Category Archives: Legislature

Drivers, can you spare a dime?

Legislature, Politics, State government

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Considering a gallon of gasoline is now $2 less than it was not long ago, is now the time to raise gas taxes a dime? Some say yes, if the state is committed to maintaining its highways. Others say no, including legislators and, in a recent poll, a clear majority of Arkansans.

Here’s the problem. Highways traditionally have been funded by the people who use them – drivers of passenger and commercial vehicles through gas and diesel taxes. However, those taxes have remained the same for a long time – effectively cut, actually, because they were not indexed to inflation. The federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon has been the same since 1993 even though it costs more to maintain highways. The state gasoline tax of 21.5 cents per gallon hasn’t changed since 2001.

Inflation isn’t the only issue facing the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. Since 1993, vehicles have become more fuel efficient, which means drivers pay less in fuel taxes to drive on roads that are becoming more expensive to maintain. Because continuing to increase fuel efficiency is a national goal, the entire transportation infrastructure is funded by a revenue source that is destined to decline.

Even members of Congress agree this is a problem, though they can’t agree on a solution. The federal Highway Trust Fund, which funds 70 percent of Arkansas highway construction, is being kept on life support by yet another one of those half-baked measures passed this summer at the last minute that merely postpones a difficult decision. Faced with a similar situation last year, Congress paid for one year of spending by borrowing from the next 10 years’ worth of revenues. That year is over, and now Congress is trying to find a longer term solution on a short deadline. Its recent track record doesn’t inspire confidence.

In Arkansas, a bill this year by Rep. Dan Douglas, R-Bentonville, would have dedicated to highways the taxes collected from sales of new and used cars. Those taxes currently go into a big pot that pays for a lot of other things. The bill passed a House committee but then went nowhere. Gov. Asa Hutchinson was opposed, as were a lot of other interests funded by that big pot.

Hutchinson did, however, appoint a task force that has been trying to craft a solution. One idea by the Arkansas Good Roads Foundation, a business group, would increase fuel taxes by 10 cents per gallon and then gradually shift new and used car sales taxes to highways, with the fuel tax lowered back to current levels as that shift occurs.

Some legislators, including Douglas, say a fuel tax hike isn’t going to happen. Legislators won’t support anything that looks or even smells like a tax – not even a dime, and not even when fuel prices are low.

They’ve been hearing from their constituents, who voted for a half-cent sales tax for roads three years ago and don’t want to pay more taxes. A recent poll by the Arkansas chapter of Americans for Prosperity, an anti-tax group, found that two-thirds of Arkansans said fixing the state’s highways is a crisis (16 percent) or a major problem (50 percent). But almost that same percentage oppose raising the gas tax. In fact, 45 percent strongly oppose it. Half said a legislator’s support of a gas tax increase would make them less likely to vote for them.

In other words, they’re saying, “Fix the roads, but take the money from state government’s big pot – or at least, some other pot besides mine.”

There are other partial solutions. Only about two-thirds of state highway taxes go to state highways; most of the rest goes to city and county roads and some unnecessarily to state government administration. That formula certainly could be tweaked. Moreover, the state maintains a lot of highway miles that are really local arteries, such as busy Cantrell Road in Little Rock. There’s talk of letting cities and counties assume some of those responsibilities. Guess who’s opposed to that?

There’s one other argument: Some say enough money is devoted to highways, but it’s going to the wrong places. Some legislators say the money should better follow the cars.

That solution may not be affordable, either. Maybe the Highway Department should focus on maintaining what it has and let the cars follow the roads that are already laid. Those roads might be crowded, but at least they would stay paved, and paid for.

The private option ink blot

Health care, Legislature, Politics, State government

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

You know those tests where therapists ask clients to describe an ink blot because people see what they’re inclined to see? This week, legislators were given a 450-page one.

That would be the report by The Stephen Group, the consulting firm hired by the Health Reform Legislative Task Force to help it decide what to do about the private option in particular and Medicaid in general.

Here’s the ink blot part: Legislators who support the private option can be encouraged by the report because it recommends changing it but not ending it. Meanwhile, opponents can point to a finding that 43,000 people served by Medicaid and the private option may not live in Arkansas, while the programs combined enroll 500 people who are deceased.

Here’s the background. Medicaid is the government health program serving the poor, the disabled, and the aged who live in nursing homes. It’s mostly but not entirely funded by the federal government and mostly administered by states. The Affordable Care Act, which created Obamacare, expanded Medicaid in all the states to cover more lower-income people. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is constitutional but that the Medicaid expansion must be only voluntary. Many states said no.

Arkansas created the private option. Instead of expanding Medicaid, it uses those dollars to buy private health insurance for Arkansans not covered by Medicaid and having incomes of no more than 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Republican legislators had the idea and worked with then-Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, to implement it.

