FOIA bill heads to Arkansas governor's desk

A bill that clarifies the state's public meetings law has been delivered to the governor.

By: Ainsley Platt
Arkansas Advocate

A bill that clarifies aspects of Arkansas’ public meetings law is heading to the governor’s desk after it again passed the Senate by a wide margin on Monday.

The bill specifies what members of city councils, quorum courts or school boards could discuss outside of a public meeting and would also allow a court to nullify any decisions made by a public body if it was in violation of open meetings laws.

Senate Bill 227, sponsored by Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, had already passed the Senate once, but the addition of co-sponsors when it was being considered in the House required another vote by the upper chamber.

Senators voted 34-1 in favor of passage; more senators voted yes in the second vote, including Sen. Alan Clark, who voted against Tucker’s bill when it first passed the Senate last month. Clark introduced his own amendments to the state’s Freedom of Information Act that would have defined a public meeting as “more than two” members of a public body – a change from the current status quo. That bill, Senate Bill 376, has been waiting to be heard in the House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs committee, and Clark voted against Tucker’s bill the first time it went before the chamber.

Only Sen. John Payton, R-Wilburn, voted no during Monday’s vote.

The current FOIA does not define the number of people needed for a meeting to qualify as public, but has generally been interpreted to mean a meeting where at least two members of a governing body get together. Tucker’s bill, if signed into law, would make that more explicit.

Read more here.