A group of Arkansas state senators and representatives voted Thursday to put legislative auditors to work examining Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders‘ unorthodox purchase of a $19,029.25 lectern from a longtime political associate.
Members of the Joint Legislative Audit Executive Committee made short work of agreeing to Sen. Jimmy Hickey’s (R-Texarkana) request to have Legislative Audit, a staid and respected team that reports to lawmakers rather than the governor, go over the lectern purchase to make sure it was all on the up and up. The executive committee is made up entirely of Republicans.
Some lawmakers were less gung-ho about the second part of Hickey’s request: To have Legislative Audit look into governor’s office expenditures that were retroactively shielded from public oversight by a recent change to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). But they eventually approved it too.
The committee also asked Legislative Audit Director Roger Norman to come back next month to propose new procedures to ensure records newly off the table for citizens’ perusal will still get some oversight, with any irregularities to be reported to the legislature.
The committee’s actions came in response to a letter Hickey sent chairmen Sen. David Wallace (R-Leachville) and Rep. Jimmy Gazaway (R-Paragould) on Sept. 27, requesting the audits. You can read Hickey’s letter here.
Two days after Hickey penned the letter, an anonymous whistleblower came forward through attorney Tom Mars with an offer to share information and evidence that the governor’s office doctored documents about the purchase and unlawfully withheld financial records that should have been made public.
On Thursday, Hickey explained why he thinks there’s still more to learn.
“My reasoning … is that right or wrong, this issue with the lectern, podium, whatever anybody wants to call it, it’s been convoluted that it goes along with what happened in the special session with FOIA,” he said.
The basic-looking lectern with a deluxe price tag has grabbed local and national headlines for more than a month now, ever since attorney and Blue Hog Blogger Matt Campbell drew attention to both its high cost and unusual paper trail. Emails Campbell unearthed using the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act show the governor’s office pressured state employees to circumvent normal procedures for the June purchase. Sanders’ office later blamed an “accounting error,” then suggested none of that mattered anyway because the governor isn’t bound by state procurement rules, and the Republican Party of Arkansas sent the state a reimbursement check for the full amount.
Campbell had been using the FOIA to look into Sanders’ use of the Arkansas State Police airplane and ultimately filed a lawsuit against the agency for its ongoing refusal to turn over records that had been made publicly available under previous governors. As he began digging into Sanders’ spending habits — but before the details of the lectern purchase came to light — Sanders abruptly called lawmakers to town for a special session on Sept. 11.
Along with tax cuts and a ban on COVID-19-related mask requirements for government entities, Sanders wanted lawmakers to pass a wholesale rollback to Arkansas’s longstanding government transparency law. She pointed to Campbell’s multiple FOIA requests, suggesting he and others were digging for information that might put her and her children in danger. And, she said, state government would be more efficient if state employees no longer had to spend so much time producing answers and documents for journalists and taxpayers.
Bipartisan outcry saved the FOIA for the most part, but by the end of the 3 1/2-day session, the majority of lawmakers had voted to allow the Arkansas State Police to conceal records related to the governor’s travel and security info and expenses. The change copycats a similar law passed in Florida this spring that frees up Gov. Ron DeSantis to fly about the country and overseas on the public dime without his constituents knowing about it.
On Sept. 14, the day the special session ended, the state apparently received a check from the state Republican Party reimbursing the purchase of the lectern three months earlier. A newly revealed email shows that an executive assistant in the governor’s office apparently was told to modify the original invoice by writing “to be reimbursed” on it — and to not write down a date.
The timing of the questionable lectern purchase, Campbell’s FOIA requests, the altered invoice, and the governor’s play to shut down public access to government documents naturally raises suspicions that Sanders might have something to hide.
Hickey said he’s fielded theories from constituents about where the lectern and the new FOIA exemptions might intersect. What if the lectern is specially made to be bulletproof? If so, records about it may have been withheld.
“Could that have possibly been made a security type issue because it contains Kevlar and is bulletproof or whatever?” Hickey mused.
Still, the timelines bear looking into. The Senate adjourned at 10:02 on Sept. 14, followed by a bill signing around noon, Hickey said. At that point, most lawmakers were headed away from the Capitol and back home. “I found out this week that the reimbursement was done the same day we left out of here. That reimbursement needs to be looked at,” Hickey said.
Upon some friendly questioning from Rep. Johnny Rye (R-Trumann), who charmingly referred to Hickey multiple times as “Senator Jim,” Hickey said the late entrance of the Republican Party of Arkansas into this controversy could use some explaining. Emails unearthed through FOIA requests suggest there was no plan to have the party pay for the lectern until after controversy erupted.
Joseph Wood was director of the Arkansas Department of Transformation and Shared Services, the state agency that handles procurement, when the lectern purchase was made. Wood was elected head of the state Republican Party with Sanders’ strong backing in August, before the party swooped in with a reimbursement check. Wood has been evasive when asked if the party planned to cover the lectern cost all along.
“I believe the things that have been disseminated out there that show it was purchased as a state asset, and state funds were going to be used, according to some emails. According to a whole bunch of emails,” Hickey said. “If the Republican Party had actually made this purchase themselves, then no sir, we would not be here.”
And since the Republican Party of Arkansas did write a check, who owns the lectern now? Hickey said he hopes to get clarity on this question, too.
He held open the possibility that an audit might clear it all up.
“If there is additional information out there contradictory to things we’ve seen and like that, then it will come out,” he said.
Rep. Grant Hodges (R-Centerton) was reluctant to send auditors in to look at security and travel expenses retroactively removed from the public record. He made a motion to table a vote on this piece of Hickey’s request.
“To me, as I’m reading this, it seems like we would be sort of undoing what we did in the special session, which was protect the governor and her family. I still want to protect that information,” Hodges said. “If there’s something specific, like with this lectern or podium, I’m happy to vote for that. But to say we’re just going to look to see if there’s anything else feels like a fishing expedition.”
Sen. John Payton (R-Wilburn) wasn’t a fan of waiting. The recent change to FOIA actually gives the legislature more oversight responsibility, Payton said. Plus, Payton added, the governor herself has said she supports getting this audit in the works.
Hodges’ motion to delay failed, and a motion to proceed with an audit of the retroactively shielded information passed on a voice vote. A few “no” votes could be heard, but it was unclear where they came from.
Shortly after the votes, Sanders spokeswoman Alexa Henning reiterated what’s become her standard response RE: #podiumgate.
“The governor welcomes the audit and encourages legislators to complete it without delay. This is nothing more than a manufactured controversy by left wing activists to distract from the bold conservative reforms the legislature has passed and the governor has signed into law and is effectively implementing in Arkansas,” she said.