Category Archives: State government

Priorities and the Hogs

Football on tee - transparentBy Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines “juxtaposition” as “the act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side.” On January 27, an interesting one occurred at a University of Arkansas System Board of Trustees meeting.

The trustees were led on a tour of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital campus in Little Rock. While parts are new and gleaming, what once was the main hospital needs $13 million just to become fire code-compliant, and even then it would be badly outdated and inefficient. UAMS would like $97 million to spruce up that building and other facilities, all for administrative space. Tearing the building down and replacing it would cost $250 million.

Board members later heard from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Students there enjoy a new science and technology building and a new fitness center, but in the middle of campus is an unused old multistory facility with weeds growing from the roof, and not as part of a science experiment. The campus security headquarters is an aging house, which can’t be reassuring to parents, and after a good rain, parts of the campus are underwater. UAPB would like money, too.

Then came the University of Arkansas Athletic Department, which seeks a $160 million expansion of its football stadium that would include 3,200 premium seats along with other amenities, such as a video board. The project would be funded through $40 million in donations and a $120 million bond issue repaid through higher ticket prices, paid mostly by fans not sitting in those 3,200 premium seats.

The trustees gave Athletic Director Jeff Long their blessing to continue gathering information, but not before former Sen. David Pryor had questions and abstained from voting. He said he was not necessarily opposed, but priorities should be discussed. This would be, he said, “the largest single bond issue in the history of higher education in the state of Arkansas.” He asked who would benefit, and how much of the costs students would bear.

“A bond issue is a debt of the University of Arkansas,” he said. “It is a debt of the people of Arkansas, and ultimately if something goes wrong, who’s responsible? And that’s the people.”

This is where the columnist perches in his ivory white tower and wags his finger at the trustees, right? Well, not necessarily. Pryor had it right. A discussion is needed.

True, it was quite a juxtaposition to see the state’s teaching hospital and one of its universities asking for money that’s currently not available for boring but necessary stuff like medical administration and drainage, which was then followed by a mostly celebrated $160 million request for football seats used six or seven times a year by rich people, along with other amenities.

However, the needs UAMS and UAPB are seeking to fill would be met partly by tax dollars that haven’t yet come from the Legislature. Moreover, it should never be assumed that public entities are spending the money they already have as efficiently as can be expected (or that they’re not).

Long, in contrast, was asking to pursue money paid voluntarily by donors and fans who, if they don’t like the higher ticket prices, could choose to watch the games on TV, which is what I do. The UA Athletic Department is one of the nation’s few big time college programs that turns a profit and is self-sustaining. In fact, it’s given money back to the university for academics for the newly built Champions Hall.

Finally, at what point do the Razorbacks add to the university, and at what point do they distract from it? The head football coach, Bret Bielema, is by far the highest paid state employee, including the doctors saving lives at UAMS. That seems like a misplaced priority. On the other hand, the Razorbacks are the university’s best marketing tool and a tie that binds the state together. And on the third hand, does all this send a message to young people that while we adults tell them to hit the books hard so they can become doctors, what we really value is how hard the Razorbacks hit the opposing players in the SEC?

It’s a complicated discussion, and it’s worth having before letting people spend $160 million of their own money on a football stadium, and making taxpayers responsible if something goes wrong.

Still want to elect judges?

Hand with ballot and boxBy Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

There are times when the work of journalists doesn’t really change much, and there are times when it might help. This might be one of those times when it helps.

I’m referring to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s recent series detailing how six class action law firms, all but one based out of state, have contributed $296,000 in campaign funds to current Arkansas Supreme Court justices, and then argued cases in front of those justices, winning more than they lose. A partner in the one Arkansas firm, John Goodson, is married to Associate Justice Courtney Goodson, who recuses from cases involving his firm.

Justices must raise money like any other candidate, and most probably don’t like it and do the best they can within an imperfect system. Still the series has called into question whether they are being unduly influenced by those donations. 

The larger question is whether judges should be elected at all.

Americans have come to accept that legislators and executive branch officials raise money from interest groups and then give them something in return. We don’t like it, but we apparently can live with it.

But the idea of the judicial branch potentially being for sale is a little harder to accept. Someday we might be the one sitting in a courtroom facing an opponent who gave that judge a big donation. And now, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, judges can receive even more of those helpful dollars, and from more sources that can remain as anonymous as they want to be.

Electing judicial candidates has always been awkward because it’s the branch that’s supposed to worry about the law rather than popular opinion. Traditionally, candidates have refrained from describing their specific views in order to maintain their impartiality when they hear a case. That practice made it hard for voters to make an informed choice, but at least it lessened the politicization of the courts.

