Judge dismisses FOIA lawsuit against Arkansas governor by blogger who revealed lectern purchase

A Pulaski County Circuit judge dismissed blogger Matt Campbell’s lawsuit against Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday.

Campbell sued Sanders in October, claiming her office violated the state Freedom of Information Act. Campbell spent weeks last fall using the FOIA and his Blue Hog Report blog to scrutinize the governor’s office’s use of public funds, including $19,000 spent on a lectern.

Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office filed a motion Monday to dismiss Campbell’s case because the plaintiff did not deliver the lawsuit’s summons and complaint to Sanders’ office within 120 days of filing the complaint, according to court documents.

Before Monday, there had been no action in the case since February, when Campbell filed a motion asking for more time to deliver the documents. Judge LaTonya Honorable never granted the request.

Campbell said Tuesday that he will refile the lawsuit with additional allegations of FOIA violations. He said he has been planning to do so for weeks and let the deadline to serve process pass on purpose.

Griffin said in a news release that the dismissal was “the proper outcome for this baseless case” and that “cases like this waste taxpayer dollars and clog up our judicial system.”

Campbell, who was a practicing attorney before the Arkansas Times hired him as a reporter last year, said he found it laughable that Griffin “would file a procedural motion and try to tout it as a win.”

Arkansas lawmakers question governor’s lectern purchase, potential law violations found in audit

In September, Campbell revealed on X that Sanders’ office had used a state-issued credit card to buy the lectern and a travel case for $19,029 from a Virginia-based event design and management firm with political ties to Sanders.

“Lecterngate” subsequently led to national and international attention for the Sanders administration. Arkansas Legislative Audit investigated the purchase from October to March and published a report in April detailing several instances of potential lawbreaking by Sanders’ staff throughout the purchase, delivery and record-keeping process.

Cortney Kennedy, Sanders’ chief legal counsel who defended the lectern purchase before lawmakers last month, denied two of Campbell’s FOIA requests to the governor’s office on Oct. 23, according to court documents.

Campbell requested:

• First Gentleman Bryan Sanders’ Outlook calendar.
• All messages to and from Bryan Sanders’ two state email addresses.
• “Aall bills of lading or other documents showing shipping and/or delivery of the lectern ordered from Beckett Events,” the firm that sold the lectern.
• “All communications sent from (or on behalf of) the Governor’s Office to any person making a FOIA request” since Jan. 1, 2023.

Kennedy claimed Campbell’s requests went against the FOIA’s exemption for “[u]npublished memoranda, working papers, and correspondence of the Governor.”

Campbell filed the lawsuit the next day, claiming that Kennedy’s denial of the requests was illegal because Bryan Sanders is not a state employee and therefore the exemption she cited did not apply.

In September, Sanders called a special legislative session and supported several exemptions to the FOIA that met bipartisan opposition in the Legislature and from the public. The only FOIA change that made it through the Legislature was an exemption for records related to the governor’s security. Sanders signed Act 7 of 2023 the day before Campbell made the lectern purchase public knowledge.

Bill to shield Arkansas officials’ security records moves forward

Sanders called the special session three days after Campbell filed a previous lawsuit over unanswered FOIA requests for Arkansas State Police communications related to security for the governor and first gentleman, as well as documents reflecting ASP security costs for the Sanderses.

Rep. David Ray, R-Maumelle, Act 7’s House sponsor, mentioned the lawsuit while encouraging his fellow House members to vote for the bill. The lawsuit was dismissed after Campbell contracted COVID-19 and was unable to appear in court.

In October, Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, requested the audit into the lectern purchase and an additional probe into “significant expenditures involving the governor’s office” shielded by Act 7. Lead auditor Roger Norman said in April that the second audit was still in the early stages.