Ethical, irresponsible behavior

By Steve Brawner
© 2017 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

If you’re one of 435 Americans who can get yourself elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, then by definition you’re probably politically astute – which makes what happened this past week all the more hard to figure.

After being handed the reins of power at just about every level of government everywhere, House Republicans made it their first order of business to replace the independent Office of Congressional Ethics with a weakened and muzzled office overseen by the House Ethics Committee – in other words, by the very Congress the office investigates. Moreover, this happened during a behind-closed-doors meeting.

Among Arkansas’ congressional delegation, Reps. French Hill and Steve Womack voted against the plan, while Rep. Rick Crawford was traveling but said later he opposed it. Rep. Bruce Westerman voted for it. All of them said reforms are needed – just not necessarily these reforms, or these reforms done this way.

The backlash against the move was immediate and included not only Democrats but also President-elect Donald Trump, who questioned the timing and priorities in a tweet that concluded with “#DTS” – in other words, “drain the swamp.” On Tuesday, hours before the full Congress was to vote on the new rules, House Republicans hastily met and voted by unanimous consent to remove the controversial provision.

Why stumble so badly so early? House Republicans had heard complaints from some of their fellow members who said they had been unfairly targeted by an office that too aggressively investigates anonymous and/or frivolous complaints. Congressmen were then forced to spend large sums of their personal money – we’re talking $100,000 – to defend themselves and try to clear their name.

As a journalist, I talk a lot to politicians, mostly at the state level but occasionally with members of Congress as well. I don’t believe most elected officials are crooks – and granted, I’m writing the first draft of this paragraph on the same day an Arkansas state legislator pleaded guilty to steering $175,000 to two organizations and receiving $38,000 in bribes in return.

I think most elected officials are OK folks whose jobs force them to make professional and moral compromises to meet unattainable, sometimes contradictory public expectations. They’re expected to stand for their beliefs but represent their constituents’ will, and they’re expected to raise millions of dollars to fund their campaigns but not to be overly influenced by those donations, which of course come from people trying to influence them.

So when all four members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation say this Office of Congressional Ethics needs to be reined in a little, I buy that, as long as it’s reined in, not gutted, as part of an open, transparent, bipartisan process. Which this wasn’t.

What’s more concerning is what Congress is planning to do in the next few months. It’s poised to repeal Obamacare without any consensus on a replacement, which could throw the entire health care system into a state of confusion and uncertainty for years. It will do so through a budget reconciliation mechanism that, as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, is pointing out, continues the grand old tradition of adding trillions to the national debt. And if it follows the president-elect’s lead and does as past Congresses have done, it soon will cut taxes without cutting spending, all while promising the difference will be bridged by future economic growth.

This behavior is perfectly legal. You might even say there’s nothing personally unethical about it. It’s just highly irresponsible. And it happens partly because of those same unattainable and contradictory expectations by voters, who tend to want easy answers without hard choices. If you’re a politician who wants to stay in office, just keep your hands out of the cookie jar, cut taxes but don’t cut spending, and find someone or something to blame so voters don’t blame you or themselves. The ones who really pay the price are members of future generations, and they don’t vote.

Members of Congress should pay a personal and financial price if they act illegally. If they act irresponsibly, they should pay a political one at the ballot box. Apparently, a handful are punished even when they haven’t acted illegally, and Congress should fix that. Few are punished when they act irresponsibly, and the voters should fix that.

Related: Please, Congress, if you cut taxes, cut spending too

When lawmakers gather, expect the unexpected

By Steve Brawner
© 2017 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The elections have mercifully ended, so now is when the actual governing begins. On Monday, 135 legislators will descend on the State Capitol and become very busy very quickly.

How busy? In the space of three months in 2015, lawmakers considered 2,063 bills and passed 1,289 of them into law.

Considering that the makeup of the Legislature isn’t that different than it was in 2015, expect similar numbers this year. Many of those laws will be technical and/or targeted and won’t affect you or me much. But some will be important and far-reaching.

What else can be expected?

– Expect medical marijuana to take up a lot of time and energy. When 53 percent of the voters passed the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment in November, it was only the first step in making the drug legal. Now legislators must flesh out the amendment with additional laws, each of which requires a two-thirds majority because they would amend a constitutional amendment. Rep. Doug House, R-North Little Rock, said legislators are considering “about 135 issues, and that’s a real number” that must be clarified or modified through legislation.

