CAP Sunshine
Advisory Board
- Loren Cochran
- Freedom of Information Service Center Director
- Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
- Rebecca Daugherty
- Formerly of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
- Sandra Davidson
- Associate Professor, University of Missouri
- Joe Davis
- Editor, Society of Environmental Journalists
- Kevin Goldberg
- Special Counsel, Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, P.L.C.
- Harry Hammitt
- Editor and Publisher, Access Reports
- Frosty Landon
- Executive Director, Virginia Coalition for Open Government
- Linda Lightfoot
- Retired Executive Editor, The Baton Rouge Advocate
- Ian Marquand
- Special projects coordinator / Broadcast journalist, KPAX TV
- Former co-chair of the FOI Committee for SPJ
- Dr. Shannon Martin
- Professor, University of Indiana
- Patrice McDermott
- Assistant Director of Government Relations
- American Library Association
- Suzanne J. Piotrowski, Ph.D.
- Assistant Professor
- Graduate Department of Public Administration
- Rutgers University-Newark
- Susan Dente Ross
- Assistant Dean, Washington State University
- Charles D. Tobin
- Partner, Holland and Knight, LLP
- Eric Turner
- Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission
Associate Members
- Sue Hale
- Executive Editor, The Daily Oklahoman
Former Members
- Anne Mullin O'Connor
- Former Indiana Public Access Counselor
- Bob Freeman
- New York State Committee on Open Government
- Tony Mauro
- Supreme Court Correspondent
- American Lawyer Media
- Rick Peltz
- Associate Professor
- William H. Bowen School of Law
- University of Arkansas at Little Rock
- John Watkins
- Professor
- University of Arkansas School of Law
- Suzy Woodford
- Executive Director, Common Cause of Texas
- Carole Wagner Vallianos
- Attorney
- Law Office of Carole Wagner Vallianos
John J. Watkins
John J. Watkins is the William H. Enfield Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville, where he has been a faculty member since 1983. He received the University of Arkansas Alumni Association's award for research and public service in 1990.
Professor Watkins is the author of more than forty scholarly articles and two books: The Mass Media and the Law (1990) and The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (3d ed. 1998). He has also contributed the chapter on Arkansas law in Tapping Officials' Secrets, a compendium of state freedom of information statutes published by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In 1990, he was a research fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
His book on the Arkansas FOIA is regularly cited by the Arkansas Supreme Court in FOIA cases and relied on by the Arkansas Attorney General's Office in giving advice about the act. He has also written extensively on Arkansas civil procedure and since 1985 has served as the reporter (principal draftsman) for the Arkansas Supreme Court's Committee on Civil Practice, which recommends to the court changes in the rules that govern trials and appeals in civil cases.
A frequent speaker on the Arkansas FOIA, Professor Watkins was appointed in 1999 by Governor Mike Huckabee to a legislatively created commission charged with proposing changes in the FOIA to facilitate public access to data in electronic form. Act 1653 of the 2001 Arkansas General Assembly incorporates most of the commission's recommendations. In 1986, he chaired a committee appointed by then-Governor Bill Clinton that drafted amendments to the FOIA dealing with personnel records and other issues. He has also been a member of the board of directors of the Information Network of Arkansas, a state entity that makes government information available via the Internet.
Prior to teaching, Professor Watkins served as law clerk to the late Judge Homer Thornberry of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and practiced law with the firm of Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C. At Arnold & Porter, his work in the media law area included pro bono projects for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Professor Watkins was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1949. He received a bachelor's degree in journalism and a master's degree in mass communications from the University of Texas at Austin. As an undergraduate, he was managing editor of The Daily Texan, the campus newspaper. He was graduated with honors from the University of Texas School of Law and was note and comment editor of the Texas Law Review.