Arkansas Politics and Government

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 arkansas p...

Author: Diane D. Blair Irrevocable Trust | Jay Barth

67 downloads 2327 Views 4MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!

Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

arkansas politics and government

[First Page] [-1], (1)

Lines: 0 to 14 ——— *

455.76pt P

——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Page [-1], (1)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics and Governments of the American States General Editor John Kincaid Robert B. and Helen S. Meyner Professor of Government and Public Service, Lafayette College Founding Editor Daniel J. Elazar Published by the University of Nebraska Press in association with the Center for the Study of Federalism at the Robert B. and Helen S. Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government, Lafayette College

[-2], (2)

Lines: 14 t ——— *

304.256

——— Normal Pa * PgEnds: Pa [-2], (2)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

diane d. blair and jay barth

Arkansas Politics and Government

*

6

second edition

*P

university of nebraska press lincoln and london

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

© 2005 by the University of Nebraska Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America ⬁ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Blair, Diane D., 1938– Arkansas politics and government / Diane D. Blair and Jay Barth. — 2nd ed. p. cm.—(Politics and governments of the American states) Rev. ed. of: Arkansas politics & government. c1988. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8032-6198-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Arkansas—Politics and government. I. Barth, Jay, 1966– . II. Blair, Diane D., 1938– . Arkansas politics & government. III. Title. IV. Series. jk5116.b42 2005 320.9767—dc22 2004018016 Set in Times by Kim Essman. Printed by Edwards Brothers, Inc.

*

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

For Jim, my best teacher about Arkansas politics, and about most other things as well D. D. B. For Diane D. Blair, friend and mentor W. J. B.

*

3

*P

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

contents

List of Tables, Maps, and Figures, ix Preface to the Second Edition, xi Acknowledgments, xv one The Past in the Present, 1

[First Page] [-7], (1)

two Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations, 18

Lines: 0 to 51

three Traditional Politics and Its Transformation, 35

-5.5pt PgV

four Contemporary Political Patterns, 60 five Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties in Contemporary Arkansas, 95 six The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups, 116 seven The Constitution: Provisions and Politics, 135 eight The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch, 156 nine The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch, 186 ten The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch, 222 eleven Arkansas in the Federal System: Cooperation and Conﬂict, 250

——— ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [-7], (1)

viii Contents

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

twelve Politics at the Grassroots: How Democratic?, 271 thirteen The Politics of State Services, 293 fourteen Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics, 334 fifteen For the Future: Suggested Sources, 364 Notes, 383 Index, 475

[-8], (2)

Lines: 51 t ——— *

342.61p

——— Normal Pa * PgEnds: Pa [-8], (2)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

tables, maps, and figures

tables 1. Arkansas and the Nation, 1930, 14 2. Racial Composition of Arkansas’s Population, 1830–1860, 23 3. Voter Turnout in Arkansas and the Nation, 1948–2000, 50 4. Democratic Gubernatorial Campaign Expenditures, 1946, 1982, and 1994, 54 5. Party Identiﬁcation of Arkansas Voters, 98 6. Competitiveness of Arkansas Legislative Elections, 1974–1984, 1998–2002, 195 7. Party Composition of the Arkansas General Assembly, 205 8. Educational Effort in Arkansas and the Nation, 1900–2000, 324 maps 1. Arkansas Regions and Rivers, 19 2. Percentage of Voting-Age Population That Voted, by County, 1972, 1980, and 2000, 52 3. Arkansas Congressional Districts, 2001, 63 4. Ozark, Urban, and Delta Counties, 80 5. Counties Carried by Republican Gubernatorial and Presidential Candidates, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1980, 1984, 1990, 1992, 1998, and 2000, 81 6. Percentage of Population Growth in Arkansas Counties, 1990–2000, 83 7. Natural Regions of Arkansas and Percentage of Black Population, 2000, 86 8. “Rural Swing” Counties, 91 9. Counties Won by Candidates in the U.S. Senate and Governor’s Races in Arkansas, 2002, 355 figures 1. Arkansas Court System, 226

[-9], (3)

Lines: 63 to 1 ———

-9.86002p

——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Page [-9], (3)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

[-10], (4)

Lines: 121 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [-10], (4)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Preface to the Second Edition

[-11], (5) Generations of students and scholars of the politics of the South have looked to V. O. Key’s Southern Politics in State and Nation as the jumping-off point for their investigations since that seminal work was published in the middle of the last century. So too since its 1988 publication has Diane D. Blair’s Arkansas Politics and Government served as the beginning of the journey for those seeking a better understanding of the politics and government of Arkansas. Diane’s analyses of the state’s electoral and interest-group dynamics, the governmental structure as framed by the state’s constitution, the internal processes of the institutions of state government, Arkansas’s place within the federal system, the workings of local government, and the most important areas of state public policy have been the starting point for scholarly analysis or well-informed conversations about any of those topics. Thus, though I felt immensely complimented both personally and professionally by Diane’s invitation to co-author the second edition after she became ill in 2000, an element of palpable intimidation also accompanied the opportunity. I was able to partly overcome that anxiety by the experience I had gained in my previous collaborations with Diane, which taught us that there was a general synchrony between our understanding of the most productive ways to analyze Arkansas politics and our writing styles. I hope that the conﬁdence I have consequently brought to this revision is not ill placed and that this edition of Diane’s book is one that would have pleased her. Although the ﬁrst edition of Arkansas Politics and Government remains so fundamentally insightful about the dynamics and structures of the state’s governmental system, too much has happened over the past decade and a half for it to remain completely useful for students and scholars attempting

Lines: 122 to ———

1.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [-11], (5)

xii Preface to the Second Edition

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

to understand Arkansas politics and government of the early twenty-ﬁrst century. The departure of the potent Democratic vote-getters who had controlled the state’s politics while the remainder of the South veered Republican, the election of one of those Democrats as a two-term U.S. president, fundamental structural changes in two of the three branches of government through constitutional amendment that have had dramatic effects on public policymaking in the state, and numerous consequential demographic and economic changes—all have compelled readers of the ﬁrst edition to ask at any number of spots, “Well, is that still true?” This edition attempts to address the questions raised by these, and many other, shifts in Arkansas politics and government and bring into the analysis the signiﬁcant amount of excellent research that scholars have completed on Arkansas politics and American state and local government more generally since the publication of the ﬁrst edition. However, though all of these consequential issues are dealt with in the pages of this text, as the subtitle of this edition of the book indicates, it grapples with the same, still equally pertinent overarching “enigma” laid out in Diane’s preface to the ﬁrst edition. For most of Arkansas’s history, most of its citizens were hardworking and hard-pressed farmers, struggling for subsistence against formidable odds. For all of its history as a state, Arkansas has had democratic institutions through which this majority should have been able to elect sympathetic ofﬁcials, demand attention and assistance, and hold the government accountable. Yet this kind of demand and response has been a rare event rather than a routine occurrence. Anyone with even the most superﬁcial acquaintance with Arkansas knows that its people have always been ﬁerce in the protection of what is theirs, quick to take offense against slight or injury. And yet, despite the state’s proud motto of “Regnat Populus” (the people rule), little evidence could be found in the nineteenth century or for most of the twentieth of either popular assertion of just demands or government provision of necessary and useful services. Indeed, for most of Arkansas’s statehood, state government’s relationship to its people seemed to range from irrelevant to injurious. The modern era has brought profound political change. There are obvious light-years of difference between a state government that once spent virtually nothing on schools or roads or health and the one that now spends over three billion dollars annually on these and other services. A similarly vast polarity lies between Governor John Roane (1849–52) asserting, “I am convinced, after careful investigation into the history of the common school, that no possible good can come of it or ever can result to the state or any considerable proportion of the people,” and the past three governors choosing to stump

[-12], (6)

Lines: 138 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [-12], (6)

Preface to the Second Edition xiii

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

the state on behalf of excellence in education and between Governor Jeff Davis (1901–7) boasting that “nigger domination will never prevail in this country . . . as long as shotguns and riﬂes lie around loose and we are able to pull the trigger” and Governor Winthrop Rockefeller (1967–70) leading the singing of “We Shall Overcome” on the capitol steps after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.1 If, as one of Arkansas’s earliest observers reported, “Arkansas will have longer to struggle with the disadvantages that attend to it . . . than other frontier states,” abundant evidence suggests that Arkansas has at last begun to struggle.2 And, though this work is marginally less optimistic than the ﬁrst edition in this regard, those struggles are occasionally now successful. For the political scientist, however, and for all serious students of politics, these visible, dramatic symbols of change provoke as many questions as they answer: Why did attentive and useful state government take so long to evolve? Are the changes, obvious to even the most casual contemporary observer, fundamental changes in substance or superﬁcial changes in symbol and style? Have a representative political system and a responsive state government actually been achieved? And if so, have they been secured? Readers familiar with this book’s ﬁrst edition will recognize only minimal changes to certain chapters but many alterations in others. Some topics, indeed, required dramatic shifts in the way the political phenomena or institutions are analyzed. But, in testimony to the excellence of Diane’s work, those readers will also note that the general framework of this work is the same as that of the ﬁrst edition. In chapter 1 we explore the large questions just raised and also document, through a narrative overview, the extent to which state government has been as much an afﬂiction as an aid to most Arkansas citizens for much of the state’s history. In chapter 2 we offer some social, economic, and political explanations for the curious acquiescence of Arkansas’s people in this ineffectual kind of government. The traditional way of doing politics in Arkansas is described in chapter 3, and the various forces that ushered in the contemporary political system are explored. In chapters 4 and 5 we analyze the results of those changes as they are reﬂected in campaigns, elections, parties, and the increasingly regional nature of voting behavior. Chapter 6 deals with interest groups, which have become an integral part of contemporary politics. Whether changes in the political system have produced equally signiﬁcant changes in actual governance is the subject examined in chapters 7 through 10, which deal with the constitution and the executive, legislative, and

[-13], (7)

Lines: 142 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [-13], (7)

xiv Preface to the Second Edition

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

judicial branches of government. Since some of the most important state governmental decisions are made in response to, or reaction against, policies emanating from the national government, the cooperative and combative aspects of Arkansas’s federal relationships will be explored in chapter 11. Though the focus of this study is state politics and governance, the public affairs transacted by Arkansas’s counties and cities have equally profound consequences for its citizens, as chapter 12 makes clear. To further test whether political changes and institutional reforms have had major substantive impact, we examine in chapter 13 the changing politics of state taxing and spending as well as the state’s long (and ongoing) struggle with public education policies. In chapter 14, we offer an overview of the major characteristics of contem[-14], (8) porary politics and government in Arkansas, and of the political future they seem to portend. In chapter 15 we suggest some of the best sources for further research. This is a critical chapter because serious examination of Arkansas’s Lines: 150 political system remains in its early stages, despite the outstanding research ——— completed during the past decade and a half. * 124.98p At the close of my preface, I must reiterate the warning and invitation ——— offered in Diane’s preface to the ﬁrst edition: Normal Pa Arkansas voters are notorious for quickly confounding any assertions about * PgEnds: Pa their expected behavior; and the hundreds of “experts” on Arkansas politics who populate every courthouse, campus, and coffee shop in Arkansas (from many of whom [we] have learned much and drawn freely) will be swift in exposing the ﬂaws in [our] analysis. Since such dialogue is essential to democratic health and further learning, it will be welcome. And when error is exposed, all of us “experts” on Arkansas politics can take refuge in the immortal words of one of Arkansas’s past political masters: “Just because I said it doesn’t make it so.”3

