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

Brent Dove of Rea Valley, state director of the Convention of States, said something really smart or at least interesting about the effort he leads in Arkansas – that it will gain momentum when people realize how little the election changed.

The Convention of States is a national effort to use a provision in the Constitution’s Article V allowing states to call a convention to amend that document.

All 27 of the Constitution’s previous amendments have been initiated through Congress, but Convention of States organizers believe the changes they want – term limits, a balanced budget amendment, a limit on government’s power – will never happen that way.

Every constitutional amendment faces an uphill battle, and this process would be a cliff, which is why it’s never happened in American history. Thirty-four states must approve an identical resolution and then send delegates to the convention, and then a majority of the delegations must agree to proposed amendments, and then 38 states must approve those amendments.

Eight states have approved the resolution. In Arkansas, it failed in 2015 in a Senate committee, but supporters will introduce it again in 2017. Former Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican, told about three dozen Arkansas supporters Nov. 1 that the goal is to increase the number of states passing resolutions and build pressure on Congress to enact changes before the convention even happens.

It’s going to be tough to get 38 states to agree on anything these days, and that includes the Convention of States’ goals. The resolution would advance policies that are undeniably conservative in a country that is split in two and, if anything, moving left. Moreover, since its creation, the group has faced opposition from conservatives who fear a rogue convention that radically alters the Constitution – as if anything really radical would ever gain the approval of 38 states.

Where the convention gets it most right is the idea, voiced by Dove, that at this point in history, systemic change is needed.

The country’s political systems have evolved in ways that the Constitution doesn’t address, making it no longer a “living document” but instead an ignored one. The Constitution did not envision parties; clearly, partisan politics is how the system works. The Constitution’s checks and balances aren’t functioning properly because the humans who serve in Congress have too much allegiance to their party and not enough to their branch. The writers of the Constitution did not envision elected office would be a gigantic, full-time, sometimes lifetime industry based on legalized bribery, I mean campaign donations. The Constitution correctly gives Congress the power to tax and spend but has no provision requiring the numbers to eventually come into balance. Therefore, it rarely happens.

It’s time to reset the nation’s constitutional framework so that it can be relevant again – for example, so that it takes into account the now-obvious fact that political parties inevitably exist in a democracy. Either we can turn around the political system’s train and make it align perfectly with the Constitution’s original text, or instead, we can build new tracks and send the train to a destination it can actually reach.

Besides, very deep holes in the nation’s founding document have been filled before. It originally left out freedom of speech and religion, it allowed slavery, and it made it possible to deny African-Americans and women the right to vote. So I think the republic will survive a spirited debate about term limits.

Dove said that if 34 states can agree to the resolution, then at least that conversation can occur. While I have some doubts about whether the group can achieve its goals, I’m ready to have that conversation. It does matter who won on Tuesday, but systems usually change people more than the other way around. So after 18 months of talking a lot about what’s wrong with the people, let’s talk about tweaking the system.

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

Ready for some good news? Do you remember a few years ago when Arkansas’ public schools had inadequate internet connections, and there was a big controversy, and it seemed like this was going to be another one of those huge political fights requiring a lot of taxpayer dollars?

Problem solved. Seriously.

Mark Myers, director of the state Department of Information Systems (DIS), told the House and Senate Education Committees Monday that by July 2017, Arkansas will be one of three states where every school is connected to high-speed broadband internet. The fiber network will give schools speeds of 200 kilobits per second per student, which is twice the generally accepted minimum standard of 100 kbps. The network is ready to expand those speeds to 1 megabit per second per student without having to buy new equipment.

Let’s review the back story. Back in 2013, it became obvious that many Arkansas schools didn’t have the broadband they needed to use the internet as a learning resource or to administer online tests associated with the Common Core. Arkansas received a “D” in the 2013 “Digital Learning Now” report from the Foundation for Excellence in Education.

The state was spending huge dollars and getting terrible results. An report by the Quality Digital Learning Study Committee had found the state had invested almost $160 million in vendor costs since 1992 on the Arkansas Public School Computer Network (APSCN), a backbone that was offering schools a measly 5 kbps. At a time when everyone was moving to high-speed options like fiber, the state was still spending 70 percent of its budget on copper wiring – basically, a stagecoach on an interstate highway.

Individually, schools were doing a much better job of connecting to the internet than the state was. APSCN was costing an average of $286 per month per megabit – the equivalent of a household paying $2,800 to $5,700 for cable modem service. Meanwhile, schools were paying about $13 to private providers to supplement their connections. Because of that, according to a 2014 report by the nonprofit group EducationSuperHighway, 58 percent of Arkansas districts were meeting the 100 kbps standard, largely through their own efforts. However, 17 percent offered speeds of only 10-49 kbps, while 5 percent were even slower.

