Category Archives: Politics

Medical weed’s November fate still hazy

Medical marijuana is legal in 20 states plus Washington, D.C. Whether or not it becomes legal in Arkansas this year depends on if it makes the ballot and who shows up at the polls.

Two competing proposals have been certified by Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel. One group of supporters is actively collecting signatures, while the other is trying to raise money.

Melissa Fults, campaign director of Arkansans for Compassionate Care, said 464 volunteers have collected about 10,000 signatures and will become more active now that the weather is prettier. They must collect 62,507 signatures – eight percent of voters in the last gubernatorial election – by July 7. That’s a lot, in a short amount of time.

The other proposal, submitted by Arkansans for Responsible Medicine, will rely on paid canvassers if it can raise the money, said organizer David Couch.

The groups are trying to build on the momentum from 2012, when the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act almost passed with 48.56 percent of the vote and 507,757 Arkansans saying yes.

Still, this a nonpresidential election, which means the electorate will be smaller, older, more settled and more conservative – as opposed to 2012, when lots more young people voted in the big election. Couch said the thinking among many advocates is that it’s better to hold your fire – and save your money – until you have the best chance to win. That would be 2016.

Fults disagrees. The national mood seems to be shifting in favor of the idea. It’s hard to ignore those cancer patients asserting how marijuana helps them tolerate their disease. People, especially older ones, seem less hesitant when signing petitions than they did before, she said. She also thinks a competitive governor’s race this year will drive up turnout.

Fults, a 59-year-old dairy goat farmer from outside Little Rock, became involved in the cause after a family member was injured in a debilitating accident. She said the opiates he was taking were turning him into a “zombie” and literally were killing him. Marijuana, taken in pill form, has allowed him to live a normal life.

You can argue that she’s wrong about the policy. You can’t tell her she’s wrong about her family member.

History shows that medical marijuana can pass in a nonpresidential election. According to the website ProCon.org, of the 11 states that have legalized medical marijuana through a ballot initiative instead of a legislative act, five originally did so in nonpresidential years. Four of those, however, did so in the 1990s.

Even if Arkansans vote to legalize, there remains the thorny issue that, under federal law, possession of any amount of marijuana for any reason is a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to a year in prison. Even if medical marijuana is legal in Arkansas, it’s still illegal in America.

This is working in states that have legalized partly because the Obama administration, as it has a habit of doing, is selectively enforcing the law, which is not the way the system is supposed to work. Instead, Congress should pass a bill letting states decide for themselves if they will legalize medical marijuana. Then the president should sign the bill into law. Then Arkansas should legalize marijuana for medical purposes.

That would require Congress and the president to resolve a difficult issue in a statesmanlike way that increases freedom and reduces the federal government’s power.

Recent history would suggest that, if you believe that’s going to happen any time soon, you must be smoking something.

Green Party nominates four to U.S. House

The Arkansas Green Party nominated candidates for all four U.S. House races in Little Rock today, including two candidates who have run multiple races.

Meanwhile, Fred Smith, the former Harlem Globetrotter whose attempt to run as a Democrat was voided by a judge’s ruling in April, will run for House District 50 as a Green.

The following candidates are running for the U.S. House:
First District – Jacob Holloway, a 24-year-old ASU student
Second District – Barbara Ward of Little Rock, who works at the Historic Arkansas Museum
Third District – Rebekah Kennedy, an attorney from Fort Smith. Kennedy ran unsuccessfully for attorney general in 2006; for U.S. Senate in 2008; and for attorney general in 2010
Fourth District – Josh Drake, an attorney from Hot Springs. This is Drake’s third consecutive attempt to be elected to this seat.

Independent Arkansas caught up with Kennedy, Drake and Ward at the convention and was able to get video interviews with Kennedy and Drake. The three were realistic about their chances. Drake even said, “I joke that if I had a chance of getting elected, my wife wouldn’t let me run.” But Kennedy in particular promised a vigorous campaign.

The three believe in Green Party values – stopping climate change, nationalized health care, a reduction of corporate influence in Washington. Drake was more passionate about health care while Kennedy focused on energy and the environment.

Asked why they aren’t running as liberal Democrats, they all said they believed in the Green Party. Kennedy and Drake asserted that there’s not much of a difference between Democrats and Republicans, anyway.

Kennedy said it would be more effective to compete with Democrats from the left than to simply lose to “prepicked” candidates in the primary. She said both parties are so poll-driven that they won’t do much to change the status quo – in particular concerning her primary issue, climate change.