[-14], (8)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Acknowledgments

[-15], (9) Most fundamentally, of course, I acknowledge the mentoring in analyzing and in livingArkansas politics that Diane D. Blair gave me during the years in which we were friends and colleagues. I will forever value the conversations about this work that Diane and I had in the last months of her life. It was a collaborative occasion that allowed me to interact with Diane in a manner that was much closer to the way we interacted before her illness than most of her friends were able to enjoy during those months. The opportunity to complete this project has given me one of the best learning experiences of my life but, more importantly, the chance to work with Diane for months after she was no longer with us in body. (The numerous notes from Diane— some of which forced me to learn at least the basics of the shorthand she often wrote with—I found buried in ﬁles as my work on this book continued often brought a smile to my face.) I thank Jim Blair, Bill Kincaid, and the rest of Diane’s family for supporting me in completing this project. Diane was not the only mentor whom I lost during the time I worked on this project. During the 2000–2001 academic year, the American Political Science Association’s Steiger Congressional Fellowship gave me the opportunity to work in the U.S. Senate for Senator Paul David Wellstone. Paul taught me much about public service, the way that legislative actions improve or worsen the lives of those living far away from Washington (or Little Rock), and the study of politics. I miss Paul and Sheila Wellstone’s friendship tremendously. Paul was not my only teacher during my time in Washington. The Wellstone staff members with whom I worked, particularly Jill Morningstar, taught me much about the skills needed to analyze public policy, which helped shape portions of this work, as well as about the importance of

Lines: 163 to ———

1.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [-15], (9)

xvi Acknowledgments

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

maintaining passion and commitment in one’s work in politics and government. I thank all of the Wellstone staffers—as well as the many staff members in other ofﬁces with whom I worked on education and civil rights policy—for the kindness they showed me during that year, and I thank the American Political ScienceAssociation for providing me with that wonderful opportunity. Grant Cox, my research assistant throughout the completion of this second edition, proved himself to be a wonderful young scholar to work with. His steadiness and diligence in his work, his attention to detail, and his grand sense of humor combined to make him a perfect research assistant. This task would have been immeasurably more difﬁcult without Grant’s work and support. I wish to thank the Committee on Faculty Grants at Hendrix College whose funding helped to support Grant’s work during the summer of 2002. Heather Miles was Diane’s research assistant on the ﬁrst edition of this book; her hard work continues to reveal itself here. Several individuals with expertise in areas covered by this work showed their generosity by taking the time to read and critique portions of the manuscript during its formative stages. I am deeply indebted to Roby Brock, Arthur Burris, Chuck Cliett, Ernie Dumas, Art English, Margie Ferguson, Brian Greer, Janine Parry, Bill Schreckise, Baxter Sharp, Jeff Smith, and Robert Wright for the feedback that improved this work. Of course, any errors of fact or interpretation herein are those of this author. A number of librarians provided tremendous assistance in this research. I want to thank in particular Dr. Elizabeth Danley and Ola Fluces at the Arkansas State Library and Amanda Moore, Peggy Morrison, and Britt Anne Murphy at Bailey Library at Hendrix College for their help in tracking down information that greatly shaped these pages. Also of major assistance in certain sections of the work were Roger Potts at Arkansas Legislative Digest; Ed Tucker and Richard Wilson at the Bureau of Legislative Research; Keith Caviness, John Millar, and Karolyn Bond at the Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts; and Cindy Bowling. Showing the best of Arkansas, various other state and city employees answered discrete questions with kindness and patience, removing stumbling blocks to my work. Many individuals provided assistance that is less directly reﬂected in the particular words on these pages, but crucial to ensuring that these words appeared at all. I must single out Mark Henry for the tremendous support he gave this endeavor. Mark and his law partner at that time, Tim Cullen, allowed me to “rent” ofﬁce space for two and a half years. In addition to

[-16], (10)

Lines: 175 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[-16], (10)

Acknowledgments xvii

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

the physical space they gave me and my piles of newspaper clips and other materials, the good cheer of everyone at the Henry & Cullen Law Firm made my work signiﬁcantly more enjoyable. I also thank Gary Dunham and others at the University of Nebraska Press for their patience and assistance, and especially their help with the transition of authors in the middle of this project. Several of my co-authors on other projects—Margie Ferguson, Marvin Overby, and Zoe Oxley—showed more patience than I would have in waiting for me to complete projects delayed by my work on this book. A number of colleagues at Hendrix College have been incredibly supportive of my commitment to maintaining a research agenda. I must single out Mark Schantz, Ian King, Allison Shutt, Stella Capek, Bob Entzminger, and Alex Vernon for special thanks in this regard. Robin Hartwick, the social science area secretary at Hendrix, has been a mainstay for me; her assistance with numerous of my other tasks helped give me mental room to work on this book. Alex Vernon and Michelle Kaemmerling also provided important retreats from this book with their good conversation, often over enchiladas and salsa. I cannot thank enough the students at Hendrix College who have brought such joy to my professional and personal life through their enthusiasm for the study of politics and for their deep civility and kindness to me. The academic skill of the students with whom I have had the opportunity to work in my life as a professor is evidenced by the fact that several works written by them are cited in this book. The fact that several of those writings have been published shows that others have also recognized the quality of their work. Dozens of other students have provided less tangible inspiration to me by keeping mine that relatively rare kind of job that truly makes me want to drive to work (almost) every day. As it happens, I met Chuck Cliett just weeks after taking on this project. His interest in hearing me talk about this book as we toured the Lyndon B. Johnson Ranch just hours after ﬁrst meeting was a good omen for our relationship. That he has remained unfailingly interested in and supportive of my work on it—despite the hours it has taken me away from him—is only one of the signs of how wonderful a partner he is. Finally, my mother and maternal grandparents have given their loving support to all that I have undertaken in my life, including this project. With time, I have also come to realize that they have much to do with my interest in Arkansas politics and in public service. I was being toted around to campaign events before I can even remember and, soon thereafter,

[-17], (11)

Lines: 185 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [-17], (11)

xviii Acknowledgments

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

was being voluntarily taken to county party committee meetings, the nightbefore-the-primary political speeches on the grounds of the Saline County Courthouse, and city board meetings. And, in any variety of ways, my family members were constantly engaged in or talking about public service of some sort, showing me that government at all levels can make Arkansans’ lives better (or worse). But, more than a love of politics and an awareness of the importance of public service, they have given me love. Jay Barth

[-18], (12)

Lines: 193 ——— *

400.840

——— Normal Pa * PgEnds: Pa

[-18], (12)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

arkansas politics and government

[-19], (13)

Lines: 197 to ——— *

455.76pt P

——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Page [-19], (13)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

[-20], (14)

Lines: 204 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[-20], (14)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter one

The Past in the Present [First Page] [1], (1) The room was being crowded by incoming ballot boxes. Countrymen, most of them sweat-soaked and ragged and old, were bringing in boxes from rural precincts; wooden boxes, tin boxes, now and then a cigar box or egg crate. Voice of the people. Charles M. Wilson, Rabble Rouser, 1936 I have got my ﬁrst time to see any of them vote for a measure that truly had the interests of the people at heart. State Senator, 1901

On September 25, 1997, before a cheering crowd of seventy-ﬁve hundred spectators gathered in front of Little Rock’s Central High, the president of the United States, the governor of Arkansas, and the mayor of Little Rock saluted the nine individuals who, as students, had once been denied entrance to the school but courageously returned to integrate it. President Bill Clinton praised the sacriﬁces of the Little Rock Nine who had “changed the course of our history here forever.” Governor Mike Huckabee added, “We come here today to say once and for all that what happened here forty years ago was simply wrong. It was evil and we renounce it.” After further speechmaking, the trio of dignitaries escorted the Little Rock Nine through the front doors of the school.1 On September 23, 1957, a very different kind of group had gathered at Central High. Hundreds of angry white agitators hurled racist vulgarities at and threatened physical violence against the ﬁrst African American students to enroll at Central. Governor Orval Faubus had opposed the Little Rock School Board’s desegregation plan and had appeared in chancery court to support a request for an injunction to halt desegregation, which was granted. When

Lines: 0 to 63 ———

1.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [1], (1)

2 The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

this injunction was overturned in federal court, Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to seize the school and prevent the “Little Rock Nine” from entering. After a further federal court order directed that the National Guard be withdrawn and that integration proceed, the mobs gathered, whereupon President Eisenhower ordered in the 101st Airborne Infantry Division, under whose protection Central High was integrated. Though Governor Faubus always maintained that his actions were necessitated by his obligation to preclude violence, most analysts of the event suggest that Faubus was even more strongly motivated by his desire for reelection to an extraordinary third gubernatorial term.2 In this respect alone, the actions were “successful”: Faubus, in fact, went on to an unprecedented six two-year terms. However, many of the educational and economic development programs that Faubus had earlier initiated were severely disrupted, and Arkansas acquired an instant global identity as a state characterized by racism, violence, and demagoguery.3 Although Arkansas had indeed traveled a long road from 1957 to 1997, neither of these two episodes offers an entirely accurate abstract of the temper of its times. Though Arkansas had manifested all the major symbols of southern segregation and white supremacy (Jim Crow laws, the white primary, inferior public services for African Americans, occasional lynchings, and socalled race riots), this racism had always been more tempered than that found in some of the states in the deeper South. In 1889 Bishop Henry M. Turner, presiding bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, had predicted, “Arkansas is destined to be the great Negro state of the Country. The rich lands, the healthy regions, the meager prejudice compared to some states, and the opportunities to acquire wealth, all conspire to make it inviting to the Colored man. The Colored people have a better start there than in any other state in the Union.” Similarly, the early-twentieth-century Arkansas African American politician Mifﬂin Gibbs wrote favorably in his autobiography of the distinctly nonsouthern tolerance he had encountered.4 Although these assessments turned out to be overly optimistic, blatant race-baiting was a relatively rare campaign device. Many African Americans voted in the general election and, where local custom permitted, even in the “white” primary; and in 1950 the national director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp) noted that “in all fairness ﬁrst place for acceptance in the South of the trend toward desegregation must go to Arkansas.” In 1948 the University of Arkansas quietly (and without litigation) desegregated its law school and became the ﬁrst historically all-white college or university in the South to open its doors

[2], (2)

Lines: 63 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [2], (2)

