No matter what, open meetings proposals will shine light on decision-makers during Sunshine Week
Credit: Don Landgren via Sunshine Week Toolkit
A House panel unanimously approved a bill Wednesday that should delight two groups who've battled for years over what constitutes a public meeting for governing bodies.
The House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee recommended passage of Senate Bill 227 by Sen. Clarke Tucker, a Democrat from Little Rock. The legislation next moves to the House floor, its last stop before the governor's desk — if approved by representatives Thursday.
Fittingly, the action occurred in the middle of the 20th anniversary of Sunshine Week, an annual observance that highlights the importance of your right to know what public officials do in your name.
Sunshine Week takes on added significance during Arkansas legislative sessions because some lawmakers spend a lot of their time trying to weaken the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, a 1967 law that guarantees citizens the right to observe government entities deliberate and act on matters of public importance, as well as the right to examine government documents.
In other words, the FOIA lets the light of public scrutiny shine on government officials and public records to the betterment of the state.
Tucker said in an earlier legislative hearing that he spent two years working on the bill's language, getting staunch public-access purists like Jimmie Cavin of Conway and Fort Smith attorney Joey McCutchen along with local government and school board officials to agree on a proposal that, in McCutchen's words Wednesday, gives citizens and officials a 'bright-line test' to determine whether a gathering is a meeting that should follow the FOIA's requirements for a public meeting.
'I think if you can bring Jimmie Cavin and Joey McCutchen and the Municipal League and the Association of Counties together, you probably deserve a Nobel Peace prize,' State Agencies Chairman Jimmy Gazaway, R-Paragould, told Tucker.
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The feel-good vibe may be short-lived, however, because another bill defining a public meeting is making its way through the lawmaking process. That bill is opposed by McCutchen, Cavin and the Arkansas Press Association, among others.
Senate Bill 376 by Republican Sen. Alan Clark of Lonsdale is on the Senate floor Thursday. It defines a public meeting as a gathering of two or more members of a governing body.
When a Senate committee discussed both Clark's and Tucker's bills, Clark said his bill 'better defines Sen. Tucker's bill.' But McCutchen and others said SB 376 would allow 'serial meetings,' or polling.
Tucker noted that two members of a city council, for example, could subvert the FOIA's intent by having one-to-one discussions until all members, or at least a majority, agreed on which way to vote on an issue — all behind closed doors and beyond the public's view.
Clark amended his bill after that committee discussion to prohibit two members who discuss a matter their governing body might take up 'from disclosing the opinion or position of another member on the matter with other members of the governing body.'
Whether that addition is enough to get a majority of senators to move Clark's bill forward remains to be seen.
For now, Tucker's more nuanced but better received legislation is headed for final approval ahead of Clark's proposal.
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