Summary on Arkansas' Special Session 2023 (Following the Money)

RINOs Roaming the Arkansas Capitol

This disturbing Arkansas Special Session has finally been brought to a close on Thursday, September 14, 2023. It was a bloody battle of good vs. evil forces during those dreadful four days at the Arkansas Capitol. Many people have now deemed our state legislature a Banana Republic!

image credit

Secure Arkansas is calling for Representative David Ray of Maumelle to do the honorable thing and resign… or be removed by Tim Griffin from serving on the FOIA Review Working Group because of a major conflict of interest. He has breached the trust of the people by carrying a dishonorable bill to dismantle our 1967 FOIA Law. His dereliction of duties is NOT acceptable by Arkansans.

The motive behind this outlandish special session that was called forth by the new Republican governor was to offer up and sacrifice our magnificent Sunshine Law (FOIA) on the altar to her handlers. She has shown us her true villainous intent and what she is capable of.

Governor Sanders’ original proposal would have ended the release of a considerable amount of records related to how government policies and decisions are reached. It would also have blocked the release of certain documents prepared by lawyers representing state agencies or officials, according to the original version of the outrageous bill!

RINO Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders wanted to destroy our Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and actually frightened many people with her cruel demands! There would have been only a shell of Freedom of Information rights left, had she gotten her controlling way. She intended to waltz boldly in as a new governor and make sure her administration would be able to operate secretly, behind CLOSED doors, cover-up records, and function away from public scrutiny.

But our fantastic Sunshine Law/FOIA stood in her way, so she rounded up her hateful hitmen in the legislature and set forth to chop that FOIA to pieces!

Instead, she ended up settling to exempt records related to her security from the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). She got somewhat of what she wanted, so now, her records are now covered up, along with Former Governor Asa Hutchinson’s… most likely including the trips he and his son took to China!

Governor Sanders’ statement during Thursday’s press conference: “We said we’d do it, and we got it done!” After the governor signed SB10 into law on Thursday, September 14, 2023. She called it the “first step” in evaluating and updating the Freedom of Information Act”.

Note: She said ‘FIRST STEP’. So, she’s going after her first taste of blood that was drawn.

When asked if there is a chance there would ever be an effort to file another bill – in another special session or the next regular session – where she tries to get everything else passed when it comes to FOIA that ended up being eliminated from her original bill, Governor Sanders says nothing is off the table.

image credit

Arkansas Governor TRIED to Keep More Records Private. The Pushback Was Swift.

Snippets:

In a moment when the country’s politics have become highly polarized, supporters of the legislation, perhaps unwittingly, seemed to run into a rare slice of common ground: distrust of the motives of government officials, and resistance to a plan that would allow them to operate with less scrutiny.

“The power of the people was on display,” Joey McCutchen, a lawyer and a founder of the Arkansas Transparency in Government Group, told lawmakers during a hearing Wednesday on the revised version. “People from all walks of life — left, right, Democrat, Republican, poor, rich, across the spectrum — came together to talk about the importance of our right to know.”

While highlighting the boundaries of the new governor’s influence, the commotion at the State Capitol this week was also something more novel: a display of bipartisan agreement, and of lawmakers responding to the concerns of their constituents.

The governor’s push came after a blogger in Arkansas sought information about how much it cost taxpayers to protect Ms. Sanders and her family, particularly during a trip to Europe for a trade mission over the summer.

The sneaky, anti-FOIA SB10 was retroactive, going as far back as June 2022. RINO Republican and Senate President, Bart Hester from Cave Springs, and RINO Republican Representative David Ray from Maumelle and the rest of their brutish gang tried extremely hard to follow Sarah’s orders and totally gut our Arkansas FOIA! But, it has survived for now, with a strike pertaining to the governor’s records.

Rep. David Ray from Maumelle

Rep. David Ray is a traitorous RINO player and needs to be exposed because he’s an American Legislative Exchange (ALEC) Insider. He was brought to Arkansas to see that the big corporations involved in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are cunningly represented with the legislation that the corporations want to see put in place.

So, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is an organization designed to link state legislators with corporations and create templates for state legislation. There are a plethora of corporate funders of ALEC.

Rep. David Ray is NOT a conservative and has resided in these numerous states to implement an agenda: TN, AR, LA, CA, GA, VA, KS, KY, & NY.