The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

3

to African Americans. Six years later, Charleston, Arkansas, became the ﬁrst school district of the Old Confederacy to integrate local schools. By 1957, the time of the crisis at Central High, substantial integration had already taken place in the state’s colleges, with no interference from Governor Faubus. In fact, one of Faubus’s ﬁrst acts as governor had been to enlarge the Democratic State Committee to accommodate six African American members. Arkansas, then, was an unlikely place and Faubus (raised in the Ozark hills where African Americans were nonexistent and in a family with progressive reformist traditions) an unlikely leader for an event that precipitated a tremendous amount of intransigence and violence elsewhere and that stigmatized Arkansas for decades thereafter.5 Similarly, though the sentiments expressed to the Little Rock Nine at the fortieth anniversary event were heartfelt, it should also be noted that by 1997 the Little Rock public schools, like those elsewhere in urban America, were being “resegregated” by white ﬂight out of central cities to suburban communities as well as by notably increased white enrollment in private schools and academies. Indeed, the state and local chapters of the naacp boycotted the anniversary event, maintaining that little progress had been made during the intervening four decades. Moreover, as President Clinton himself noted, “Today, children of every race walk through the same door, but then they often walk down different halls.” Still, it is clear that Arkansas, like the rest of the South, has undergone a remarkable metamorphosis in race relations in recent decades. The African American vote, that ominous possibility against which all political institutions were once organized, has become an occasionally decisive electoral bloc, calmly accepted by the white citizenry and eagerly wooed by almost all candidates. When the original Little Rock Nine gathered for a twentiethanniversary celebration in 1977, it was widely noted that though one (Ernest Green, the ﬁrst to graduate) was working in Washington as President Carter’s $50,000-a-year assistant labor secretary, Orval Faubus, whose comeback attempts in 1970 and 1974 had failed (as did his 1986 race against Clinton), was working as a bank teller in Huntsville, Arkansas, to supplement his state pension. And, when Daisy Bates, the Little Rock Nine’s steadfast mentor and Governor Faubus’s chief critic, died in 1999 her remains were accorded the rare privilege of lying in state in the rotunda of the state capitol. (Ironically, Faubus preceded her in this honor just ﬁve years earlier.) In 2001, Bates became the ﬁrst African American woman in the United States to be honored with a state holiday when Governor Huckabee ratiﬁed the General Assembly’s overwhelming vote to do so.6

[3], (3)

Lines: 70 to 7 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [3], (3)

4 The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

By 1981, African American men were chairing the board of trustees at both the University of Arkansas and Arkansas State University; and for a brief period in 1982, both the mayor and the city manager of Little Rock were AfricanAmericans. The manager’s tenure was ended when Governor Clinton hired him away to hold the state’s most prestigious cabinet position, director of the Department of Finance and Administration. Clinton’s appointment was not particularly surprising. Mahlon Martin was widely acknowledged to be surpassingly competent, and Clinton’s 1982 comeback victory over Frank White (after White’s upset defeat of Clinton in 1980) was due in large measure to Clinton’s African American support.7 What was somewhat surprising was the choice of Martin’s successor as city manager: Susan Fleming, a thirty-two-year-old mother, then pregnant with her second child. This represents another remarkable turnabout from the days in 1963 when State Representative Paul Van Dalsem could titillate the Little Rock Optimists Club with his formula for handling politically active women: “We don’t have any of these university women in Perry County but I’ll tell you what we do up there when one of our women starts poking around in something she doesn’t know anything about, we get her an extra milk cow. If that doesn’t work, we give her a little more garden to tend. And then if that is not enough, we get her pregnant and keep her barefoot.” When reapportionment thrust Van Dalsem into a district combining rural Perry County with urban Pulaski County, he was defeated, in part by women who symbolically shed their shoes before voting. When further reapportionment permitted Van Dalsem’s return to the state legislature, one of his ﬁrst acts was to cosponsor a resolution ratifying the proposed federal Equal Rights Amendment (era).8 Most telling of all, in 1998 Arkansas voters elected thirty-eight-year-old Blanche Lambert Lincoln to represent them in the U.S. Senate. Her spirited and successful campaign employed television ads that featured her mothering her twin toddlers. It is not just for African Americans and women but for all Arkansans that life has changed dramatically in recent decades. While Arkansas still ranks near the bottom among states in per capita income, that income was 78.3 percent of the national average in 2000, compared with 48 percent in 1940 and 60 percent in 1960. In 1940 most of the working population was engaged in farming. By 1997 only 4.7 percent were employed as farmers, farm managers, and farm laborers, and with increasing urbanization and industrialization, many Arkansans began to get at least a taste of the prosperity utterly unknown in the past to all but a very privileged elite. By almost any measure of political well-being—voting participation,

[4], (4)

Lines: 76 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [4], (4)

The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

5

honesty of elections, numbers and caliber of candidates, degrees of competition, governmental accountability, quantity and quality of government services—Arkansas politics by the 2000s had taken a slow series of giant steps, all in the directions envisioned by classical democratic theory and most contemporary concepts of good government. Thus, undeniably, the state’s idealistic motto “Regnat Populus”—glaringly out of synch with the reality of Arkansas politics through most of the state’s history—is more true than at any previous time. This progress toward the ideal laid out in the state motto composes part of the primary thesis of this analysis of Arkansas politics and government. At the same time, the degree to which the state’s governmental processes and public policies consistently fall short of that ideal is another portion of that thesis. As a result, in the midst of overwhelming evidence of change, constant themes and echoes remain from the past. Such continuity indicates that no matter how smoothly the wheels of democracy roll compared to the past, obstacles to their gaining traction persist. The inevitable result of this apparent wheel-spinning is a fundamental challenge to Arkansans’ faith that their lives will improve through the actions of their state’s government. some recurring themes In 1983 Governor Clinton promoted his program for educational excellence, arguing in part that better institutions would attract a higher quality of industry and population. In doing so, he struck 150-year-old echoes with territorial governor John Pope’s urging of educational improvements upon the legislature of 1833 because “many people with large families had not migrated to Arkansas because of the lack of educational facilities.” Bill and Hillary Clinton’s statewide campaigning on behalf of educational improvements was similarly a replica in many ways of the Education Caravan that Governor Sidney McMath led through the state in the summer Of 1949.9 When Governor Huckabee convened a high-powered economic development conference in the summer of 1999, he was following in the footsteps of numerous gubernatorial predecessors. Governor John Roane (1849–52) proposed that the state advertiseArkansas’s natural resources to attract a large population. He suggested, moreover, that a geological survey to advertise the state’s mineral wealth, together with his programs for internal improvements and education, would not only attract labor and capital but would solve the state’s acute ﬁnancial problems by increasing the number of taxpayers. A whole series of late-nineteenth-century governors practically turned state

[5], (5)

Lines: 82 to 9 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [5], (5)

6 The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

governance over to the railroads, all in the name of what the railroads could contribute to economic development. Nineteenth-century boosterism probably reached its peak with Governor William Fishback (1893–95), who concentrated his energies on Arkansas’s exhibit at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which, he argued, offered a splendid opportunity for Arkansas to attract desirable immigrants and industry. Both as governor (1917–21) and then as president of the Arkansas Advancement Association, Charles Brough was a tireless crusader for Arkansas’s economic potential. Among his promotional ideas were catchy mottoes, booster buttons, letter-writing campaigns, an automobile map of Arkansas, and “a staff that will devote 24 hours a day to seeking new and varied ways of putting Arkansas before the world in a garb so attractive that it is undoubtedly a hard-hearted person who does not fall a victim to the attractions of this charming young miss.” A considerably more sophisticated approach to economic development was made under the governorship of Benjamin (“Business Ben”) Laney Jr. (1945–49). The Arkansas Resources and Development Commission was formed to consolidate agencies dealing with the development and promotion of resources and to encourage industrialization to balance the state’s agrarian economy. Working closely with the Arkansas Power and Light Company (AP&L), the commission then formulated the “Arkansas Plan,” a proposed cooperative effort by science, business, and government. Virtually every governor from Laney’s time on has had some scheme or innovation, some Arkansas Plan, for economic development.10 Most of these initiatives, however, were rejected or thwarted or proved to be too superﬁcial to make any signiﬁcant impact. The legislature’s response to Governor Roane’s proposal was to lower the tax base, refuse to authorize the geological survey, and to keep for county patronage positions the federal funds intended for internal improvements and education. Governor Fishback threw himself into the Columbian Exposition and other public relations activities for the state largely because he was unable to exercise any substantive leadership over the legislature. Charles Brough was deeply chagrined when the state he had spent a decade boosting as a progressive place for industrial proﬁt closed that decade by becoming the only state to adopt by popular referendum a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution, that is, to forbid the teaching of modern science. He protested vigorously but was ignored. Decades later, Governor Frank White (1980–82)—who had campaigned for ofﬁce as the kind of sophisticated businessperson who could attract high-tech, high-proﬁt industries to Arkansas—signed into law a bill that

[6], (6)

Lines: 94 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [6], (6)

The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

7

required equal treatment of evolution science and “scientiﬁc creationism” in all public classrooms, a statute quickly deemed unconstitutional by a federal court.11 What virtually all the gubernatorial and other advocates of economic development have discovered is that Arkansas, despite its geographic location close to the center of the continental United States, is only superﬁcially known outside its boundaries. Cephas Washburn, contemplating a journey to Arkansas territory as a missionary to the Cherokees, noted ruefully in his 1819 journal: “At that time Arkansas was a perfect terra incognita. The way to get there was unknown; and what it was, or was like, if you did get there was still more an unrevealed mystery.” Over a century later, H. L. Mencken claimed, “I know New Yorkers who have been to Cochin China, Kafristan, Paraguay, Somaliland and West Virginia, but not one who has ever penetrated the miasmatic jungles of Arkansas.” Mencken, of course, deliberately exaggerated, especially when it came to Arkansas, certain of the satisfying howls of outrage his taunts inevitably provoked.12 It is true, nevertheless, that in a national survey conducted in 1982 by the Center for Urban and Governmental Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (ualr), scarcely half of the respondents could place Arkansas in its correct geographical location. This general vagueness about Arkansas, its locale, and its attributes was further conﬁrmed in a professional study commissioned in 1984 by Governor Clinton as part of his economic development thrust. Among this study’s conclusions was the following: “We believe that Arkansas today is suffering from two heavy burdens. . . . Many of its strengths are not known. . . . The most impressive misperception about the state is its location. . . . There is confusion about how far south, how far west the state is located and what its natural resources are.” In 1985, at the same time the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission was spending $700,000 on a series of advertisements in the Wall Street Journal to attract business prospects, the Journal ran a front-page map that labeled Arkansas as Missouri. And in the 1992 presidential election campaign, President George Bush incorrectly described Arkansas as “a place located somewhere between Texas and Oklahoma.”13 There is something decidedly peculiar about the general mystery surrounding Arkansas, a state located in the very heartland of America, a state that has been a state longer than half of its sister states. This work explores the causes and consequences of this curious isolation and anonymity (which in turn permitted many false and exaggerated perceptions). The major purpose of the preceding overview, however, is to suggest that it is impossible to

[7], (7)

Lines: 99 to 1 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [7], (7)

