Category Archives: Elections

Too much politics

Elections, Politics

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The Declaration of Independence specifies three inalienable rights it says are endowed by our Creator, one of them the right to pursue happiness, with government’s purpose being to secure those rights.

One way it can do that is to start the 2020 election season later.

This ugly election was a part of our lives for a year-and-a-half. Presidential campaigns have always been difficult and divisive, but this latest one uniquely tore a hole in the fabric of our society, and I’m not sure how it’s going to mend. Consider that President-elect Donald Trump announced he was running on June 15, 2015, while Hillary Clinton announced her campaign two months earlier, on April 12. The first of many Republican presidential debates – the one where Trump and Fox News’ Megyn Kelly first got into it – was August 6 of last year. The Iowa Caucuses were Feb. 1, more than nine months before the election, while Arkansans held their primary only a month later.

The idea of starting all of this again in only two-and-a-half years is unbearable at the moment, and truly not necessary. Americans are supposed to keep a watchful eye on their government, but too much politics isn’t good for anybody.

Most other democracies don’t do it this way. Elections occur when they are called, or when a party exits a governing coalition, or because of other such reasons. As a result, campaigns occur over a period of weeks, not years. Earlier this year in Great Britain, the prime minister voluntarily left office because he believed he had lost too much support after the Brexit vote. He was not disgraced, and there was no constitutional crisis; his party simply selected his successor. Within days, he was moving out of #10 Downing Street and she was moving in.

That kind of thing can’t happen in America. Our system was designed to have elections occur at regular intervals, and the writers of the Constitution didn’t take into account how powerful political parties would become or how much money would be involved. In 1787, the media was composed of printed newspapers, while discourse happened face to face, not on Facebook.

Constitutional change is needed, but that can take years. In the meantime, voluntary steps over the next four years can make the 2020 election cycle less divisive. Candidates can announce their intentions whenever they want, but let’s have no debates until 2020. The Iowa Caucuses should be moved to March 1 and the rest of the season compressed into a tighter period. Arkansas, which moved its own primaries from May to March 1, should permanently move the primaries back to May and never look back.

For this to happen, Americans will have to force the action. Politics is a free market economy, which means that if there’s a buyer, there will be a seller. This campaign season has been a boon for the news networks, which have seen higher ratings and therefore more advertising revenue. But what’s good for CNN and Fox News isn’t necessarily good for the rest of us, and so when the networks dangle the 2020 race in front of our faces in 2019, we should turn the channel or turn off politics completely.

This doesn’t mean Americans should stop caring about our democracy – it just means our attention should be focused more effectively. Instead of creating a market for another political circus in 2019, let’s pay more attention to the participatory processes of government, such as what laws and policies are enacted, and then save the campaigning and the debating until 2020.

A never-ending election cycle does not create a better democracy, and apparently a lot of Arkansans agree. On Tuesday, 70 percent of them voted for an amendment increasing county officials’ terms from two years to four, meaning county judges and sheriffs can actually spend time doing their jobs rather than putting up yard signs every two years.

So let’s appreciate the fact that we elect our leaders – but how about we give this a rest for a while, OK? The next presidential election is in 2020. Let’s keep it there, and use that extra time for more appropriate pursuits, including the one for happiness.

In praise of being naive

Elections, Inspirational, Politics

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Somewhere there is a perfect spot on the spectrum between being naive and being cynical, and humans should try to find that perfect spot. But humans err, so err on the side of being naive.

I write that in the face of the most cynicism-inducing election of my lifetime. And I’m apparently not alone because a deep cynic would say that voting itself is an act of naivety, and yet Arkansans and people across the country are lining up at the polls to do it anyway.

Keep in mind that, regardless of what you think about this year’s choices, at least we had them: for the nation’s chief executive, for lawmakers and for local officials. For more than a year, two rich and powerful people who want to become even more powerful have been required to traverse the country as part of the world’s most challenging job interview. Arkansas voters this year also have a direct say in the governor’s powers; in how long county officials stay in office; in how much debt the state can incur for economic development; and whether marijuana should be used legally for medicinal purposes. True, my vote did not count for much. But it counted exactly the same as everyone else’s in Arkansas.

Giving an average citizen this kind of say is rare in world history but not so rare in today’s world, in large part because of the example set by the country where God let me be born. That’s pretty cool, which is why, even in the midst of all the cynicism of A.D. 2016, just about every polling machine was occupied at my early voting site in Benton, and why, afterwards, a family stood outside the polling place snapping a photo of their son who must have voted for the first time. They all looked pretty proud, but I guess they were just being naive.

