Who are the RINO Republicans Opposing our Good FOIA Petitions?

Who are the RINO Republicans
Opposing our Good FOIA Petitions?

Readers, it’s imperative that we get enough signatures to put the FOIA petitions on the ballot this November 2024. We absolutely NEED your help to protect our Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, immediately!

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Here is the wording for the Act: AN INITIATED MEASURE AMENDING THE ARKANSAS CODE TO CREATE THE “ARKANSAS GOVERNMENT DISCLOSURE ACT”

and here is the wording for the Amendment: “THE ARKANSAS GOVERNMENT DISCLOSURE AMENDMENT OF 2024″.

There are only 3 short months left to get a tremendous amount of signatures for this extremely important issue… Please, pick up a petition now and help gather signatures!  See the bottom of this alert for Petition Hub locations. The people there will explain more and answer your questions.

After you pick up a blank petition, you can go to events (even sporting events), your church, friends, family, and co-workers. April, May, & June will go by very quickly because July 5, 2024, all signatures must be turned in to the Secretary of State.

Check out all the wonderful and fun events that can be a good place to gather many signatures for the month of April in Arkansas! There are LOTS of events going on right now.

Secure Arkansas has gotten word that there are still many RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) that are opposing our good Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) petitions! What’s up? One reason that’s been mentioned is “it grows government.” BUT it does NOT grow government. It helps hold government officials accountable… which they may not like.

Whatever excuses that some of Gov. Sanders’ RINO minion legislators use, don’t buy into their malarkey! These are the same legislators that assisted our RINO Gov. Sanders in the 2023 Legislative Session that did accomplish dismantling “some” of our precious and valuable 1967 FOIA law here in Arkansas.

Powerful forces have been busy trying to sabotage us and our right as taxpayers to see what’s going on in our government.

We are simply outraged that we are having to go to all this trouble to protect ourselves and our right to transparency because of this new governor, her elite overlord handlers and her misguided lawmakers in the Arkansas legislature that are still lurking around and seeking to dismantle even more of our FOIA. It was one of the best in the country. 

We the people, the press, and attorneys with clients desperately need to keep our FOIA in tact because that’s our ONLY tool to use for transparency and to hold our government accountable! It’s our duty to beat back government overreach! Right? Is there a better tool for transparency than a strong Freedom of Information request? NO, there isn’t, dear readers.

And it’s our legal right to request information via FOIA! The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a law that provides the public the right to request access information from:

• agencies

• county government

• municipal government

• state government

• public schools

Yes, we absolutely NEED a commission to oversee the protection of our Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and to see that our information requests are followed through!

We have even heard that some state legislators pretend to support the FOIA… but they won’t sign the petition. Legislators, your actions speak louder than words, so step up and sign these good petitions and help protect our FOIA!

This affects ALL of us, and what a person sows, he reaps.

Again, the RINO legislators that won’t sign the FOIA petitions are simply following instructions from our RINO governor and they are afraid to stand up and help protect their constituents from government cover-ups and meeting in secret. Who knows, some of them may be benefitting financially from Arkansas’ open meetings and open records to be closed down.   

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During the last strange and disturbing 2023 legislative session, MANY pieces of foul legislation were filed by underhanded lawmakers trying to block public access to desperately needed documents in the Arkansas FOIA process!

Arkansas’ newly elected and power-hungry governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, worked very hard to dismantle our Freedom of Information Act! How sneaky of her, let alone disappointing to learn that she was after our stellar 1967 Sunshine Law! And sadly, her destructive actions SHOCKED many people in the state. We didn’t realize she was a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing. So, as soon as Sarah took office, she went directly after our ability to make a strong Freedom of Information request! She wanted it weakened, significantly!

Dismantling our Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was the main reason Governor Sanders called that Special Session in 2023. The Governor’s 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 her outrageous bill!

Should Sarah have gotten her way, there would have been only a shell of Freedom of Information rights remaining! She intended to waltz boldly in as a new governor and make sure HER administration would be able to operate secretly, behind CLOSED doors, to cover-up records, and to function away from public scrutiny. But our strong Sunshine Law/FOIA stood in her way, so she rounded up her hitmen in the legislature and set forth to chop that FOIA to pieces!

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 covered up, along with Former Governor Asa Hutchinson’s… most likely including the trips he and his son took to Communist China!

Governor Sanders’ statement for the 2023 press conference after the session was this: “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’. That was just the first ax blow against our 1967 Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The sneaky anti-FOIA SB10 was retroactive, going as far back as June 2022. RINO Republican and Senate President, Bart Hester from Cave Springs, along with 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.

Thankfully, in 2023, we had champions defending our right to know, and they fought that battle bravely!  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. Hooray!

Our handy must-have tool called the FOIA was up for grabs in 2023, and it was almost crucified! Why was it so desperately hunted down by these RINO Republican predators so contemptibly?… unless there’s a lot to hide and cover-up. Government trust is at an all time low.

Tragically, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is STILL trying to dismantle MORE of our FOIA and has sworn to do more damage to it. She must want censorship that will suppress free speech, public communication, and/or other vital information that we can get from doing a Freedom of Information Act request!

In closing, will you ask your state representative and your senator to sign the good FOIA petitions so that they can be placed on the ballot this fall? It’s important to single out our legislators and see where they stand regarding this vital issue. Please provide Secure Arkansas with the list of all the politicians that won’t sign the FOIA petition, and we will publish their names in a future article.

And, once again, don’t let this opportunity slip away from us. Once we lose our right to transparency in government, we may never to able to get it back, and we will be on our way to a totalitarian government.

PETITION HUBS – Locations around the state where you can SIGN the petition and also pick up some blank petitions to help gather signatures for the Act and for the Amendment to be placed on the Nov. 2024 ballot:

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

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Securing the blessings of liberty,

Secure Arkansas
securetherepublic.com/arkansas
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