8 The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

understand the contemporary political system in Arkansas without understanding the past that produced it. Arkansas politics, like the politics of any state or nation, is the product of population and settlement patterns, social and economic factors, historical trends and episodes, and personal values and public opinions, all of which combine into a distinctive pattern of conducting public affairs. Landmark events, generated internally or imposed externally, may dramatically change part of the pattern; energetic leaders, for better or worse, may channel traditional attitudes and values into new dimensions. But the seeds of Arkansas politics in the ﬁrst decade of the twenty-ﬁrst century were planted even before statehood in 1836. Since central to this book’s thesis is the assertion that state government only recently became a positive inﬂuence in the lives of Arkansas’s citizens and that barriers remain to the full ﬂourishing of “Regnat Populus,” we must ﬁrst brieﬂy document this assertion and then offer some explanations for it. the record of misrule Even before statehood, Arkansas politics came to be dominated by a small group of people whose public “service” seems to have been primarily directed toward personal proﬁts (through inside knowledge of lucrative land deals) and patronage for themselves and their relatives and favorites. Known as the Family, the Dynasty (and sometimes as Sevier’s Hungry Kinfolks), the Johnson-Conway-Sevier-Rector cousinhood accumulated 190 years of public ofﬁceholding, including two U.S. senators and three governors in antebellum Arkansas. Other ofﬁces went only to their partisans. They did preside over the establishment of the basic institutions of government. In most respects, however, their legacy must be judged a negative one. At the Family’s urging, the ﬁrst state legislature created two banks, which, through a combination of unrealistic expectations, mismanagement, favoritism, and rascality, were total failures. They saddled emerging Arkansas with a debt of $3 million, a poor credit reputation, and a suspicion toward state government, all of which would last into the twentieth century. Through a series of national acts, the U.S. Congress deeded about one-third of the total acreage in Arkansas to the state for educational and internal improvement purposes, but nearly all of this bounty was squandered away on local patronage. No public educational institutions or roads resulted, and many of the levees built under the national swampland acts were so poorly constructed and located that they soon washed away.

[8], (8)

Lines: 105 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [8], (8)

The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

9

The regime failed at even the most fundamental of government responsibilities: providing law and order. Throughout the antebellum period, almost every political contest was accompanied by duels, stabbings, pistol slayings, hangings, and arson, and Family members were among the most prominent participants in these and other acts of violence. Questionable balloting procedures and fraudulent vote counts were other long-lasting traditions that began under the Family’s regime.14 Donald Stokes, based on an exhaustive review of Arkansas public affairs from 1836 to 1850, came to the following conclusion: Family rule had not beneﬁted the state: legislature followed legislature without grappling with realities; irresponsible, if not criminal banking programs had ruined state credit; there was no reliable all-weather transportation system, and the state government had done nothing to establish one; the penitentiary had proved very expensive, and none of the several efforts to establish state colleges and a common school had been successful. Whatever beneﬁts the average Arkansan had enjoyed from the society and resources of the state he had gotten from his own efforts, from the local community, or from the federal government, and only rarely from the state. On the other hand, for decades he would be cursed by the faults of the state’s banking enterprises and the almost total lack of an internal improvements program.15

Two other legacies of this period cast equally dark shadows over the state’s political future. First, Arkansas entered the Union as a slave state (paired with Michigan as a free state), with all the pernicious consequences this entailed for black and white citizens alike. Many arguments were advanced in behalf of Arkansas’s somewhat premature agitation for admission, but there is no doubt that the most compelling of these reasons was the determination to enter the Union while the legal status of slavery could still be secured. Second, because the Family was personally allied with Andrew Jackson, Arkansas began its political life totally dominated by the Democratic Party. The opposing faction, which almost by default became associated with the Whigs, at times generated rather spirited opposition. Between 1836 and 1856 the Whigs never gained less than 32.9 percent of Arkansas’s vote in presidential elections (including a 44.9 percent showing for Zachary Taylor in 1848). In 1842 the state senate had fourteen Democrats to seven Whigs, and the house of representatives had forty-two Democrats to fourteen Whigs. Still, no one but a Democrat ever won the presidential or gubernatorial election in Arkansas during this era, and the only Whig ever elected to Congress ﬁlled the brief time remaining in an unexpired term. Even more

[9], (9)

Lines: 121 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [9], (9)

10 The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

important, the elections were solely contests between insiders and outsiders, with state policies or speciﬁc measures for public improvements rarely at issue.16 In the 1850s Arkansas began to experience its ﬁrst genuine boom in population growth, urban development, and land values. Ballou’s Pictorial in Boston asserted that “The future destiny of Arkansas, it is safe to predict, will be a brilliant one,” and this decade of development, culminating with the Family’s loss of all major ofﬁces in 1860, might indeed have initiated a less elitist, more productive kind of politics.17 The Dynasty’s defeat, however, occurred simultaneously with the presidential victory of Lincoln and the Republicans, which in turn precipitated the southern secessionist movement. After an initially reluctant response, Arkansas joined the Confederate cause, and whatever political and economic development might have occurred instead became the tragic story of military defeat and occupation, death and deprivation. The major ofﬁcial obligation of the state during the war, of course, was the protection and survival of its citizens, but even here it has been noted that “the state of Arkansas, for whatever reasons, made the poorest showing of any state in the Confederacy in attending to human needs.”18 Although the war itself had devastating personal and economic consequences, Reconstruction, especially Radical Reconstruction (1867–74), had the most lasting political consequences. It is extraordinarily difﬁcult, even today, to obtain a totally objective view of the Reconstructionists (partially because the major state newspaper was the Arkansas Gazette, which rarely gave credit to anything tainted by Republican sponsorship). To the Reconstructionists’ credit, the ﬁrst genuine effort to establish common schools was initiated, the University of Arkansas was ﬁnally established, civil rights were secured for the freed slaves, and the ﬁrst signiﬁcant railroad development was begun. Still, whatever may have been its original ideals and intents, the most lasting effects of this imposed administration included an additional $10 million debt, primarily extended for internal improvements and railroad construction that never materialized; a more deeply corrupted election process; an intensiﬁed suspicion of and contempt for strong state government; and a long-lived belief among most native white Arkansans that a Republican vote was a vote for arrogant, alien, untrained, and dishonest public ofﬁcials.19 When Arkansas’s own, the Redeemers, recaptured power in 1874, it was natural that they would reﬂect the popular view that a passive, low-tax, inactive state government was far preferable to an interventionist and expensive

[10], (10)

Lines: 144 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [10], (10)

The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

11

one. Foreign control had been ousted and black power diminished. It was presumably the necessary price for reversing Reconstructionist extravagance that the Redeemers turned out to be as prone to pocketing funds as the Reconstructionists (three successive state treasurers left ofﬁce under charges and considerable evidence of embezzlement) and that the decision to repudiate the “unjust” debts of Reconstruction absolutely destroyed Arkansas’s credit reputation on the national bond market until 1917. To secure these “blessings” for posterity, the Redeemers wrote a constitution, adopted by the people in 1874, that placed numerous obstacles in the path of any future tendencies toward governmental activism.20 James C. Fouse and Ray Granade have summarized Arkansas political developments from 1874 to 1900 as follows: “During the Conservative Era Arkansas faced tremendous changes, and coped mainly by attempting to ignore them.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian C. Vann Woodward, born in Arkansas, has provided a more elegant description of this period: “The Redeemers tried by invoking the past to avert the future. The politics of Redemption belonged to the romantic school, emphasizing race and tradition and deprecating issues of economics and self-interest.” By the 1880s, however, for at least some Arkansans, the romance began wearing very thin.21 Faced with a perpetual struggle for survival against nearly insurmountable odds, there ﬁnally occurred what Harry Ashmore has termed a “thrust from below.”22 The Patrons of Husbandry, the Agricultural Wheel (begun in Des Arc in 1882 and eventually numbering forty thousand in Arkansas and ﬁve hundred thousand across the South), the Brothers of Freedom, the Farmers’ Alliance, the Union Labor party, and ﬁnally the Populists all arose to demand more concern for the common farmers and workers—the “producing” classes—against the favored economic elite. The essence of their complaints is captured in a letter written by an Arkansas farmer to his local paper in 1883: Our best farmers work hard year after year and after supporting their families in the most economical manner, they have nothing left at the end of the year wherewith to school their children or increase the fertility of their land and the laborer is scarcely able to keep the wolf from the door. While this is the lot of the farmer, the merchant lives comfortably, if not in luxury; builds his brick houses and grows rich; railroads declare large dividends in largely watered stocks; wholesale and commission merchants grow into millionaires; banks and manufacturing companies make fabulous sums of money; lawyers wear

[11], (11)

Lines: 152 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [11], (11)

12 The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

ﬁne clothes, and ofﬁcers of the government live in elegance and ease. This is pre-eminently an agricultural country and the farmer ought to be the most prosperous and independent man in the world; and he and the laborer begin to inquire: Why this condition of things?23

Of course, much of the “condition of things” related to national and international factors, such as the disastrous skid in cotton prices from 11.1 cents to 5.8 cents a pound from 1874 to 1894, over which the state government had no control. What was within the appropriate sphere of state government, however, and what numerous and increasingly angry voices began to demand included regulation of railroads and other utilities; decent roads to be paid for by taxes on property owners rather than labor by the landless poor; schools for their children; abolition of the convict lease system; and honest elections.24 By contemporary standards, these demands hardly seem unreasonable; but to the wealthy planters and their urban allies they constituted a serious threat to the status quo. Unsurprisingly, then, when the “have-nots” came perilously close to success in the 1888 gubernatorial election, the establishment fought back with the most powerful weapon in its arsenal: the fear that Republican victory would bring a return of African American political power. A few policy bones (the establishment of a state railroad commission, for example) were eventually thrown to the dissidents, and the political process became somewhat more democratic in form (primary elections replaced the elitedominated nominating conventions). However, the great agrarian uprising ultimately produced neither economic betterment nor political power for those at the bottom of the economic heap, whose numbers continued to swell and whose misery deepened for another half-century. Thus, Arkansas, began the twentieth century with a state government that had yet to demonstrate its value to or concern for the average citizen. In terms of public education, the Southern Regional Education Board found Arkansas at or next to the bottom of all states in terms of per pupil spending, teacher salaries, length of school terms, and average daily attendance. Indeed, it was estimated that only 43 percent of the school-age population was attending school, with an average school term of sixty-nine days. In 1910, the ﬁrst year the State Department of Education kept records of such, only three hundred students were graduated from Arkansas high schools, and only a small fraction of the school’s teachers had anything more than an eighthgrade education themselves.25 In terms of health and welfare, state services and funds were nearly nonexistent aside from a home for Confederate veterans and an insane

[12], (12)

Lines: 168 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [12], (12)

