LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — On Monday, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin greenlit the wording of a ballot proposal to amend Arkansas Freedom of Information Act laws.
A group of residents working under the name "Arkansas Citizens for Transparency" started the proposal back in September and wants to see FOIA laws protected by the state's constitution, as they're currently not in the constitution.
Griffin sent a letter to the two Arkansans behind the movement explaining that his approval of the ballot measures does not mean he agrees or disagrees with them, just that it's his job to make sure the legal language in them is clear and can't be misinterpreted.
Griffin approved the constitutional amendment which cleared the way for the transparency group to collect signatures last week.
If the group gets enough signatures, voters will decide this November if government transparency should be a part of the Arkansas constitution and also give more protection to FOIA so that state lawmakers can’t keep changing it.
Now the group now has to collect more than 90,000 signatures for the amendment and the initiated act needs a little over 72,000 signatures from at least 50 Arkansas counties by July 5 to make it on the November ballot.
"We have another right in Arkansas, a right to transparent government, a right to open government in Arkansas. It also creates, it makes it more difficult for the general assembler assembly, our legislators to make our government less transparent" Joey McCutchen, open government advocate and trial lawyer, said.
The new proposal would be called the Arkansas Government Disclosure Act. The act will hold local and the state government accountable if they don't comply with FOIA requests and creates a clearer version of what a meeting is at the government level.
"It defines what a meeting is in Arkansas. It creates a civil penalty when government violates the Open Meetings provision and open meetings and open records provision of FOIA. It also creates a state commission which is going to help our citizens if there's questions about which records they should receive," McCutchen said.
McCutchen adds that there's been a lot of back and forth between the group and the AG's office, and previous versions have been rejected before, but now he believes it's time to put this in the citizen's hands.
"It's time to move past the Attorney General and start collecting signatures, start raising money and start going to the people because this is the people's act and consistent with Arkansas motto, the people rule," McCutchen said.
The AG rejected previous versions of the group's proposals because he said the language wasn't clear enough.