop Rockefeller spearheaded the ‘Sunshine Laws’ in 1967 that created the Freedom of Information Act. Since then, Arkansas has been at the forefront of open government and transparency laws. It is a legacy worth preserving and a way to ensure that public officials are held accountable.” Such considered humility from a former professional wrestler shows that Duffield is off script now—paving his own way as part of the modern small-government conservative movement.
This is your right to know.
Robert Steinbuch, the Arkansas Bar Professor at the Bowen Law School, is a Fulbright Scholar and author of the treatise “The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.” His views do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.