The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

13

asylum (which an 1895 legislative visiting committee found “well managed” except for an unusually heavy death rate caused by poor sewer facilities and inferior meats). This was not a result of an absence of need. Unearthed remains of a cemetery used by African Americans in early-twentieth-century southwestArkansas yielded skeletons more severely affected by malnutrition and disease than those reported for any skeletal population in the prehistoric or modern world. Relieving any kind of indigence, however, was simply not seen as a state (or indeed community) responsibility. Indeed, many of Arkansas’s ﬁrst hospitals, schools, libraries, and other services were provided not by government but by voluntary organizations of civic-minded club women. Since roads had no demeaning connotations of charity, and since their absence was a major obstacle to economic development, one might think they would have fared better. But attempts to pass legislation that provided any state aid for roads were defeated repeatedly, with Governor Little warning in 1907 that any state aid would cause local authorities to slacken their efforts (which were in fact minimal).26 What the common folk did achieve at the beginning of the twentieth century was the election of one who claimed to be their champion. Governor Jeff Davis (1901–7) railed against the trusts and railroads and “high-collared roosters,” defeated the patricians and brought the plebeians into (temporary) control of the Democratic Party, and forced the enactment of some modestly reformist legislation. He also, however, used racial demagoguery with a vehemence and skill unprecedented in Arkansas politics. As even his most sympathetic biographer admits, Even his antitrust law did little to disturb existing economic structures and basic power relationships. Arkansas farmers continued to live in a world of insecurity and economic hardship, and most were no better off in 1913 (when Davis died) than they had been in 1900. Jeff had come and gone, leaving them with a treasure of memories, but little else had changed. The men and women between the plow handles were still scratching out a meager living from the land, and the decisions that controlled their lives were still made elsewhere.27

In fact, in statistical terms, the percentage of farms operated by tenants—a condition described by Leland Duvall as “the nearest approach to medieval serfdom ever achieved on the North American continent”—increased from 32.1 percent in 1890 to 51.3 percent in 1920 and 63.0 percent in 1930. By 1935, about two-thirds of Arkansas farmers did not own the land they farmed, and in some areas of eastern Arkansas, tenancy, with its inevitable implications of hunger, squalor, ignorance, and hopelessness, reached 90 percent.28

[13], (13)

Lines: 187 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [13], (13)

14 The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Table 1. Arkansas and the Nation, 1930

Taxable property per capita Ratio of farm tenancy Farms supplied with electricity Days of school sessions Total enrollment in high schools Salaries of teachers No. of volumes in public libraries per 100 pop. Urban population

United States

Arkansas

Rank

$2,137.98 29.5 (Calif., 1st, 59.5%) 171.5 15.5% $1,364.00 126

$673.31 52.7 1.0% 145.5 8.1% $680.00 24

43 43 48 48 48 47 48

20.6%

46

56.2%

Source: Compiled from Charles Angoff and H. L. Mencken, “The Worst American State,” American Mercury, September 1931, pp 1–16; October 1931, pp. 175–88; November 1931, pp. 355–70.

Under Governor George Donaghey (1909–13) some gains were made in public health and education, the state capitol was ﬁnally completed, and the notorious convict-leasing system was ofﬁcially abolished. Governor Charles Brough (1917–21) pushed through a whole litany of progressive programs for roads, schools, administrative efﬁciency, and women’s suffrage. Governor Thomas McRae (1921–25) forced a reluctant legislature to raise some revenues for the schools. And, in 1924, Arkansas’s legislature became the ﬁrst in the Union to ratify the proposed Child Labor Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would have allowed the regulation of the practice at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution denied that power to the federal government. Historian Carl H. Moneyhon has gone so far as to conclude that “Between 1908 and 1925 a ﬂood of legislation tried to produce a government that was practical and efﬁcient and solved the profusion of problems facing the state and its people.” Despite these genuine steps forward, however, a study made in 1931, based on an enormous compilation of statistical data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other ofﬁcial sources, vividly illustrates how far Arkansas still lagged behind the nation in certain quantiﬁable measures of human well-being (see table 1).29 Considering the enormous caution traditionally displayed toward any state expenditures, it is ironic that by 1935 the only factor in which Arkansas led the nation was per capita public indebtedness. In fact, it was a debt so high that Arkansas became the only state ever to fall into bankruptcy three times. An orgy of excitement over road building in the second and third decades of the twentieth century led to the creation of hundreds of local improve-

[14], (14)

Lines: 243 ———

-2.5680

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [14], (14)

The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

15

ment districts, but a combination of poor planning, patronage politics, and extensive corruption produced many short roads “leading nowhere” and a long series of scandals. In 1927 the state assumed the debts of the local improvement districts, and by 1935 that sum amounted to more than $166 million.30 According to many accounts, the Great Depression came to Arkansas earlier, ravaged more deeply (at one point, 97 percent of the residents of Chicot County in the Delta were subsisting on Red Cross aid), and lasted longer than in the nation generally. With its onslaught, the state government became a mere holding operation, simply trying to stay aﬂoat and doing so primarily by severe retrenchments in its already meager public services. Governor Junius Futrell (1933–37), for example, argued that public education was unnecessary beyond the primary grades and asked the legislature to cease funding schools above the eighth grade. He also obstructed rather than facilitated efforts by the national government to alleviate the widespread human suffering in Arkansas. It was only under a threat by the federal government to cut off all funds that the legislature ﬁnally, in March 1935, enacted a two-cent sales tax to provide some state contribution to the relief effort in Arkansas. During the 1930s federal assistance to Arkansas was more generous than it was to any other state, but its programs operated without the cooperation, and often over the opposition, of state political leadership.31 According to V. O. Key, who reviewed twentieth-centuryArkansas politics through the World War II years, “The only recent governor who distinguished himself by suspecting that anything was wrong with Arkansas and that something could be done about it was the late Carl Bailey (1937–41).”32 But at the very time that Key was writing Southern Politics, a young war hero returned to the state knowing, as did many other gis, that a very great deal was wrong with Arkansas and that he and his fellow veterans could and would change it. Sidney McMath (1948–52) challenged the political establishment in ways it had not been threatened since the days of Jeff Davis, and under his leadership relatively giant steps were taken in highway construction, health care, extension of electricity to rural areas, educational upgrades, and electoral reforms. Furthermore, totally unlike Jeff Davis, McMath set a tolerant tone in race relations, urging repeal of the state poll tax, supporting a state antilynching law, and appointing some African Americans to previously all-white boards and commissions. Revelations of serious improprieties in the awarding of highway contracts, however, denied McMath the third term that only Jeff Davis before him had ever succeeded in winning.33

[15], (15)

Lines: 247 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [15], (15)

16 The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

After an inconsequential interregnum (Francis Cherry, 1953–55), another product of the gi revolt picked up the fallen mantle of public service reform. Orval Faubus had gained his earliest political values from the radical sentiments expressed around the campﬁres of the migratory fruit pickers his family traveled with and from the speeches made by his father, secretary of the Madison County Socialist party. Equally important were his experiences during World War II in Germany, where he observed a ﬁne road system: “Germany was a poor country and I wondered what they would think if they knew that when I, a representative of a wealthy country, went back I would have to get a mule to get home.” Faubus had served in the McMath administration and thus began his administration with both a genuine concern for the disadvantaged and dispossessed and with the political skills to use state government in their behalf. He fought for and obtained sizable increases in education and welfare expenditures, established a model institution for mentally retarded children, and appointed recently arrived New Yorker Winthrop Rockefeller to head the revived Industrial Development Commission.After more than 120 years of existence, it seemed that Arkansas state government had ﬁnally begun to demonstrate the positive difference it would make in the lives of most of its citizens. In 1957, however, during the events in Little Rock—in a pattern with ample precedent in Arkansas political history—economic progress was sacriﬁced to political expediency.34 We will conclude this brief historical overview by reiterating the original assertion: for most of its ﬁrst 150 years, Arkansas state government did very little to justify its existence. Of course, some important mitigating circumstances should also be entered into the record. First, it must be kept in mind that our contemporary expansive notions of the legitimate sphere of governmental activity are of relatively recent origin. That government has not just the authority but the obligation to ensure a certain measure of well-being for its citizens is a concept that only began achieving acceptance in America in the 1930s, and it remains controversial. Furthermore, the idea that any of these responsibilities fall within the sphere of state governments is of even more recent vintage. At the beginning of the twentieth century by far the greatest bulk of governmental activity in America was purely local. Local governments accounted for 59 percent of all public expenditures in the United States, compared with 35 percent for the federal government and 6 percent for the states. Furthermore, at least until the aftermath of the “reapportionment revolution” of the 1960s, state governments throughout the United States were often unresponsive, and frequently obstructionist, to the needs and demands of their populations.35

[16], (16)

Lines: 253 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [16], (16)

The Past in the Present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

17

It must also be acknowledged that throughout its history, Arkansas seems to have been plagued to an unusual degree by adversities over which no state governments could have been expected to exert much ameliorating control. These included natural disasters such as drought, crop disease, and ﬂoods, including the 1927 disaster that inundated 13 percent of the state’s acreage and another ﬂood ten years later that devastated portions of eastern Arkansas. Probably of even greater consequence, however, were national and international economic factors, which constantly played havoc with Arkansas’s basically agrarian economy.36 Once it was seduced by cotton in the 1850s, Arkansas’s economic wellbeing became perilously tied to ﬂuctuating world markets, and until well into the twentieth century cotton was Arkansas’s only signiﬁcant cash crop. Its few nonagricultural pursuits (mostly lumbering and some mining) were also basically extractive endeavors, with the manufacturing and reﬁning value added to these natural products and the proﬁts thereby collected and enjoyed elsewhere. It is clear that even the most visionary and skillful of political leaders would have had extraordinary difﬁculties in establishing and sustaining an activist and service-oriented state government considering the overwhelmingly agricultural basis of Arkansas’s economy, which in turn was increasingly characterized by landless, moneyless tenants and considering that in 1900 there were only 31,525 wage earners in a total population of 1,311,564 (and most of whom worked under conditions approaching peonage). Arkansas of this era has frequently and accurately been described as essentially a colonial economy. As countless studies in recent decades have demonstrated, states with higher levels of economic development spend more on a greater variety of essential services, whereas below a certain minimal level of modernization, lack of economic development has a very direct and negative effect on the quantity and quality of health, education, welfare, transportation, and other services.37 Still, though economic conditions set the parameters of what is possible, political and governmental decisions have their own independent, inﬂuential impact. And those decisions, in Arkansas, rarely operated to the clear beneﬁt of the vast majority of its citizens. Again we return to the enigma stated at the outset: why did the common people of Arkansas, possessing the power that a large numerical majority is supposed to confer in a representative democracy, tolerate for so long a state government that rarely assisted them, and often obstructed them, in their struggle for survival? A great deal of the answer seems to lie in the people who came toArkansas and the governmental attitudes and expectations they brought with them.

