Category Archives: State government

Six questions as campaign filing begins

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

We’re barely into November 2019, and candidate filing for the November 2020 elections begins Monday and ends on the 12th. Here are six questions waiting to be answered over the course of the next year.

1. Has the red wave reached its peak? 

Republicans already occupy all the congressional and statewide offices and three-fourths of the Legislature. They can increase their state legislative majority by winning in a few spots, particularly in the few rural, conservative areas still represented by Democrats, while holding on to their own vulnerable seats.

Two races in the Senate will be interesting to watch. Sen. Eddie Cheatham, D-Crossett, faces a strong challenge from Republican Ben Gilmore, who has raised a lot of money and has friends in high places, having worked for U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman and now for Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin. Republicans also will run businessman Charles Beckham against Sen. Bruce Maloch, D-Magnolia.

Meanwhile, in District 92 in Northwest Arkansas, freshman Rep. Megan Godfrey, D-Springdale, faces Republican Jed Duggar. Yes, he’s one of the 19 raised by Jim Bob and Michelle. The district’s demographic trends – it’s urban with a large Hispanic population – helped Godfrey get elected, and she’s young and dynamic and a fresh face. But Duggar will have his name, fame and other advantages. He’ll get several dozen votes from his family alone.

2. Will Rep. Mickey Gates, R-Hot Springs, file to run again after being expelled for failing to pay his taxes? 

No, he won’t. Next question. Continue reading →

The House expels one of its own

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

There are two certainties, Arkansas Speaker of the House Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, told his colleagues Oct. 11: death and taxes.

Rep. Mickey Gates, R-Hot Springs, finally had succumbed to the inevitability of the second. And this day, his political life was on trial, with Shepherd the reluctant prosecutor and Gates’ fellow legislators his jury.

Friday was a somber day. The last time House members had expelled a member was in 1837 after the House speaker stabbed to death a fellow member on the floor.

Shepherd, an attorney, made his case by saying the Arkansas Constitution allows a two-thirds House majority to expel a member for any reason – but with Gates, there is a good one. He had pled no contest to a single charge of not filing or paying his taxes after being charged for not filing returns from 2012 to 2017. He’s paying the state at least $74,789 for the years 2012 through 2014, with his debt for the later years to be determined after a December hearing.

This year, lawmakers passed Act 894 saying anyone who pleads guilty or no contest to a “public trust crime” or is found guilty cannot serve in the Legislature.

Clearly not getting the hint, Gates was one of 71 House members who voted for it. Now he says it adds an extraconstitutional qualification for service, an argument he will use if he sues. Continue reading →

GOP will produce Arkansas’ first statewide minority official

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

Arkansas has never elected an African-American statewide official, and when it finally does, he or she likely will be a Republican.

And he or she probably will be someone like Leon Jones.

The state has taken such a sharp turn red-ward in recent years that to be elected to a statewide office, a candidate almost must run as a Republican – much as the Democrats were the default party for a century and a half. That’s why the first African-American official probably will come from that party.

Jones, 47, Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s appointee as executive director of the Fair Housing Commission, is gauging support before making a final decision on running for attorney general in 2022. The current attorney general, Leslie Rutledge, is term-limited. Jones previously served as Hutchinson’s Labor Department director.

If he runs, he’d be Arkansas’ first elected African-American statewide official and also the only African-American Republican currently elected to any position at the state level – unless one is elected in 2020 or alongside him in 2022. The state’s seven constitutional officers and six members of Congress are white Republicans. As of Oct. 8, the 135-member Arkansas Legislature was composed of 102 white Republicans and 33 Democrats, 15 of whom are African-Americans including the recently elected Denise Ennett of Little Rock. Continue reading →

Arkansas, don’t be like Great Britain

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

In a democracy, any discussion of “Should we do something?” should also answer “How will we do it?” Otherwise, we start looking like Great Britain does now.

That country didn’t answer both questions regarding “Brexit,” and now it’s a mess.

On June 23, 2016, British voters were asked simply, “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” Fifty-two percent said “Leave.”

Several factors played into the result. Voters wanted to maintain British sovereignty and identity in a country that never adopted the euro. Many opposed the EU’s open borders and immigration policies. The older the voters were, the more likely they were to support Brexit.

You might say they wanted to make Britain great again. Continue reading →

Key right person to lead schools, but has tiger by the tail

Johnny Key speaks after Gov. Asa Hutchinson announces him as his choice as education commissioner in 2015.

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

Johnny Key is the right person to serve as education secretary for Arkansas’ 263 school districts including charters, but with one of them, he has a tiger by the tail.

Key was appointed education commissioner by Gov. Asa Hutchinson in 2015, a move that met with some disgruntlement in the education community. That disgruntlement was caused by Key not having a background in education, other than owning a day care.

Instead, Key had been a Republican representative and then senator based in Mountain Home who had chaired the Senate Education Committee. He had a party label, but he sought consensus and got along well with others.

His political background meant he could build bridges between educators accustomed to working with Democrats, and the Republicans who now control the Legislature – and will control it for a long time. He understands education politics as well as anyone. What he may not know about education technicalities – he can hire educators for that. Continue reading →