by Robert Steinbuch | October 1, 2023 at 1:51 a.m.
During the recent special session in the Legislature, our elected representatives debated adding additional exemptions into our Freedom of Information Act. Legislators opposing this effort recognized that: 1. government records belong to the public, 2. the FOIA already is laden with exceptions, 3. every time we weaken the FOIA, it’s more likely to collapse, and 4. government often doesn’t play fair with citizens requesting public records.
Those pushing to reduce public oversight, in contrast, introduced new FOIA-exemptions legislation without first vetting it with the public, the legislatively created FOIA Taskforce, or transparency advocates.
And many legislators fell somewhere in between–challenged to learn the intricacies of a complex area of law in three days. I’ve been researching FOIA for years, and still find it complicated.
While much of the debate subsided, the question of replacing legislators who actively worked to weaken the FOIA persists.
Ronald Reagan famously quipped that allies need only agree 80 percent of the time. The difficulty in applying this maxim is assigning percentages to each issue. For conservatives, core principles aren’t negotiable no matter how many tax breaks we deservedly get. You wouldn’t hear a conservative say, “Jesse’s a wonderful candidate but for his stance on life issues.”
Joe Maynard, co-founder with Brenda Vassaur Taylor of Conduit for Commerce, an Arkansas-based conservative-policy and news organization, relates that “for every vote legislators make, they should be able to draw a straight line back to a core principle; and if they can’t, they need to step back and rethink that position.”
Conduit has consistently mobilized grass-roots efforts to protect transparency and economic freedom for families and small businesses through outlets including its public-information arm, Conduit News, operated by Ginny Lauren Dowden, who provided real-time updates and interviews from the Capitol to keep Arkansans informed during the lightning-paced special session.
Conduit’s consistent commitment to freedom and limited government established it as a leading voice in Arkansas’ conservative movement. And its recent efforts demonstrated a willingness to act to protect the core-conservative ideals of government transparency, citizen empowerment, and accountability.
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