Category Archives: State government

Term limits probably will work out

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

For term limits supporters unhappy about what happened in November, it probably will work out for the best in the long run. Some reforms occurred that likely wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and voters probably will get a chance at a do-over in 2016.

Amendment 3 was a 22-page resolution with many provisions that was shrunk to a single paragraph for the ballot. It prohibits state candidates from accepting campaign contributions from corporations and unions. It prohibits legislators and constitutional officers from accepting gifts from lobbyists, which has already significantly changed the culture at the Capitol. It also increases from one year to two the amount of time that legislators must wait to register as a lobbyist after they leave office – the goal being to reduce the incentive for them to pass laws that would get them hired and help their future employers.

It also created a citizens commission to set salaries for legislators, constitutional officers and judges. In the past, legislators have set their own salaries, a conflict of interest that ironically has kept salaries low because of the awkwardness of it all. Commission members have been appointed by the governor, the leaders of the House and Senate, and the Supreme Court’s chief justice. In other words, they’ve appointed their own salary deciders. The result is that pay hikes probably are coming.

Finally, the amendment extends term limits from the current six years in the House and eight years in the Senate to 16 years total.

Actually, they could serve longer than that. Pages 16 and 17 of the resolution state that partial terms don’t count and that members who reach their 16th year in the middle of their term can finish it out.

The language voters saw on the ballot said the measure was “establishing” term limits. Polled shortly before the election by Talk Business and Hendrix College, 62 percent of respondents said they opposed the measure, while only 23 percent supported it. However, unlike the ballot title, the poll question spelled out that the measure would “extend term limits … to 16 years.”

Term limits supporters fought Amendment 3 before the election and will soon open up a new front. Bob Porto, co-chair of Arkansas Term Limits, said in an interview that organizers will meet to determine next steps, including what the 2016 proposal will look like. A ballot initiative will be created, and signatures will be gathered. Two years from now, voters should have the chance to vote on a simple term limits measure.
Nick Tomboulides, executive director of U.S. Term Limits, which spent $400,000 in ads opposing the measure, said it’s too early to know how big of an investment his group will make in 2016, but it will support the effort.

Unless there’s a problem with the ballot title – or unless a judge decides there’s a problem – that effort will pass, and Arkansas probably will return to having some of the strictest term limits laws in the nation. In the end, it probably will work out.

Amendment 3’s sponsors say the amendment included the term limits provision as part of a compromise. It was needed to gain enough legislative support to get the ethics provisions on the ballot. Many legislators believe that six years in the House just isn’t long enough.

I’m not one who says all elected officials are crooks. At the State Capitol, most legislators seem to act mostly ethically most of the time, which is about like most of us.

But a bit of a fast one was pulled this time, and it shouldn’t have happened. Legislators should not have folded all of these provisions into one ballot initiative and should have been clearer about what “establishing” term limits meant. The attorney general should have disapproved the ballot title. The amendment shouldn’t have survived a court challenge. Voters should have been aware of its provisions – unless, of course, they actually were.

And I should have written about it before the election, not afterwards. Sorry about that.

Asa and Bret

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

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Two Arkansans from very different walks of life personify that old expression – Gov.-elect Asa Hutchinson and Bret Bielema, Razorbacks head football coach. In this post-Thanksgiving column, let’s celebrate their achievements before returning to day-to-day politics next week.

Hutchinson not only tried again, but he tried, tried, tried again. Three times he lost badly in statewide elections – the last a 56-41 shellacking at the hands of Gov. Mike Beebe in the 2006 governor’s race. (Remember “Asa!”?) He faced good opponents, but he also lost those races because he chose to put an “R” beside his name instead of a “D,” when many other aspirational candidates simply joined the majority party.

For some reason, the former congressman, Drug Enforcement Agency director, and under secretary of the Department of Homeland Security really, really wanted to be governor of Arkansas, so he placed his name on the ballot again. Now 63 and about to turn 64, this year probably was his last chance to be elected. Naturally reserved, he seemed confident, relaxed and cheerful throughout the campaign. The swirling winds of history had shifted in his favor, and he knew it.

The dog has finally caught the car, but unlike the dog, Hutchinson seems to know what to do with his prize. He is methodically preparing his budget and determining who will lead the various state agencies. He’s been measured in his public comments and seems genuinely interested in uniting the state under his leadership – even, as columnist John Brummett recently reported, having a long phone conversation with Bill Clinton, whom Hutchinson prosecuted during the impeachment trial.

You have to add a few more “try agains” to Bielema’s situation – 12 in fact. The coach left a winning situation in Wisconsin to rebuild an Arkansas program that hadn’t yet recovered from the Bobby Petrino scandal. Thirteen times Bielema faced an SEC foe, and 13 times he lost, coming heartbreakingly close to victory against some of the nation’s best teams this season. Oh, yes, people were complaining – about Bielema’s throwback style of smashmouth football, and about the fact that native son Gus Malzahn, the coach many Arkansans wanted, took his Auburn team to the national championship game at the same time Bielema was going winless in the SEC last season.

