Five races to watch in May

Alabama, blue wave, school boards, Hixson, BreanneReady to vote again?

Arkansas’ party primaries are May 22, and that’s when many of the most interesting and competitive races will be, rather than in the November general election.

What are the races to watch? Depends on where you live, but let’s focus on five.

Governor’s race: A contrast

In the governor’s race, Gov. Asa Hutchinson faces a challenge from Jan Morgan. The governor is popular statewide and had $2 million banked as of his last campaign finance report. Morgan, a political newcomer, has little money.

But Morgan has an anti-establishment, Trumpian appeal. The Hot Springs shooting range owner who banned Muslims from her business knows how to call attention to herself. She’ll be able to run to Hutchinson’s right on guns, probably the most important issue in a Republican primary. Primaries attract low turnouts with more restless, dogmatic voters. That means an officeholder, even one with widespread general support, can be taken down by a small percentage of the electorate.

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Is Lake View dead?

Lake ViewFor the past quarter century, Arkansas’ education policies – indeed, all state spending – have been framed by the Lake View school funding lawsuit. That may have changed, and we just don’t know it yet.

Let’s start with the background. The Lake View School District No. 25 v. Huckabee case began in 1992, when the small, poor Lake View school district sued the state. It argued that the state was violating the Arkansas Constitution’s requirement to “ever maintain a general, suitable and efficient” education system. The courts agreed that Arkansas had failed to provide “adequate” and “equitable” schools.

During the next 15 years, the case fundamentally changed Arkansas until it finally ended in 2007. Education became accepted as a state responsibility rather than a local one. The state poured money into schools while other states were cutting funding. Schools always were funded first, which meant other priorities shared what was left. Policymakers were reluctant to get too creative with a funding formula they knew was safely constitutional. No one wanted another lawsuit.

Here’s what’s changed since Lake View

But Lake View may not be so influential in the future, for two reasons. Continue reading →

NCAA athletes: How to pay, not whether

The current college basketball scandal may have been caused by the fact that we’re asking the wrong question. Instead of asking “whether” athletes should be compensated, it should be, “how best to.”

On Friday, Yahoo! Sports reported that the FBI is investigating more than 20 programs for rules infractions by sports agent ASM Sports. These range from five-figure gifts for players to, in many cases, just a meal. Caught up in the scandal are some of the country’s top programs, including (shocker!) the University of Kentucky.

Then over last weekend, the news broke that the FBI had wiretapped University of Arizona coach Sean Miller’s phone conversations where he allegedly discussed paying a top freshman $100,000 to sign with the school. Miller strongly maintains his innocence.

The stories are casting a pall over college basketball at a time when the talk is usually about who will make the NCAA Tournament and partake in March Madness. Continue reading →

School boards head to the big ballot

Alabama, blue wave, school boardsIf you’re like most voters in Arkansas, you rarely if ever cast a ballot in school board elections. This May and November, that will start to change.

That’s because the Legislature last year voted to require school districts to choose between holding elections to coincide either with the May primaries or the November general elections. Because of that, school board candidates are filing for office now alongside candidates in other races.

Previously, school elections were in September, when few voters were interested or often even realized elections were occurring.

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Let 16-year-olds vote so they can defend themselves – against us

vote, Mark Moore, 16-year-oldsThe legal voting age since 1971 has been 18. Maybe that should be the maximum instead of the minimum, at least for a few election cycles.

I write that at age 48 after observing young people lately interact with the world created by supposedly responsible voting-age adults.

Exhibit A is the students at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who escaped from a mass killer while 17 of their classmates and educators didn’t. The killer, a clearly troubled 19-year-old, had purchased his military-style weapon almost as easily as he later purchased a drink at Subway after his rampage ended.

We adults refuse to do much about this. So the students are. Continue reading →