– Expect that legislators will cut taxes, but with less enthusiasm than they did in 2015. Two years ago, Gov. Asa Hutchinson easily passed a $100 million middle class income tax cut after making it the signature issue of his 2014 campaign. This year, he’s promising a smaller tax cut – $50.5 million targeted toward lower-income Arkansans, plus a tax exemption for military retiree benefits. That second tax cut would cost the state treasury $13 million, but it would be offset by the ending of various exemptions, including for manufactured homes. Other legislators might propose their own tax cuts, but expect Hutchinson to mostly get what he wants.

Regardless, he’s being cautious about cutting taxes too much, and so are many legislators. Revenues have not been meeting forecasts this year. Meanwhile, the state must for the first time pay 5 percent of the cost of the Arkansas Works program that provides health insurance for more than 300,000 Arkansans. Policymakers have been looking for savings to offset that new expense. Lawmakers also must produce a budget surplus so the state has money available to match $200 million in federal highway funds. They can’t cut spending for education without risking a lawsuit, and they must increase funding for the foster care system, which is in a crisis. And unlike Washington, D.C., Arkansas has a mechanism, the Revenue Stabilization Act, that discourages deficit spending.

– Expect the Democrats to act like a minority party and Republicans to behave like a party with an overwhelming majority. After the election and three post-election party-switchers, Republicans control 102 of the 135 seats in the Legislature – the same number controlled by Democrats in 2008. Democrats know they’ll be the minority for a long time, so with nothing much left to lose, they’ll more aggressively contrast themselves with the Republicans. Republicans, meanwhile, don’t even need Democrats in the House of Representatives, where they control 76 of the 100 seats, enough to pass anything with a three-fourths majority. The numbers are so lopsided that many of the meaningful conflicts will be not between Republicans and Democrats, but between Republicans and other Republicans.

– Expect some heat. It’s a safe bet that legislators will debate controversial social issues that grab a lot of attention and attract sign-carriers to the Capitol steps in a way that tax cuts never do. Bills already have been filed to restrict abortion, and Hutchinson says one of his 19 priorities is ending Arkansas’ practice of honoring civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King and Civil War General Robert E. Lee on the same day. Only two other states do that. Hutchinson would move Lee’s day from January to the fall. An effort to separate the commemorations failed in 2015.

– Finally, expect the unexpected. As Hutchinson said in a December press conference, “With my vast experience in legislative sessions – one – I can feel confident that there will be some surprises. There will be some unanticipated legislation. There will be some unanticipated controversies, and you just deal with those a step at a time.”

That’s a pretty safe expectation when 135 legislators and a governor gather in Little Rock to debate 2,000 bills and pass 1,300 laws in three months.

2016 wasn’t so bad

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

More than a few people are expressing their hopes for a happy new year by saying good riddance to the old – the basis being that they aren’t happy with the presidential election, along with the fact that a lot of famous people died in 2016, especially lately.

The truth is that famous people die every year, and it’s not the year’s fault. Also, whatever you think about the election, the good news is that we had one.

Consider that on March 1, almost 632,000 Arkansans went to the polls to help select the two major party candidates. Then in November, about 1.13 million Arkansans voted in the general election for one of those two candidates or for one of six others. In January, the current president will peacefully hand the Oval Office’s keys to his successor and become a private citizen, while the new president takes the reins of power only temporarily.

This process is fairly common around the world these days but rare throughout history, when power has often been transferred through war or intrigue or birthright. George Washington came along and just gave power up. As flawed as it was, the 2016 presidential election was a blessing, not a curse, when you consider many of the possible alternatives. As Winston Churchill once said, “Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

In fact, the 2016 campaign in some ways was remarkably open and democratic. The Republicans offered 17 candidates for president, each of whom had ample opportunities to make their case to the voters. Donald Trump won in part because he inspired first-time or infrequent voters to go to the polls. The Democrats offered the first female major party nominee, and her gender was not the defining issue. Third party candidates were treated, at least for a time, as candidates, not asterisks.

The campaign gave a shot of adrenaline to a political process that has grown predictable and stale. This time, the usual left-versus-right narrative simply didn’t apply. Both Trump and Bernie Sanders gave voice to legitimate concerns about global trade and the unevenness of the economic recovery. Moreover, they made their cases largely through oratory and direct communication rather than formulaic 30-second television advertising, which has been the norm. In November, the candidate who raised a lot less money and ran far fewer ads won by using tools that are at least theoretically available to others: a message that drew crowds and media attention, and social media.

