Gop Foi Request Doesn’t Support Claims

Most readers already know the long saga of the Republican Party of Arkansas and the liberal blog Blue Hog Report, but here is a brief recap. 

BHR was written by Matthew Campbell who often wrote – as bloggers tend to do – critical posts about politicians with whom he disagreed.  His friend, Jeff Woodmansee, occasionally wrote a guest post.  A group of Republicans displeased with the fact that BHR continued to find facts embarrassing to them through diligent use of the Freedom of Information Act, learned that the two men were state employees.  Deciding turnabout is fair play, the Republican Party filed a FOI request first on Campbell, who works as a clerk at the Arkansas Supreme Court, and then Woodmansee, who works as a librarian at the UALR Law Library.

So far, all is fair, but here is where the story takes a decidedly bad turn. Rather than waiting for the FOI request to be returned and examined to see if there was anything inappropriate, the Republican Party decided to  leak their efforts to reporters. Plain envelopes with copies of their FOI requests were placed on the desks of reporters in the Capitol bureau press room. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette began asking questions and decided to run with the story before viewing any of the returned documents. They eventually wrote three stories on the matter. With enough of an uncomfortable situation created for their part-time hobby, Blue Hog shut down.

But did any evidence of wrongdoing ever turn up? The request from the Supreme Court on Campbell turned up only a handful of documents. The ADG reported in their second of three stories that the only e-mail that could be related to blogging was where Campbell asked a co-worker if it was more appropriate to use a comma or a semi-colon.

I’m still trying to figure out how that one is partisan.

The request from the UALR Law Library regarding Woodmansee was much more extensive. The staff estimated that it produced around 6,000 pages. When the Arkansas Times reported in late June that these documents were sitting waiting to be picked up, I inquired with Chase Dugger, director of the Republican Party as to the status. He told me at that time, he was out of town but would pick them up when he got back. He assured me he would let me know if he found anything to support their contention that blogging was occurring on state time.

I largely forgot about this until I noticed a quote from the Republican Party communication’s director in last Friday’s "Talk Business Arkansas Report" (an e-mail newsletter) saying that "certain e-mails retrieved suggested political activity could be occurring on state time."

I followed up with Dugger again reminding him of my prior request and asked if I could see the e-mails they were referring to. No dice. I pressed hard, but he would not budge. He insisted they have them, but since they were satisfied that partisan activity had stopped (i.e. BHR is gone), they are moving on. Any obligation to support their claim with evidence?  Nope, their job is winning elections, insisted Dugger.

So I took it upon myself to inquire from UALR exactly what evidence the RPA actually picked up. As a law library, certainly they would see the benefit of keeping a record handy of this type of thing.

Bingo!

At my request, they provided me with the roughly 250 pages (out of 6,000) picked up by the RPA. The bulk of these pages are a copy of their employee handbook, internal policies on employee leave as well as Woodmansee’s time sheets. There were also around 15 pages of e-mails. The only e-mail that mentions the Blue Hog Report blog – other than the few discussing the RPA’s FOI request – is between Woodmansee and a co-worker discussing working on a research paper together. Woodmansee discusses the various writing projects he has engaged in and mentions the blog among the list. When asked by his co-worker if he worries about anyone complaining about expressing his political views, he writes…

"As far as writing and professionalism – I have to admit, I’m opinionated and not really afraid to share it, though always in a respectful manner and always keeping in mind the social context. It’s what I have been known for throughout college and law school. Once I knew for sure I would stay in the academic world for my career, I really didn’t hesitate to have my name attached to political writings because I know that 3/4 of academia is left-leaning. And honestly, I would never want to work for a ultra-conservative employer anyway, so I really didn’t see a big risk. As far as UALR, I transitioned from being the Young Democrats president and American Constitution Society chapter founder while a student into my full-time role here, so nobody here has ever really had to alter the view. I even lobbied June into letting me have a pro-Obama (from law school to the White House) display out on the first floor!"

In a separate e-mail to a co-worker on an unrelated subject, Woodmansee tells a co-worker he will be "soooo disappointed if the ‘public option’ is dropped from the health care reform proposal." In another e-mail, he sent a co-worker a link to a YouTube video of a speech Obama made to the British Parliament. In another e-mail, Woodmansee thanks a co-worker for posting a link on Facebook to a review he wrote for the American Association of Law Libraries.

It seems to be a huge stretch to claim any of this supports the charge that "political activity could be occuring on state time."  If this is all that is there from 6,000 pages, somebody owes Campbell and Woodmansee an apology.  Winning elections is certainly important but stepping on the little guy to do it is never justified.

Copies of e-mails obtained by the RPA FOI request are linked here.