Category Archives: Legislature

For Rep. Josh Miller, private option policy wasn’t personal

Legislature, State government

miller-joshShould a lawmaker who has received a lot of needed government assistance vote to extend government assistance to others? That’s a question Rep. Josh Miller, R-Heber Springs, has had to answer recently.

Miller, 32, has been a consistent opponent of the private option, which uses Medicaid dollars to buy private insurance for lower-income Arkansans. It was created mostly by Republicans in the Legislature who were trying to make the best of Obamcare. Other Republicans oppose it, just as they oppose Obamacare itself. It passed in 2013 and then was extended this year after one heck of a debate.

Why is Miller’s vote worth more attention than the 23 other House members who voted against it on the final vote?

A broken neck changed Miller’s life

A decade ago when he was 22, Miller was drinking with a buddy, climbed into his pickup truck and, minutes later, careened off the side of the road and into a ravine. He does not remember who was driving. He remembers his father, Larry, telling him in a hospital weeks after the accident that he had broken his neck but that the Lord had spared his life so far and things would be OK. Larry was a credible source of comfort considering he has been in a wheelchair as a result of a muscular condition all of Miller’s life.

The accident left Miller paralyzed from the neck down, though he has some use of his arms. Because he did not have insurance, Medicaid paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars of his medical care. He and his family also paid a share of the medical bills. Medicaid and Medicare have since paid for other care, including ongoing help from a personal assistant. Continue reading For Rep. Josh Miller, private option policy wasn’t personal →

Rep. Sanders drawn out of his own district

Legislature, Politics, Uncategorized

Looking for a nice four-bedroom home near I-430 in Little Rock? Rep. David Sanders has had his on the market since April.

Sanders started hearing rumors during the session that he likely would be drawn out of his district by the Board of Apportionment, the three-person panel made up of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state that is redrawing districts based on 2010 census data.

Two of the panelists, Gov. Mike Beebe and Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, are Democrats. The third, Secretary of State Mark Martin, is a Republican.

Under maps produced by the majority Democrats, Sanders’ precinct was bumped from his existing district, District 31, which encompasses parts of west Little Rock, Pulaski County, and Saline County, for District 33, which encompasses central and southwest Little Rock.

Unless your name is Nick Wilson, you have to live in the district you represent, so Sanders would have to run in his new district if the maps are finalized.

District 31 is represented by Rep. Fred Allen, a term-limited Democrat. It’s a majority-minority district and not one where Sanders, a conservative Republican, would be likely to win.

“There’s a certain principle of continuity of constituency,” Sanders said. “The people who voted overwhelmingly for me to be their representative are the people of my home district, 31, and so that’s my district. I still represent that district and will continue to represent that district.”

Sanders had five children and said he needed a bigger house anyway.

There’s no love lost between Gov. Beebe and Sanders, a young and energetic House Republican finance chairman who opposed Beebe’s prison reform in the last session.

Along with Sanders, other GOP legislators drawn into substantially new districts are Sens. Jason Rapert of Bigelow, Jonathan Dismang of Beebe and Eddie Joe Williams of Cabot. Republican Reps. Gary Stubblefield of Branch and Jon Eubanks of Paris would be in District 84 and would have to run against each other.

Two incumbent Democrats, Rep. Garry Smith of Camden and David Fielding of Magnolia, would be in the 5th District and would have to run against each other.

Sanders sponsored and passed a bill in the last legislative session that required a “cooling off” period where regulators cannot work in the industries that they regulate for one year after leaving government. Other bills restricted the activities of sports agents and made student participation in Junior ROTC programs count as health credits.

Teacher evaluation bill shows diverse groups can work together

Education, Legislature
Rep. Roebuck at the state Capitol.

My column this week is about Act 1209, a law passed during this past Arkansas legislative session that created the Teacher Excellence and Support System, a process statewide for schools to evaluate teachers.

The law requires evaluators to sit through at least 75 percent of a class period (as opposed to sticking their head in the door) and to counsel teachers afterwards based on that visit as well as on other external measurements. That includes student test scores when considered as part of what the law calls “trend data” and not a single exam.

Just as important as the law is the way it was passed. Instead of rushing through the process, as happens with some of the other 1,241 laws passed this session, the law’s sponsor, Rep. Johnnie Roebuck, D-Arkadelphia, engaged a diverse group of people who often don’t agree with each other. That included business-oriented school reform groups, the Arkansas Education Association (the closest thing the state has to a teacher’s union), the Arkansas School Boards Association, the Arkansas Educational Administrators Association, and the Department of Education. Over the course of several months, the groups hashed out their differences in sometimes passionate negotiations and eventually came up with a bill they all liked.

Isn’t working together and coming up with a consensus a far better way of writing legislation than picking sides, drawing lines in the sand, issuing press releases, and calling people “nazis” and “socialists” through the media? If it can be done in Little Rock, it can be done in Washington, D.C.

Here is the column.

Column: Democrats try to give Arkansas the finger

Legislature, State government

That’s the headline I couldn’t use in my column today for the Arkansas News Bureau, for obvious reasons.

The “finger” in question is the “Fayetteville Finger,” the effort by Democrats to redraw congressional maps to their advantage by creating a peninsula stretching from the Fourth District up to Fayetteville.

Their motivation is simple: Put more likely Democratic voters in the First and Fourth districts and stuff Republican voters in the Third.

It comes at the end of the state’s first ever two-party session – one that went pretty well, frankly. Aside from this stunt – and a few others – if this is Arkansas partisanship, I can live with it. It certainly works better than the kind we have seen in Washington.

Here’s the column.