Currently, he sits on Griffins’ FOIA Review Working Group, and his career experience includes:

• Chief of Staff to Lieutenant Governor Tim Griffin (so, David Ray is Tim Griffin’s water-boy)

• State Director of Americans for Prosperity Arkansas

• Consultant

• Communications Strategist: Communications Director for Tom Cotton, United States Senatorial Campaign, 2014

• Communications Director for Republican Party of Arkansas, 2013, and

• State Chair for American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)

Ray Strategies (David Ray) was paid $10,000 a month from Attorney General Tim Griffin’s campaign money, for a total of $60,000 in 2022. See the bulleted list of Rep. David Ray’s campaign expenditures directly below and also AG Tim Griffin’s campaign reports further down in this article. The reports speak for themselves!

Here are David Ray’s Itemized Campaign Expenditures:

• May to June 2022

• July 2022

• August 2022

• Sept. 2022

Also, see Rep. David Ray’s Statement of Financial Interest for 2022 which includes info about his marketing/ management/ consulting business:

Here is David Ray’s Candidate Information Sheet.

David Ray’s allegiance is to ALEC, not to the voters he claims to represent. ALEC always represents Big Business’ bottom line. 

Remember: ALEC State Chairs in the legislature take an oath to put ALEC first!

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) asks that the legislators raise their right hand and swear:

“I will act with care and loyalty and put the interests of the organization first”. 

That means placing the corporate and special interests above their elected office! Hello?! This is a conflict of interest. One could conclude that the cabal wants their own appointed talking heads: a greedy corporate governance where their supposedly-elected officials put forth their destructive agenda for their bottom line.

Maumelle voters, let’s vote Rep. David Ray out of office.

Moreover, Rep. David Ray sponsored HB1726 along with Senator Breanne Davis in our last 2023 general session, and it was deadly, too. Click the hyperlink to read the full text of the bill.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DEFINITIONS USED IN THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; TO ADD PUBLIC RECORDS EXEMPTIONS; TO AMEND PUBLIC MEETINGS REQUIREMENTS; TO AMEND REQUIREMENTS RELATED TO CUSTODIANS PROCESSING PUBLIC RECORDS REQUESTS; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.

Secure Arkansas believes the Republican legislators will try to pull this same stunt again in our next legislative session, too. The hateful hitmen are still lurking in our General Assembly, waiting to attack. Senator Hester has worked for most of his political career trying to dissolve the Arkansas FOIA, our exemplary Sunshine Law of 1967.

Our FOIA was up for grabs, and it was almost crucified! Why was it so desperately hunted down by these Republican predators so contemptibly?… unless there’s a lot to hide and cover-up.

The war was nobly fought by our true conservative legislators, but the problem was — and is — that the greedy legislators outnumber the good legislators. Politics and power were certainly in play. Arkansas has minimal true conservatives serving in our state legislature. Why?

But thankfully, we had more champions who’d been born for such a time as this!  We had in place the knowledgeable older FOIA Task Force, Joey McCutchen, Robert Steinbuch, Jimmie Cavin, and other constitutional people in our corner representing we the people.

So, we had the older and wiser FOIA Task Force vs. AG Tim Griffin’s newly created ‘FOIA Review Working Group’ engaged in one of the worst stressful battles ever fought at our Arkansas Capitol. All under the guidance of the RINO Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders… a wolf in sheep’s clothing who is a skilled hunter set to pounce on its prey.

This summer, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin quickly created and assembled Sarah a rubber-stamp 7 man task force (below) to undermine and dismantle our 1967 FOIA Law. Why wasn’t the “ace” Professor Robert Steinbuch asked to be in the working group? Also, why isn’t there an Arkansas citizen on the task force, either? Tim’s group is supposed to be reviewing the bills, NOT writing anti-FOIA bills!

Some of the people listed as the FOIA Review Working Group may wish to resign because surely you can see where this is going, can’t you?  

Here are the people that serve an anti-American agenda because we can see what just happened with our Sunshine Law:

• State Senator Breanne Davis of Russellville ( Unfortunately, she’s always on board to sponsor dark anti-FOIA bills.)

• Ryan Owsley, Deputy Attorney General, Opinions Division

• John Payne, Deputy Attorney General, Civil Litigation Division

• State Representative David Ray of Maumelle, Arkansans, are calling for him to resign the FOIA Review Working Group because he has breached the trust of the people by bringing a bill to dismantle our Arkansas FOIA!)

