But of course some folks walking the halls of higher education institutions in this state want to keep you in the dark, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. Do you know how much trouble it is to give the mere public the information its public dollars pay for? All those copies. All that trouble. Just because the public is paying for it--in taxes, in tuition--why are taxpayers so uppity that they think they need to know things?
Want to know how much so-and-so administrator is paid (or will be paid) at the local college? Don't worry your pretty little head about it. Want to know how much a new athletic addition might cost? You wouldn't understand if they told you.
Yes--and to little surprise--it turns out the University of Arkansas and the Arkansas State University systems are helping the Ledge conjure up an amendment that would gut this state's shining example of a Freedom of Information law. Where is Winthrop Rockefeller and his merry band of reformers when you need them? And, boy, does Arkansas need them again.
Our reporters on the news side of this outfit obtained emails last week that show attorneys and other officials for the schools wrote and sent proposed language for Senate Bill 373 to lawmakers. Call them big helpers.
The bill, so you know, could allow any bureaucrat in the state--in college or elsewhere in government--to wave a piece of paper under a lawyer's nose, then hide the paper from the public. "Attorney-client privilege!" It's a neat trick. If a dirty one as well.
Our little helpers at the universities proposed language that would exempt records from We the People if the records were involved in future or "threatened" lawsuits. That's right, any embarrassing piece of information that the schools didn't want you to see, and presto! Some apparatchik could think the words "possible lawsuit" and the record could be locked away.
University officials, according to dispatches, say they have a problem with opposing attorneys in real lawsuits gaining strategic advantage by FOI'ing notes and papers. But John Tull, a First Amendment lawyer in Little Rock, says the law already allows a court to protect those documents. Or as he put it: "I am unaware of any court which has refused a request for such a protective order."
Tom Larimer, executive director of the Arkansas' own Press Association, put it blunter: "Anybody can say, 'I'm going to sue.' That would apply to all of us. Anybody can be sued for anything at any time."
Another expert on the state's FOIA, and the man who literally wrote the book on it, one professor Robert Steinbuch, said SB373 is "so encompassing, there will be some wrongdoing that is going to be covered up" eventually. In other states, the professor notes, citizens have asked for records--such as, say, records of crimes in schools--but because of their excessive exemptions in their own state's FOI laws, citizens have been turned away.
Which is why SB373 is so dangerous. Its sponsors in the Legislature might not intend much harm, but as soon as this thing is on the books, we can see much, if not most, public records being off-limits to the public.
Yes, the public. Too many folks think the FOI law is for the press only. It is most definitely not. The press is not entitled to a thing more than the average gadfly who wants to know how much the new library cost and who got the bids on the plumbing.
They don't call it press information. They call it public information. That is until our betters eventually turn it into public-be-damned information.
A generation ago, forward-looking leaders like the aforementioned Gov. Rockefeller gave Arkansas one of the nation's best Freedom of Information laws. It's been a shining example to other states, and Arkansas law hasn't always been a shining example.
These legislative days there are at least 10 bills wafting around the Capitol that would add exemptions to the state's FOI law. (Another bill, House Bill 1622, would allow government agencies to postpone the three-day delivery limit to pert near never.)
How does one defend bills like these? Well, a state representative named Bob Ballinger did it this way, in part: "I want the FOIA to be strong and hold government accountable. I'm still visiting with some of the people who have concerns . . . . Are there bad guys out there who don't comply with the FOIA? Yes. And there still are going to be. That won't change."
Yes, but with SB373 and the others, their numbers are certain to increase.
And they'll be legal.
Again, stop this nonsense.
Editorial on 03/14/2017