The United States, or these United States?

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

The federal government will not reform itself. We’re past the point of electing different politicians or enacting different policies. Instead, the government’s underlying structure must be changed through a constitutional amendment process never before used in American history.

That was the message of Michael Farris, head of the Convention of States Project, during testimony before the House and Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committees Wednesday.

The Constitution has been amended 27 times using one process – Congress proposes a change, and three-fourths of the states ratify it. But Article V of the Constitution also includes another provision where two-thirds of state legislatures, or 34, would call for a convention. Delegates would consider constitutional amendments, each state having one vote. Proposed amendments would have to be ratified by three-fourths of the states – 38, in other words.

That method has never been used successfully, but Farris says it’s the only hope to fix a broken system. His group is asking states to pass resolutions for a convention that would consider how to impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its powers and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on members of Congress and Supreme Court justices.

So far, Alaska, Georgia and Florida have passed nearly identical resolutions to that effect, and Farris’ group plans a hard push in about 20 states, including Arkansas, this upcoming year. Rep. Bob Ballinger, R-Hindville, said he or someone else will introduce the resolution in 2015 if it has enough support.

Farris assured legislators that Article V’s high standards for ratification – 34 states to call a convention and 38 states to ratify – mean only amendments with broad popular support would have a chance of being ratified.

That being the case, the movement must expand beyond its current base and way of thinking. Its leaders and supporters appear to be almost exclusively very conservative individuals. During a presentation to a home-schooling group Wednesday, Farris suggested one change would involve clarifying the Constitution’s “general welfare” clause so that, “If the states can spend money on it, the federal government can’t.”

That would give a lot more power and responsibility to the states, but it also would mean ending Medicare and Social Security as we know it at the federal level. Such a change would be impossible to sell politically in a lot more than 13 states.

Legislators had varying reactions to Farris’ testimony. Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, a well-known civil rights advocate, said the same states’ rights argument was made on behalf of slaveholders and segregationists. Farris said that wouldn’t happen again and that legislators could instruct their delegates not to repeal the Constitution’s civil rights amendments. Later in the session, Rep. Douglas House, R-North Little Rock, and Rep. Jim Nickels, D-North Little Rock, said delegates could ignore whatever instructions legislators gave them. To that, Farris replied, “We’re really dealing in international law here is what this is is because it’s a meeting of sovereign states, and there are recognized principles of international law that govern, and there are no … exceptions in international law or in American law.”

Sovereign states being governed by international law? Such thinking would be a huge leap for a lot of people. Prior to the Civil War, the United States was a plural entity, as in “these United States.” Afterwards, it became a singular: “The United States.” The emerging national identity enabled the country to become the world’s greatest economic and military power. But it’s also led to a bloated, irresponsible, and unresponsive federal government. No state manages its business as badly as the federal government does, and many, including Arkansas, do it much, much better.

A rebalancing of power is needed, though not to the extent that Farris supports. An Article V convention may the best hope of doing that because, as he argued, the government will not reform itself. And with only 13 states required to kill any measure, what’s the worst that’s likely to happen? A bunch of people gather in one place and argue forever without accomplishing anything?

We already have that. It’s called Congress. So if this just turns out to be a big waste of time, we can live with that. What we can’t live with is not trying. Thanks to Article V’s parameters, a convention probably can’t hurt, and it might do some good. I’m for it – a convention, at least, and then let’s see what amendments are proposed.

Everyone’s an extra, even in Congress

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

I’m not the good guy. Neither are you. And neither are Mark Pryor nor Tom Cotton.

I bring that up because we’re in the middle of a campaign season where television ads, and many news providers, treat what should be a statewide job interview instead like a TV show.

And boy, there are a lot of those ads. According to the Center for Public Integrity, the candidates, the parties and independent groups had broadcast 40,576 of them in Arkansas during the 2014 campaign in the Senate race alone as of Sept. 22.

From the time we are born, Americans are fed a steady diet of fiction. Movies, books, TV shows – including sitcoms – often feature three elements: a protagonist who is the hero (along with sidekicks and love interests), an antagonist who is the villain, and extras.

