It’s not that complicated

After Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders called a special legislative session in mid-September in what turned out to be a mostly failed effort to gut the state’s Freedom of Information Act, supporters of an effort to insert the FOIA as an amendment to the state constitution.

The Arkansas Citizens for Transparency Committee, chaired by former State Rep. Nate Bell of Mena, has submitted a total of five proposals for ballot language for a proposed constitutional amendment — the passage of which would make it virtually impossible for legislators to make substantive changes to the law without the approval of voters.

Attorney General Tim Griffin has rejected all five proposals submitted by the committee. Among Griffin’s objections to the first proposal, according to him, was that the committee failed to clarify the meaning of “government transparency.” In fact, Griffin wrote, the “the use of the term ‘transparency’ in a popular name ‘has an obvious positive ring to it’ that seems more designed to persuade than inform. This raises a concern about partisan coloring.”

So, wanting public business to be conducted in public is now a partisan point of view?

Well, maybe not. I was very pleasantly surprised at the groundswell of opposition from all sides of the political spectrum that helped limit the damage inflicted during Sanders’ special session in September.

What’s clearly happening here is that Griffin is picking nits with the proposed initiated act because Sanders doesn’t want it on the ballot in November. If the voters get a chance to have their voices heard, the proposal will get a minimum of 65 percent of the vote.

Griffin is doing everything he can to make this complicated. But it’s really very simple. The public has a right to know what its government is doing.

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Scott Loftis is editor and publisher of the Carroll County News. His email address is SLoftis@CarrollCoNews.com