Tom Cotton and criminal justice reform’s FIRST STEP

Tom CottonBy Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

In politics, it’s often not about who’s right and who’s wrong. Instead, it’s often about who’s more right. Which brings us to Sen. Tom Cotton and the FIRST STEP Act.

President Trump signed the criminal justice reform act into law Dec. 21, a day after the House passed it 358-36. Previously, the Senate had passed it 87-12. Cotton was the most vocal opponent among the 12 (and the 36). The rest of Arkansas’ congressional delegation voted yes.

Politics makes strange bedfellows. Advocates across the political spectrum supported the law, including Charles and David Koch, the ultra-wealthy, conservative activists, and the American Civil Liberties Union. President Trump supported it, but according to insider news reports, it was his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the son of an ex-federal inmate, who really pushed it. Continue reading →

The year’s top posts

Happy new year! Here are independentarkansas’ most-read posts from 2018.

Jim Hendren Joyce Elliott

How to disagree agreeably about the NFL anthem controversy. Here’s how Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, a conservative Republican Senate leader, and Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, who grew up in segregated schools, handle their differences on that hot-button issue. By far the year’s top-performing post.

Your pharmacist doesn’t want to see you now. Read how changes in pharmacy benefit manager disbursements left Arkansas druggists struggling to turn a profit. Legislators later met in special session to address the issue, but you can bet it won’t go away.

Why five legislators are going to jail. Another one has since been indicted, and the investigation is continuing.

Project Zero

How one video changed a life. A report by KTHV’s Dawn Scott led one couple to provide a home for a young man who needed a family. It’s the fourth-biggest performing post despite being online less than three weeks.


11 expectations, but not quite predictions, for the new year

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

This is the part of the calendar when columnists sometimes make predictions for the new year. Let’s be up front about one thing: I can’t predict the future.

That said, here are 11 expectations for 2019.

– Tax cuts. They’re happening in Arkansas. Gov. Asa Hutchinson wants to cut the top rate from 6.9 percent to 5.9 percent. He sees it as a competitiveness issue with other states. On Dec. 7, he told the Arkansas School Boards Association that the governor of Massachusetts “gasped” when Hutchinson told him how high our state’s rate is.

– Health care. The big controversy in Arkansas is over the requirement that some recipients of the Arkansas Works health insurance program must report they are working or engaging in other productive activities. That controversy will end early next year when a federal judge rules against that requirement. He’s already ruled against a similar one in Kentucky. If that happens while the Legislature is debating funding the division that runs the program, opponents will use it as ammunition to try to kill it, as they have in the past. But ultimately, Arkansas Works will be funded.

– Highways. The Legislature will refer to voters a ballot initiative for 2020 that primarily relies on raising diesel taxes and extending the half-cent sales tax funding the Connecting Arkansas Program. Continue reading →

For one teacher, following her calling has its rewards

Tasha Wilson

Tasha Wilson reacts to receiving a Milken Educator Award.

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Kingsland Elementary second grade teacher Tasha Wilson received an early Christmas present Nov. 30 – $25,000 for doing her job well.

The award came from the Milken Family Foundation, which this year recognized 40 mid-career educators nationwide. Seventy-four Arkansans have received the award since its creation in 1987. Wilson was the only one this year.

Dr. Jane Foley, Milken Educator Awards senior vice president, made the surprise announcement after traveling from California to Kingsland, a south Arkansas town that’s also the birthplace of Johnny Cash. Students and teachers had been told they were assembling to celebrate Kingsland Elementary being one of three Arkansas schools named a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education. Then Foley made the big reveal. Continue reading →

Obamacare ruling: Next 20 years more important than next two

Seema Verna

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verna hands a waiver to Gov. Asa Hutchinson allowing the state to require Arkansas Works recipients to work. Hutchinson opposes Obamacare but has championed the Arkansas Works program created as a result of the law.

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

How significant was the federal judge’s ruling last week that Obamacare is unconstitutional? We might not know for another two years, but the bigger question is, what happens in the next 20?

The judge ruled in a lawsuit that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional because the U.S. Supreme Court’s original reasoning could no longer stand.

Back in 2013, the Supremes ruled the individual mandate to buy health insurance is constitutional because the penalty for not doing so is a “tax.”

In December, Congress repealed the penalty when it passed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. A Texas-led coalition of 20 states, including Arkansas under Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, sued arguing that without the penalty, there’s no tax, which means Obamacare itself is no longer constitutional.

Texas Judge Reed O’Connor agreed, though he did not issue an injunction, which means nothing happens while the ruling is under appeal. Now the case winds its way through the system, perhaps ending at the Supreme Court. Continue reading →