“Instead of having an intelligent conversation among the people of this democracy about where we want to go in the future, we just have people rehashing the same things over and over, and unfortunately, it’s not true that you can leave well enough alone and never change everything and everything will stay the same,” she said.

Drake said, “You’d rather run with a party that stands for ideals that you can believe in, that you can be proud of, rather than always apologizing for the lesser of two evils that the Democratic Party has become.”

Smith’s earlier Democratic candidacy was thrown off the ballot after a circuit judge ruled that he had not provided proof that his felony conviction for theft had been dismissed or expunged by the filing deadline. It’s a long story, so if you want more, here it is.

All told, the Greens nominated 14 candidates in Arkansas and endorsed Dr. Jill Stein for president. Roseanne Barr – yes, that Roseanne Barr, was a candidate.

Back and forth with Boozman on Buffett

Warren Buffett has gotten himself involved in politics, and he’s probably going to be sorry about it.

Buffett, the billionaire investor, has made the point lately that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. He’s talking about the unfairness of the tax system and, indirectly, the budget deficit.

President Obama has proposed a “Buffett Rule” that would place a minimum tax on million-dollar salaries. Republican Sen. John Thune has proposed his own “Buffett Rule” that would allow people to pay extra money to reduce the federal debt. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman is one of the co-sponsors.

Thune’s bill is a waste of time and a personal attack. In effect, Republicans are saying, “If you want to pay more taxes, Mr. Buffett, go right ahead.” But that would not solve the problems Buffett was pointing out.

I asked Sen. Boozman for some time to talk about this and sent him my questions, which were not softballs. He called me that day ready to answer them, and to his credit, he didn’t back down from any of them. Even when my questions were a little more direct than they should have been, his tone never changed. Man, he’s a cool customer.

Boozman’s main policy point was that Obama’s Buffett bill won’t address the problem Buffett was discussing because Buffett will still take advantage of the loopholes and deductions he uses now to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary. What’s needed are less spending and tax reform, he said.

Here’s more in my Wednesday column for the Arkansas News Bureau.

Occupy Little Rock’s concerns legitimate, but methods need to evolve

Several hundred Occupy Little Rock protestors marched through the streets of the state’s capital city Oct 15, and while lots of people, particularly Republicans, are dismissing them, they shouldn’t dismiss their concerns.

The protestors were a more diverse group than many would expect. I didn’t see a lot of the aimless young hippies they have been painted as being. They certainly weren’t a “mob,” as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor called them, “anti-American,” as Herman Cain called them, or “the FLEA party,” in the words of a Democrat-Gazette columnist who wasn’t at the protest.

The protestors represented a variety of political persuasions, judging by the signs – everything from the Ron Paul-ian “End the Fed” to the Marxian “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

The protestors directed their anger mostly at big corporations and the government, and I agreed with a lot of what they were saying. Any American who is not outraged at the bank bailout hasn’t been paying attention. As the columnist Nick Kristoff put it, “The banks have gotten away with privatizing profits and socializing risks.”

But we don’t want America to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Most corporations aren’t causing the world’s problems; they just provide needed goods and services and employ people.

Finally, if the Occupy Little Rock protestors really want to accomplish their goals – and right now, it’s not clear what their goals are beyond expressing their anger – they need to organize and work within the system as the TEA Party has done.

As they marched along the street, the protestors chanted, “This is what democracy looks like!” I thought, “Well, really, this is part of democracy, but democracy really looks like people voting, running for office, and contacting their legislators.” If Occupy Little Rock doesn’t evolve into that, it won’t accomplish much.

For Congress: Arkansas engineers

I publish a magazine for the state’s two engineer associations, the Arkansas Society of Professional Engineers and the American Council of Engineering Companies of Arkansas.

These are good folks, they work hard, they are mathematically inclined, and sometimes they are a little nerdy. I wish they would run for Congress.

You won’t see a road-building project stalled because engineers refuse to budge on some side issue. You won’t see a project fail because one faction of engineers wanted to embarrass the other.

Engineers build bridges and roads; our current congressmen can’t even agree how to fund them. In fact, Congress is two years late passing its latest highway bill.

It’s time to replace these rigid ideologues and political game-players with practical problem-solvers who know how to get the job done. That’s why I’m endorsing Arkansas’ engineers for Congress.

More in this week’s column.