Except in rare cases, whoever spends the most time on camera is the hero, even if the antagonist is more worthy of admiration. For example, in “Rocky,” Rocky Balboa may have had a heart of gold, but he had been a lifetime underachiever and a loan shark’s debt collector, while Apollo Creed was an undefeated champion, smart businessman, and devoted husband and father. We cheer for Rocky.

In our lives, we’re the protagonist, so we believe we’re the hero, which means there must be villains somewhere. Our flaws are merely the personal challenges all heroes must overcome, while the villains never change and have only evil intentions. That’s how a story works.

This is not a healthy thing for any of us. It leads to pride and narrow-mindedness and a lack of grace toward others. It’s particularly problematic in politics. There are many reasons why today’s Congress is dysfunctional, but could one be that its members, raised on television like the rest of us, have bought into the fiction?

For the past year-and-a-half, we’ve watched Cotton and Pryor try to destroy each other on television. Other races with less money at their disposal are behaving in a similar fashion, especially now that the election is nearing. The gloves have really come off in the 2nd Congressional District race between French Hill and Patrick Henry Hays.

I’ve been around enough of these campaigns to know that few of the candidates believe they are at fault. Both sides believe their opponent started it all by lying and slinging mud, so everything they do now is justifiable. In the battle between good and evil, the stakes are too high to worry about fair play.

The next time you’re tempted to put your faith in a politician, or even, for 700 words, a columnist, google “Voyager” and “Pale Blue Dot.” You’ll see a photo of Earth taken by Voyager I from four billion miles away. The planet is tiny. On that little blue dot are billions of smaller dots, all of us running around thinking we are the center of the universe – or at least, the hero of the story.

The truth is, we’re all extras. Every last one of us.

It’s not that either Cotton or Pryor are villains. In fact, they’re both good people – good extras. But when 535 extras journey to Congress, all believing they’re the hero and all looking for dragons to slay, well, then you get the train wreck that Washington has become.

There’s a reason the Constitution’s defining principle is a limitation of power. Our government is designed to prevent the rise of even the most benevolent of dictators for fear of where that could lead.

Under the Constitution, compromise and cooperation are required to accomplish even basic governance, despite the fact that it’s bad TV. For us to think constitutionally requires us to overcome a lifetime of fictional programming, where you don’t compromise or cooperate with the villain. You defeat him, and then you get the girl.

But that’s TV, not real life. I’m not sure if today’s candidates always know the difference. I’m not sure if we voters do, either.

“That girl” makes good money as a welder

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

If you were asked to describe a welder, it probably wouldn’t be much like Tori Huggins.

The 29-year-old graduated Hendrix College in 2007 an All-American in basketball with a degree in theatre and kinesiology – and $40,000 in debt she couldn’t repay.

“I was that girl that went back to my parents’ house, living in the basement,” she said.

Many years earlier, Huggins had been singed by a spark while her dad was welding and refused to go anywhere near the activity again. But during college summer breaks, she’d done some basic welding in a boat factory in her hometown of Clinton, and she continued working there after college.

After a tornado destroyed the factory, she decided to get serious about welding and discovered she loved it. Soon she was traveling the country working in nuclear power plants and earning enough to pay off her debt in three years. She bought a car and a house in Conway.

Today, she teaches welding at the Plumbers and Pipefitters Joint Apprenticeship Center in Little Rock, a state-funded program where 12 students learn a skill that in 18 weeks will take many of them from minimum wage backgrounds to $18 an hour. She tries to encourage more women to follow her example. Classes are free and also available in Fort Smith and El Dorado. The school’s phone number is 501-562-4482.

Huggins this past Tuesday shared her story during a panel discussion at Jobs Now, a summit sponsored by the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce. Before an audience of 500, she wore a smart business suit and spoke confidently alongside her fellow big shots on stage.

The conference’s purpose was to consider ways to match unemployed and underemployed Arkansas workers, like Huggins once was, with the tens of thousands of skilled trade jobs that are remaining unfilled and those that will be available as older workers retire. Steve Williams, CEO of Maverick Transportation, said he had parked 100 18-wheelers because he couldn’t find reliable drivers. That job starts at $52,000.

Two common mentalities clearly need to go by the wayside.