Few are complaining now. Bielema’s style – both coaching and personal – seem a perfect fit for this state. He may be an Illinois native, but he was raised on a hog farm – yes, a hog farm – and he’s unquestionably one of us. Prior to the loss against Missouri Friday, Arkansas had shut out LSU and Ole Miss by a combined score of 47-0. The Razorbacks had finished one spot out of the Associated Press Top 25 poll. Has a 6-6 team ever been this good or this respected?

Arkansas’ future looks very bright. The Hogs are bowl-eligible, which didn’t seem likely a few weeks ago. They’ll enter next season with talent, depth, experience and high expectations. With so many other programs adopting the pass-first spread offense, blue-chip high school offensive linemen and running backs have to be placing Arkansas near the top of their lists. And just as Hutchinson did this year, the Razorbacks will continue to have success in future Novembers, particularly when the weather turns colder and the game becomes less about airing it out and more about grinding it out.

Grinding it out – that’s Hutchinson and Bielema. They tried and tried again, and then they succeeded.

GOP’s timing was good … this year

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

Here’s what did not happen on Election Day: The American people did not simply rise up and repudiate President Obama and give Republicans a mandate.

Oh, they did repudiate Obama, but the Republican Party’s big win was more the result of timing and demographic factors that worked entirely in its favor this year and mostly will favor Democrats in 2016.

We’re talking nationally, not about Arkansas. What happened in Arkansas was permanent.

Let’s focus on three big advantages Republicans across the country had working for them.

Our two electorates. The United States is now made up of two distinct voting populations. The one that votes in presidential election years is bigger, younger, and more diverse, favoring Democrats. Many of those voters stay home during midterms, when the leader of the free world is not on the ballot. What’s left is an electorate that is older, whiter, and more affluent – in other words, more Republican.

Second-term midterms. So far, seven U.S. Senate seats have shifted from Democratic to Republican hands, and Sen. Mary Landrieu is probably going to be the eighth in Louisiana’s December runoff. Seven or eight seats sounds like a lot, but that kind of result is not unusual for a midterm election when a president is in his second term and voters are becoming cranky and annoyed. President George W. Bush’s Republicans lost six Senate seats in his second-term midterm, and President Reagan lost eight seats. President Eisenhower, World War II hero and budget balancer, saw his Republican Party lose 13 seats in his second-term midterm elections.

Democrats on the defensive. This year, Democrats were defending 21 of the 36 contested Senate seats, including seven states won by Mitt Romney in 2012. Senators serve six-year terms, so these Democrats were elected during the 2008 presidential election, when they had the advantage, and had to run for re-election this year in a midterm, when the electorate favors Republicans.

The reverse will be true in 2016. Republicans, elected in 2010 when they had an advantage in the midterms (and also after Obamacare was passed) will be defending 24 of the 33 seats up for re-election, and they’ll be doing it in a presidential election year that will be more favorable to Democrats. In seven of those 24 states, Obama won twice.

Republicans will have one historical reality in their favor, and it’s a big one: the fickle American voter. We have a habit of letting one party control the White House for eight years and then giving the other party a shot. In recent years, we’ve gone from eight years of Clinton to eight years of Bush to eight years of Obama. The last time voters let a president’s party stay in power after two terms was 1988, when they elected Reagan’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, for one term.

Of course, what happens between now and 2016 matters. How will Republicans govern now that they will control Congress, and what will President Obama do in his last two years in office? Does Hillary Clinton want the nomination, and if so, will Democrats just give it to her? Are Americans ready to elect her, or any “her”? Will the Republicans beat up each other so badly during the primary process that the nominee emerges too bloodied to win in November? Will one of the two candidates insert their foot so firmly in their mouth that Americans can’t hear anything else they say? Will a well-funded independent candidate like Ross Perot emerge to upset the apple cart?

Those questions remain to be answered. This we know: In 2016, Democrats will have the advantage because it will be a presidential election year, and Republicans will have the advantage because it will be their turn.

Is Arkansas a one-party state again?

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

On Oct. 12, 1960, Winthrop Rockefeller hosted a “Party for Two Parties” at his Winrock Farms estate on Petit Jean Mountain. About 850 guests each paid $50 to dine on his Santa Gertrudis beef and be entertained by celebrities.

Rockefeller had made improving his impoverished state his life’s mission since moving here in 1953. Part of that mission involved creating a two-party system, which was a big task. That year, the Republican Party fielded only seven candidates for local offices throughout the entire state.

It took 50 years for Rockefeller’s dream to fully come true. After the 2010 elections, Republicans held four of the state’s six congressional seats, the governor was a Democrat, and the Legislature was about evenly split with 75 Democrats and 59 Republicans.

But that competitive two-party system may have lasted only four years. At least at the state level, Arkansas seems headed to one-party dominance again – this time, under the Republicans.

“I hope not,” said Doyle Webb, Republican Party of Arkansas chairman, when asked if that was the case the morning after his party’s historic Election Day victory. “The Republican Party has worked for years to have a two-party state. I think that the challenge of a Democrat Party and its ideas are important to the Republican Party, and I think that two parties in the marketplace of ideas, opposing ideas where the public can hear those ideas, is valuable for Arkansas.”