In some ways, it’s been a success. It’s currently serving about 200,000 Arkansans, give or take tens of thousands because the state is in the process of redetermining eligibility. According to a Gallup poll, the state’s uninsured rate fell from 22.5 percent in 2013 to 9.1 percent during the first half of 2015. That’s the best in the country, and the private option was a big reason why. Without the private option, hospitals would provide $1 billion in uncompensated care from 2017-21, according to the report. The private option is bringing $1 billion in federal funds to the Arkansas economy every year.

But that’s still a billion dollars in taxpayer money, opponents say, which increases the national debt. While the feds are paying for all of it now, Arkansas will be responsible for 10 percent of the cost in the next few years. It was supposed to serve the working poor, but 40 percent of its beneficiaries had no income last year, so it’s still a health care entitlement program. It’s still Obamacare.

The private option was created in 2013. It must be approved by 75 percent of legislators each year. It barely passed the first time and barely survived in 2014. We can’t keep doing this. So this year, Gov. Asa Hutchinson asked legislators to extend the private option through 2016 while it created the task force to decide what to do next.

Back to the ink blot. The small consulting firm found what the state’s huge Department of Human Services could not: 42,891 Medicaid and private option beneficiaries whose best addresses appear to be located out of state, including 3,220 whose best addresses are in California. Almost 500 on the rolls were dead before they even became a part of the program.

It’s unknown how much of this represents waste and abuse. It’s unclear how many actual dollars are going to the wrong places. A program this big will have challenges with its mailing list. Some people with California addresses may have moved to Arkansas recently.

Still, private option opponents can point to this report and say they were right all along, that government can’t do anything correctly, and the private option should be scrapped.

But the report didn’t recommend that. Instead, it said the private option should be retooled to become more of a transitional program that encourages work and personal responsibility – which, supporters would say, was the plan all along. Participants should look for work and meet health and wellness goals. Legislators might consider limiting participation in the private option to a few years. Meanwhile, the state should create an office that monitors the eligibility of all Arkansans seeking state services, including the private option.

Members of the task force must make their own recommendation by the end of this year. Will they vote to end the private option, or change it? It depends on what they see in the ink blot.

Arkansas Democrats becoming simply Democrats

Elections, Legislature, Politics

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

There’s a relatively new phenomenon in Arkansas politics: Democrats are starting to run alongside their national party instead of running against it.

For the past few decades, in-state candidates have followed a formula perfected by Bill Clinton, Sen. Dale Bumpers and Sens. David and Mark Pryor: campaigning as “Arkansas Democrats,” meaning they supported popular government spending programs like Social Security but shied away from their national party on cultural issues such as guns and gays.

That tightrope has become difficult to walk. Nationally, the two parties have become so polarized – the Democrats moving to the left and the Republicans moving to the right – that few can occupy the center. It’s much harder for Arkansas Democrats running for Congress to tell voters they are culturally conservative these days because often they’ll have to vote along their party’s line in Congress.

Geographically, Democrats are now concentrated in coastal and urban areas and have a dwindling presence in the South outside of districts led by racial minorities. That process was happening throughout much of SEC country before President Obama was elected and then happened here afterwards. In 2008, Democrats controlled five of the state’s six congressional offices, all seven statewide constitutional offices, and 102 of the 135 seats in the Legislature. Now Republicans control all six congressional offices, all state constitutional offices, and 88 of the 135 legislative seats. It’s 88 because last month, Rep. Mike Holcomb, who had represented Pine Bluff as a Democrat, announced he had switched parties.

Amidst the mounting evidence that what they are doing isn’t working, some in the party have stopped trying to be Arkansas Democrats and instead just be Democrats. Unlike Republicans, the Democrats are united in support of the private option, the state’s program that uses Obamacare dollars to purchase private insurance for lower income Arkansans. Led by its chairman, Vince Insalaco, the state party has vigorously defended Planned Parenthood since the release of those videos, which Arkansas Democrats like the Pryors never would have done. Holcomb cited that defense as a factor in his party switch. In response, Insalaco basically said the party was glad to see him go.

Then at a campaign rally in Little Rock Monday, Hillary Clinton enthusiastically endorsed not only Obamacare but also President Obama, saying, “It gives me great joy to go around bragging about Bill Clinton and Barack Obama every chance I get.”

Everything Clinton says is for national consumption, of course, and she was speaking before a supportive crowd. But Clinton knows the polls in Arkansas as well as anyone, and she knows how unpopular Obama is here. Instead of running away from him while in Arkansas, she ran alongside him.