But with more at stake and more dollars involved, the justice system is becoming more political. For example, a 2014 Supreme Court race involved an ugly and misleading ad funded by an outside group against the losing candidate who had once done his duty as a court-appointed attorney for a sex offender. Another example occurred last year, when the Supreme Court stalled in making a potentially unpopular ruling on the state’s gay marriage law until the U.S. Supreme Court bailed it out and made the decision for it.

The issue is especially timely because, in less than a month, Arkansas voters will elect two Supreme Court justices. For chief justice, Goodson faces Circuit Judge Dan Kemp of Mountain View. For associate justice position 5, Circuit Judge Shawn Womack of Mountain Home faces attorney Clark Mason of Little Rock.

These two races together are arguably as important to Arkansans as the 2014 governor’s race. But in that race, most voters probably had a pretty good idea who they were voting for. Enough dollars are flowing into judicial candidates’ races to call their impartiality into question, but not enough to really introduce the candidates to the voters.

What should be done about all this? The Arkansas Bar Association has appointed a task force to study the issue. A group of legal types, including two retired Supreme Court justices, has created a privately funded effort to try to correct misleading advertisements and to provide information about candidates through a website, www.arkansasjudges.org, that doesn’t offer much yet. Gov. Asa Hutchinson has questioned if appellate judges – the Arkansas Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals – should be appointed, as they are at the national level.

That’s an imperfect solution, too, because it could give the governor a lot of power. However, there are ways to make it less imperfect. In Missouri, the governor appoints from a list of three candidates provided by a judicial commission, and then, at the next election, the voters decide if the judge should be retained. If not, which has only happened twice, then the process begins anew.

State Rep. Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, introduced a constitutional amendment in the 2015 legislative session to create a similar system in Arkansas, but it didn’t make it. Maybe 2017 will be different.

For now, we’ll still elect our Supreme Court justices the same way we do now – two of them, in fact, on March 1. Know which ones you want to vote for yet?

It’s the social issues, stupid

A pro-life supporter expresses his opinion at the Capitol in Little Rock during the March for Life January 17.

A pro-life supporter expresses his opinion about Planned Parenthood at the Capitol in Little Rock during the March for Life January 17.

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Current events are demonstrating that what moves political elites and what moves normal people often are two different things.

The big debate among the political elites is over the size and role of government, particularly regarding the economy. That’s why they donate hundreds of millions of dollars to an establishment candidate like Gov. Jeb Bush who promises to cut spending and taxes, and why they assume, like I did, that Donald Trump would eventually go away. As President Clinton’s 1992 campaign said, “It’s the economy, stupid,” right?

Well, not always. What really moves people often are social and cultural issues: guns, gay rights, abortion, etc. Economic issues are mostly about what people do. Social issues are about who they are.

The prevailing national example of this reality is this year’s presidential race, where Trump is driving conservative elites crazy because he’s never been one of them. He has a history of supporting liberal and moderate political positions and has given money to many Democrats, including the Clintons. During this campaign, he’s not really talking that much about cutting government, the Republican elites’ favorite topic.

But he’s established a connection with many voters talking about illegal immigration, which for elites is merely an economic issue but to average people is also a social and cultural one. He’s going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. That’s not an economic policy. And he’s made political correctness, which is definitely a social issue, part of his campaign by pushing the envelope with his words time and again and never apologizing for it.

Closer to home, on Sunday, thousands of Arkansans opposed to abortion participated in the annual March for Life at the Capitol. They carried handmade signs. They prayed. They donated money to Arkansas Right to Life, which has won a lot of victories in recent years and will push this next legislative session for a ban on dismemberment abortions, where the fetus is torn apart and then extracted from the womb.

Thousands of conservative Arkansans do not march on the Capitol to cut the capital gains tax.

This upcoming Saturday, the Arkansas Coalition for Reproductive Justice will respond with a pro-choice rally. Because this is Arkansas, and because abortion is already legal, there won’t be thousands of participants. But, weather permitting, there will be hundreds.

During the 2015 legislative session, the most far-reaching public policy debate was over Arkansas extending the private option, the program that uses federal dollars to purchase health insurance for 200,000 lower-income individuals.

But what really grabbed everyone’s attention was the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which some saw as an effort to protect religious belief while others saw it as a tool for discrimination against gays. Activists chanted “Shame on you!” at legislators and then lined the steps inside the Capitol. Corporate interests like Wal-Mart also were opposed. Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who initially supported it, sent it back to the Legislature when it reached his desk, and a milder version mirroring federal law was passed.

