Arkansas Senate suspends Clark, strips him of seniority for filing frivolous ethics complaint

Sen. Jonathan Dismang speaks to Sen. Jimmy Hickey during the Senate ethics hearing for Sen. Alan Clark on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022, at the state Capitol in Little Rock. .More photos at www.arkansasonline.com/928senate/.(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
Sen. Jonathan Dismang speaks to Sen. Jimmy Hickey during the Senate ethics hearing for Sen. Alan Clark on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022, at the state Capitol in Little Rock. .More photos at www.arkansasonline.com/928senate/.(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)

The Arkansas Senate on Tuesday handily voted to suspend Sen. Alan Clark and strip him of his seniority until the start of the 2023 regular session Jan. 9, and to recommend the Senate strip him of his seniority during the next two years.

The Senate also voted to find that Clark, R-Lonsdale, violated the Senate's ethics rules by making spurious, frivolous and retaliatory charges of ethics violations against Sen. Stephanie Flowers, D-Pine Bluff.

The Senate voted 26-4 to approve its Ethics Committee's findings and recommendations for punishment relating to Clark. Republican Sens. Bob Ballinger of Ozark, Charles Beckham of McNeil, Trent Garner of El Dorado and Mark Johnson of Ferndale dissented.

The chamber's actions Tuesday came after about three hours of procedural wrangling in the Senate without Clark on hand. On Sept. 16, the Senate debated about procedures for more than two hours with Clark present.

Afterward, Clark said "Time will reveal the truth.

"We all have a right to state our own opinions, but not to our own facts," he said in a text message. "Close to $4,000 has been paid back to the state that was wrongly paid as a result of my investigation. More should have been."

The Senate's suspension of Clark for the remainder of the 93rd General Assembly also means Clark has lost reimbursement for conference registration fees or travel reimbursements related to in-state or out-of-state travel; attendance and participation at legislative committee meetings or Senate meetings -- with the exception of any Senate organizational or Senate orientation meetings for the 94th General Assembly -- including access to the member- and staff-only areas of committee rooms and facilities; and access to and use of the Senate, the Bureau of Legislative Research, Legislative Audit and other legislative facilities, equipment or staff resources, including his Senate email account.


In a letter dated March 29, Senate President Pro Tempore Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, and Legislative Council Co-Chairman Sen. Terry Rice, R-Waldron, authorized Clark to attend the Council of State Government National Conference on Dec. 7-10 in Honolulu.

Clark said Tuesday in a text message that he hadn't been planning on going to the meeting in Hawaii because "I have a family event at that time. They thought I was going ... though."

Last week, Clark said he wouldn't attend the Senate's meeting on Tuesday because he would be out of state, starting last Friday through this Saturday, for a trip planned and lodging paid months ago with his family and friends to a location that he has declined to disclose. Even if he could attend Tuesday's meeting, he said he wouldn't appear without his attorneys, who he said are out of state this week.

During the Senate's meeting Tuesday, Hickey said Clark authorized Garner to represent him in the Senate, before the Senate voted to give Garner time to make a presentation for Clark with the aim of taking final action on the Ethics Committee's findings and recommendations by early Tuesday afternoon.

Shortly thereafter, Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, said Garner indicated he would be willing to answer questions from senators in representing Clark before the Senate, but Garner instead made a quick statement and then ran away from the Senate podium.

"I believe that this is being made a mockery of our processes and it is time to end it," Dismang said. "It is nothing to be made fun of. This is a serious matter and one that I think most of the members of the Senate take seriously."

Then, Dismang made a motion for the Senate to find that Clark violated the Senate's ethics rules by filing a frivolous, spurious and retaliatory ethics complaint against Flowers. The Senate voted 26-4 to approve Dismang's motion.

Ballinger said Clark has never been allowed to defend himself before the Senate Ethics Committee and the Senate.

"All you have is the prosecutor's side of the case," he said. "I thought everyone loved Alan."

Sen. Mark Johnson said the Senate's proceedings Tuesday remind him of what U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas described as a "high-tech lynching."

"This is an outrage," he said.

Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, who serves on the Ethics Committee, said Clark was given every opportunity to lay out his evidence and made comments to the committee members alleging that they had prejudged him before he retracted that allegation.

Clark was given two opportunities to withdraw his ethics complaint and avoid having committee recommending punishment against him, but he opted not to withdraw his complaint, she said.

"The fact of the matter is Sen. Clark lied to us," Irvin said.

In its report to the Senate, the Ethics Committee said Clark stated he chose to file his complaint against Flowers because of the amount of money involved in her reimbursements, but Clark did not receive the table showing the amount of those reimbursements until Aug. 24 and Clark was not aware of the amounts paid to Flowers until six days after the filing of his ethics complaint.

On Sept. 16, the Senate voted 29-0 to concur with its Ethics Committee's finding that Flowers didn't violate the Senate's ethics rules with Garner abstaining. Both Clark and Flowers voted with 27 other senators. The Senate subsequently voted over Clark's objection to recess and delay consideration of its Ethics Committee's findings and recommendations relating to Clark until Hickey called for the Senate to resume deliberations of the findings and recommendations. Last week, Hickey scheduled Tuesday's Senate meeting.

