Huckabee office had a special events fund
Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008
When Mike Huckabee was governor, his office tapped a privately held “special-events fund” financed by undisclosed donors that helped pay for such things as his official portrait.
Janis Harrison, the state Department of Finance and Administration’s director of administrative services, said her agency helped the governor’s office manage the fund and that it was the only private account on which the department assisted.
“The Special Events Fund was a private bank account set up by the governor’s office,” Harrison said. “DFA has no records related to this account. It is understood the banking records are in the possession of [former Huckabee Chief of Staff ] Brenda Turner.”
Information indicating that there had been such a fund turned up in documents obtained recently by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from the department in a Freedom of Information Act request.
A 2001 state law requires public disclosure of donations and gifts that governors and certain other elected officials receive on behalf of the state.
Graham Sloan, director of the state Ethics Commission, said he interprets the law as applying to private accounts. He said that means that Huckabee likely should have identified the donors.
The sponsor of the 2001 law, former state Sen. Doyle Webb, RBenton, agreed with Sloan.
“I think the donors should be revealed,” Webb said. “The idea behind the law is full disclosure. The public has a right to know who makes these gifts.”
Huckabee reported the gift of the portrait in a filing a year ago with the commission but didn’t report the donors who contributed to the fund.
Huckabee “was not involved with the management of those funds,” said his spokesman, Alice Stewart. She declined to answer further questions, saying she was busy because of Huckabee’s schedule in seeking the Republican nomination for president.
Turner didn’t return messages last week. For years, it has been her practice not to talk to the news media.
Huckabee’s successor, Gov. Mike Beebe, has no fund set up to collect private donations, said spokesman Matt DeCample.
Act 239 of 2001 allows the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer, land commissioner and attorney general to receive “gifts, grants and donations of money or property on behalf of the state for any lawful public purpose.”
The law requires that those donations be disclosed on a quarterly basis to the Ethics Commission.
THE PORTRAIT During his tenure as governor, Huckabee reported one gift on behalf of the state. The Jan. 9, 2007, filing says he received a “portrait to hang in Capitol” from “Nancy Harris” and the estimated value is “$ 40, 000 to $ 50, 000.” Harris of Williamsburg, Va., is the artist. “It [the report ] makes it look like an artist painted a picture and donated it to the state,” Sloan said. Sloan said he hasn’t investigated the special-events fund but he believes that such donations should be disclosed, and he could think of no way to legally avoid reporting them.
“If someone just gave [Huckabee ] money, it would have been reported on his statement of financial interest or if it was given to him on behalf of the state, it would have been reported under” Act 239 of 2001, Sloan said.
Sloan and Webb said it shouldn’t make a difference whether the donations were to Huckabee directly, to his office, or to a fund associated with his office.
Huckabee’s statements of financial interest filed with the secretary of state’s office listed no donation to the special-events fund or for a portrait.
The portrait was given to the state Capitol and is in the custody of the secretary of state’s office, which manages the Capitol, said secretary of state spokesman Natasha Naragon.
The portrait was unveiled Nov. 9, 2006, about two months before Huckabee left office. During that week, Turner and Cathy Browning, the finance department’s liaison to the governor’s office, were trying to track down donations, according to e-mails from the time.
Mentioned as $ 1, 000 donors to the fund were Drew Crawford and Ron Fuller.
Fuller, a lobbyist and former Huckabee fundraiser, said in an interview that he recalled issuing a check for Huckabee’s portrait. He said he recalled that longtime Huckabee friend Rick Caldwell asked for the money.
Caldwell said he didn’t recall that.
Crawford, a Little Rock real estate agent who worked as a volunteer on Huckabee’s 2002 reelection campaign, said he wrote a $ 1, 000 check to the “special events fund” in 2006 and wrote in the memo that it was for the governor’s portrait.
“I heard they were looking for help with the portrait, and the governor has been a dear friend and good to me when he was in office, so I just wrote a check because it was the right thing to do,” he said.
Also mentioned as a possible donor in an e-mail was a “Linda at Alltel.” An Alltel spokesman said the woman may have been an assistant in the company’s regulatory affairs office. “She vaguely remembers something about Huckabee soliciting money for a portrait,” spokesman Andy Moreau said.
ON THE LAW Harris also did the portraits of past governors David Pryor, Jim Guy Tucker, Frank White and Bill Clinton. Pryor said he didn’t recall how his portrait was funded about 30 years ago. He doubted any laws in the 1970 s would have required disclosure of donors. Tucker said his portrait was paid for by friends after he left office in 1996. The 2001 law passed 28-6 in the Senate and 90-0 in the House. Webb said he filed the bill because there were questions about whether gifts should be reported as going to an officeholder personally or to the state. He said the law set up reporting for either scenario.
He said disclosure is needed for the public to judge whether the gifts create a conflict of interest.
Webb, who supports Huckabee for president, said a conflict of interest involving the portrait’s funding would be “less likely” because that was near the end of Huckabee’s tenure as governor.
State Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney, a state senator at that time, voted for the law but said last week that he didn’t recall it. He said public officials should report such donations to be safe.
“If he’s getting money for a special fund for special events then he should disclose that money,” Gwatney said.
THREE FILINGS There have been only three other filings of gifts or donations generated as a result of the law. Webb said he was a “little surprised” there haven’t been more reports filed. “It may be a fact that people aren’t aware they should file,” he said. One filing was by the late Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller, who reported in 2005 receiving a bookshelf and loudspeakers valued at $ 1, 200 from Klipsch Audio Technologies of Hope. Beebe filed two reports covering 19 gifts his office received in 2007, including a clock valued at $ 108 from the British consul general.
Harrison said she didn’t know when the fund was set up and who initiated it. She said Browning was told by Turner that Turner closed the account.
In one e-mail, Turner said she didn’t want to be the only one signing checks from the fund and asked Browning to co-sign.
“The governor and Ms. Turner could have done this without our help, but they asked us to provide assistance,” Harrison said. “That is what we do on a routine basis, oversee the administrative functions for the governor’s office.”
During a budget crunch in 2001, Huckabee set up a state account called the “Tax Me More Fund” at the finance department for people to donate to state government. The donors’ names were public record.
Legislative Auditor Roger Norman said his agency didn’t audit the special-events fund because it didn’t contain state dollars. He said he saw nothing wrong with a state agency helping manage a private account.
Harrison said Turner and Browning were the only people authorized to write checks from the special-events fund.
The other example Harrison gave of a use of the fund was for expenses associated with the unveiling of the Arkansas quarter. That occurred in October 2003 at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro.
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