[Last Page] [17], (17)

Lines: 261 to ———

10.84001p ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [17], (17)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter two

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

[First Page [18], (1) If the plantation system engendered the habit of command, the Arkansas frontier encouraged the rejection of all authority and an every man for himself attitude. Michael B. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, 1982 One thing that they taught me was that politicians are the source of all disillusionment. Shirley Abbott, Womenfolks, 1983

the socioeconomic environment When Arkansas was admitted to the Union in 1836, its territory consisted of 53,335 square miles, much of it densely forested, little of it easily accessible. On its eastern border, separated by the Mississippi River from Tennessee and Mississippi, lay a vast ﬂood plain, almost impassable in the rainy season, its swamps a known breeding ground for malaria and other dread diseases. The Ozark Mountains straddled two-thirds of the state’s northern border with Missouri, and its entire western border fronted on Indian Territory, legally closed to white migration and settlement. The southern border, coming up the Red and Ouachita rivers from Louisiana, was more easily penetrable, but these rivers were highly unpredictable, ranging from trickle to ﬂood, and the Red River route was further complicated by a hundred-mile logjam known as the Great Raft. The most popular path into the interior was by canoe or raft up the Arkansas River, which transects Arkansas in its ﬂow from the uplands of Colorado to the Mississippi (see map 1). The earliest Arkansas inhabitants of European descent were hunting and trapping Frenchmen, coureurs de bois, who left little mark other than some French placenames; nor did Spanish possession (1762–1803) leave any

Lines: 0 to ———

1.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [18], (1)

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

ARKANSAS

ippi Mis

siss

TENN.

VALLEY Ar ka ns as

GRAND

e lin

SOUTHERN FOREST and LOWLANDS

Ba

r th

o lo

me w

[19], (2)

DEL TA

PRAIRIE

Red

CRO W St. F ranc LEY’S is RID

e

e hit W

OUACHITA MOUNTAINS

h it

Bla ck

W

LO WL AN DS

OKLAHOMA

OZARK MOUNTAINS

GE

MISSOURI

Sa

Ou a chit a

Lines: 81 to 8 MISSISSIPPI Yaz oo

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

19

TEXAS LOUISIANA

Map 1. Arkansas Regions and Rivers

permanent settlements or cultural heritage behind. As late as 1804, army surveyors descending the entire Arkansas River did not see a single white inhabitant. When permanent settlers began arriving in the nineteenth century, most clustered along the Arkansas River, their link to each other and to the outside world.1 An imaginary diagonal line drawn from the state’s northeast to southwest corners approximates the major geophysical division within Arkansas: ﬂat plains to the east (Mississippi Alluvial Plain) and south (Gulf Coastal Plain) of the line and hilly uplands to the north (the Ozarks) and the west (the Ouachitas). At almost the precise geographic center, on the Arkansas River, is Little Rock, Arkansas’s second territorial and ﬁrst state capital, and by far its largest town since the 1830s. Although the lowland areas had much of the deepest, richest soil, much of this land originally lay under dense cane and swampland. For that reason, most of the early settlers headed to the elevated sections, where the soil was thin and rocky but the climate far healthier. Because a major investment

———

4.34398pt ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [19], (2)

20

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

in land and slaves could only be justiﬁed where relatively good transportation could ensure a proﬁt on cotton exports, sizable plantations developed originally only along the rivers (especially the Arkansas and Red). Later, as the swamplands were slowly cleared and drained, the fertile black soil of the Delta began to grow more populous, and its inhabitants more politically powerful. It is somewhat presumptuous to ascribe migration motives retrospectively to the thousands of people who arrived across decades of time for undoubtedly varied purposes. Moreover, such retroactive analysis is especially difﬁcult given that many of the early settlers’ accounts are exaggerated to the extremes of either shining heroism or thoroughgoing degeneracy. Whereas some Arkansas historians have claimed to ﬁnd in every sturdy forefather a “sterling character”; a “strong manhood”; or transcendent virtues of ability, integrity, industry, and rectitude, accounts written for the titillation of eastern and European readers emphasized the lawless and luckless nature of Arkansas’s early inhabitants: “Freebooters, who have been driven out of good society on the other side of the river”; “some of the worst and most desperate characters that the country affords”; “homicides, horsestealers and gamblers”; “bad characters, gamblers, drunkards, thieves, murderers who all thought that the simple-minded backwoodsmen were easier to be cheated than the war settlers of older states”; “the kind of folks that pirates terrorize and merchants cheat and planters impress into peonage, the wandering sheep that grazed their way into Arkansas to establish there a moron’s paradise.”2 To whatever extent early Arkansas may be thought of as a refuge for outcasts and renegades, by the time serious settlement began, and certainly from statehood onward, there was a much more prosaic and encompassing explanation for in-migration, namely, the ease of obtaining cheap, indeed often free, and always fresh and abundant land. The U.S. government, which owned almost all the land in Arkansas after the Louisiana Purchase and the forced removal of the native population, offered 160-acre tracts in Arkansas to enlistees in the War of 1812 and the Mexican War. Other acreage could be purchased directly from the federal government or from the state, and millions of acres eventually were ceded for disposal. Between 1821 and 1836, more than a million and a half acres of public land were sold in Arkansas at an average price of $1.25 per acre. Additional millions of acres continued to be transferred to private parties in the antebellum period, during which land could be obtained under arrangements much more generous than those available elsewhere. Millions of acres of good bottomland became obtainable at twenty to seventy-ﬁve cents per acre

[20], (3)

Lines: 85 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [20], (3)

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

21

with a ten-year exemption from taxation if the settlers constructed levees against overﬂows, and additional millions of acres were acquired simply by possession. At least through 1850, squatting was still the rule rather than the exception, especially in the upland counties.3 These arrangements are worth noting because they undoubtedly had enormous inﬂuence in establishing a particular pattern of citizen-state relationships. Assuming that the major objective of antebellum settlers was to obtain and secure land, the national government must have seemed far more consequential than any state institutions. The national government was not just the major source of land; it also provided the essential surveys, enforced the removal of Indians, built the earliest roads (indeed, the only real roads in Arkansas until the 1850s), made the rivers navigable, and ﬁnanced and encouraged most of the major swamp-draining and levee-constructing improvements. State government was not totally unimportant to all early Arkansans. Certainly, the large landowners would have recognized the advisability of forming close relationships with the political establishment, for in the establishment’s hands was the power to make one’s investment even more proﬁtable through additional favorably priced and situated land purchases and advance knowledge of advantageous river and road improvements. Still, for every large landowner there were hundreds of small, self-sufﬁcient farmers and herdsmen, who were raising enough to provide for their families and trading in pelts, hides, and beeswax for their few essential purchases. For these yeoman farmers, many of whom were squatters, state government was irrelevant at best, irritating and intrusive more often, especially in its power of taxation. If, as the Van Buren County tax list of 1850 indicates, only 8,659 Of the county’s 748,000 acres were subject to property taxation, then in at least some respects the county’s 448 free families were better off than the 64 landowners. In any event, they were doubtless anxious to stay at arm’s length from an expensive and seemingly unnecessary relationship.4 When Arkansas’s second territorial governor, George Izard, expressed concern upon his arrival that the necessary papers and records for his work were missing, a prominent citizen assured him that there was no cause for concern, since “everyone did as he pleased anyway.”5 And if the ofﬁcials in turn did as they pleased—challenging each other to duels, securing appointments and contracts for family and friends, cutting themselves in on the most lucrative land deals—the semilegal squatters, if they even noticed this pattern of public affairs, were in a poor position to complain. Perhaps the most important shared attribute of those who came seeking

[21], (4)

Lines: 91 to 1 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [21], (4)

22

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

land in Arkansas was that they did not travel far to ﬁnd it. Nearly 90 percent of all who came to Arkansas between 1834 and 1880 were furnished by just ten states: Tennessee (24.7 percent), Missouri (16.3 percent), Mississippi (12.2 percent), Alabama (9.8 percent), Texas (7.9 percent), Georgia (6.6 percent), Illinois (4.2 percent), Kentucky (3.2 percent), Louisiana (1.8 percent), and North Carolina (1.8 percent). The four states immediately east of Arkansas (Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia) supplied over half the total. Some interesting and understandable preferences distinguished these migratory movements. Families from Missouri especially, but also from Tennessee, Illinois, and Indiana, showed a decided preference for the uplands, whereas those from Louisiana and South Carolina preferred the lowlands. What is most important, however, is that Arkansas was not a melting pot of different nationalities or even regions. Rather, it was a state settled primarily by nearby and overwhelmingly southern neighbors.6 In terms of ethnic origin, almost all who came to Arkansas were American rather than foreign born. From June 1834 through May 1880, foreign countries accounted immediately for only 134 ascertained arrivals, or 0.3 percent of the total in-migration. Arkansas settlers drew overwhelmingly from a British heritage, mostly English, Welsh, and Scotch-Irish, with only small numbers of German and Irish descent, and very little else.7 In the late nineteenth century some efforts were made, primarily by the railroads, to induce foreign in-migration, and a few colonies of Germans, Poles, Bohemians, and Italians responded. However, their numbers never approached the levels necessary to affect signiﬁcantly the overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon culture. In 1900, foreign-born Arkansans constituted only 1.1 percent of the state’s population, and by 1914 even such very selective and limited recruitment efforts as existed had become so controversial that “Arkansas all but closed its doors to strangers from abroad.” Arkansas’s population was equally homogeneous in terms of religion, which was overwhelmingly Protestant. In 1890, 85 percent of all church members were either Methodist or Baptist.8 Considering the rudimentary condition of law and law enforcement, it may have been fortunate that the settlers were all so much alike in terms of past residence, national origin, and religion. On the other hand, this near-uniformity probably acted more to retard than to advance political development. The kinds of political debates and divisions that emerged in many other states as a result of ethnic and religious rivalries and of clashes between old and new immigrants ﬁghting to assert or defend their culture, often brought bitterness and ferocity to the political scene. But they also forced a more participatory and meaningful process. If, as W. J. Cash

[22], (5)

Lines: 100 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [22], (5)

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

23

Table 2. Racial Composition of Arkansas’s Population, 1830–1860

1830 1840 1850 1860

Total Population

White

Free Blacks

Slaves

30,388 97,574 209,987 435,450

25,671 77,174 162,189 324,191

141 465 608 144

4,576 19,935 47,100 111,115

Source: Waddy W. Moore, ed., Arkansas in the Gilded age, 1874–1900 (Little Rock: Rose Publishing, 1976), app. 3.

