Category Archives: Politics

Arkansas’ vice president

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

It may be that the voters elected not so much a lieutenant governor as a vice president of Arkansas.

By that I mean that Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin looks like he might fulfill the same role filled by some vice presidents – Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden – as a trusted and valued member of the administration, not a separate and often forgotten officeholder.

Griffin, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves, sees his most important role as serving as Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s junior officer – advocating for the governor’s legislation, making speeches on his behalf, etc. He even said in a phone interview Wednesday that he has been “very active with the governor recommending personnel.”

He will try to pass his own stuff, as some previous lieutenant governors have done. The reason Arkansas has a lottery is because of Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. But, he said, his first priority will be helping Hutchinson with his agenda.

“I make a point of speaking with the governor or his chief of staff every single day,” Griffin said.

Under the Arkansas Constitution, unlike the president and vice president, the governor and lieutenant governor are completely separate offices elected on completely different parts of the ballot.

Governors and lieutenant governors don’t have to be members of the same party, they don’t have to work together – they don’t even have to like each other. I’m trying to think of the best word to describe the relationships Gov. Mike Beebe had with his lieutenant governors, Halter and Mark Darr. “Strained,” maybe? Before that, Gov. Mike Huckabee and Lt. Governor Win Rockefeller were personally friendly and in fact grew quite fond of each other in their latter days together – but their day-to-day paths did not cross that much. I worked for both of them at different times, by the way.

Constitutionally, the lieutenant governor is a weak office – so weak, in fact, that Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, and Sen. Keith Ingram, D-West Memphis, have proposed an amendment to get rid of it. The lieutenant governor has only three constitutional duties: to serve as governor if the elected governor does not or cannot finish his or her term; to preside over the Senate when it is in session, which is a largely ceremonial responsibility; and to act as governor when the governor is traveling out of state, a duty so antiquated that even Griffin says it needs to go.

It’s rare indeed for an elected official to advocate for lessening his or her power, let alone take actions to make it happen. Griffin says he intends to push for getting rid of that provision.

“When the president of the United States leaves the United States and goes to China, he doesn’t give up being president of the United States,” he said.

Changing the provision will require a constitutional amendment, which is no sure thing. In fact, voters rejected the idea in 2002. But that was before smart phones, Facebook and Skype made the world so connected. We all know the governor is no more out of pocket in Branson or Dallas than he is in parts of Arkansas.

This also is noteworthy: Griffin has cut his staff in half. Darr had four full-time staff members, and Griffin will have two, plus interns. He said he plans to return the extra money back to the state and hopes to set an example for the rest of state government.

So basically, Arkansas has a lieutenant governor who wants to relinquish a not very useful constitutional power. However, he probably will exercise much more day-to-day influence than previous lieutenant governors because of his working relationship with the governor.

He made a pretty smart trade, don’t you think?

Want to be heard? Focus on state, not D.C.

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

A new governor has assumed office, and legislators have begun the 2015 legislative session, but if you’re like most interested Arkansas citizens, you probably care more about what’s happening in Washington, D.C., than about what’s happening in Little Rock.

That’s understandable. The issues are bigger and the stakes higher in our nation’s capital. National politics lends itself better to story lines, heroes and villains. It’s the American flag to which we pledge allegiance.

Of course you should care about national politics, and you should try to change it for the better. But if that’s all you care about, and state politics is just an afterthought, I encourage you to focus more of your thoughts a little closer to home, for two reasons.

One is that in our state capital, democracy still works, and in Washington, it doesn’t – not the way it’s supposed to work, anyway. Washington politics these days is about pleasing special interests, scoring political points, and maintaining power. Republicans and Democrats have dug into their trenches and are mostly shooting at each other across no man’s land, and that’s not likely to change regardless of how much you or I yell at the TV.

In Little Rock, meanwhile, Gov. Asa Hutchinson and legislators will engage in civil discourse about important issues during this legislative session. How civil? House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, appointed Democrats to chair four of the House committees, which would never happen in Washington. And how important? Over three months, legislators will cut taxes and decide if the state should build a new $100 million prison or instead change the laws so that fewer people are incarcerated. While elected officials in Washington will bicker endlessly about health care, elected officials in Little Rock eventually will come to a decision regarding the private option and the 200,000 people it serves.

The other reason to focus a little more on state politics and a little less on Washington? Let’s turn to the late Dr. Stephen Covey, author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” Covey taught that we all reside in the middle of two concentric circles, a larger “circle of concern” and a smaller “circle of influence.” The circle of concern is what we care about but can’t affect. The circle of influence, we can affect. Invest your energies in the circle of influence, Covey taught.

Very few of us non-billionaires can influence what happens in Washington. Very few of us will ever meet President Obama.

But Arkansas governors are highly accessible. Hutchinson probably will appear at some event in your community or in a nearby one before too long, and you can approach him to share a concern or just ask him about his grandchildren.

