State Rep. Doug House, R-North Little Rock, paid back $550 to an agricultural supply company that covered his mileage and hotel expenses when he spoke Nov. 30 to Tennessee legislators in Nashville about medical marijuana, according to House and a company official.
House repaid the money after he learned from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that a company official had an interest in a medical marijuana company seeking a license in Arkansas. But he and a state ethics official believe such a reimbursement is allowed under state law.
State elected officials are required under state law to disclose "each nongovernmental source of payment for your expenses for food, lodging, or travel which bears a relationship to your office when you appear in your official capacity when the expenses incurred exceed $150" on an annual personal financial disclosure report, called the Statement of Financial Interest.
Some other lawmakers who took trips in 2017 also amended or plan to amend their reports after queries from the newspaper.
In his 2017 Statement of Financial Interest filed Jan. 11, House disclosed the reimbursement from Mid-South Feed and Seed LLC in Millington, Tenn., for the Nov. 29-Dec. 1 trip.
William "Billy" Stuart Howard III said he is a licensed hemp farmer in Tennessee and he manages Mid-South Feed and Seed for his father, William Stuart Howard Jr., the owner.
Billy Howard said he is also a partner in Southeastern Medical Solutions, which was an unsuccessful applicant for a medical marijuana cultivation license in Arkansas.
Howard said that he met House through lobbyist Robert Coon of the Impact Management Group firm before the firm was hired as a lobbyist for Southeastern Medical Solutions. Impact Management Group has been a registered lobbyist for Southeastern Medical Solutions since January 2017, according to records in the secretary of state's office.
House said he didn't know that Howard was a partner in the medical marijuana company, but he believes it was probably legal for Mid-South Feed and Seed to cover his expenses.
"My integrity is not for sale for $550," said House, an attorney who has served in the state House of Representatives since 2013.
Howard said until he told Coon, the lobbyist didn't know that House went on the trip to speak to the Tennessee Joint Ad Hoc Committee on Medical Cannabis or that Mid-South Feed and Seed paid for House's travel expenses.
Howard said he has lobbied unsuccessfully for the legalization of medical marijuana in Tennessee for four years, and he asked House to speak to the committee because of his legislative experience with the issue. In the 2017 regular legislative session, House won approval of legislation to implement the voter-approved constitutional amendment to allow for legalization of medical marijuana in Arkansas. He also became a proponent of medical marijuana after initially opposing it.
"He did a very fine job -- the best person we had to come to testify before the committee," Howard said.
House said Howard was a good resource to help him learn more about medical marijuana and the different varieties of marijuana.
Amendment 94 to the Arkansas Constitution, approved by voters in November 2014, bars state lawmakers from having lobbyists or their clients cover lawmakers' expenses for trips unless the payments are made by regional or national organizations and it's for travel to regional or national conferences at which the state has been asked to be represented by elected state officials.
Speaking generally, Graham Sloan, director of the Arkansas Ethics Commission, said that if an employee of one company is a partner in a second company that seeks a medical marijuana cultivation license, and the second company employs a lobbyist, it doesn't sound like state law would bar the initial company from paying for a legislator's travel expenses to a legislative committee meeting.
The lobbyist-related restrictions under Amendment 94 have meant, for example, that Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Inc. no longer covers the expenses for lawmakers to travel to Wyoming to tour a coal mine or for a handful to go to Washington, D.C., to attend an annual energy conference, and Microsoft Corp. no longer occasionally pays for lawmakers to visit its headquarters.
Other state lawmakers have either recently amended or said they plan to amend their annual personal financial disclosure reports filed in January to disclose trips paid for by either of two foundations after this newspaper asked why the trips weren't listed on their initial reports.
These lawmakers said they either accidentally left the trips off their reports or already intended to amend their reports before this newspaper contacted them.
State law allows officials to amend their reports to disclose unreported trips within 30 days of learning about the unintentional omissions.
Over the past decade, both Republican and Democratic state lawmakers have occasionally failed to report trips paid for by various groups, and they later disclosed them when queried about why the trips weren't reported.
For example, five state lawmakers went to Turkey in 2011, but only one initially reported the cultural exchange trip, paid by the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians of Little Rock, as required by state law. The other four amended their reports to disclose the payment of their expenses, after being questioned by this newspaper.
On March 29 of this year, Rep. Mary Bentley, R-Perryville, amended her 2017 report to disclose that the Naples, Fla.-based Foundation for Government Accountability paid $1,387.60 of her expenses for conference registration, meals and lodging for three nights and travel on Oct. 17.
The amendment also disclosed that the Tallahassee, Fla.-based Foundation for Excellence in Education paid $1,603 for Bentley's travel, conference registration, meals and three nights' lodging on Nov. 30.
Prior to filing the amendment, Bentley said she had already planned on filing it before she was contacted by this newspaper last month. "I just hadn't had the time to get it done," she said.
The Foundation for Government Accountability "exists to strengthen communities and improve the lives of individuals and families by equipping policy makers with principled strategies to replace failed health and welfare programs," according to its website.
Rep. Josh Miller, R-Heber Springs, said his wife and his secretary prepare his annual personal disclosure report but they didn't include this year that the Foundation for Government Accountability paid for his travel and hotel expenses for a conference in Florida last fall.
"It should have been on there," he said. "I want that corrected. It is certainly not something I was trying to hide. I didn't make any money on the trip."
On March 28, Rep. Austin McCollum, R-Bentonville, amended his annual personal financial disclosure report to show that the Foundation for Government Accountability reimbursed $550 for travel and lodging expenses to a conference on Nov. 30.
The Foundation for Excellence in Education was founded by Republican former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in 2008 to work with decision-makers on developing and implementing school policies.
In addition to Bentley, the Foundation for Excellence in Education paid travel expenses last year for Reps. Ken Bragg, R-Sheridan; Ken Henderson, R-Russellville; Laurie Rushing, R-Hot Springs; and Carlton Wing, R-North Little Rock, to attend an educational conference in Nashville, Tenn., according to their reports for last year. The conference was Nov. 29-Dec. 1.
The nonprofit paid $1,603 for Wing's expenses, $1,130.50 for Bragg's expenses and a $900 scholarship each for Henderson and Rushing.
Wing said he thought attending the conference "was a good opportunity to learn more about education" and "as a freshman legislator I wanted to absorb all the information I could on education."
Rep. Grant Hodges, R-Rogers, said he recently realized that he didn't report that the Foundation for Educational Excellence paid for his expenses to the conference in Nashville. He said he needed to get his receipts for his plane ticket and hotel bills before he amends his 2017 personal financial disclosure report.
Rep. Karilyn Brown, R-Sherwood, said she didn't get reimbursed for her travel expenses to the foundation's conference in Nashville last year until this year, so she plans to put that on her report for 2018 that will be filed in January 2019.
At the Arkansas Ethics Commission, Sloan was asked when a lawmaker should disclose that a group paid for his travel expenses on a trip made last year when the reimbursement wasn't made until this year.
"There is not a clear answer," Sloan said. "There is not a rule or statute that is going to parse it that finely."
Metro on 04/15/2018