Naturally, there was a big argument about what to do about all of this. For a time, some wanted schools to hook up to the state’s Arkansas Research Education Optical Network, or ARE-ON, a private network used by universities and hospitals. Schools were prohibited by state law from connecting to it, and private internet providers were opposed because they didn’t want to compete with the government. There was talk of a special legislative session.

Then a consultant, CT&T, found that connecting to ARE-ON was not cost-effective and that instead the state should partner with those private providers. The move to connect to ARE-ON lost steam. Newly elected Gov. Asa Hutchinson ordered DIS to create a high-speed backbone for schools. The state worked with than 20 private providers. The timing was good because more fiber was being laid. In some cases, schools were let out of contracts that extended past the July 2017 goal.

The state is connecting to high-speed internet for about the same cost it was spending on those old slow connections. The annual total cost is just under $13 million a year, a fraction of the $2.19 billion budgeted for the public school fund in fiscal year 2017. E-rate, a federal program that provides funding for schools and libraries, will pay for 80% of the $6 million in transport costs. School districts don’t have to pay anything to be part of a secure statewide network.

So now, by the start of the 2017-18 school year, every public school student in Arkansas will have access to fast internet connections. Those connections will enable them and their teachers to use the internet for instruction and for school projects. Districts will spend less or, eventually for some, nothing on textbooks, which are extremely expensive, inflexible, and quickly become outdated. And as demands increase, so can the network. The big political fight never happened, and everybody got what they wanted.

Told you this was some good news.

Related: How two sisters and a cup of coffee changed a school.
In West Memphis, it’s all connected.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this column was headlined “Not paid by the hour” and referenced the fact that legislators aren’t paid that way. But they do receive per diem expenses – in other words, payment by the day. So this changes the reference in the beginning and the end.

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

State legislators are heading back to Little Rock – for the third time this year.

This time, it will be for (hopefully) a three-day session whose primary purpose will be to find about $50 million a year in state funds to qualify for $200 million in federal funds over the next five years. Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s highway bill raises that $50 million mostly through surplus and “rainy day” funds, along with funds generated by the state treasurer’s office.

Typically, governors call special sessions for very specific purposes, and only when they are comfortable they will get what they want. Much of the real action occurs before the session as the details are wrangled over in the Capitol. When the governor issues his “call,” it can be so specific that only his favored bills likely will be considered.

That means that, eventually, Hutchinson’s highway bill probably will pass. However, there’s a hiccup: The bill is expected to be assigned to the Senate Transportation, Technology & Legislative Affairs Committee, where four Republican legislators – half the committee – proposed a more substantive eight-cent motor fuels tax increase for highways, perhaps coupled with cuts in other spending elsewhere. It’s a worthy idea, but no legislator is too excited about voting to raise gas taxes, and Hutchinson is firmly opposed. But those four are not that excited about Hutchinson’s plan, either, and bills need a majority to get out of committee.

Even Hutchinson admits his bill represents a short-term fix for a longer term problem. Motor fuels taxes haven’t changed at the federal level since 1993 or at the state level since 2001, despite highways becoming much more expensive to build. Meanwhile, cars have become more fuel-efficient, which means drivers are buying fewer gallons to drive the same number of miles, and therefore paying less in taxes. In effect, we’re all getting a tax cut every year, though few taxpayers understandably will see it that way

Prior to the session call, House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, was saying the governor’s call would contain between five and 15 items.

It contains the latter, many of which are technical and uncontroversial but some of which are kind of important, including a bill by Sen. Greg Standridge, R-Russellville, that would close a worker’s compensation trust fund for deaths and permanent disabilities that’s $130 million in the hole. If the bill passes, the state will spend the next three decades paying off existing claims – and taxing businesses as it does now – but new claims will be paid through employers’ insurance companies. The State Chamber of Commerce thinks more time is needed to help businesses withstand the blow, but Standridge says he has enough votes, and he’s charging forward. There’s also a bill to declare a one-year moratorium on placing schools in academic distress, just to let everyone catch their breath after all the changes of the past few years.

Sen. Jake Files, R-Fort Smith, says this all could have waited until January, when legislators will gather in Little Rock for the big every-other-year regular session. In an interview, he questioned the “potpourri of ideas and conglomerations” and asked, “At what point does a special session cease to be special?”

Files’ frustration is borne of the fact that this will be the third time legislators have traipsed to Little Rock this year. On April 6, Hutchinson called legislators to gather for a very difficult special session dedicated to his Arkansas Works, which is his continuation of a state program that uses federal dollars through Obamacare to buy private insurance for lower-income Arkansans. That session was a doozy. Then legislators gathered for a fiscal session to pay for everything in the budget, including Arkansas Works. It was another doozy.

Aside from all that, legislators’ party primaries were March 1, and many still have general election foes in November.

So we’re halfway through May, and legislators have spent a good chunk of the year meeting in session, preparing for one, and campaigning. This should be the last special session of the year, which will be a good thing. The Capitol’s a beautiful building – sometimes, particularly when it’s quiet.

Related: Voters – better roads, same taxes