This fight isn’t finished

   Loftis

I would venture to say that the vast majority of Arkansans want their government to be conducted in public. Unfortunately, there is a powerful minority that would rather the public’s business be conducted behind closed doors, away from prying eyes, and that minority might be of the belief today that it is more powerful than ever.

Over the past few months, a dedicated group of Arkansans has worked tirelessly in an effort to gather enough signatures to place a pair of measures on the general election ballot in November. One of those measures, a proposed amendment to the state constitution, would effectively enshrine our state’s Freedom of Information Act into that constitution. The other, a proposed initiated act, would make it exponentially more difficult for the state Legislature to make changes to FOIA without a vote of the people.

Tragically — and I don’t use that word lightly here — neither of those measures will make it to the ballot, this year. What could be fairly described as intentional delays by state Attorney General Tim Griffin prevented supporters of the two measures from beginning the task of gathering the required signatures until too late in the game. We were behind by three touchdowns before we even got the ball.

In full disclosure, I am a member of the Arkansans for a Free Press ballot question committee and I sit on the board of directors of the Arkansas Press Association. Both of those organizations were on the front lines of this fight and I’m proud that I was on their side.

There are some whispers that our failure to get these two measures on the ballot will serve to embolden opponents of government transparency — Griffin rejected one ballot title proposal in part because he said “transparency” was a partisan word, by the way — to launch a renewed legislative attack on FOIA and even to deliberately seek to silence Arkansas newspapers.

Whether that comes to pass or not, we’ve already turned our attention to 2026 and we’re more determined than ever to protect the right of the people to know what’s happening with their government. We might be a little bloodied and bruised, but I promise you, this fight is far from over.

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