By Steve Brawner, © 2024 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Which U.S. Supreme Court justices do the candidates for Arkansas Supreme Court most align with? I asked all of them that question. 

Those include the four in this year’s chief justice race including three current associate justices: Barbara Webb, Rhonda Wood and Karen Baker; along with attorney Jay Martin. The Associate Justice Position 2 race features Justice Courtney Hudson and Circuit Judge Carlton Jones. Voting continues through March 5.

The exact question I asked was: “Which U.S. Supreme Court justice, current or otherwise, most aligns with your judicial philosophy?” The Family Council in the past has asked that question, or something similar, for its voter guide. I lifted the idea.

I asked the candidates to be brief but did not give them a word count. Here’s what they wrote. Continue reading Court candidates asked about their most-like U.S. justices →

By Steve Brawner, © 2023 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Can Gov. Asa Hutchinson get elected president in 2024? He’s asking Arkansans to donate a dollar to give him a chance.

Hutchinson is trying to qualify for the first Republican Party presidential debate Aug. 23. To do so, he must reach at least 1% in the polls, which he is doing in some of them.

He also must have 40,000 unique donors of any amount, of which he is still short. In fact, he told the KARK-TV “Capitol View” news program Aug. 2 that he was nearing being halfway there. That was more than two weeks ago, so he’s made up more ground since then. It was an improvement over where he had been a month earlier, when he had 5,000. He said his numbers had increased by 10,000 in the previous 10 days.

Campaigns often are a game of “survive and advance,” and Hutchinson has determined that getting on that debate stage is the next step to survival. That’s a big reason why he did a 10-minute interview on a Little Rock TV station. Instead of using that time to dial for big dollars or shake hands in Iowa and New Hampshire, he asked the home folks to donate as little as $1 at his campaign website, www.asa2024.com. A dollar each is all he needs. 

As a journalist, I’m hesitant to donate to political campaigns and have only done it a few times in my 54 years. I probably wasn’t working as a journalist when I did. Plus I’m cheap.

But I did take up Hutchinson on his request for three reasons. One is that he asked. Two is that for eight years when he was governor, he treated reporters with respect. He was open to the press and allowed us to ask questions about a range of subjects. After a speech, he usually made a point to stop by and talk to us.

The other reason I donated to his campaign is I want him to have a chance to win. He is conservative but also pragmatic. He’s a Reagan Republican who believes in restrained government and a restrained style of politics. He’s respectful of others and of the democratic process. He’s serious and policy oriented. He’s sober minded and drama free. He doesn’t see politics as an us-versus-them, zero-sum game.

Looking at the whole package, he is the type of Republican I wish the Republican Party was more like, just as former Gov. Mike Beebe is the kind of Democrat I wish the Democratic Party was more like. But like I said earlier, I’m 54.

If there’s any irony in my donating a dollar to get Hutchinson on the debate stage, it’s that I think he made a mistake by prioritizing it. 

Again, I’m just a journalist and not a political professional – nor am I former governor, member of Congress, former undersecretary in the Department of Homeland Security, and former head of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

All that said, after observing him for many years, I can tell you that he is not very good at this kind of performative theater. I don’t expect him to land any zingers that will go viral on social media. It’s just not his style. Instead, the debate stage will be dominated by louder, more boisterous actors who are better at the reality TV show that politics has become.

Instead, he should have gone all-in on his campaign rationale of being the non-Donald Trump candidate. When the Republican National Committee said it would make all debate participants sign a pledge to support the eventual nominee, I think he should have declared he would not do so if it meant supporting Trump. 

He would have been the outsider candidate making a principled stand. It would have gotten him some media attention and turned the heads of a lot of rich anti-Trump Republicans. When criticized about it, he could have argued that he was only doing what Trump did in the 2016 campaign, when he refused to say he would support the Republican nominee if it weren’t him, and what he is doing this campaign as well.

It’s too late for him to try that strategy, and maybe it would have been the wrong one. At this point, he really needs to get on that debate stage. To do that, he needs 40,000 donors donating $1 each more than he needs one donor to donate $4 million. Again, the website is www.asa2024.com.

We’ll see if he can find them, in Arkansas and elsewhere.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist published in 13 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.

By Steve Brawner, © 2022 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

I plan to vote no on all four proposed constitutional amendments on the Arkansas ballot because one is terrible, and the costs and risks outweigh the benefits for the other three.

The terrible one is Issue 4, which would legalize recreational marijuana in Arkansas by creating a constitutionally closed market dominated by a privileged few. 

If it passes, licenses would be granted to the eight cultivators who already have medical marijuana licenses. (Guess who funded this campaign?) Another 12 much smaller growers could get licenses, but they really wouldn’t be competing against the big eight. Individuals couldn’t grow their own marijuana. Under the amendment, 120 dispensaries would be licensed, including those with current medical marijuana licenses. 

The amendment caps taxes on recreational marijuana at the sales tax rate plus another 10%, which is less than it’s taxed in other states. Any tax increase would require another constitutional amendment. Taxes on medical marijuana would be eliminated. Local governments could not tax the farms or the stores, or zone them.

Hmm. Could I get something into the Arkansas Constitution guaranteeing a closed market for current syndicated columnists? Donate to my campaign!

David Couch, who wrote the state’s medical marijuana law, is opposed to this measure. He said because of the way it’s written, it could put out of business the state’s hemp producers as well as all the stores selling CBD products derived from the marijuana plant. 

Summing it up, he said, “They don’t want to make a lot of money. They want to make all the money.”  Continue reading No on all four, especially 4 →

By Steve Brawner 

© 2022 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

If you want a say in who governs you at the federal, state and county levels, in most parts of Arkansas it’s more important that you vote in May than in November.

Many voters don’t vote in primaries but then vote in the November general elections. In the last midterms in 2018, only 18.76% of Arkansas’ registered voters, or 327,629 people, went to the polls. Turnout was much higher in November, with 898,793 Arkansans, about 50% of registered voters, voting.

Three million people live in this state.

Sen. Jim Hendren of Gravette, the Legislature’s only independent and the founder of Common Ground Arkansas, says voters kind of have it backwards. They should vote in both May and November, but the primaries are more important because most Arkansans live in places dominated by one party – Republicans, usually – and Arkansas as a state is dominated by Republicans. The November election is often a formality, with the minority party offering little to no opposition. Continue reading It’s more important to vote in May than in November. Here’s why. →