The state’s Democrats have not unanimously decided to embark on a new strategy. In announcing he was running as a Democrat for U.S. Senate against incumbent Sen. John Boozman, former U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge took a page from the old Arkansas Democrat playbook and almost sounded like a Republican. I’m sure that’s partly a political strategy and partly a reflection of who Eldridge is and where he came from. It’s hard to run as a Democrat in Arkansas now. However, if you really are an Arkansas Democrat at heart, then you might not be comfortable in today’s Republican Party.

Prior to Clinton’s speech, Insalaco told the crowd that the state’s Democrats would gain seats in the 2016 elections. That’s probably wishful thinking. Some incumbent Democrats are vulnerable just because they’re Democrats. Republicans are finding candidates – including former Democrats – to run in places where they traditionally haven’t been competitive. Candidates like Holcomb – white, conservative, rural – who used to default to the Democratic Party are now running as Republicans. It’s probably going to get worse for Democrats before it gets better.

And it probably will not get much better for them for a long time. Democrats controlled Arkansas for a century and a half after the Civil War, and now Republicans will control the state for a while. Too many Arkansans now culturally identify with the GOP in ways that are more deep-seated than simple policy positions. Democrats in Arkansas must look to the long game and be patient. More and more, they’ll embrace positions such as supporting gay rights, which is a popular position among young, up-and-coming voters.

That topic came up more in Insalaco’s speech than it did in Clinton’s. In fact, she didn’t mention it. She spent too many years as an Arkansas Democrat.

Squashing the wrong problems

Debt and deficits, Elections, Independents and third parties, Legislature

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

You know when you’re on your porch, and you notice a spider crawling by, but then you look closer and realize it’s not a black widow or a brown recluse, so it’s not poisonous, but then you wonder if maybe you could be wrong, so therefore it could be a threat, and plus it’s a nuisance? Those things multiply, and maybe they’ll get into the house, so you squash it just to be sure.

That’s kind of what the state’s establishment has done to independent candidates in Arkansas.

This past week, District Judge James Moody ruled in a case, Moore v. Martin, in favor of a 2013 law that requires independents to submit their required signatures – 3 percent of the voters in the last election, or 10,000 in statewide races – to the secretary of state by the end of the filing period. In a typical year, that’s the beginning of March.

Before the law was passed, independents could file at the same time as Democrats and Republicans and then collect their signatures while party candidates were campaigning for their May primaries.

The practical effect of the new law is that independents can’t survey the landscape like party candidates can do and then jump in the race. They must have already gathered their signatures to qualify for office by the same deadline that major party candidates sign up to run. They have to be walking the streets months in advance asking people to sign a petition. And instead of walking those streets in March and April as before, they now have to do it in January and February.

Except not this coming election. Because the Legislature moved next year’s primary elections to March 1, the filing deadline this year is Nov. 9. Independents have only 90 days to collect signatures, which means they would have to be beating the streets now for an election that won’t occur until November 2016.

The lead plaintiff in the case, Mark Moore of Pea Ridge, who ran for the state Legislature in 2012 as an independent, filed suit. Judge Moody agreed that the law creates a burden for independent candidates, but he accepted the state’s argument that it’s too difficult to verify those signatures in time, considering all the other things the state must do in an election cycle.

Which is a stretch. In 2014, there was one independent candidate for the Legislature, requiring the secretary of state’s office to verify only hundreds of signatures. In 2012, before the law was passed, there were seven. There’ve been a few other independent candidates run for other offices, but not many. Meanwhile, the secretary of state’s office will verify 67,887 signatures for each voter initiative and 85,859 signatures for any constitutional amendment that will be on the ballot in 2016.

What independents usually are is a nuisance for the establishment. In a given election, combined they represent a few thousand signatures that the secretary of state’s office has to verify. Meanwhile, for the major party candidates, they’re a variable they’d rather avoid dealing with. They’d rather just have one opponent, if it can’t be none.

I wish the halls of the Legislature and the Congress would become infested with independents scurrying around doing the people’s business without regard to party politics. But that’s not going to happen. Despite George Washington begging us to do otherwise, we’ve created a political system that almost guarantees that candidates will be a member of one of two parties. That’s the way it’s been for more than 200 years.

So why even bother with independents at all? Because there needs to be an option for candidates and voters who don’t agree with the two big parties or any of the smaller ones. The other reason is because the system needs an occasional nuisance – in fact, sometimes even a threat.

In the 1992 presidential campaign, Ross Perot won 19 percent of the vote campaigning as an outsider on one issue: the need to reduce the national debt, which at that point was $4 trillion. In the years following that election, President Clinton and Congress actually sort of balanced the budget. Was Perot the only reason? No, but he certainly helped. He changed the conversation, and 19 percent was a number even the major parties couldn’t ignore.

No candidate since then – Republican, Democrat or other – has been so effective at calling attention to the national debt. Few have even really tried. It’s now more than $18 trillion.

I think we’re trying to squash the wrong problems.