March 10, 2020

By Steve Brawner
© 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

If I asked you which political issues fire you up the most, “legislative redistricting” probably wouldn’t make the top 10. But ensuring the democratic process is fair and not rigged is ultimately more important than whatever political dispute we’re having at the moment.

A group called Arkansas Voters First last Thursday filed a proposed constitutional amendment that would change how Arkansas redraws congressional and state legislative lines after each census, which is occurring this year. The League of Women Voters is the effort’s public face. If the group collects enough signatures and withstands the inevitable court challenge, the amendment will be on the ballot in November.

The goal is to reduce gerrymandering, where the political party in power stuffs the other party’s voters into a small number of districts and then spreads its own voters around, thus maintaining a disproportionate legislative majority.

One of the initiative’s organizers, David Couch, told me its rationale is, “Voters should pick their politicians, and politicians should not pick their voters.”

Couch told me the effort has sufficient financial backing and polled in the high 60s. He also sponsored the recent initiatives passed by voters to raise the minimum wage and legalize medical marijuana.

Currently, the Arkansas Legislature draws the lines for the U.S. House of Representatives, while the Board of Apportionment composed of the governor, secretary of state and attorney general draws the Legislature’s lines.

If Arkansas Voters First has its way, Arkansans would apply to be members of a nine-member commission effectively composed of three Republicans, three Democrats, and three independents or members of another party. The Arkansas Supreme Court chief justice would appoint a three-judge panel to cull the list to 30 from each group. The governor and legislative leaders each could remove two from each group. The final nine members, three from each of the three groups, would be selected randomly. Congressional and state legislative maps would have to be approved by at least six members, including at least two from each group.

Gerrymandering is almost as old as the Constitution, but it’s become a bigger concern in recent years as the electorate has become more divided and as Big Data has allowed Republicans and Democrats to precisely define us and separate us.

As reported by David Daley’s 2016 book, whose title includes an unprintable word, Republicans prioritized state legislative races in 2010 and gained almost 700 seats nationwide knowing those offices would redraw the lines after that year’s census. Democrats were caught flat-footed.

Thanks in large part to technology-driven gerrymandering, Republicans controlled 33 more seats in the U.S. House after the 2012 elections despite Democrats winning 1.4 million more votes overall. In Ohio that year, Republicans won 51% of the vote statewide but controlled 12 of the state’s 16 U.S. House seats. In Pennsylvania, Democrats won 83,000 more votes statewide, but Republicans controlled 13 of 18 House seats.

I’m an independent. If you’re a Republican, you’re response to all this might be, “Good! It helped our side.” But remember that what comes around goes around.

Arkansas’ current lines were drawn when Democrats were still in charge after the 2010 census. They tried to gerrymander, but Republicans won anyway at the ballot box, which is where elections should be won.

Now Republicans control the three Board of Apportionment offices and three-fourths of the Legislature. The 2nd Congressional District in central Arkansas is somewhat competitive. By gerrymandering the maps, Republicans in 2022 can probably add a few seats to their already huge legislative majority and take the 2nd District completely out of play.

Arkansas Voters First’s effort will be opposed by some Republican officials who will argue the current system works fine and that the effort’s timing is suspect, given that this will be the first redistricting where they can draw the lines after a century-and-a-half of Democratic Party rule. It’s our turn, some will say.

If voters have a chance to decide, the argument should be not about whether gerrymandering is a good thing, because it’s not, or whether politicians will gerrymander, because they will, but whether Arkansas Voters First’s initiative is actually the right way to prevent it.

That is, unless we want a rigged system, which, unfortunately, some people do.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.

Feb. 25, 2020

By Steve Brawner
© 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Scott Bennett has often had one of the most frustrating tasks at the State Capitol. Last week he announced he was leaving his job, just before there might not be a reason to be so frustrated anymore.

Bennett has been the Arkansas Department of Transportation’s director for nine years. Each legislative session he’s pleaded for more money for his department, which he says is underfunded by about $478 million annually.

That shortfall is the result of three factors, Bennett has argued. First, state and federal fuel taxes hadn’t been raised in decades and weren’t tied to inflation. Meanwhile, construction costs have risen. Finally, fuel-efficient cars are burning less gas and therefore are generating less in gas taxes. The bottom line has been that ARDOT needs money, or else it can only manage the highway system’s decline.

Many legislators have been sympathetic. Others say ARDOT is wasting too much money or not building roads in the right places (translation, my district). Some have argued that parts of the state’s really big highway system – it’s bigger than California’s – should be transferred to local control. Continue reading Riding off before the sun has set →

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

Let’s say you’re headed into your second midterm election before being term-limited out of office, and you really don’t have much to campaign for. Your party controls Arkansas’ entire congressional delegation and three-fourths of the state Legislature now, which won’t change much regardless of what you do.

How do you spend your time? If you’re Gov. Asa Hutchinson, you try to persuade Arkansans to extend a half-cent sales tax to pay for highways.

Speaking last week to the Arkansas Good Roads Foundation, Hutchinson said, “This is my number one priority in terms of a state campaign here in Arkansas. Not anything gonna distract me from it. This is a focus because it is so critical to the future of our state.”

He later told a couple of reporters he might support the effort with money from his political action committee, ASA PAC. Continue reading Hutchinson sticks his neck out for highways →