Believing a New World would offer religious and economic freedom? You might call that naive. So was believing that freedom was worth fighting for. That self-government was possible. That former slaves and the children of slaves could participate in a society with former slaveowners and their children. That a railroad could be built across a country and a canal dug between the oceans. That wars could be won on foreign shores, and democracy was possible in far-off lands. That a man could land on the moon – in less than 10 years, no less.

It takes a certain naivety to do these things; it certainly doesn’t happen through cynicism. Cynicism is inherently an attitude of powerlessness and inaction, which is why cynics do not grow many successful businesses, plant churches, begin charities, or start movements that change things for the better. Cynicism is self-centered and fearful, and it assumes the worst of people to the point of gross inaccuracy. It’s incompatible with achievement and service because why try to achieve if seen and unseen forces doom you to failure? And why serve if you are only going to be taken advantage of? True, there are some very rich cynics today. But a lot of them only got that way by appealing to others’ cynicism.

Yes, naivety can lead to disaster, because it’s based on trust, and sometimes trust is misplaced. But better to trust too much than not enough. After disaster, a naive person can still “stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools,” as Rudyard Kipling wrote, because he trusts those tools.

I’ve heard it said and implied many times this year that, if either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump wins this election, then the country will not survive.

But such deep, pervasive cynicism is far more dangerous than the outcome of one campaign. It leads to the kind of “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us” attitude of the old Soviet Union. In the United States, structures are still in place that will limit the damage either Clinton or Trump will cause. But a cynical people quits trying, which can’t be overcome.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure there’s going to be another election in four years, and we can all give it another shot. Call me naive.

If it is broke, do fix it

Elections, Legislature, Politics, State government

Hand with ballot and boxBy Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Arkansans opposed to medical marijuana, casinos and/or to limiting jury verdicts in medical cases are probably pleased that the Supreme Court invalidated all three of the proposals.

Still it’s probably not a good thing that ballots are cluttered this year with four citizen-led initiatives where the votes won’t count for three of them. The only one that survived was another medical marijuana proposal.

If there’s anything in state government that’s broken, it’s the citizen-led ballot initiative process. Citizens submit a proposal, sometimes based on narrow self-interest, that gets approved by the attorney general. They raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and collect signatures that are approved by the secretary of state. The campaign begins. And then opponents sue over the same ballot titles that were approved by the attorney general and over the same signatures that were certified by a small army of secretary of state employees. By the time the Supreme Court makes its decision, it’s October and the ballots have already been printed. In the medical marijuana case, citizens had already started voting.

That initiative was invalidated because the Court said too many signatures had problems – some of them quite technical, such as listing a post office address rather than a residence. In her concurring opinion on the medical marijuana case, Justice Courtney Goodson complained that Act 1413 of 2013 left her no choice but to invalidate.

“The petition here failed to satisfy the onerous demands of the Act, even though there is no allegation that the signatures were invalid in any other way. The result is that the wishes of the citizens who signed the petition in good faith are being discarded, and the right of the people to pass judgment on the proposal in the voting booth has been lost,” she wrote.

Senate President Pro Tempore Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, the leader of the Senate, said Monday that he expects the Legislature to take steps to mend the process when it meets next year.

Legislators are allowed to recommend three constitutional amendments every two years, and did so this election cycle with measures that would let the governor keep his or her powers when leaving the state, extend county officials’ terms to four years, and allow the state to issue bigger bonds for major economic projects and allow cities and counties to fund Chambers of Commerce. Those are still on the ballot.

Dismang says the Legislature may self-impose a limit of two amendments, one from the House and one from the Senate, and that one of them could address the state’s broken ballot initiative process. That proposed amendment, which voters would see in the 2018 election, would reset the time frames for collecting signatures and require an earlier decision by the Supreme Court, at least before the voting begins. As part of the same effort, the Legislature will try to clean up the technicalities that led to some of this year’s problems.

Dismang doesn’t want to create an environment where there are more constitutional amendments – as opposed to initiated acts like the invalidated medical marijuana proposal. An act has only the force of law and can be changed by the Legislature. An amendment is the permanent law of the land.

In fact, he says it’s too easy to amend the Constitution now. Aside from the Legislature’s potential three amendments each two years, the citizen-led process makes it possible for well-funded individuals to institutionalize their own self-interest. The casino amendment would have granted a permanent constitutional monopoly to three casinos owned by two out-of-state individuals or their assignees, meaning it would have lasted through generations. One of those casinos would have been operated by the Cherokee Nation, which donated $6 million to the effort. It didn’t happen, but it could have, and he’d like to make it less likely.