State legislators, moreover, are regular people with limited staffs. They consider thousands of bills in three months’ time. On some issues they receive lots of constituent input, but on others not so much, so the words of a few carry a lot of weight. Sen. Jake Files, R-Fort Smith, thought of two instances off the top of his head where he sponsored and passed a bill based on the urging of a single constituent – one that changed a restitution law after someone’s four-wheeler was stolen, and one allowing police to administer a saliva test to suspected drunk drivers.

“Literally one or two phone calls can make a big difference in a yes vote or a no vote,” he said.

So Mr. Regular Arkansan, if you can make your case to your legislator, and if you’re a little persistent, you can change public policy in your circle of influence, which is the state of Arkansas.

Isn’t that better than yelling at the TV?

Huckabee flies the Millennium Falcon into the asteroid belt

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

Do you remember the scene in “The Empire Strikes Back” when C-3PO told Han Solo, “Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1” and Han Solo replied, “Never tell me the odds”?

I bring that up because I’m about to play C-3PO to Mike Huckabee’s potential presidential bid.

Huckabee announced this past week that he is ending his Fox News television show because he’s seriously considering running for president again. If he runs, he’ll have to get past a lot of asteroids in order to win the election.

The Republican Party coalition is composed of at least four important elements: super-wealthy anti-government activists; middle-class anti-tax tea partiers; social conservatives; and business establishment types.

Huckabee, for whom I worked as a communications aide a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, has a history of policy decisions and public statements that do not endear him to the first two groups in that coalition. As governor, he helped create a government health care program, ARKids First, and helped pass a one-eighth-cent conservation tax written permanently into the Arkansas Constitution. Those aren’t necessarily bad positions, but they make him vulnerable to attack. The most important super-wealthy anti-government group, the Club for Growth, does not like him at all, and he doesn’t like it, either. In fact, he called it the “Club for Greed.”

Huckabee is solid with the social conservatives, and they will make him competitive in Iowa and other states early during the Republican primaries. But social conservatives are not as powerful as they once were in the party. One of their most important issues, opposition to gay marriage, is no longer the position of a majority of Americans. If Huckabee is the only social conservative in the race, he still might be able to find a niche and be competitive for a while. But if others, such as former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, enter the race, the vote will be divided.

The fourth member of the coalition, business establishment types, will be looking to support one of their own, a Mitt Romney or a Jeb Bush – somebody with a lot of money who can raise a lot more. And that leads us to the really big rock in the 2016 asteroid field.

Hillary Clinton.

Republicans have lost four of the past six presidential elections and lost the popular vote in one of the other two. They need to win this one, or it’s going to start looking bad. They had a shot in 2012, but the Republican primary process was awful. The candidates in a crowded field beat each other up for a year and forced Romney to take positions he obviously didn’t really support. The process moved him too far to the right and made him look like a flip-flopper.

If that happens again, and if Clinton decides to run, Republicans are toast. She can spend a year criss-crossing the country raising money before cheering crowds and looking presidential, while they tear each other down trying to appeal to the various parts of the coalition.

To prevent that, Republicans will try to follow the model from 2000, the last time they won an election following a two-term Democratic administration. As they did with George W. Bush that year, the party’s leaders will try to create a process where everyone coalesces behind a single candidate long before it becomes too bloody. The anointed will be someone like Jeb Bush, Romney, or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – someone with the support of the two most important groups in the party’s coalition, the super-wealthy anti-government activists and the business establishment types. Those are the ones with the money.

I started this column by comparing myself to C-3PO for a reason: I’m just the bystander, while Huckabee is the one flying the Millennium Falcon into the asteroid field. Unexpected things happen in presidential campaigns. In 2008, Clinton was the anointed candidate following eight years of a president from the other party, and she didn’t win her party’s nomination. If she doesn’t run this time, it would change the whole dynamic.

Still, the odds are against Huckabee – probably not 3,720 to 1, but steep nonetheless.

Time to renew the Constitution

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Think everything that’s wrong with this country is President Obama’s fault, or the Republicans’, or both? Nah. The real problem isn’t a person or party. The real problem is that America’s political system doesn’t work anymore. If we “threw out all the bums,” pretty soon we’d decide that the new bunch were bums, too.

Let’s illustrate the political system’s problems using Obamacare.

Remember what the health care system was like in 2008? If you were sick, the insurance companies wouldn’t cover you. If you were sick too long, they’d drop you.

The entire system was (and still is) based on compensating medical providers for treating us, not for curing us or preventing illness. As a result, American health care is misdirected and costs far more than it does elsewhere, making the country less competitive and adding to the national debt. People die because it’s based on the wrong incentives.

Such a system did not need tweaking. It needed an overhaul. A lengthy national conversation involving medical providers, insurers and patients should have occurred. Democrats and Republicans should have worked together to create solutions. Reforms should have occurred in stages, with the states serving as laboratories of democracy. It should have taken a decade.

Can you even imagine that? Not only did it not happen, but it could not have happened, for many reasons. Democrats and Republicans had no incentives to work together – except for the good of the country, and that wasn’t enough because playing politics was more important. The job had to be rushed because the 2010 elections began the instant after Obama took the oath of office in 2009. It’s all a big game now.

