Category Archives: Politics

Libertarian Colt Shelby seeks another win

Colt Shelby

Colt Shelby

Colt Shelby, the Libertarian candidate for governor, won a court victory over Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders last week. Will he get another “win” in November? It depends on how one defines the word.

The victory came in an Arkansas Supreme Court case. Shelby originally had sued Sanders over the length of time she allowed between the death of Sen. Gary Stubblefield and her calling a special election to replace him. She would have delayed the election until after this year’s fiscal session, leaving Senate District 26 unrepresented. 

Shelby sued as a district resident. A court ruled in his favor, and Sanders set an earlier date of March 3 while the state appealed. Because the election had occurred, the Supreme Court May 14 ruled the case was moot, meaning there was no point. 

Shelby and Sanders will meet again in November, but this time the “judges” will be Arkansas voters. Shelby is running as the candidate of the Libertarian Party, which supports small government. State Sen. Fred Love of Little Rock is the Democratic nominee.  Continue reading →

What happens to a country of contempt?

How well can a nation based on being a representative democracy and a free market economy function when a majority of its citizens say their countrymen are immoral?

We may find out in the coming decades.

The first paragraph’s question arises from the Pew Research Center’s recently released survey of 30,000 citizens in 25 countries.

The United States was the only country where a majority of respondents – 53% – viewed their citizenry’s morality and ethics as “somewhat bad” or “very bad.” Turkey and Brazil were close with only 51% having a positive view of their countrymen. The percentage was 55% in both Greece and France.

In contrast, 92% of both Canadians and Indonesians believed people in their country were “very good” or “somewhat good.” Eighty-eight percent had the same view in India and Sweden. Australia was at 85%, while Japan and Mexico both were at 83%. Continue reading →

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 →