With economic issues, a lot of people care a little. With social issues, a few people care a lot. In politics, the second is often more powerful than the first. In an October CBS News/New York Times poll, 92 percent said they support background checks for all gun buyers, but Republican candidates know the other 8 percent will base their votes on that issue alone. So no background checks for all gun buyers.

While compromise is doable when it comes to economic issues, it’s very difficult with social ones. If one side says a tax should be 10 percent and the other 14 percent, the two can meet in the middle. With social issues, where the debate is over absolute right and wrong, finding the gray middle ground is harder. Then those deep-seated social divisions bleed into other areas. Elected officials can’t make the difficult compromises needed to balance the budget, for example, after the trenches have been dug over gay rights and guns.

I guess it doesn’t matter that much. Few candidates are seriously talking about balancing the budget, anyway. Maybe they would, if someone could figure out how to turn it into a social issue.

Dividing the divisive King-Lee holiday

Gov. Asa Hutchinson

Gov. Asa Hutchinson

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson is still at the point in his young administration where legislators tend to give him much of what he wants, so it will be interesting to see if he gets this: separating the state’s commemorations – this year on Jan. 18 – of the birthdays of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

In response to a question during a press availability in his office Jan. 6, Hutchinson left no doubt where he stood on the issue, which flared and then faded in the 2015 legislative session. “It’s important that that day be distinguished and separate and focused on that civil rights struggle and what he personally did in that effort,” he said of King.

Hutchinson said lawmakers should vote to separate the holidays when they meet in their next regular session in 2017. “As to this year, I’m certainly going to be celebrating Martin Luther King’s special day. I’ll be attending Martin Luther King events and celebrating the great contributions that he has made to this country,” he said.

He did not say anything about Lee.

The legislation last year to give King his own holiday was pushed by Reps. Fred Love, D-Little Rock, and Rep. Nate Bell of Mena, then a Republican and now the Legislature’s only independent. Asked last January about the issue when he was still brand new in his office and was looking at a very full plate, Hutchinson said, “I haven’t thought about it, so I’d have to give it some more thought. History is important to me, and we’ve just got to balance those, obviously,” according to the Associated Press.

As the legislative session continued, Hutchinson did support separating the commemorations but focused on other issues, such as his tax cut package and the private option, the controversial government health care program that today purchases private health insurance for 200,000 Arkansans.

Clearly, Hutchinson is more willing to confront the issue now. On July 7, 2015, he wrote in a letter to Dale Charles, president of the Arkansas NAACP, “The acts of violence in Charleston have sparked national debate on numerous issues. In Arkansas, the state’s dual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and General Robert E. Lee on the same holiday has reemerged as an issue that must be addressed. As Governor, I will do what is in my power to strive for an exclusive Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as well as develop a strategic plan with valuable stakeholders, including the NAACP and state legislators.”

Hutchinson is sensitive to issues that affect Arkansas’ image and could affect its economic development efforts. Last year, he originally supported the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which, depending on your perspective, either defended the consciences of traditional believers or allowed for discrimination against homosexuals. When a national firestorm erupted and businesses like Wal-Mart expressed their opposition, he sent the bill back to the Legislature so that a new one could be written that attempted to split the difference by mirroring federal law.

There has been no such firestorm with the King-Lee holiday, but there could be someday. Arkansas is one of only three states, the others being Alabama and Mississippi, that combine the holidays. Even Lee’s beloved home state of Virginia separated the days in 2000. Regardless of the intentions, Arkansas’ pairing, which occurred in 1985 two years after the King Holiday was created nationally, seems like a poke in King’s eye. It’s like the state is saying, “Yes, we’ll give the civil rights leader his day, along with the rest of the nation. But we’ll also honor the Confederate general, just to make it clear that we’re not 100 percent sold on this.”

The King Holiday is meant to bring people together. In Arkansas in 2015, its pairing with Lee’s birthday was a source of division. Is the answer therefore to divide the holiday, with one day remembering King and another recalling Lee? It could be after the Legislature meets in 2017.

Related: The Confederate star on Arkansas’ flag: a history lesson, or a celebration?

Looking ahead to an eventful 2016

Calendar turning copyBy Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Happy new year. In Arkansas politics, it’s going to be an eventful one.

In January, Gov. Asa Hutchinson will meet with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell to request a waiver for “Arkansas Works.” That’s his version of the private option, the program that uses federal Medicaid dollars to purchase private insurance for lower-income individuals. He’s asking for changes that will require more personal responsibility on the part of recipients, and which will make it more acceptable to Republican legislators. Those legislators will vote on Arkansas Works, or something like it, in a special session focused on health care in the middle of the year.

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