LITTLE ROCK -- Top members of Gov. Mike Huckabee's staff were scheduled to give depositions Tuesday, followed by the governor Wednesday, in a talk show host's lawsuit alleging they tried to get him kicked off public television.
Brenda Turner, Huckabee's embattled chief of staff, and Carl Bayne, the governor's legislative liaison, are to be deposed Tuesday at the office of lawyer Morgan "Chip" Welch in Little Rock. Huckabee is scheduled to give a videotaped deposition Wednesday at the Capitol.
Welch represents Roby Brock, who won a federal court order on April 24 that kept his monthly "Talk Business on AETN" on the Arkansas Educational Television Network. Brock is seeking unspecified monetary damages from Huckabee, members of the governor's staff and other state officials in a trial set for April 2003.
"It's difficult to put a dollar value on a person's reputation. This is about (Brock's) ability to attract and keep sponsors," Welch said Monday. "There are lots of businesses in Arkansas who are not going to do business with Mr. Brock. The governor, or the governor's office, has declared him persona non grata on state television.
"I don't know what that's worth, but potentially it's worth a lot of money."
Huckabee spokesman Rex Nelson referred questions about the depositions to the state attorney general's office. Tim Gauger, an assistant attorney general representing Huckabee and other defendants named in the lawsuit, did not immediately return a call to his office seeking comment.
Welch said the series of depositions "has to do with who did what to whom" in the Brock case, but also could provide background for a wrongful termination lawsuit he said he would file this week on behalf of former state information chief Randall Bradford.
Huckabee fired Bradford from his $150,000-a-year job on June 13, after Bradford told reporters of problems with the state's new computer and that Turner and other top governor's aides ordered him to stonewall legislators and committees overseeing the system.
Brock, a Democratic political consultant and former state Senate candidate, filed a federal lawsuit April 18 alleging Huckabee and other administration officials used political pressure to get his public television show canceled
The show aired January through March and airtime was paid through January 2003. The suit said AETN notified Brock after Brock made a speech critical of the governor at a Young Democrats of Arkansas meeting April 6 that the show would be put on hiatus. In the speech, Brock called for the Republican governor's defeat in November.
Members of the Huckabee administration contacted AETN regarding Brock's comments, and two members, including Insurance Commissioner Mike Pickens, contacted some of Brock's sponsors.
Brock claims his right to free speech was violated, and argues the administration interfered with his contract with AETN.
Judge Bill Wilson, who enjoined AETN from taking Brock's show off the air, gave Welch permission to take depositions from Huckabee and a dozen others in the governor's office. The judge also has ordered the governor's office and AETN to preserve information related to the case.
Huckabee, Pickens, Bayne and AETN are named as defendants, along with AETN Executive Director Allen Weatherly, Deputy Director Tony Brooks, director of programming Carole Adornetto, and two John Does.