The truth is that Arkansas’ Constitution is kind of a mess. While the U.S. Constitution is brief and broad, the state’s is sometimes painfully detailed and specific. Constitutional amendments should be timeless and should spell out the permanent duties and roles of government, like whether the governor keep his powers when out of state, and not set policy or make certain things legal or illegal, like medical marijuana. Those should be spelled out in law, which can be changed at any time to fit changing circumstances.

So whatever the fix is, let’s hope it results in fewer, better, broader amendments, and ballots where every vote counts.

Related: Where your vote really counts this year.

The campaign that wasn’t

Elections, Politics, U.S. Congress

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

This year’s U.S. Senate campaign would seem to fit neatly into a junior high textbook description of how the country’s two-plus party system operates. The incumbent, Sen. John Boozman, is a well-liked, mild-mannered Republican. He’s older and wiser and not one to rock the boat, which is a good or bad thing, depending on a voter’s perspective. He’s being challenged by a young, energetic Democrat, Conner Eldridge, who hasn’t previously run for elective office and has things he wants to do. Adding to the interest is the Libertarian candidate, Frank Gilbert, who makes an eloquent case for views not held by the majority of voters.

It’s not hard to imagine how that junior high textbook would describe such a campaign: as a contest of ideas where the candidates discuss the issues and the voters choose the best one.

Instead, it’s been the campaign that wasn’t. Most people’s attention, including mine, has been riveted on The Hillary and Donald Show at the top of the ticket. There have been times when I couldn’t take my eyes off that circus even when I wanted to.

Meanwhile, Arkansas is now such a red state that Boozman has been able to rely on his party label and the advantages of incumbency. Plus, maybe voters just think he has done a good enough job. You may not agree with him, but you can’t help but like him. So it’s no surprise that, in a recent Talk Business & Politics/Hendrix College poll, Boozman was leading his two opponents, 52-34-4.

With so much in his favor, Boozman adopted a simple strategy: Ignore Eldridge. Eldridge challenged him to a series of debates, but Boozman refused to take the bait, and, besides, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. They debated once on AETN, and it didn’t fundamentally alter the race. Trying to break through, or at least get under Boozman’s skin, Eldridge drove a truck through the state with two lecterns to illustrate his charge that Boozman was avoiding him and debated Gilbert several times with an extra lectern supposedly meant for Boozman.

In other words, Boozman has behaved as anyone would behave with a big lead: by playing it safe and running out the clock. Eldridge has done what he could to change the game’s direction, but he never could raise the money to mount a challenge or gain momentum or just get some attention. Gilbert has shared his views with whoever would listen.

The campaign never could be about the issues, so then it became about non-issues. Eldridge has tried to make something of Boozman’s international travels, which would seem to be part of the job of being a senator, and has said Boozman hasn’t spent enough time in the district. He criticized Boozman for refusing to disavow Donald Trump, which wasn’t destined to have much success in a state where more Arkansans say they are voting for Trump than for Boozman. Boozman’s campaign, when it hasn’t pretended Eldridge doesn’t exist, ripped page one out of the GOP playbook and tied Eldridge to President Obama, who appointed Eldridge as a U.S. attorney. The issue has not been whether Eldridge had served well but that he had served, period.

Boozman is going to win. Regardless, a U.S. Senate campaign, especially one with three textbook candidates, ought to be a bigger deal to all of us than this, even when The Hillary and Donald Show is on.

A senator is an important official. There are only 100 of them, each state gets only two, they serve six years, and they aren’t term-limited. Sen. Dale Bumpers was in office 24 years – three times longer than any president except President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And senators make important decisions, including ratifying treaties and confirming Supreme Court justices, according to the textbooks. A single senator taking advantage of the rules can just about grind Congress to a halt. But for all the reasons listed above, this year’s race just hasn’t reflected that importance.

The next Senate campaign in Arkansas is scheduled for 2020 – another presidential election year. It’s hard to imagine that one being as crazy as this one, but then, it was hard to imagine this one. Maybe that Senate race will get more attention. Sen. Tom Cotton, who arouses passion on both sides, will be on the ballot then – at least as a Senate candidate, and maybe more.

Related: How Conner Eldridge thinks he can win.
A husband first, and then a candidate.