Gov. Sanders sings a stack of new expenses into law. One of them is a rollback on federal government openness.
Brian Chilson

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is commemorating after Arkansas lawmakers gave her desire to be able to hide from the public, in all time, information about who she traveled with on the state penny, and just how much it cost taxpayers.

" After months of the bad actors weaponizing FOIA to attack our heroes in law enforcement, I was proud to sign a new law today with bipartisan assistance to empower our state cops to do their tasks," Sanders stated on Twitter quickly after the week's legislative unique session delivered nearly whatever on her desire list.

Were bad stars truly bombarding those heroes at the Arkansas State Police with requests for information that might be used to hatch wicked plots that put Arkansas's first family in danger, as the guv recommends? Nah.

Matthew Moore, a public radio press reporter at KUAF in Northwest Arkansas, asked Arkansas State Police for all the requests they 'd gotten this calendar year for flight logs, passenger manifests and take a trip compensations.
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Last Friday early morning, prior to the special session was formally revealed, I sent out a #FOIA demand to the Arkansas State Police in preparation for the pending session. pic.twitter.com/ieKwZt1zgs

-- Matthew Moore (@MatthewrMoore) September 15, 2023

5! That's the number of requests for this info the Arkansas State Police fielded this year. 3 of those originated from Campbell. The other two - - one from Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Mike Wickline and one from Moore himself - - were just requests to see the 3 requests Campbell had made.

None of the demands originated from the 2 males who've been detained for making hazards about Sanders and other Republican politicians. Sanders and her supporters consistently referenced a man in Arkansas and another in Oklahoma to validate concealing previous and future travel and security expenditures from the public.
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" None of those demands consist of the kids. None of those demands were for ‘‘ security strategies.' None of those demands were from the Oklahoma guy who threatened the Governor and was later detained," Moore tweeted Friday.

In reality, no requests for this details came from anyone except Blue Hog blogger and Little Rock lawyer Matt Campbell, who understood the law and knew that passenger lists and expenses for governors' journeys have long been legally offered for public inspection.

Sanders at first set out to all however remove the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act today, after Campbell made a few standard public info requests that need to have really gotten under her skin.

A mangy bipartisan army battled the majority of the FOIA rollback. They could not stop the security piece though, despite bipartisan criticism that the brand-new exemption goes far beyond security and will hide invoices and travel manifests for publicly financed journeys.
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Campbell's demands that relatively set this ball rolling were legal at the time, and ought to have been granted under existing law; Arkansas State Police regularly granted access to the exact same info under previous administrations. They balked under the new Sanders administration however, rejecting info demands from Campbell since June.

Travel logs and expenses for the governor are no longer public, since the other day.

Today Campbell came down with COVID-19 and dropped his claim versus Arkansas State Police to obtain the rejected records. He said he plans to re-file.

And he's even been able to hunt down some fresh info.

Hey, y' all. Quick concern. Do you think perhaps @ARStatePolice didn't want to launch their expenditures associated with Sarah Sanders's trip to Europe since it included over $400 in tickets to EuroDisney? pic.twitter.com/wRkLG7HjtY

-- Matt Campbell (@BlueHogReport) September 15, 2023