I read about the FOIA

It is very misleading to call oneself pro-life when, in fact, the correct label is either anti-female or anti- reproductive rights. Further, it’s misleading and anti-American when a governmental entity declares the region it serves to be a pro-life region because a) it often misrepresents a significant percentage of that region’s residents and b) it mixes religion with government. The pro-life label also is generally misleading because some of the pro-life advocates don’t support quality of life after birth. Some eagerly oppose welfare programs and food supplement programs for less fortunate members of society, most of whom are women and children. Some who live a sub-par quality of life include both the unwanted children and the mothers who were forced to have them after being victims of rape or incest. Also living a sub-par quality of life are some mothers and their partners who are victimized emotionally by being forced to raise and care for children they neither want nor can afford. Any governmental entity in Arkansas that reaffirms that this is a pro-life state should label that reaffirmation correctly as anti-female or anti-reproductive rights. [Editor’s Note: I remember in the 6th grade, we were assigned a research project where the final part of the grade was giving a five minute speech defending our stance on a chosen topic. Literally every girl in the class chose abortion (for the record, I chose the death penalty, probably because I was super “edgy” back then and it had “death” in the name). But that was the first debate on abortion I had ever heard and there were girls on both sides of the argument. That was in 1984. Here we are 40 years later and the same salient points are being made by the folks arguing the issue. It’s very clear that this debate will never be “won” regardless of the legal status of abortion. I appreciate your thoughts but if you’re hoping this was some sort of “mic drop” moment, I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree]

suit against Hoxie that described the fact that a citizen had filed three Arkansas Freedom of Information Act requests in the recent past that the city of Hoxie had failed to timely reply to. We all recall that the same recently happened with the West Memphis School Board as well. My concern is why did these suits have to be filed at all? I will tell you why it had to be filed. The current Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (AFOIA) is weak in many ways. Many public officials will, intentionally or unintentionally, often violate requests from citizens under the AFOIA. The only option a citizen has left is to hire an attorney and file a lawsuit in Circuit Court against the public entity in order to get the information they are legally seeking. But the law is even weaker yet. The public official who violates the law has nothing to lose. That is because all of his/her attorney fees, court costs, and normally the winning citizen’s attorney fees get paid by your tax dollars. Does that kind of law seem fair to you? If not, then there is something that you can do to make it a little fairer. Volunteers are now canvassing every county in the state with two petitions, collecting signatures in order to get a very important ballot initiative on the upcoming November election. It is called the Arkansas Government Transparency Act/Amendment and it is intended to strengthen our current AFOIA laws. If enacted, the new law will create a people’s commission where a citizen can file their complaint free of charge to the commission, without having the cost of hiring an attorney. Also, under the proposed law, a public official who intentionally violates the Act can be personally fined for violating AFOIA. I encourage every registered voter, who believes in transparency in government, to please read and sign the petitions. [Editor’s Note: Trust me, as someone who has had to go through the FIOA process just to get simple public information at times, I agree 100 percent with every word of this]