observed, “complexity in man is invariably the child of complexity in the environment,” then it is important to remember that Arkansas lacked such complexity. Rather, a totally homogeneous environment tended to produce a narrow-minded and nativistic provincialism, an intense suspicion toward any unfamiliar group, “a terriﬁed truculence toward new ideas from outside.”9 The one sizable group of “strangers” who were imported—with political consequences even more fateful than the absence of non-Anglo-Saxon white ethnics—were black slaves. Though in some respects Arkansas was more attuned to the western frontier culture than to the southern plantation culture, it is the institution of slavery that provides the core of southern distinctiveness. And, after a slow start in the establishment of this “peculiar institution,” Arkansas ended with a terrible ﬂourish. The U.S. Census of 1820, taken the year after Arkansas obtained territorial status, indicated the existence of only 1,617 slaves in a total population of 14,274. Later, as the rich ﬂatlands along the Mississippi were drained and cleared and larger plantations became more possible and proﬁtable, each succeeding census through 1860 showed substantial increases both in the number of slaves and in their proportion of the population (see table 2).10 Despite the rapid increases in the slave population, the number of slave owners still only constituted 3.5 percent of the white population by 1860. There is consequently some understandable puzzlement why Arkansas ﬁnally opted for the Confederate cause. Part of the answer seems to lie in the origins and outlook of Arkansas’s pre–Civil War population. By 1860, 96 percent of those living in Arkansas had come to the state from a slaveholding state; and in this respect, at least, elected ofﬁcials were thoroughly representative of their constituents. Of the ﬁrst six Arkansas pre– Civil War governors, ﬁve came from Tennessee and one from Kentucky. In both 1850 and 1860, 8 percent or less of the state’s legislators had been born in nonslaveholding states. Furthermore, highly disproportionate numbers of the political leadership were planters who owned twenty or more slaves.11

[23], (6)

Lines: 135 to ———

0.41602pt ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [23], (6)

24

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

Given these numbers, perhaps the more surprising phenomenon is that Arkansas showed as much reluctance as it did toward the early agitation for secession. WhenArkansans were asked to vote in February 1861 on delegates to a special convention to consider the secession issue, candidates who supported the Union drew 23,628 votes to only 17,927 for the secessionists. Furthermore, the convention elected (40–35) an outspokenly antisecessionist chair and voted 139 to 35 against aligning Arkansas with the Confederacy. After the ﬁring on Fort Sumter, however, when Lincoln called upon state governors to provide armed men to suppress the rebellion, the convention was rapidly called back into session, and this time the vote was 65 to 5 for secession.12 In these developments, as well as from the original migration patterns from which they emerged, can be found many possible explanations for the curious quiescence of Arkansas’s people in its unproductive state government of the nineteenth century. First, the Civil War swiftly aborted, indeed reversed, the economic boom that Arkansas was just beginning to enjoy and with it whatever political maturation this economic development might have engendered. If, as many political scientists have persuasively argued, a minimum “threshold” of economic development is essential for the establishment of a democratic political process, then the Civil War further delayed Arkansas from crossing that threshold. In the war’s aftermath, the state was bankrupt and facing a dearth of taxable objects. The value of real property, set at $153,699,473 in 1860, was assessed at $30,000,000 in 1864, and the ﬁrst effort to collect taxes from that base produced only $257.97 in cash and $2,565.80 in warrants. Even more deleterious to democratic development was the increasing entrapment of not only the freed slaves but growing numbers of once-independent yeoman farmers into the degrading and dependent status of tenancy. Those wholly involved in the sheer struggle for survival have more pressing concerns than political contests. Those totally dependent upon “the man” for land, shelter, and work are in absolutely no position to articulate and organize around their needs and demands.13 An urban middle class, often in history the vanguard of political change, did not become a signiﬁcant sector of the population until well into the twentieth century. Arsenault has convincingly argued that the rise of Jeff Davis at the turn of the century was largely the upsurge of rural resentment against the perceived comfort and afﬂuence of town and city dwellers, but these are highly relative concepts. In 1900 Arkansas had an urban population of 6.9 percent (compared with Illinois’s 51 percent or Ohio’s 45 percent or even Tennessee and Georgia’s 14 percent), and only three Arkansas “cities”

[24], (7)

Lines: 149 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [24], (7)

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

25

had a population of more than 10,000: Little Rock, 38,307; Fort Smith, 11,587; and Pine Bluff, 11,496. In short, some of the essential or at least usual components of democratic development—some disposable wealth, an economically self-sufﬁcient population, cities as sources of diversity and dissent, a somewhat heterogeneous population—were simply nonexistent. Nor did Arkansas’s continued isolation from the outside world make it likely that many Arkansans would discover that politics was practiced differently, and a bit more usefully, elsewhere.14 As geographic barriers had effectively isolated Arkansas from the mainstream of east-to-west migration patterns, so poor transportation and communications continued to isolate Arkansas from the ferments of the external, modernizing world. Both land and river travel within Arkansas remained difﬁcult and dangerous for decades after statehood and beyond. Interest in railroad construction began in the 1850s, but lack of capital, the hazards of construction, and the satisfaction of the planters with river transportation all meant that as late as the 1870s there were virtually no railroads in Arkansas. The only exception was a short line of forty miles from Little Rock to DeVall’s Bluff, from which a connection to Memphis via boat could be made. Newspapers were established early, most important the Arkansas Gazette in 1819, and by 1850 there were fourteen newspapers (all but one weeklies) with a total circulation of about 7,250 (in a population of 209,897). For their news, however, the editors depended upon their own partisan sentiments and the word of passing travelers and lamented, “we have no means of hearing what is doing in the world.” Mail service was so slow and unreliable that some of the pioneers who came to Arkansas “never heard from their relatives in the Eastern states again.”15 Considering the formidable obstacles to transportation and communication in the nineteenth century, Arkansas’s voter turnout in at least some elections was quite impressive. Brian Walton has estimated that the percentages of the eligible electorate voting in gubernatorial elections from 1836 to 1860 ranged from 63 to 86 percent. Furthermore, all accounts of antebellum campaign contests indicate that candidates took the electorate seriously enough to hustle around from county to county making impassioned appeals to the citizenry with “bad whiskey and worse oratory.” Given the general absence of entertainment in rural, backwoodsArkansas, the occasional political canvass, which was accompanied by free food and liquor as well as by verbal and sometimes physical violence, must have been a welcome diversion in otherwise uneventful lives. Popular participation, however, should not be confused with popular inﬂuence.16

[25], (8)

Lines: 154 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [25], (8)

26

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

That the candidates of both parties had been picked in very tightly closed conventions; that the debates had more to do with who was and was not a jackal, pimp, hypocrite, or skulking poltroon than with improving state roads, river passages, and commercial markets; and that the election count itself was frequently and blatantly falsiﬁed—all this was part of the entertainment. The highly partisan press certainly boosted its circulation through its venomous accounts of the dastardly doings, and newspaper sales were especially brisk when the printed insults solicited by the press resulted in duels and brawls. The aspiring literati who penned lengthy inﬂammatory letters to the editor must have enjoyed seeing their prose in print under such high-sounding pseudonyms as Aristides, Conservator, Esto Perpetus, and Diodorus Siculus. But to the average Arkansas settler, striving to clear his ﬁelds, plant his crops, and feed his family, this could have had little substantive meaning. Most Arkansans’ lives would proceed in the same path regardless of any election outcome, and politics was to them simply a spectator sport.17 For some, of course, the political process was a game with extraordinarily high stakes and therefore had to be taken seriously. The politicians wanted their jobs. Those who had invested in extensive land purchases had to exert themselves to obtain the information and improvements that might make these investments more proﬁtable. Above all, those who could imagine no successful way to make their vast holdings proﬁtable without slave labor had to make politics their abiding occupation. Even when the slaves became freedmen, a hierarchical political and social order still had to be maintained if life was to be tolerable. For farmers in the highlands, where in many counties slaves and later freedmen were sparse or entirely absent, indifference may have been a viable option. For those in Chicot County (where slaves constituted 81 percent of the population in 1860) or other lowland counties where the black population exceeded the white population, political involvement was not a matter of choice but a compelling necessity. Any relaxation of attention might result in disastrous changes in the status quo. Political involvement generally accompanies a perception that one has a stake in political outcomes, and the social and economic environment of traditional Arkansas gave relatively few citizens a sharp sense that important personal consequences were to be gained or feared from a particular political result. the political culture explanation In addition to speciﬁc social and economic factors, it is also important to understand, as Daniel Elazar and others have extensively documented,

[26], (9)

Lines: 160 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [26], (9)

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

27

that within the American democratic tradition, three distinctive types of political culture have produced equally distinctive patterns for the conduct of public affairs. Political culture is rooted, as is all culture, in the cumulative historical experiences of a people. As settlers came to America and then moved westward across the nation, they carried with them historical memories and ethnic and religious afﬁliations that were manifested in different orientations toward politics. Within the familiar American pattern of written constitutions, separation of powers, and campaigns and elections can be seen important variations in the perceptions of what politics should be, of what can be expected from the government, of the kinds of people expected to become active in politics, and of the actual ways in which government is practiced by citizens, politicians, and public ofﬁcials.18 According to Elazar, the “Moralistic” political culture, which developed ﬁrst in the Congregationalist towns of New England and spread west across the northern parts of the nation, holds a commonwealth concept of the community. Government is seen as a positive instrument through which the general welfare is to be secured. Political participation by all citizens is encouraged as a righteous and important activity through which shared moral principles can be implemented to create a good society for all. The “Individualistic” political culture, which developed in the Middle Atlantic colonies and spread westward, is distinguished by a utilitarian concept of government. In this construct, politics is viewed as an extension of the competition of the marketplace, and political participation is encouraged as a valuable process through which citizens can compete to advance their own self-interests. For Elazar, the “Traditionalistic” political culture, which developed in the tidewater colonies of the southern coast and spread westward across the south, developed a paternalistic concept of government, in which the plantation-owning elite had an obligation to exercise political as well as economic decision-making responsibilities for the lesser born and less fortunate. Under this conception, political power is often inherited as a family right and obligation, and the major purpose of government is to protect and preserve the status quo. All these models developed particular variations in individual states and have become increasingly hybrid with passing decades. However, at least throughout the nineteenth century, Elazar’s formulations place Arkansas squarely within the Traditionalistic pattern. Note, for example, the close ﬁt between Elazar’s description of the hallmarks of the Traditionalistic political culture and what have already been described as the salient characteristics of nineteenth-century Arkansas politics:

[27], (10)

Lines: 177 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [27], (10)

28

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

Government tries to limit [its] role to securing the continued maintenance of the existing social order. To do so, it functions to conﬁne real political power to a relatively small and self-perpetuating group drawn from an established elite who often inherit their “right” to govern through family ties or social position. . . . At the same time, those who do not have a deﬁnite role to play in politics are not expected to be even minimally active as citizens . . . those active in politics are expected to beneﬁt personally from their activity. . . . Political parties are of minimal importance . . . because they encourage a degree of openness that goes against the fundamental grain of an elite-oriented political order; . . . the traditionalistic political culture is found only in a society that retains some of the organic characteristics of the preindustrial social order . . . unless political leaders are pressed strongly from the outside they play conservative and custodial rather than initiatory roles.19