• State Senator Clarke Tucker of Little Rock

• John Tull III, Partner at Quattlebaum, Grooms & Tull, PLLC

• Ashley Kemp Wimberley, Executive Director, Arkansas Press Association

This is a stacked deck against the people! They may have been bought off! Griffin has 2 legislators on his team that hate our FOIA and sit waiting at a chance to strike. Also, he has 2 employees that will do whatever Griffin says, so he always manages to have 4 votes from this working group.  Sadly… Tucker, Tull and Wimberly are always going to be out-voted in this group!

image credit

Here are Attorney General Tim Griffin’s campaign reports:

• May to June 2022

•  July 2022

• August 2022

• Sept. 2022

• October 2022

• Oct – Dec. 2022

It would serve us well to carefully look at ALL the bad actors, including our RINO governor supposedly serving Arkansans as a so-called Republican conservative. She is NOT conservative; only a pretender and a danger to the state.

Governor Sanders is now exposed for all to see because she serves the New World Order agenda and works along side the global elite, one way or another. 

It’s all-telling whenever Governor Sanders would NOT allow ANYTHING to be bought up regarding the harmful crypto mining facilities during her special little session.

She has shown no concern — none — about the hideous noise, dangerous activities, or lawsuit affecting the suffering community in Faulkner County.

But, one of our best Republican champions stepped up to the plate during Sarah’s special session:  Senator Bryan King from Berryville. He fought hard to get something introduced, but alas, he was blocked and voted down by the RINO Senate today.

Must watch! See Senator Bryan King’s compelling speech to the Senate regarding the fraudulent and mis-titled bill on the midleading “Arkansas Data Centers Act” (HB1799).and the way he made an excellent case against the dangers of not being well-informed about the harm crypto mining sites bring to the areas in which the communist Chinese build and operate.

Senator King fought courageously to rectify those wrongs and the misrepresentation of HB1799/ Act 851. He is saddened for us because he felt this Arkansas legislature voted to put something in place that they didn’t fully understand regarding the crypto mining facilities as they were falsely presented as data centers, which they are NOT data centers! And don’t forget that the bill was sneakily crammed in and hurriedly presented at the closing of our last 2023 legislative session.  

He is also concerned about his community being harassed by the communist Chinese operatives that have been loosed to operate freely, hook up to our substations, and harm areas of our precious land and resources. And last, but not least, there’s the class action lawsuit that is being brought against Newrays One, LLC, the Bono cryptomining site, in Faulkner County, Arkansas: the people in that community are trying to raise funds to pay for their lawsuit. They are having chili suppers, too.

Many consequences have ensued since HB1799/Act 851 was signed into law by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders this past Spring…

Take note! We think it’s essential to set the record straight for Senator Bryan King because he DID NOT vote for SB10.

After the committee vote, he was interviewed by the media. By the time he got to the Senate, they had already voted for SB10. He had no notice they were running it that quickly. They rolled him as a “yes” vote when he was a “no” vote. So, he wrote a letter to clarify the vote.

Clean up the Republican Party! It’s high time to vet those candidates and politicians running for our State and County government. They too, should have to answer for the fiasco that happened during this last session, too. Good grief, Arkansas has made national news over all the shenanigans pulled at our Capitol! It’s dishonorable. Quit handing money to the RINOs so they can run again and plague the conservatives.

David Ray was in the Republican State Leadership Committee in Washington, DC.– See his financials.

Don’t support any politician that is a member of ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council). ALEC is a corporate bill mill that writes legislation that supports the globalists and goes against the Arkansas way of life.

As always, our articles may be viewed on our website at  SecureArkansas.com. Once there, you may:

• view current articles on the main page;
• view older articles by clicking “Posts & Articles” at the top left of the main page and scrolling down.
• view additional past articles by clicking the “Next Page” button at the bottom right.

To find information about a topic, just type it into the Search box on our website, and click Enter!

Click here if you’d like to sign up to receive Secure Arkansas email alerts.

Securing the blessings of liberty,

Secure Arkansas
securetherepublic.com/arkansas
[email protected]

Disclaimer:

Legal Advice is Not Provided

The material in our emails/alerts and on our websites is only intended to provide general information and comment to the public. We make an effort to ensure that the information found in our emails/alerts and on our websites is accurate and timely, but we can’t and don’t guarantee that. Nor do we guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of any information contained on websites to which our websites or emails provide links.

Information found in our emails/alerts and on our websites should not be taken as legal advice. Legal matters can be complicated. For assistance with a specific legal problem or question, please contact a knowledgeable lawyer for assistance.