This is Sunshine Week, the American Society of News Editors & Reporters’ annual reminder of the importance of public information. Arkansans have had the legal right to know more about what all levels of our government are saying and doing for longer than most other Americans, but legislators do keep chipping away at the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act — and refusing to adopt technology that could improve its service to taxpayers.
This week we bring you alphabetical lists of new restaurants licensed in Little Rock and North Little Rock and hotels ranked by number of guest rooms. In the past, we could deliver much more satisfying lists of restaurants and hotels ranked by revenue, as reported to local Advertising & Promotion Commissions. But we can’t do that anymore because state Rep. Micah Neal of Springdale succeeded in getting his fellow legislators to exempt local-option taxes from the FOIA last year. Neal says restaurant and hotel revenue is “nobody’s business.”
Meanwhile, Rogers Rep. Jana Della Rosa’s bill to require electronic reporting of campaign contributions languished in committee. Rep. Bob Ballinger of Hindsville voted against it because, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported, he “would have to beg” his “old accountant” to learn a new way of filing.
The D-G spent months researching paper filings to determine who made campaign contributions to judicial candidates in 2014. “One [state Supreme Court] justice listed donors in alphabetical order — by first name. Better to disguise names of families and throw reporters off the scent, we’d imagine,” a recent editorial pointed out.
Once upon a time, paper filings were as good as campaign transparency could get. But in 2016, not requiring electronic reporting feels designed to make it hard and expensive to follow the money. We may never regain access to hotel and restaurant revenue data, but surely no one can argue that campaign contributions aren’t the public’s business.