House passes bill clarifying Arkansas public meetings law
Rep. Jon Eubanks, R-Paris, attends a House Judiciary Committee meeting on Jan. 28, 2025. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate)
The Arkansas House of Representatives passed a bill Monday that would clarify state public meetings law by specifying what members of city councils, quorum courts or school boards can discuss outside of a public meeting.
Senate Bill 227, sponsored by Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, and Rep. Jon Eubanks, R-Paris, would also allow a court to nullify any decisions made by a public body if it was in violation of open meetings laws, would add a cybersecurity breach as a reason to meet in executive session, and would regulate remote meeting attendance.
Under current state law, the number of people needed for a meeting to qualify as public is not defined, but has generally been interpreted to mean a meeting where at least two members of a governing body meet. Tucker's bill would make that more explicit.
The legislation passed with 87 out of the 99 members present voting for the bill; five voted against it and five voted present. Two lawmakers abstained and Rep. Stephen Magie, D-Conway, was absent.
The bill, which already passed the Senate once, was amended to add co-sponsors after it was sent to the House, so it will be returned to the Senate for another vote.
While the measure passed with broad margins in the House, Rep. Jim Wooten, R-Beebe, stood to urge colleagues to vote it down.
'We're starting down a slippery slope when we start fooling around with the Freedom of Information Act as it relates to the public knowledge and transparency in government,' Wooten warned.
Wooten expressed concerns that the language of the bill would allow board members to discuss their positions on public business, and then pressure other members behind the scenes. A separate bill, SB 376, would define a public meeting as one where more than two members of a government entity met. That bill is awaiting a hearing in the House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee, and has been opposed by government transparency advocates.
Eubanks said that provisions included in the bill would prohibit that kind of behavior while providing needed clarity to local officials alongside transparency.
'I spent 10 years on a school board, and I can assure you I did not know what the rules were, and I don't think anybody else did either,' Eubanks said. 'I think this is important, and it's going to allow school board associations, counties, Municipal League to have clear understanding of what is allowed so that they can give the proper training to the members of those boards.'
The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act of 1967 gives Arkansans the right to obtain government records, such as emails. However, vague definitions of what exactly constituted a public meeting has led to litigation as local government bodies ran afoul of sunshine provisions.
Tucker's bill has garnered support from state FOIA advocates, including the Arkansas Press Association. The association's president, Andrew Bagley, called Tucker's bill 'a very good piece of legislation' during a committee meeting March 12.
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