One is that learning a trade is somehow inferior to going to college. Too often, young people are encouraged to make good grades so they can get a scholarship – and if they don’t go to college, well, maybe they can get a job in construction or something. Skilled tradesmen often earn higher salaries than college graduates, and their jobs require no less brainwork.

“We don’t put in nuclear powerhouses by being a bunch of idiots,” Huggins told me. “You’ve got to know offsets, you’ve got to do fractions and multiplication and all this stuff, and at times even a little bit of calculus here and there.”

The other outdated attitude is that “getting an education” means leaving home for four years after high school. Colleges and universities should be oriented toward nimbly moving students of all ages to employability in an ever-shifting economy. Moreover, as Dr. Glen Fenter, president of Mid-South Community College, said during the panel discussion with Huggins, all students should graduate high school with a job skill, not just a diploma.

Some of this is already happening – the state-funded Plumbers and Pipefitters Joint Apprenticeship Center being an example. At Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville, some students, instead of earning credit hours, obtain certificates that move them straight into jobs with Walmart and its suppliers. Many high school students take concurrent credit classes that shorten their college careers. At Maumelle High School, students declare a “pathway” and leave school with a marketable skill.

How do we get more of this? Joe Quinn, Walmart’s senior director of pubic affairs and government relations, said in the panel discussion that the next governor should make workforce development a signature issue.

Both Asa Hutchinson and Mike Ross have shared ideas on the campaign trail. Hutchinson favors economic development plans tying together high schools and two-year-colleges based on regional opportunities. Ross has called for sending reports home with eighth and 11th grade students projecting common careers and salaries when they enter the workforce. “Too many people today are going to college and getting degrees in what makes them feel good rather than where the jobs are,” Ross told school board members this summer.

That’s sort of what happened to Huggins, but in a good way. She got a degree that made her feel good, and now she has a career that makes her feel good.

Asa vs. Mike: Different, but not really

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

The race for U.S. Senate features two candidates of completely different ideologies, approaches, backgrounds and temperaments. If you believe that Sen. Mark Pryor is right, then you almost have to believe that Rep. Tom Cotton is wrong.

The race for governor between former Rep. Asa Hutchinson and former Rep. Mike Ross? Not so much. State government, as opposed to D.C. politics, tends to force both parties to the center anyway, and that’s definitely the case this year.

Friday night’s testy televised governor’s debate sponsored by KARK illustrated the candidates’ differences that are not so different. As they have throughout this campaign, they disagreed, sometimes personally, on policies but not so much on goals. You know those online roadmap programs where you type in your starting point and your destination and are presented three routes that eventually converge? One of those routes is Hutchinson, and one is Ross.

For example, Hutchinson says he wants to be the “jobs governor,” while Ross says he wants to be the “education governor.” But both men know the state needs a good education system to create jobs, and both men know it needs jobs to pay for a good education system.

Both candidates want to cut income taxes by reforming the state’s tax code, which hasn’t been modernized since 1971 and therefore places Arkansans earning only $34,000 a year in the highest tax bracket of 7 percent. Hutchinson would reduce rates for Arkansans earning from $20,400 to $75,000. Ross would raise the top tax bracket’s minimum income to $75,100, meaning it would capture fewer Arkansans. Hutchinson would implement his plan next year; Ross would phase in his over time but says his would be bigger.

Different? Sure. But either candidate could have proposed either plan.

On some other issues, the candidates largely agree. They’re both not crazy about the state spending $100 million to build another prison and would like to consider alternative sentences. They both support keeping the Governor’s Quick Action Closing Fund, which gives the governor a pile of money to use to attract employers.

Even some areas of disagreement are largely differences of degree. For example, Ross’ signature education proposal would increase state pre-kindergarten funding for four-year-olds so that it eventually covers all families with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. It currently covers families up to 200 percent but is not fully funded. Pre-K is not really Hutchinson’s thing, but he says he’d fully fund it up to 200 percent.

Those are real differences with consequences, but they don’t represent radically different visions of what the state should look like.

As for the state’s Medicaid private option, Ross is clearly a defender. Hutchinson has not said he’s against it, which means he’s mostly for it. If Ross is elected governor, he’ll probably fight Republicans in the Legislature to keep it largely as it is. If Hutchinson wins, he’ll probably work with Republican legislators to change it without trashing it. Neither would jeopardize his tax cut plan by refusing billions of federal dollars currently insuring 200,000 Arkansans.