On Aug. 18, Clark filed an ethics complaint against Flowers alleging she violated the Senate's code of ethics by accepting legislative per diem payments for participating by Zoom in the Senate's regular session meetings in 2021.

The Ethics Committee found that Flowers had not violated any provisions of the Senate's ethics rules and recommended the Senate uphold the committee's finding and not impose any penalties against Flowers because the committee found the issue at hand to be "clerical only."

The committee said Flowers contacted the Senate staff as soon as she became aware in the 2021 regular session of the deposits in her bank account that she felt had been made in error, and she was assured by Senate staff that she was entitled to the payments she received. Flowers reimbursed the state Senate $2,714 on Aug. 11 and $217.60 on Aug. 22 that was erroneously paid to her during the 2021 regular session, the committee said.

Hickey has said he learned from the Senate staff as a result of Clark's inquiries about legislative expense reimbursements that Sen. Trent Garner, R-El Dorado, and Flowers, who participated in the Senate's meetings through Zoom during the 2021 regular session, were each incorrectly paid per diem.

In a check dated Sept. 1, Garner reimbursed the Senate $906, according to Senate records. "Zoom" was written on the check.

Clark said Tuesday that "the weekend per diem for legislators will end" during legislative sessions.

"That amounts to over half a million dollars per session" he said in his text message. "The Senate, which I love, punished the whistleblower for bringing it to light and sent a warning to others not to do so. None of that could possibly be frivolous by any definition of the word."

House and Senate staff have said lawmakers are paid per diem for certain days in which the the Legislature doesn't meet in a legislative session.

A legislative day is any day the Legislature is in session, and any day that the Legislature is not in session for a period of up to four consecutive days, according to a 2011 IRS letter to then-Bureau of Legislative Research Director David Ferguson. A legislative day also is any day on which a taxpayer's attendance is formally recorded at a pro forma session or at a meeting of a committee of the Legislature, according to the letter.

Sen. Bart Hester, chairman of the Senate Efficiency Committee, said Tuesday in an interview that he expects the Senate Efficiency Committee will review paying per diem for senators on weekends during legislative sessions.

"This is just an IRS method for simplification that the Senate has chosen to practice for a very long time," said Hester, who is in line to be the Senate president pro tempore from 2023-2025. "It is likely we'll continue that practice, but we'll have the discussion."

In its report to the Senate, the Ethics Committee noted that Clark submitted an Arkansas Freedom of Information request to Bureau of Legislative Research Director Marty Garrity on June 22 requesting all supplemental per diem sign-in sheets submitted by lawmakers for the past 10 years while the Ethics Committee was in deliberations about an ethics complaint against Clark filed by Hickey.

On June 27, the Senate found that Clark violated the Senate's ethics rules and recommended penalties against him.

"Since the hearing at which the Senate Ethics Committee made its findings and recommendations against him, Senator Clark has made various public comments demonstrating his intentions to take retaliatory action against the members of the Committee and members of the Senate," the committee said.

Among other things, Clark was photographed at a Republican Party event wearing the scarlet letter "E" around his neck after the Senate voted July 21 to find that he violated the Senate's ethics rules in the complaint filed against him by Hickey, the Senate Ethics Committee said.

On July 29, Flowers was advised that Clark submitted an FOI request to the bureau staff for attendance records of the Senate Judiciary Committee for the 93rd General Assembly, including how many committee meetings Flowers attended and how many times Flowers attended the meetings by Zoom, the committee said.

The Ethics Committee said Clark's intention of filing an ethics complaint against Flowers did not appear to be for the purpose of reporting an ethics violation.

The committee said "the only purpose to the filing of the [complaint] and any that he has plans to file going forward, seems to be to fulfill his promise on July 3 to 'burn the house down.'"

"These frivolous and and spurious allegations only serve to create a divisive environment within the Senate and bring dishonor to the institution of the Senate."

On June 15, Hickey filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Mark Johnson for Johnson signing in Clark's name on the sign-in sheet for reimbursement at the Senate Boys State committee meeting June 3 that Clark didn't attend. Hickey also filed a complaint against Clark for asking Johnson to seek reimbursement from public funds for Clark for that meeting. The Senate didn't pay the $155 per diem to Clark for that meeting at the behest of Senate leaders.

On July 21, the Senate approved the Ethics Committee's findings that Clark and Johnson violated the Senate's ethics rules as well as the committee's recommended punishments.

For violating the Senate's ethics rule, the Senate's punishment for Clark on July 21 was to strip him of his committee chairman and vice chairman posts and block his eligibility for per diem and mileage reimbursement for the rest of this year. He also was reprimanded by the Senate, and any future Senate president pro tempores are not to consider Clark for appointment to serve on Boys State, Girls State or the Senate Ethics Committee.

Clark had been chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice chairman of the Legislative Council Review Subcommittee, co-chairman of the Legislative Council Occupational Licensing Review Subcommittee, and chairman of the Child Maltreatment Investigations Oversight Committee.

The Senate on Tuesday voted to change its ethics rules to require three senators rather than one senator sign onto any ethics complaint filed against a fellow senator. Hickey said the aim of the rule change is to have three senators vet the facts regarding a potential ethics complaint before such a complaint is filed against a state senator.



 Gallery: Senate Ethics Hearing



Upcoming Events