Here’s where some of you say, “But Trump …”

I know, and I share many of your concerns. I voted for John Kasich in the Republican primary and the independent Evan McMullin in November – two candidates I believed offered positive, unifying visions. But, for one column, let’s look on the bright side, or at least all sides. It’s wrong to look at the world through rose-colored glasses, but it’s also a mistake to reach for the gray ones instead. In fact, it’s worse.

It wasn’t just in national politics where 2016 wasn’t so bad. In Arkansas, the Legislature met three times and along with Gov. Hutchinson produced tangible results in health care and highway funding. The unemployment rate in Arkansas is about 4 percent, which is far below the national average. Granted, that’s partly a result of the high number of former workers who have dropped out of the labor force, but clearly things are better than they were.

The Charles Dickens novel, “A Tale of Two Cities” begins with the words, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Based on the way so many people talk these days – and have been for the past decade or two – you’d think these are just the worst of times. Let’s be realists, not cynics. By many measurements, Americans live better than 99 percent of all people who have ever lived.

So may we each have a happy new year while keeping the right perspective on the old one. Maybe it wasn’t the best of times, but the times certainly weren’t the worst.

Bathrooms at the Capitol

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

When the Legislature meets in regular session starting in mid-January, Gov. Asa Hutchinson wants to cut taxes, increase funding for the state’s foster care system, and change the way colleges and universities are funded.

What he does not want is a bathroom bill.

Hutchinson does not want Arkansas to have the same experience as North Carolina. There, the city of Charlotte passed a broad gay rights ordinance which included a provision allowing individuals to use bathrooms based on their gender identity. The state Legislature then passed a bill repealing it and prohibiting all other cities from enacting their own local gay rights ordinances. Attracting the most attention was a provision whereby the state became the first to require individuals to use bathrooms corresponding to the gender listed on their birth certificate, a listing the legislation allowed those individuals to change.

That law made North Carolina ground zero for this latest culture war battle. Entertainers and, more importantly, big businesses expressed their disapproval. The NCAA pulled championship tournaments, the NBA cancelled an All-Star Game, and the company Paypal scuttled a plan to expand there. The Republican governor in November lost to his Democratic challenger – which didn’t happen in many places. A deal was made with the city of Charlotte where both the local ordinance and the state law would be repealed, but the Legislature voted Dec. 21 to keep the law in place.

While all of this was going on, the Obama administration released a heavy-handed “guidance” to every public school in the nation strongly encouraging them – underline “strongly” – to allow students to use restrooms and locker rooms conforming to their gender identity.

When that guidance was released, Hutchinson reacted by telling schools they should ignore it and make their own decisions. But he does not want Arkansas to become embroiled in a North Carolina-like controversy while he’s trying to court businesses from elsewhere.

He said in a press conference Dec. 20 that he has had “a lot of discussion” with legislators in hopes of keeping the focus on other areas. His view is that the issue is now being considered by the court system, that the Trump administration should be less intrusive than President Obama’s, that Arkansas doesn’t seem to have a big problem with bathroom controversies at the moment, and that, when it comes to schools, local administrators and school boards can handle this kind of thing without any edicts from above.

If anyone were to sponsor a bathroom bill, it would seem to be Rep. Bob Ballinger, R-Hindsville. The legislator sponsored the controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2015. Supporters said it was meant to protect business owners from having to violate their consciences by requiring them, for example, to participate in a gay wedding. Opponents said it allowed more discrimination.

Ballinger said recently that he does not intend to file a general bathroom bill and does not know of anyone who does, but he can’t speak for 134 other legislators. Instead, he’s looking at more specific bills – for example, one that targets acts of indecent exposure in bathrooms, and one that increases the penalties for taking photographs of victims in stalls.

“There’s some things like that, that I expect that we’ll probably address simply because we have a change in culture, and with a change in culture you’ve got to have laws that are consistent with it in order to protect the public,” he said.

That’s a better way to handle it, at least for now, than some far-reaching bill. Address harms on which most of us should agree. Anyone want to defend indecent exposure and unwanted picture-taking in the bathroom? Meanwhile, avoid a humongous controversy until one might be necessary.