Even their backgrounds are not that different. They both tout their modest, middle class upbringings. They both are establishment-type candidates who have spent a lot of time in Washington, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Hutchinson was elected to Congress in 1996 and then served as director of the Drug Enforcement Administration and then as under secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Ross spent 12 years in Congress. Ross is a conservative Democrat and Hutchinson is a conservative Republican, but neither are bomb-throwers.

Of course these two men are different, and they would be different governors. But if you are a Hutchinson supporter, you could probably live with Mike Ross, and vice versa. Arkansas state government under either man would look about the same, while 100 Tom Cottons in the U.S. Senate would produce very different results than 100 Mark Pryors.

School elections: big issues, few voters

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

You wouldn’t know it from all the political ads still running, but some of the most important elections in Arkansas this year have already occurred.

Those would be Tuesday’s school elections.

In Jacksonville and north Pulaski County, 95 percent of voters elected to separate from the Pulaski County Special School District, a large doughnut-shaped district that surrounds Little Rock and North Little Rock. Voters wanted more of a say in a district whose administrative offices are on the other side of the county.

That’s a big deal. Ninety-five percent of voters don’t agree on anything unless they live in North Korea. It also represents a temporary break from a historical trend of school consolidation. According to a history written by Kellar Noggle, former executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, Arkansas had 4,734 school districts in 1927. Before Tuesday, that number had shrunk to 238. Unless another consolidates before Jacksonville’s separation is complete, there will be 239.

While the Jacksonville election attracted almost 4,000 voters, turnout elsewhere was low, as always. Two competitive school board races that unseated incumbents in the 25,000-student Little Rock School District attracted a little over 1,300 voters. Before the election, Randy Zook, head of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, asked 400 Rotarians in Little Rock if they knew the date of the upcoming vote. Half a dozen raised their hands.

It’s a problem when a school board election in Little Rock is decided by a vote of 379-221. Those low numbers make it easier to manipulate an election and then manipulate policymaking. A candidate can be elected with the support of a few people with an agenda and then try to implement that agenda once in office.

The rest of this column will cover what, if anything, should be done about this low turnout. I should disclose that I publish a magazine, Report Card, in partnership with the Arkansas School Boards Association (ASBA). It is supported by advertising, and ASBA does not pay me, but I have done other work in which it has. I think I can play this straight.

It’s understandable that school board elections attract little attention. School board offices are unpaid, part-time, and nonpartisan. Most candidates don’t have the funds to advertise and attract voters’ attention – especially in a year like this when the U.S. Senate and governor’s races grab so many headlines.

If the problem is simply a lack of attention, could that be fixed? Last year, the advocacy group Arkansas Learns spent $100,000 on advertisements and automated phone calls encouraging people to vote – not for a particular candidate, just to vote – in various contested races. It made so little difference that it did not repeat the effort this year.

Arkansas Learns’ president and CEO, Gary Newton, instead favors holding school board elections in November with the other races. Doing so would result in more voters expressing their will and would reduce the potential for manipulation that can result from low turnout. The idea has been proposed in previous legislative sessions and been voted down, but it might pass in 2015. Arkansas has moved the date of school elections before. A few decades ago, they were in March.

ASBA is opposed. It says school elections should be a separate vote and that November elections would politicize a traditionally nonpartisan office. Don’t make the local banker and the local farmer running for school board compete for attention with Mark Pryor and Tom Cotton, it says. A lot of voters will just end up guessing.

I come down on ASBA’s side on this. My November ballot is already too crowded with races for U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, land commissioner, county judge, sheriff, and who knows what else. I don’t even know who some of these people are or what the offices really do.

On the other hand, I publish a quarterly magazine for school board members, and this election nearly snuck up on me as a journalist. Who thinks about voting in September?

There is one other alternative: Get rid of school boards. However, so much power in education has already moved to the state and federal levels. Unless mayors are put in charge, without school boards, there would be no local control at all.

You might argue it doesn’t really matter where school policy is made. It certainly mattered to the folks in Jacksonville.