You can’t turn on a TV without seeing Attorney General Leslie Rutledge.


That’s been my impression and that of many readers, who’ve also asked who’s paying for the Rutledge air time. The impression is correct. She’s dramatically increased her purchase of air and screen time and the public is paying the bill.

Rutledge, starting her sixth year in office, increased the amount of advertising done by her office this year, from the neighborhood of $250,000 in radio and TV to somewhere between $1.45 million and $1.7 million in advertising this year.


It’s paid with public dollars. The money comes from the consumer education and enforcement fund in her office. It holds recoveries from corporations that have damaged state citizens. These have included a bank, a drug maker and a home health care agency, to name a few. This fund has evolved into a political tool for attorneys general. The legislature has left the office with discretion over much of the money it wins. It can be used for more direct public benefits than public service announcements. Rutledge, for one, recently turned over $3 million to a state fund for loans to small businesses struggling on account of coronavirus.

The Rutledge Report ads have consumer protection themes. They also build the Rutledge brand. This publicly financed branding will be useful should she run for governor in 2022. She’s not saying what her plans are, but the thinking is that she will run if her friend Sarah Huckabee Sanders does not. Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin is already running hard and leveraging his office for public attention to the extent possible, but his largely powerless office has no consumer protection war chest. Sen. Jim Hendren looks like a potential Republican contender, too. He gets a fair amount of earned free media through a high profile role in the legislature.


Following are the details I was able to extract from the attorney general’s office on Rutledge spending through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The office’s initial response was to point out other people did this, too.

That’s true, as this spreadsheet the office compiled shows.

It shows radio/TV advertising spending back to 2008 when Dustin McDaniel was in the first of two terms as attorney general. He spent a little more than $1.8 million over eight years or about $228,000 per year. His spending ranged from zero one year to $459,200 in fiscal 2014. He had expected to be running for governor in 2014 but dropped out in January 2013 before the 2014 fiscal year began. He spent $348,000 in fiscal 2012 and $294,000 in fiscal 2013.


In the five years of Rutledge’s time in office, according to the spreadsheet, she’s spent almost $1.5 million, or $300,000 a year, on TV and radio ads (but I would later learn that doesn’t represent a full accounting of ad spending in 2020) The spending on radio and TV alone ran from $203,000 to $239,000 for the first four years, then jumped to $579,772 for fiscal 2020, which ends June 30.

But there’s much more this year. There’s also digital advertising and a separate tally for cable advertising. This FOI response shows the invoices by and payments to the Communication Group for all ad buys this year. If you have been feeling swamped recently by Rutledge ads, you can trace them to checks for $873,539 (page 41) and $240,629 (page 49) written to the Communications Group March 31 for price gouging and Medicaid fraud ads. This allowed Rutledge to blanket network TV and cable systems that cover Arkansas — $776,000 worth on one invoice and $235,151 on another. The Communications Group also recently bought almost $100,000 in YouTube advertising. Another $40,000 was paid to buy YouTube ads on child abuse.

Rutledge’s communications director Amanda Priest supplied this summary:

The PSAs have been run in every network statewide and on cable markets where networks have limited service to ensure all Arkansans are aware of each of issues highlighted. The PSA topics include: Price Gouging, Child Abuse, Robocalls, Medicaid Fraud, Cyber Crimes, Opioids & Vaping. From July 2019 through July 2020, these buys include: $400,304 in Little Rock; $192,722 in Fort Smith-Springdale-Rogers; $112,444 in Jonesboro; $114,503 in Monroe-El Dorado; $49,945 in Memphis; $39,485 in Shreveport; $44,595 in Springfield, MO. During that same timeframe, cable purchases totaled $358,291 and digital buys totaled $137,500.

So the total for the budget year ending June 30 is $1.45 million. But this accounting doesn’t appear to include radio spending, which was listed on the initial spreadsheet I was provided as totaling $236,2783 this year. If that is included, it would make the total $1.7 million. Either way, that’s a lot of Leslie.

Why the big jump this year?

Priest responded by e-mail (she didn’t respond to my request for an interview):

The Rutledge Report was created in 2015 and has been a popular program. As previous administrations have done, the effort to expand the educational program was always part of the plan. However, implementation and growth take time.

I also asked about a podcast in which Rutledge tells true crime stories. Priest said that production was done in-house and probably cost less than $100. There’s also some cost of the office’s communications office which delivers a steady diet of news releases. Priest, for example, is listed on the state transparency website at $75,000.