Arkansas Board of Corrections Chairman Benny Magness rejected on Friday Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ call for him to resign immediately.
“Since 1999, I’ve worked with every governor and have enjoyed good working relationships with each one of them,” he said at the close of a Board of Corrections meeting on Friday. “We’ve worked together to achieve our goal to do what’s best for the Department of Corrections and the people of Arkansas. I and the board stand ready to do the same for the Governor Sanders administration.”
He closed his statement, which lasted about two-and-a-half minutes, “On the governor’s request that I resign, my answer is I will not resign.”
Magness’ term ends in two years, Corrections Department spokeswoman Dina Tyler said in an email. He was appointed to the board by Sanders’ father, then-Gov. Mike Huckabee.
In a letter to Magness released Friday morning, the Republican governor wrote that she is in receipt of his letter requesting that 138 National Guardsman be deployed to work full-time in the prisons.
“Your letter is yet another example of the desire to play political games, and this time you are involving our brave National guardsmen and women as pawns,” Sanders said in her letter to Magness.
“Secretary [Joe] Profiri had a plan to safely reopen beds with no additional personnel needed. If the Board wants to reactivate beds, then they should reinstate the Secretary and implement his plan without delay. I will not inject our guardsmen and women into a purely political situation caused by the very person requesting them,’ she said.
“You suspended Secretary Profiri and filed frivolous litigation against the State, resulting in great expense to our taxpayers, all in an effort to maintain the ‘status quo.’ The status quo in Arkansas is exactly what placed us in this situation,” Sanders said.
“It is clear the Board of Corrections is incapable of rational, reasonable, or fiscally responsible decision making under Magness’ leadership,” she said.
Magness asked Sanders to activate the Guardsmen to bolster state prison system staff, the Department of Corrections announced Thursday.
He made the request in a letter to Sanders on Wednesday to “help fill in staffing gaps within the Division of Correction.” according to a news release from the department. He asked for 40 National Guardsmen to be activated and serve in “non-inmate supervisory security positions” at the Maximum Security Unit in England, as well as the Tucker Unit.
According to the letter, the guardsmen will relieve certified correctional staff, allowing that staff to help provide the needed staffing to reactivate 124 beds at the Tucker Re-Entry Center.
“The Guardsmen will fill positions which are staffed 24 hours per day, 7 days per week,” he said in the letter.
Magness also requested consideration for activation of 98 additional National Guard personnel to serve “in the same type of positions at current units” where there is vacancy for entry-level correctional officers exceeding 40% as of Nov. 30.
The guardsmen wouldn’t directly supervise inmates, as they lack the training to do so, according to Corrections Department spokeswoman Dina Tyler. Instead, they would fill support positions for security, including in towers and at secured entrances. Tyler said it wouldn’t be fair to the guardsmen to place them directly with inmates without adequate training.
The strategy is new to Arkansas but it’s been tried in other states, such as Florida and New Hampshire, according to the Corrections Department.
Magness denied the request for guardsmen was politically motivated, adding, “The request does not seek anything more of Governor Sanders than have been asked of other governors in other states facing staffing shortages.”
Several board members expressed their support for Magness on Friday.
Board secretary William “Dubs” Byers said in an interview with the Democrat-Gazette that he agreed with the chairman’s decision not to resign and expressed disappointment that Magness’ letter was decried by Sanders as political.
“I really thought when I got his letter, I thought, ‘That’s a pretty good idea,’” Byers said. “I don’t understand why the governor is so against it. I personally don’t think anybody’s playing politics, or we’re not.”
He also said he was skeptical of Profiri’s plans to increase the number of beds at the prisons, saying he didn’t think the idea was “well thought-out.”
Board member Whitney Gass said she hopes Magness will finish out his term “to curtail the dictatorship Governor Sanders is currently attempting to force on the citizens of this incredible state.”
“Arkansans deserve to have a voice and under this administration they will be hushed by any means necessary,” she said in an email.
The constitution allows a board member to be removed for cause, though such cause doesn’t include decisions made, according to Tyler. A majority of the other board members also have to vote in favor of the removal.
Tyler cited Amendment 33, which states an appeal may be made to the Pulaski County Circuit Court by either the governor or member removed. That appeal can then be taken from the circuit court to the state Supreme Court.
The amendment also prohibits the governor and Legislature from making certain kinds of changes to state boards and commission that oversee Arkansas’ charitable, penal, correctional and higher education institutions.
It was ratified in 1942 in response to a dispute between then-Gov. Homer M. Adkins and J. William Fulbright, after the former appointed all new members of the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville’s board so that he could fire the latter.
The move infuriated much of the public and prompted the attempt to limit the governor’s authority of certain types of state boards through several constitutional amendments ratified in the 1940s and 1950s, Ben Johnson, a retired history professor from Southern Arkansas University, said Friday in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Sanders’ call for the chairman’s resignation also drew public praise and criticism from state politicians. On X, formerly known as Twitter, Rep. Mary Bentley, R-Perryville and Sen. Ben Gilmore, R-Crossett expressed their agreement with the governor’s letter.
“Thank you @SarahHuckabee for your continued bold leadership and putting the safety of my constituents first,” Bentley said. “We are tired of rising crime rates and the status quo.”
Gilmore said it was “clear this board is not interested in keeping our communities safe from criminals.”
In a news release, Will Watson, strategic director for the Democratic Party of Arkansas, called Sanders’ request “absurd.”
“Today is only the latest day in nearly a year of disgraceful conduct by a keyboard administration more committed to generating cable news hits and likes on social media than they are actually governing,” he said.
There have been a series of clashes between the Board of Corrections, Sanders, Profiri and Attorney General Tim Griffin that began last month, after the governor called a news conference seeking to pressure board members into supporting her request to add 622 beds at several state facilities.
The board had agreed to add 60 temporary beds at the Ouachita River Unit in Malvern, as well as 70 beds at the North Central Unit in Callico Rock. However, it initially rejected her request for a combined 492 beds at the Barber Ester Unit in Pine Bluff, the McPherson Unit in Newport and the Maximum Security Unit in Jefferson County.
At the time, the board said renovations were needed at two of the facilities. Members also expressed concerns that some of the prisons were already overcrowded and the expansions wouldn’t serve county jails’ long-term needs.
The board later agreed to additional beds at the Ester Unit, but balked at adding 368 beds at the McPherson and Maximum Security units in Newport and Jefferson County.
A spokeswoman for Sanders’ office said Dec. 8 that Profiri would move forward with the full plan, anyway, under orders from the governor.
Two lawsuits followed. One filed Dec. 14 by the Board of Corrections against Sanders and Profiri, alleges that Sanders and Profiri used a pair of Arkansas laws to skirt the board’s authority in an attempt to expand the number of beds at state prisons. Another, filed Dec. 15 by the attorney general against the board, claims the board violated the state’s open meetings and records law when it hired attorney Abtin Mehdizadegan during a closed session and that the body failed to properly respond to a Freedom of Information Act request from the attorney general’s office. Both cases are ongoing.
Since then, the circuit judges in each case, Patricia James and Tim Fox, have both leveled orders against Griffin.
James issued a temporary restraining order last week that blocked the governor from bypassing the board’s constitutional authority and adding hundreds of beds at several state prisons. The attorney general has since filed a motion seeking reconsideration of the restraining order.
On Tuesday, Fox said in an order that he would that dismiss without prejudice Griffin’s lawsuit against the board if the former fails to reach an agreement with the latter over their special counsel within the next 30 days. Griffin filed a motion on Wednesday asking the judge to reverse his order or, if he does not do so, to instead move forward with his dismissal of the attorney general’s complaint.