Open government born in post-WWII Arkansas

When the Greatest Generation began building the modern American middle class, it already had some pretty substantial accomplishments under its belt.

These men and women survived the Great Depression, conquered fascism in World War II and built the United States into an industrial juggernaut.

Through the G.I. Bill, World War II veterans attended universities, colleges and trade schools to gain the skills they’d need in the post-war economy. They took jobs in factories and in professional fields of endeavor. They started businesses, sold goods and services and built jobs into careers. They bought new homes, created suburban havens to raise their families and pursued the American dream. As the nation prospered, so did they.

But not everything was perfect. The men and women who won the Great War seemed to be losing at least one battle at home. The veterans and their families, eager to have a say in how their communities developed, how their schools functioned and how their local governments served their needs, found themselves frequently shut out of the political process.

The power brokers who were in place at the start of the war were largely still there, and too often, they had no desire to share their authority with the younger generation.

Here in Arkansas, what passed as a public access law made all meetings of local government boards and commissions open, unless the boards and commissions voted to close them. And they could do so for any reason. Frequently, they did.

The good ol’ boys, however, didn’t realize who they were messing with. After economic catastrophe and a global conflagration, the prospect of breaking down the door of the smoke-filled back room didn’t scare the Greatest Generation.

So those men and women embarked on a new quest: Open up local governments to more scrutiny and give everyone access to decisions that affect them.

It was then that a wave of what we’ve come to know as Sunshine Laws began appearing in state legislatures and local governments across the country. By the early 1960s, 15 years after the end of World War II, the wave started crashing against those locked doors.

A number of states and even the federal government passed these new laws, now known as “Freedom of Information” acts. The provisions opened up those heretofore secret government meetings and gave universal access to the lifeblood of bureaucracies, documents and records.

In 1967, the wave hit Arkansas. Winthrop Rockefeller, the wealthy son of a New York oil magnate, had migrated to Arkansas and the previous year had done what had seemed impossible: He won the governorship as a Republican in a Southern state dominated by Democrats.

His tenure in the State House was groundbreaking in many ways. But among his most lasting initiatives was his advocacy for Arkansas’ own Freedom of Information Act. It was modeled after laws in a few other states and adjusted to meet the needs of Arkansans.

Rockefeller put together an unlikely coalition of supporters which included the state’s powerful newspaper trade group, the Arkansas Press Association, and (shock!) legislative Democrats, who were no doubt hearing from their growing middle-class constituencies about the need for more accessible government.

The final product passed both Democrat-dominated houses of the state legislature easily. When Rockefeller, flanked by media representatives and politicians from the opposing political party, signed it into law, he gave Arkansas one of the strongest FOIAs in the nation.

It came under attack almost immediately, as a few of the good ol’ boys were still trying to hang on to power. Most of the attempts to weaken the FOIA or remove its teeth failed, thanks to the tenacity of open government advocates who didn’t want a return to the bad old days.

Fifty-seven years is a long time — long enough for today’s generation of political leaders to forget why the FOIA was so popular and important in the first place. They don’t understand or care about the frustrations of citizens shut out of the local political process. They seem to be saying, “Trust us with your money, even if we don’t tell you why and how we’re spending it.”

That’s exactly what the state’s current power brokers were saying to you last year when they proposed sweeping changes to the state’s FOIA that had the potential to reestablish government secrecy as the standard operating procedure. There was plenty of support in the chambers of the Legislature as well — that is, until the citizens got a chance to weigh in.

Another unlikely coalition — progressives concerned about availability of public records; conservatives loathe to trust government at any level; and media who know that access to public policy is the best way to keep the fox out of the henhouse — turned the tide. Again. The most important provisions of the FOIA were saved.

At the same time, supporters of the FOIA knew that the attacks will never cease. That’s why they are asking you, fellow Arkansans, to sign petitions to put two measures on the ballot that will protect government openness once and for all.

The first one, the Arkansas Government Transparency Amendment, would enshrine the FOIA in the state constitution. The second, the Arkansas Government Disclosure Act, defines what constitutes a public meeting and repeals some recently enacted exemptions to the state’s FOIA.

Both are worthy of your signature. Both will be worthy of your vote in the fall.

In a world where short-term political gain has become more important than long-term protection of rights, we can expect more assaults on your right to know. That is, unless we make that right to know part of our state constitution.

Without fail, those who want to make it harder for you to observe how your government works are people who already work for the government. The changes to the FOIA they favor are about making their jobs easier by blocking pesky citizens like you from asking about what they’re doing.

That should tell you all you need to know about why saving the FOIA is the right thing to do. It’s your law. And you can keep it that way by signing the petitions and voting for the proposals in the fall.