To be sure, Republicans will never control Arkansas like Democrats controlled Arkansas. Before Tuesday, 59 of the state’s 75 county judges were Democrats. After Tuesday, 54 still are. There will be areas of the state that will remain Democratic, just as Northwest Arkansas was the state’s lone Republican stronghold for decades.

Still, it’s hard to overstate how convincing the GOP’s win was on Tuesday. Republicans now control every congressional office and every statewide office. As late as 2009, the state Legislature was composed of 98 Democrats and 36 Republicans. Now when legislators meet in January, 88 will be Republicans and 47 will be Democrats. Ten incumbent Democratic state legislators lost, as did, of course, Sen. Mark Pryor. No Democrat running statewide won more than 43.2 percent of the vote.

In fact, the Republicans may have won more than they wanted to win. It’s one thing to control slim majorities in the Legislature with a Democratic governor, as was the case before Tuesday. With such overwhelming numbers, Republicans will be fully accountable for whatever happens in state government. It’s all on them.

Moreover, it’s much harder to maintain party discipline when the opposition no longer represents a threat. Instead of one party or two, the state in effect will have several – Democrats, and then various factions of Republicans who work with each other or with Democrats depending on the issue.

The election will have far-reaching effects beyond all this insider politics. For example, the private option is in trouble. Barely passed by the Legislature in 2013 and barely reauthorized this year, the program uses Obamacare dollars to buy private health insurance for lower-income Arkansans. Republicans have been split, but Democrats have been united in support. Now the numbers are not in its favor. It will continue only if Gov.-elect Asa Hutchinson leans on his party’s legislators, which he might do if he decides he needs the program. If it goes away, 200,000 people must find health insurance somewhere else. Good or bad, that’s a big deal.

Will Rockefeller, the grandson of Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller and the son of Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller, attended the GOP’s victory party Tuesday night. It was a very different kind of gathering than what his grandfather had hosted in 1960. The “Party for Two Parties” had been an introduction. This was a celebration.

One of the heirs to the family fortune is also inheriting a new political legacy. In 1960, his grandfather’s party could muster only seven candidates for local offices. Today’s it’s not only the majority, but it’s the state’s dominant political force, and likely will be for years to come.

The people rule, or micromanage?

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

The election is over. How did you do?

I’m not asking how many winners you picked. Being in the majority and being right are not the same. The question is, how well do you think you performed your hiring responsibilities?

Most of us probably made a reasonably informed choice in the U.S. Senate race. Despite all the misinformation we’ve heard over the last 18 months, most of us were familiar with the candidates and had an idea of where they stood and what they were about. Same for the governor’s race, and probably for the U.S. House of Representatives. Most of us probably were confident about the more straightforward ballot issues that affect real people – whether or not to raise the minimum wage, and whether or not alcohol should be sold in every county.

The farther down the ballot we went, however, the less confident we were. Let’s be honest: When it came to some of the lesser offices, most of us were just guessing based on not very good reasons. Nothing against him personally, but I’m convinced that Charlie Daniels made a career in Arkansas politics partly because he had the same name as the guy who sings “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

Could we trim these lo-o-ong ballots just a little? Could we at least let the governor appoint three positions that few Arkansans care about: treasurer, auditor, and land commissioner? I’m not sure why we’re electing some of these local offices, either, such as the county coroner.

On Election Day, voters should be responsible for selecting policymakers who make and enforce the laws that govern our lives. Then we should monitor those policymakers to ensure their decisions reflect our priorities. In other words, we should be our state’s board of directors.

Governors, mayors and county judges should function like the president of our business. They should be responsible for hiring those who simply perform a specific bureaucratic function – such as dispose of tax-delinquent property, which is what the land commissioner does. I as a voter don’t need to elect that person any more than I need to elect the person in charge of the landscaping along the highway. The governor already appoints positions that are far more important, such as highway commissioners, and there doesn’t seem to be a movement to elect those.

The objection to appointing these positions is that it would give the governor more power and open the door for more cronyism. Maybe he’d just hire his buddies for these three jobs that don’t pay very much.

That’s a concern. To counteract that, the public must hold the governor accountable for potential misdeeds in his administration. If state government functioned more like a business and the treasurer were appointed, then after Martha Shoffner accepted those bribes, the governor would have fired her, and then he would have had to stand before his shareholders – the state of Arkansas – and explain all red-faced why he hired this person as state treasurer in the first place. Instead, we the voters had elected someone we’d never heard of to do a job few of us can even describe.

Americans are raised to believe that more is always better. Two scoops are better than one, and a super-size is better than a medium.

But more voting does not necessarily lead to a better democracy. At the same time, not enough voting opens the door for insider cronyism. I don’t know where the sweet spot is, but voters should focus on those offices that make policies and actually run the government, and not be expected to hire those simply doing a job. After all, our state’s motto is, “The people rule,” not, “The people micromanage.”