The whole bathroom debate took an ugly turn in 2016 and played a bigger role in the elections than it’s being given credit for. Maybe 2017 will offer more clarity through the new presidential administration or a court decision. Maybe society will come to a reasonable consensus that respects everyone’s vulnerabilities without the federal government telling every establishment in the land what their bathrooms have to look like – and without any level of government adding “patrol bathrooms” to the list of police officers’ duties. Maybe it will become more commonplace for establishments to have only single-toilet, gender-neutral restrooms with locking doors. We’ll have to stand in line longer sometimes, but we’ll have more privacy.

Whatever happens, may we all just go to the bathroom in peace. Happy 2017.

The six voters who mattered

Arkansans hold signs imploring electors not to vote for Trump.

Arkansans hold signs imploring electors not to vote for Trump.

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

The campaign that began a year and a half ago finally, mercifully ended Monday in the Capitol’s Old Supreme Courtroom, when the only six Arkansans who ultimately mattered in this presidential election one by one said firmly and clearly, “Donald J. Trump.”

Those six were Arkansas’ electors who, in the previous month, had been the subjects of a campaign themselves. Keith Gibson of Fort Smith said he received 70,000 emails, along with 100 handwritten letters and about a dozen phone calls. Most were from out of state and many were just copies sent to other electors with his name inserted, and those didn’t demand much of his attention. But many were personal, emotional and sincere as they pleaded with him not to vote for Trump. Mom was right; he paid closest attention to the handwritten ones.

The campaign to change the electors’ minds occurred because, while they were pledged to Trump, they could vote for whomever they wanted regardless of that little exercise involving 1.13 million Arkansas voters Nov. 8.

Did any of it make a difference? No, but Gibson did listen.

“What I can say is that I read the letters and considered the position of those who asked me not to do that, but I don’t think I ever came to a point where I said I will not do that, I will vote for someone else,” he said. “I never reached that point.”

In the courtroom were about 40 protestors sitting quietly, many of them holding handmade signs. “Our forefathers planned for this day,” read one sign, while another encouraged the electors to vote for Ohio Governor John Kasich, who managed only 3.72 percent of the vote, including mine, in Arkansas’ May primary.

Billy Marshall of Malvern held a sign saying, “I’m sorry I voted for Trump. Save America.” He said he had voted for Trump because, “Like everybody else did, I guess, make America great.” But events since the election had changed his mind, including the involvement of the Russians and Trump’s cabinet appointments.

“What I’ve seen, he lied through his teeth,” he said. “He’s not even keeping up with what he said he was going to do.”’

The electors made their selection while sitting in the old justices’ chairs, which sit regally several feet above the rest of the courtroom. They were separated from the sign carriers by a distance of 10 yards and by a wooden railing.

The gap between what they were doing and what the sign carriers wanted them to do was much wider, but Gibson and several of the electors tried to bridge it. Prior to the vote, they approached the protestors and spoke sympathetically with Suzanne Scherer of Fayetteville, who voted for Hillary Clinton and wanted them to do the same.

“I long for the day when we can have cordial dialogue again, where both sides can participate in a meaningful debate without hating each other,” Gibson told me he said to the protestors that day.

Despite their earlier conversation, after the votes were cast for Trump and his running mate Mike Pence, Scherer said loud enough to be heard, “You voted for a facist.” “President! He’s our president!” replied a man not carrying a sign from the other side of the room. At that point, Secretary of State Mark Martin announced that anyone else who spoke out would be escorted from the room. “You voted for a homophobe,” said a woman, and she was led out by Capitol police.

This is the second time in five elections that the winner of the popular vote lost the election. We’re told that’s a non-issue because the wishes of voters in small, rural states like Arkansas were protected against the potential power of those Left Coast Californians who happen to be on the wrong side of the not-one-person-one-vote system. And if something would have happened since Nov. 8 that unquestionably called Trump’s legitimacy into question – and goodness knows what that would have to be – the electors would have served as the nation’s reserve parachute.

So six Arkansans voted for Donald J. Trump based on the wishes of 684,872 voters who cast ballots for him Nov. 8. We could do better and we could do worse, but we’re not going to do anything different any time soon. So after this long, bitter campaign, let’s try some of that cordial dialogue and meaningful debate Gibson was talking about, without hating each other.

Related: Every county is purple.