An effort by Arkansas Republicans to force Gov. Mike Beebe to disclose the documents he receives from applicants for his appointments to state boards and commissions has failed in court, with a Pulaski County circuit judge throwing out a GOP Freedom of Information lawsuit seeking to obtain the materials.
The party will ask the Arkansas Supreme Court to overturn Judge Mary McGowan's decision, said Megan Tollett, the state party's executive director, on Thursday.
"We feel the judge did not correctly interpret the law to allow public access to public documents," said Tollett, the plaintiff in the 8-month-old lawsuit.
Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample did not return an email seeking comment Thursday.
Beebe, represented by the attorney general's office in the suit, argued that the wide variety of documents he receives from candidates, which he uses to decide appointments to boards and commissions, should not be released to the public.
The governor is responsible for appointing people to about 300 commissions, committees, boards and panels.
The governor contended the papers sought by Republicans fall under an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act that allows the governor, attorney general, Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and General Assembly to withhold "unpublished memoranda, working papers and correspondence" from public disclosure, described by Arkansas Code 25-19-105.
The governor asks potential appointees to submit information about their personal and professional lives that could be embarrassing if publicly disclosed, Joe Cordi, senior assistant attorney general, argued on Beebe's behalf.
Shielding the governor's appointment applications from public disclosure also encourages candor from applicants who are asked to discuss their qualifications for the posts they are seeking, Cordi argued before the judge at an April hearing. Such secrecy, he said, results in the selection of better-qualified candidates.
In McGowan's ruling, released Monday, the judge agreed, writing that she followed a state Supreme Court-mandated "balancing test" for Freedom of Information requests established in a 1992 holding.
That test from Bryant v. Mars, an open-records suit against the attorney general, requires judges to weigh the need for government transparency against the importance of allowing the governor to candidly communicate with potential appointees, McGowan stated.
"This court recognizes what could be a chilling effect on a citizen who desires to offer himself for public service, but who does not wish to reveal embarrassing episodes or whether or not he has ever been investigated, disciplined, cited or convicted," McGowan stated in her 10-page ruling.
"A right to some sense of the expectation of privacy for citizens supports the finding that the General Assembly's intent was to include the records of citizens seeking appointment by the governor ... as 'unpublished memoranda, working papers and correspondence of the governor' and exempt from the [open-records law]."
GOP attorneys George Ritter and Bilenda Harris-Ritter had argued that a ruling favoring the governor would give him too much authority to decide what should be released to the public.
The governor's legal reasoning was self-serving based on the legal opinions of attorneys general who have a stake in maintaining the exemption, Ritter argued at the April hearing.
The husband and wife argued that there is no greater compelling public interest than the right to know who is applying for the positions.
Tollett sued Beebe in December after the governor's lawyers twice denied her request for about two years' worth of the records.
She said she sought the records after reading news accounts about how Beebe's director of board appointments, Mica Strother, is also a fundraising consultant for Mike Ross, the former Democratic congressman who is campaigning to replace Beebe in the next election, and Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, who is running for re-election.
Metro on 08/29/2014
