The Blue Hog Report returns to Arkansas

It indeed will be mayday for Arkansas Republican leaders when Matt Campbell returns on May 1 with his Blue Hog Report.

It's been more than two years since attorney Campbell shut down the left-leaning Blue Hog Report, after a series of Freedom of Information Act requests by the Republican Party of Arkansas targeted him and fellow blogger, Jeff Woodmansee.

The FOIA requests followed a series of scathing articles by Campbell detailing questionable reimbursement requests by Republican and Democratic members of the Arkansas General Assembly, possible uses of state cars for personal business by Republican officeholders and numerous other stories Campbell reported with the help of FOIA.

While the requests to the Arkansas Supreme Court, Campbell's soon to be former employer, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Library, Woodmansee's employer, proved fruitless in their attempt to prove that Campbell was blogging on state time, Campbell has largely stayed silent … until now.

The first sign of life for BHR was an April 1 post on Campbell's private Facebook page:

"More details to come over the next few weeks, but it's now official: April 30 will be my last day at the Court, and I'll be hanging out my own shingle on May 1."

Nearly two weeks later, Campbell made public a new Facebook page for BHR with the date "5.1.13" across the top, which was mirrored at the blog's former domain name.

As Campbell approaches his last days at the Supreme Court, he has started to open up about the now-confirmed return of the blog, why he shut it down and what his plans for the future are.

Regarding the shut down of the blog, he said his plan was never for it to permanently go away.

"The goal was always to bring it back, but I couldn't do it while I was at the Supreme Court," he said. "They never told me not to, but they made it clear they didn't want me to."

BHR, Campbell said, was always meant as a progressive political site meant to hold politicians of both parties responsible to the public.

“It was never totally an anti-Republican thing,” he said. “It was, ‘I am progressive, here is what I believe, here is what I see going on.’”

An RPA spokesman declined a request for comment on this story.

The fight against Republican, and some Democratic, officeholders was simply brought about as a way to report stories traditional media were not covering, he said.

"I've just never understood why some things get written about and other things, no one makes a big deal about them,” Campbell explained.

The intent was never to start targeting a group or a person, according to Campbell. He said he was troubled by the actions of the Republican Party of Arkansas against himself and Woodmansee, who will not be part of the resurrected blog.

"If was more irritating as far as what happened to Jeff. They sent the FOIA to (the Supreme Court), didn't find what they were looking for and then tried to find stuff on me through him," Campbell said.

Reflecting on the situation two years later, Campbell is torn as he contemplates whether the actions of the RPA stifled the free speech of Arkansas residents.

"At the time, I would probably say it was an attack on freedom of speech, but two years later I would say they found a way to shut up a critic and it worked for them, for better or worse," he said. "It was ridiculous. If I hadn't been a state employee, there would have been nothing they could have done. In a way, it was a way for state employees to not have political opinions. It was gamesmanship on some level."

With his upcoming departure from the Supreme Court, Campbell is launching Pinnacle Law Firm in Little Rock, which he said will handle "appeals for other attorneys and criminal defense." He said it will be a law firm for "regular people," handling other cases, such as consumer protection and public interest cases, as well.

The blog, he said, will get right back into the political game.

"There is still stuff that needs updated and never got fleshed out. It's just like turning a light back on," he said, explaining that the site's archives will once again be available for viewing.

To hear Campbell tell it, the launch of Blue Hog Report 2.0 will be as seamless a transition as can be.

"It's more or less going to go back up and jump back into it as if the two-year gap never happened."