The system made it impossible to reform health care the way it should have been reformed. And so we got what we got – a law altering American life that was passed quickly without broad support. I don’t hate it as much as some people do, given what it replaced. A lot of people have health insurance that didn’t have it before. But it’s complicated, messy and too centrally directed, and it doesn’t do enough to contain costs. We’re not sure where it’s going, and so people fear it, and understandably so. Now that Republicans control Congress, they’ll pretend to try to torpedo it, but they don’t have anything to offer in its place.

This is no way to run a railroad.

The Constitution has served us well for more than two centuries and is an example for the rest of the world. But the political system can no longer address big problems responsibly. The Founding Fathers created a government. Today’s elected officials can hardly pass a budget.

Meanwhile, the system has not prevented what the Founding Fathers hoped it would prevent. Government has grown far bigger than they intended. Service in Congress has become a career. A political class of lobbyists, campaign professionals and influencers make their livings by extracting taxpayer money and/or sowing discord. A wealthy aristocracy with unlimited resources exerts too much influence over policymakers.

The Founding Fathers anticipated some of this, but they could not have known what life would be like in the 21st century. And so the Constitution needs to be renewed through the amendment process. Examples to be considered should include, among others, term limits, campaign finance reform, and some kind of balanced budget requirement.

It’s hard to imagine Congress making any of this happen, but a movement, the Convention of the States, is trying to amend the Constitution through a states-led process that has never been used before. An Arkansas chapter is trying to pass a resolution through the state Legislature. Because it takes 34 states to call a convention, it will be an uphill battle nationally.

Our political system doesn’t do what it was meant to do and can’t solve new problems, either. The Founding Fathers rightfully made the Constitution difficult to amend. However, the Constitution itself was a revolutionary document written by people who understood that sometimes things need to be shaken up.

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The last gravel stretch of highway in Arkansas, part of Highway 220 in Crawford County, will not be paved for a while, providing the latest example of how uncertainty about the federal government affects so much of everything these days.

Highway Department officials decided not to move forward with that project, along with two others, at its next bid letting Jan. 27 because they can’t count on the feds. The process works like this: The state builds highways, bills the federal government, and then is reimbursed for part of the cost. Federal funding pays for about 70 percent of highway construction in Arkansas.

Highways traditionally have been funded mostly from state and federal motor fuels taxes, which have the advantage of being a user fee. Unlike so much of the government, the person benefitting from the government service at least indirectly pays for it. In Arkansas, the combined taxes are 40.2 cents per gallon of gasoline and 47.2 cents for diesel. At the end of each fill up, drivers can calculate how much they paid the government for their highways without needing an accountant and without fear of the IRS.

But the federal portion of the motor fuels tax (18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel) hasn’t been raised since 1993. Since then, highways have become more expensive to build and maintain, while cars have become more fuel-efficient, which means drivers are buying less fuel and paying less in fuel taxes.

As a result, the federal Highway Trust Fund, which pays for highways, almost dropped to zero in 2014. At the last minute, Congress, as it so often does, patched it with a quick fix funded largely by gimmicks that borrowed from the future and will only provide enough money until the middle of 2015. After that, money will come in and out, but it won’t cover everything, and there will be nothing in the bank. That situation makes it hard for highway departments to plan projects that cost millions of dollars and require years of work.

The quickest solution is to raise the gas tax, but that’s unlikely to happen because voters don’t want to pay more at the pump. So in recent years, money has been shifted to highways from the rest of the federal budget, adding to the national debt. Congress is looking for other solutions, some of which are responsible and some that are, ahem, more creative. Will it decide to do anything, and if so, what will that be? No one knows.

If this were simply about one stretch of gravel road in Crawford County, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Unfortunately, uncertainty about Congress and the federal government pervades the economy – which, it should be pointed out, is doing well right now. Maybe we’re all getting used to it, but these fiscal cliffs and government shutdowns still take a toll.

In December, Congress did pass a $1.1 trillion bill that will fund a big part of the government through the rest of the fiscal year, so there shouldn’t be too big of a crisis for a while. But Congress also kept some of the waters muddied by extending 55 tax deductions retroactive to the beginning of 2014 but not for 2015. The purpose of a deduction is to encourage behavior, but for that to happen effectively, people have to know what the rules will be moving forward. Beneficiaries of those deductions might assume Congress again will extend them retroactively, but they don’t know that with certainty, and that affects how they will plan and invest.

The big national argument is always about the size of the government, and rightfully so. But the truth is that people are resourceful, and if they know the rules, the economy can thrive even when the government is bigger than it should be. Like a tree growing on a rocky mountain, job creators of all sizes will take root and grow in less than ideal conditions.

But that tree only grows because the rules are clear – keep digging to find the nutrients, and reach toward the sun. This can be done even in inhospitable rocky terrain.

It’s much harder to do it in shifting sands.