Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said Wednesday that a group behind a proposed constitutional amendment to protect the state Freedom of Information Act can begin collecting signatures in its effort to get the measure on the November ballot.
But the next steps for the group, Arkansas Citizens for Transparency, partly depends on what happens with its second, related proposal still pending before the attorney general. That second ballot measure is an initiated act designed to work in tandem with the constitutional amendment. (An initiated act makes changes to statutory law, rather than the Arkansas Constitution.) Today is the deadline for Griffin to make a determination about whether to certify the second proposal.
Arkansas Citizens for Transparency — an ideologically diverse group of government transparency advocates that formed after Gov. Sarah Sanders and state legislators watered down the FOIA last fall — filed a lawsuit against Griffin on Monday over his earlier refusal to certify its proposed ballot measures. The attorney general rejected two previous versions of the group’s constitutional amendment (and its initiated act), saying the language in the proposals lacked clarity and contained other defects.
For its third submission, Arkansas Citizens for Transparency gave Griffin four separate options of popular names and ballot titles for the amendment in an attempt to address the attorney general’s objections to the earlier proposals. He yesterday certified two of the four options.
Jen Standerfer, a Bentonville attorney who is one of the key members of Arkansas Citizens for Transparency, said Wednesday evening that the group is pleased with Griffin’s decision to sign off on the latest submission. But the lawsuit could still move forward.
“We still could pursue the lawsuit to get a determination from the court about the last version,” she said, explaining that the group feels Griffin’s rejection of that version was unjustified and the language it contained may be preferable to the version Griffin has now certified. But the group first needs to discuss its plans.
“Our ballot question committee has not been able to meet yet and make a determination about what our next steps are,” she said. The committee will likely be able to make a decision after Griffin issues an opinion today on the initiated act, she said.
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