Category Archives: Politics

After more mass shootings, would red flags help?

Politics, State government

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

If we can’t agree about violent video games, or Hollywood’s negative influence, or whether any of this is the president’s fault, can we at least agree that it should be harder for mentally ill people to purchase semi-automatic weapons?

Well, not yet we can’t, unfortunately.

The question arises after another series of American-made mass shootings. On Aug. 3, a 21-year-old killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Early the next morning, a 24-year-old killed nine people, including his own sister, in Dayton, Ohio.

The shootings occurred only days after Drew Grant, 33, died in a traffic accident near Cave City July 27. Grant had changed his name – he was born Andrew Golden – apparently hoping to escape his past. He could not.

At the Westside Middle School near Jonesboro on March 24, 1998, Golden, then 11, and Mitchell Johnson, 13, pulled a fire alarm and then hid in the woods like snipers while the students and teachers gathered on the playground. Then they murdered fellow students Paige Herring, Stephanie Johnson, Brittney Varner and Natalie Brooks, and teacher Shannon Wright. Continue reading After more mass shootings, would red flags help? →

If a legislator doesn’t have to pay all his taxes, then why should we?

Legislature, Politics, State government

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

In light of what’s been happening lately at the State Capitol, average citizens might be asking a simple question: If a legislator doesn’t have to pay all of his taxes, then why should we?

I’m referring to the case of Rep. Mickey Gates, R-Hot Springs, who is still in office despite pleading no contest July 29 to charges of failing to pay his taxes in 2012. Gates must now pay the state $74,789 for money owed from 2012-14, and a hearing will determine what he owes for 2015-17 . As part of his plea agreement, prosecutors dropped additional charges related to his failure to file tax returns from 2013-17.

That six-year period is bad enough, but his record of tax evasion actually is much longer. Authorities have said he owed the state almost $260,000 in taxes, interest and penalties after not filing a return from 2003-17. But he was not charged for those earlier years because the statute of limitations had run out.

Even after his no contest plea, he is refusing to resign, despite calls for him to do so by Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Speaker of the House Matthew Shepherd and others.

Hutchinson said that if Gates won’t resign, he should be removed from office, which can happen under the Arkansas Constitution with a two-thirds vote of the House of Representatives.

However, the Legislature likely will not meet again until next year. Hutchinson could call it into special session to expel Gates, but his spokesman told me he has no plans to do so. Continue reading If a legislator doesn’t have to pay all his taxes, then why should we? →

Cotton vs. Mahony: One had Chick-fil-A

Elections, Politics

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

If you had no other metric by which to measure Arkansas’ U.S. Senate race, this one might tell you something: One campaign had enough money to cater its kickoff event with Chick-fil-A.

That would be the campaign of U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, the Republican incumbent in an increasingly Republican state.

Cotton has $3.5 million cash on hand, according to the Federal Election Commission. That’s more than enough to feed the hundreds at his campaign kickoff at the Republican Party of Arkansas’ headquarters Saturday.

There, Cotton signaled his campaign themes, as if there were any doubt about what those would be: national security, his natural passion, along with appointing conservative judges, the economy, cutting government, immigration, border security and trade.

Those last three are issues President Trump has brought to the forefront. Republican candidates cannot ignore them; Cotton has fully embraced them. Continue reading Cotton vs. Mahony: One had Chick-fil-A →

Boozman running for re-elect ‘if you had to ask me today.’ And Hutchinson?

Elections, Politics, U.S. Congress

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Sen. John Boozman is 68 years old, which is still relatively young, but he’s had some past health issues and is entirely too nice to be in Washington these days. When I asked him Saturday if he plans to run for re-election in 2022, I figured he’d give me a standard non-answer to avoid saying he probably isn’t.

Instead, he said this: “If you had to ask me today, I’ve got to talk to my family and all of those kind of things, I’d say yes. … But that’s a long time. It’s not really two years. It’s like three-and-a-half years.”

My assumption was wrong. Not the first time, and not the last, and that’s just for this column.

Good Roads Foundation
Gov. Asa Hutchinson will be term-limited out of office in 2022. Then what?

Meanwhile, by 2022, Gov. Asa Hutchinson will be term-limited out of office. He’s a week older than Boozman, as both were born in December 1950, but he’s had no health issues and plays basketball pretty vigorously for a man pushing 70. Asked in March by journalist Roby Brock if he will be finished with politics when his term ends, he replied, “Wouldn’t count me out.”

So if Hutchinson isn’t “out,” where would he try to get in? There’s no place in state government after being governor. He could return to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served three terms. But being one of 435 representatives would not be a promotion after being one of 50 governors, particularly if Republicans are still in the minority there. Plus, he’d have to unseat an incumbent, presumably Rep. Steve Womack in the Third District, assuming Womack still wants to keep the seat in 2022. Continue reading Boozman running for re-elect ‘if you had to ask me today.’ And Hutchinson? →