Category Archives: Politics

Rep. Steve Womack: Biggest threat not Iran, China or debt

Steve WomackWhat’s the country’s biggest threat? According to U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, it’s not a nuclear-armed Iran, China attacking Taiwan, or the nearly $40 trillion national debt.

“It is the profound division in the body politic that prevents the legislative branch of the greatest country this world has ever known, that prevents that legislative body from doing its most basic function,” he said in Springdale Wednesday. “And then you have to ask, ‘How did we get here?’ …

“Let me tell you how we got here. We got here because we couldn’t control ourselves in the area of redistricting.”

Womack, who represents the 3rd Congressional District in northwest Arkansas, made his comments at a conference of the state’s engineering firms and the Arkansas Department of Transportation.

While part of his remarks covered infrastructure, he spent most of the last 10 minutes discussing partisanship and gerrymandering. The latter is the centuries-old process where majority parties redraw congressional districts using sometimes squiggly lines to ensure their states elect more of their own party members. Democrats and Republicans both do it. Continue reading →

Bryan King shows how an independent can get elected

Sen. Bryan King

Sen. Bryan King

Today let’s talk about two independents who were on Arkansas’ March 3 ballot – one explicitly independent, one functionally so. The explicit one, Adam Watson, lost badly. The functional one, Sen. Bryan King, won easily. 

There’s probably a lesson to be learned there – by me, if by no one else.

I’ve long hoped that voters would elect more centrist, commonsense independent candidates who are not beholden to the Republican and Democratic parties, which together have created the $39 trillion national debt. Three or four truly independent U.S. senators could serve as the balance of power and force the two parties to behave more responsibly.

But voters haven’t elected many independents – not at the federal level, and not at the state level. In fact, there have been only eight independent U.S. senators since 1983. There currently are two, but they generally work with Democrats. There’s one independent in the House of Representatives, Rep. Kevin Kiley from California, but until very recently he was a Republican. 

Back to March 3 in Arkansas. Continue reading →

GOP no’s on Sanders pick show prison uphill battle

Something noteworthy happened March 20: Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ appointment to the state Board of Corrections came up for a Senate confirmation, and eight Republicans voted no.

That vote further illustrates the challenges Sanders will have in building her proposed prison in Franklin County.

The 19-11 vote was about the appointment of Jamie Barker, a former Sanders deputy chief of staff and now a lobbyist, to the board that governs the state’s prisons.

Barker had already been serving on the seven-member board. In fact, he had been elected chairman 4-3 with the support of the three other Sanders appointees. The three appointed by Gov. Asa Hutchinson voted against his chairmanship. 

His appointment required 18 Senate votes for him to remain. If it had failed this time, it could have come up for another vote when some of the five absent senators were present. Continue reading →

Is SAVE America Act worth all the trouble?

vote, Mark Moore, 16-year-olds, Arkansas, primaries, Goodson, photo ID, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, SAVE America ActMost Americans agree with requiring voters to present an ID at the ballot box. It’s already the law in Arkansas. Should it be a federal law, and should the government also require people to present a birth certificate or a passport in order to register to vote?

Those questions arise as Republicans in Congress, under President Trump’s leadership, seek to pass the SAVE America Act.

The bill would require voters to present a photo ID when voting in federal elections and to provide documentary proof of citizenship – generally a passport or birth certificate – when registering. 

The House of Representatives passed the bill, 218-213, with one Democrat voting with Republicans. All four members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation voted for it. It’s now in the Senate, where Arkansas Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman are co-sponsors.  Continue reading →

Ten Commandments ruling put schools between rock and hard place

Ten Commandments BrooksWhat do you do when you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place? Two Arkansas higher education institutions are choosing the rock. All but six public schools will have to make their own decisions. 

The rock is the law plus the lawsuit that could come as a result of obeying it. Act 573, passed last year, says every public school district and higher education institution must conspicuously post the Ten Commandments in every classroom and library. The law specifies that the posting must be the Protestant King James Version displayed on a 16-inch-by-20-inch poster or framed copy. The Commandments must be provided through private donations; otherwise, schools don’t have to post them. 

The hard place is a federal judge’s ruling this week that states that the law is unconstitutional, but only directly applies to six K-12 public schools. The limit exists because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year stating that judges cannot issue “universal injunctions” that reach beyond the parties in a case.

In other words, schools and colleges can obey the law and potentially get named in a lawsuit. Or they can disobey the law and, perhaps, face legal consequences for that. Continue reading →