Arkansas governor’s unwillingness to engage auditors makes it hard to move on

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders stands at a lectern during her inauguration that looks similar to one her office paid $19,000 for in June 2023. (Karen E. Segrave/Arkansas Advocate)

If not for a crypto mining panic and a report about the purchase of a certain lectern, Arkansas lawmakers (and the reporters who cover them) might have been bored out of their gourds in the second week of the Legislature’s fiscal session.

It’s a shame really, because the actual work of the fiscal session — adopting the state general revenue budget and the numerous appropriations bills that come with it — ought to be capturing everyone’s attention. After all, state revenue and spending show us our elected officials’ priorities. 

But thanks to Arkansas’s Revenue Stabilization Act and its priority-setting formula for making sure the state doesn’t spend more money than it has, much of the fiscal session action gets reduced to quibbles on the financial margins. Not much will change in the $6.3 billion budget proposed by Gov . Sarah Huckabee Sanders on March 6 by the time the Legislature adjourns, probably May 2..

See, you’re already yawning and your eyes are glazing over. So, let’s talk about cryptocurrency mining and that darned lectern.

Crypto mines

Let’s agree on one thing: cryptocurrency, like artificial intelligence, was invented by tech bros who fancy themselves superior to the rest of us and who wanted some new toys to play with. The problem is those virtual toys bleed real-life consequences.

One of the real-life consequences of crypto mining has been the debilitating noise produced by a mass of computers being cooled by fans running 24/7. Greenbrier-area residents have filed a lawsuit over the noise pollution, and the issue has drawn national attention from The New York Times and CBS News.

With encouragement from crypto supporters, Arkansas lawmakers last year passed the Arkansas Data Centers Act, limiting local governments’ ability to regulate crypto mining operations. Reaction from Arkansans was swift and not happy, so as the fiscal session got underway on April 10, legislators began filing resolutions that would allow them to introduce non-budget bills related to crypto mining.

Six resolutions filed by Sen. Bryan King and Rep. Josh Miller tended to help local governments regulate the data mining operations. Two other resolutions sought to resolve the problems created by the businesses through state regulation. Those two won the day, and a Senate committee on Thursday approved two bills. But the battle isn’t over.

At least it seems lawmakers are trying to do right by their constituents instead of the tech bros.

The falcon

The topic that sucked up the most oxygen in and around the Capitol last week was the release Monday of an independent state audit of the purchase of the governor’s $19,000 lectern. 

Auditors presented their report to lawmakers on Tuesday. They found possible violations of state law in the purchase of the allegedly customized falcon-style lectern. They referred their findings to the Pulaski County prosecutor, who can determine whether anything warrants criminal charges.

Some legislators still defended the actions of Sanders and her staff in the scandal. Sen. Mark Johnson, R-Ferndale, thought Sanders “handled it just perfectly” when she sought reimbursement for the purchase from the state Republican Party. He insinuated that critics of the purchase had “politicized and weaponized” proper and legal procedures.

Sanders called the audit report “deeply flawed,” “a waste of taxpayer resources and time” and proof that “no laws were broken” and “no fraud was committed.”

Sanders’ deputy chief of staff and legal counsel echoed their boss before lawmakers on Tuesday.

“This is not a mistake,” Deputy Chief of Staff Judd Deere responded when Rep. Robin Lundstrum, R-Springdale, asked whether the governor and her staff had made “a simple honest mistake.”

“The podium was a legitimate purchase, one that the office had identified that we needed,” Deere said. “Later on, we determined that it was preferable that private funds that the governor raised through the state Republican Party be used to reimburse the state.”

Does anyone remember that Sanders’ spokesperson dismissed concerns about the use of a state credit card to buy the lectern as an “accounting error?”

Has anyone noticed the inconsistencies and pretzel logic in the Sanders administration’s protestations of innocence?

Most of us embroiled in this type of scandal for six months would at some point admit we screwed up, made some rookie mistakes, said mea culpa and promised to follow the law going forward.

But as we’ve seen throughout Sanders’ first 15 months in office, she rarely backs down and never apologizes. Neither does her staff.

Since “lectern-gate” first came to light, Sanders has insisted it was a “manufactured controversy” ginned up by leftist “keyboard warriors.”

But she has done little to dampen the controversy, manufactured or not. She didn’t deign to be interviewed by auditors and neither did her friends and consultants who played a role in the purchase, leaving questions still unanswered.

And moments after the audit report’s release on Monday, a slick and childish video was posted to the governor’s X account. The 20-second video opens with the sounds of Jay-Z’s “Public Service Announcement” from the Black Album. It ends with a silhouette of the lectern and the words “Come and take it” in all-caps under it.

Under questioning by lawmakers, Deere called the video “tongue-in-cheek” and a sign it’s time to move on.

Others didn’t think so. The Arkansas Times’ David Ramsey had some choice words in a column. Reaction on social media ranged from snickers to outrage.

Perhaps the funniest commentary I saw was by Suzi Parker on her startup site, South Arkansas Reckoning. Parker’s piece noted the odd juxtaposition of a remix of a Jay-Z song from an album with a “Parental Advisory” content caution with a governor whose platform is “family-friendly.”

With the level of arrogance, pettiness and dissembling coming from the governor’s office, we can’t move on, no matter how much we might wish. 

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