Watch for bad bills during last days of legislative session
By Roy Ockert Jr.
March 17, 2015
Citizens interested in efficient and transparent government must be most vigilant in the waning days of a legislative session. Bad bills can be passed any time, but they tend to slip by unnoticed at this time.
That happens in part because many lawmakers wait until the last minute to file bills. On the day of the deadline, March 9, hundreds of new bills went into the General Assembly’s hopper. Most will never see the light of day if, as expected the Legislature wraps up its business within the next 30 days.
But a few will get pushed through the process and be signed into law without a full public airing because things get confusing at the end of a session.
Those of us who defend the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, a model law that has given citizens access to public meetings and records since 1967, can’t let down our guards just because we’ve had some successes.
A good example is House Bill 1054 by Rep. Nate Bell, R-Mena, who began with a good idea — making public boards more accountable when they hold executive sessions — and then turned it into a monster as he tried to gather support.
HB 1054 would have required each public board to make an audio tape of an executive session, which theoretically would discourage board members from breaking the law by discussing issues not allowed in a closed session. If they did, there would be evidence.
However, implementation could be costly and time-consuming. Further, representatives of various public agencies started lining up against the bill, and Bell tried to make it more palatable to them, i.e., by allowing them to bring their attorneys into executive sessions.
The Arkansas Freedom of Information Coalition, a loose-knit group of media representatives and FOIA experts, decided to oppose the bill, and last week Bell finally withdrew it. SB 1054 was then dispatched to an interim study committee, which is where bad bills are sent to die.
But Bell might not be through. On March 7 he filed a “shell bill,” HB 1984, titled “An Act to Amend Arkansas Law Concerning Executive Sessions Under the Freedom of Information Act of 1967; and for Other Purposes.” A shell bill has no specific content but can be amended later.
Watch out for shell bills. The lack of specifics makes such a bill easy to disregard until it’s too late.
The first line of defense for the Arkansas FOIA is the Arkansas Press Association, whose communications director, Tres Williams, monitors all proposed bills that would affect the news media during a legislative session. That’s not easy, considering that more than 2,000 bills are filed, and some of them ramble on for dozens of pages. Computer searches make them easier to find, but the intent and impact of a proposed change may not be as clear.
Often, the FOIA coalition is called to meet with or contact a sponsoring legislator, as we did with Bell when he first proposed HB 1054.
Williams’ current list summarizing proposed bills that would affect the public and news organizations now stretches to nearly three printed pages — 30 bills — and most of them are aimed at altering the public’s access to government records and meetings. At least 10 propose new exemptions, and we watch those closely because they tend to weaken the law.
One of those was Senate Bill 892 by Sen. John Cooper, R-Jonesboro., which would have prohibited the release of a state employees’s personnel records for 60 days after the employee ceased working for the government. Those records generally aren’t released anyway unless disclosure is in the public interest, such as when an employee is fired for stealing.
The bill was rejected in committee Thursday, but it could be revised for another effort.
Another bad bill that has had more success is SB 999 by Sen. Bruce Maloch, D-Magnolia. It would exempt from disclosure any working papers related to an audit of a higher education institute until the audit report has been presented to its governing board. That can make understanding the report difficult.
Maloch told a reporter he agreed to sponsor the bill at the request of University of Arkansas system officials, but he didn’t know of a reason for the bill. Could it be the embarrassing audit findings in the UA’s development division last year?
SB 999 passed the Senate last week 32-0 and then received a “do pass” recommendation from the House Education Committee.
HB 1873 by Rep. Bob Johnson, D-Jacksonville, would have given a public agency a free hand to deny records requests if compiling the records would “unreasonably divert the resources of the government entity” from its usual duties. Fortunately, Johnson was convinced to withdraw his bill, and it was referred to interim study.
HB 1077 by Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, would keep secret the names of college faculty and staff members taking special training for carrying concealed weapons on campus.
HB 1941 by Rep. Micah Neal, R-Springdale, would prevent the disclosure of taxes collected from specific entities or industries under the Advertising and Promotion Commission Act.
These are just some of the FOIA bills. A proposal to do away with public notices in newspapers was defeated last week. However, the sponsor, Rep. Mickey Gates, R-Hot Springs, also has a proposed constitutional amendment to do the same thing.
Roy Ockert is editor emeritus of The Jonesboro Sun. He may be reached by e-mail at royo@suddenlink.net.