Elitism never reached the apogee in Arkansas that it did, for instance, in South Carolina or Virginia because Arkansas’s landed aristocracy was less numerous (it is estimated that fewer than one hundred Arkansans ever owned more than one hundred slaves), and the antiaristocratic inﬂuences of the frontier were much nearer. Unquestionably, however, the large landowners had the wealth, skill, leisure, and incentives within a political culture that permitted and accepted their natural dominance to wield extraordinary weight in setting the political agenda, selecting political leaders, and shaping Arkansas’s political character. According to Elazar’s political culture maps, only one small portion of Arkansas, the northwestern Ozarks, does not fall clearly within the Traditionalistic pattern. This area he characterized as Moralistic, and both the ﬁerce individualism of the hill people and their antipathy to Whig elitism suggest that they cannot be fairly placed in the tidewater, paternalistic, Traditionalistic pattern. If, however, the Moralistic culture necessitates a widespread belief that “politics is one of the great activities of man in search for the good society,” then the aggressively independent and often fatalistic Ozark uplanders seem to have been more anarchistic than Moralistic, more motivated by a deliberate quest for remoteness than by any search for “the good society.”20 Roy Reed, only semifacetiously analyzing his upland Arkansas ancestry, has written that “we were barbarians, especially after a couple of generations in the woods, cut off from Ireland and Scotland to the back of us and not yet come up against any established authority over here that was big enough and mean enough to whip us into line.” Similarly, late in his life Orval Faubus

[28], (11)

Lines: 196 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [28], (11)

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

29

related that when he was growing up in the Ozarks, the biggest threat that one mountaineer could make to another was not violence but the threat that “I’ll law you.” And if these uplanders “simply did not elect to have neighbors within the sound of musketshot or the sight of chimney smoke,” or “moved on when they could hear a neighbor’s rooster crow,” how much less must they have desired to see the sheriff or tax collector coming down the road.21 These were people who preferred taking care of their own needs and avoiding society and government whenever possible. Perhaps they let themselves be courted with whiskey and promises by the occasional campaigner, but they basically believed that government was an inconsequential nuisance. If the Family, or the Reconstructors, or later the Redeemers, wanted to use government as their private playpen, this simply conﬁrmed the uplanders’ basic belief, pinpointed by Shirley Abbott, that “politicians are the source of all disillusionment.”22 According to Abbott, whose maternal ancestors were among the thousands of highlanders scratching their living off the stony hillsides, they were “the most independent people who ever lived, and I am convinced they went off into the woods of their own will, gladly, by preference, because they believed chieﬂy in themselves and wanted no truck with institutions. . . . What they produced was not for society but for themselves, and they took pride in their own dogged self-sufﬁciency. If they had to do without schools or stores or markets for their produce, they did without. They did without doctors and lawyers and tried every way they could to do without tax collectors. Civic-minded they were not.”23 Only when all these elements of nineteenth-century Arkansas are considered together can one begin to comprehend why the voices of the poor farmers, despite their numerical majority, were so rarely heard. The agrarian economy never provided either the surplus capital or the incentives for an interventionist and activist state government, and the inﬂuence of agrarianism was compounded by the effects of a nonparticipatory political culture. The plantation-oriented Traditionalistic political culture of the lowlands prohibited participation by theAfricanAmerican population and discouraged political activism except among the elite. The subsistence-style farming of the uplands produced suspicion about and contempt for the political process rather than widespread participation in it. Economics, which is usually at the basis of political competition, provided a powerful incentive for the planters to protect their own interests. However, it provided no counterincentives around which the yeoman farmers, whose economic self-sufﬁciency bred

[29], (12)

Lines: 212 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [29], (12)

30

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

an equally ﬁerce political self-sufﬁciency, could see themselves usefully organizing. Clearheaded and farsighted political leaders might have educated the common people to their just political demands and aroused their governmental expectations. But Arkansas’s closed political system, dominated ﬁrst by the Family, then by the Reconstructors, and then by the Redeemers, had no mechanisms for recruiting and, indeed, powerful means for discouraging this kind of public champion. Arkansas was trapped in its own provincialism, one that was more often exploited by politicians than seriously addressed as an obstacle to social and economic development. In the short term, it was far more politically proﬁtable to curse the abolitionists and Yankee interlopers, the railroad trusts and Wall Street interests, and all the other assorted alien enemies “conspiring” against Arkansas and its people than it was to address the basic fact of a cotton-based agrarianism that doomed Arkansas to vulnerability and exploitation. Finally, in the 1880s, the common people did arise, organize, and demand a more responsive and useful state government. The major outcome of this uprising, however, was a politics even less likely to address their basic interests than that which preceded it. the political system explanation The Redeemers—that coalition of Confederate war heroes, planters, and businessmen who had ousted the Reconstructors in 1874—shared a generally noninterventionist view of state government, with taxes, appropriations, and regulations kept to a minimum. What this meant in practice was a free ride and beneﬁcial treatment for the railroad, timber, and mining companies but a thoroughgoing neglect both of the thousands of small farmers who were sinking deeper into debt and tenancy and of the nonfarm laborers who were earning less-than-subsistence wages under totally unregulated conditions of employment. It was the sharpening perception of favoritism for the few and neglect of the many that ﬁnally created the beginnings of organization, protest, and demand for change. Why should the railroads and manufacturers be getting every possible kind of assistance from state government when the farmers and workers got none? The railroads and manufacturers paid no taxes, whereas the “producing class” frequently had to surrender their property to the auction block for nonpayment of taxes. While the railroads charged exorbitant freight rates the small farmers could not even get their goods to local markets because of the dearth of decent roads. Without adequate education, the future looked no brighter for their children. The oppressive credit system, the regressive tax system, the blatant and frequent

[30], (13)

Lines: 218 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [30], (13)

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

31

misconduct of countless public ofﬁcials, all ﬁnally became intolerable to the point of protest.24 Although the Redeemers largely ignored the protesters at the state level, the Republicans eventually recognized in their growing numbers a possible opportunity for recapturing power, just as they had at the local level in certain parts of the state during the 1880s. In 1888, therefore, the Republicans nominated no candidate of their own but instead backed C. P. Norwood, gubernatorial candidate of the dissident Union Labor party, to which Farmers Alliance–men and their brethren Wheelers also pledged their support. By the standards of states accustomed to closely competitive general elections, the attempt was an abject failure. Democrat James P. Eagle received 99,214 votes to the 84,213 votes cast for Norwood. For those unaccustomed to genuine competition, however, this election was ominously close, especially because of the amount of fraud that had been necessary to secure even this “narrow” victory. A congressional election in the central portion of the state resulted in an even more marginal (and even more dubious) Democratic victory. When the Republican candidate attempted to provoke a federal investigation into the voting process he was murdered.25 The 1888 election was a seminal event, producing two very contradictory patterns that strongly shaped Arkansas politics for the next seventy or eighty years. One reaction, the democratic or majoritarian response, was the ﬁrst feeble recognition of the legitimacy of at least some of the dissidents’ demands. Governor Eagle, for example, urged the legislature to improve the public roads, reform the penal system, support public education, and establish a regulatory railroad commission. The legislature ignored or defeated most of these requests. It was, however, the entering wedge of populism as opposed to patricianism, and the populist impulse periodically surfaced from that time on in gubernatorial elections. Governors Daniel Jones, Jeff Davis, George Donaghey, Charles Brough, Carl Bailey, Sid McMath, and Orval Faubus were all originally elected against the wishes of the economic establishment. All pushed (with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success) for some programs for the common people. Senators Joseph T. Robinson, William Kirby, Thaddeus and Hattie Caraway and Congressmen Otis Wingo, Clyde Ellis, and Brooks Hays all reﬂected (again with various degrees of consistency) a populistic, progressive orientation. It was this impulse that led to the adoption of an initiative and referendum amendment to Arkansas’s constitution in 1910, to early support for the election rather than appointment of U.S. senators, and to enfranchisement of women even before the national suffrage amendment was ratiﬁed.26 There was, however, another reaction to the election of 1888, one that was

[31], (14)

Lines: 230 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [31], (14)

32

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

viciously antidemocratic and that resulted in more paralysis than progress. Alarmed by the vigor of the threat to comfortable Democratic hegemony, the political establishment saw to the enactment of a series of electoral “reforms” that emasculated the opposition and forced the emerging populistic temper to participate within a one-party, issueless, and ultimately unproductive mold. Especially considering the fraud, thuggery, and violence that had come to characterize the election process, the election reform act of 1891 had some genuinely laudable provisions. One, for example, prohibited the lastminute transfer of polling places. Nevertheless, its two most important provisions were obviously intended to ensure the future electoral fortunes of the Democratic establishment. One effectively turned over all the state’s election machinery to the Democratic Party, with only token representation for Republicans and populistic parties. The other disfranchised illiterates (over one-fourth of the population at that time) by removing all political symbols from the ballot and providing that only the precinct judges (not a friend or fellow party member) could assist illiterates in preparing their ballots. The legislature also initiated a constitutional amendment that placed a one-dollar poll tax on the “privilege” of voting, and in 1892 (by which time the 1891 reforms were in effect) this amendment was ratiﬁed. The legislature also gerrymandered the congressional districts to dilute and conﬁne the remaining pockets of Republicanism. This gesture was probably superﬂuous since African Americans had constituted at least one-third of the Republican vote, and they were hardest hit by the printed ballot and poll-tax requirement. Some still debate the extent to which these changes reﬂected a genuinely reformist impulse in reaction to the ﬂagrant election abuses that had become commonplace, were intended to disfranchise all the “common folk,” and were singularly targeted at disfranchising African Americans. But there can be no dispute over the resulting dramatic decline in voting—from 191,000 participants in the 1890 election to 133,000 in 1900—nor can the escalating racist rhetoric of the period be ignored or mistaken.27 The enfranchised freedmen had enjoyed a brief period in which they were wooed by the Democrats (especially when a threatened black exodus greatly alarmed the planters), held ofﬁce in modest numbers, received patronage under Republican auspices, and were allied tenuously with some of the agrarian organizations. Still, it is probably true, as Ashmore has observed, that the freedmen were always more “pawns than participants,” and it is certainly true that even within the Republican Party they were subject to tokenism. But even this limited political strength was decimated by the election reforms and by the rising tides of Jim Crowism and outright bigotry.

[32], (15)

Lines: 236 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [32], (15)

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

33

From this time forward, every non-Democratic candidate was successfully pictured as a threat to white control, “a vote for Negro supremacy and bayonet rule.” Distracted by racism from the true logic of their circumstances, poor whites, the natural economic ally of the equally poor African American sharecroppers and workers, were shamed and stampeded into a belief that a secure future for the white race was totally dependent upon solidarity within the Democratic Party and that a vote for populism in any guise constituted racial treason. In 1906 the Democratic State Committee at Jeff Davis’s urging amended party rules to restrict voting eligibility in the primary to “all legally qualiﬁed white electors who paid a poll tax.” In doing so, it was simply formalizing an exclusion that had already become operational.28 Though some poll-tax-paying African Americans continued to vote in the general election, they were voting in contests that had already been decided. Furthermore, their loss of electoral utility to the white Republican establishment gave strength to the lily-white elements in gop ranks who could argue that their African American members not only cut into the available patronage but that their presence made it very difﬁcult to recruit whites, “a costly burden to their struggling party.”29 In one other important respect, Arkansas politics became more “open” in this period. Beginning statewide in 1902, the selection of party nominees by the voters in primary elections rather than by closed and elite-dominated county and state conventions was another reﬂection of what David Y. Thomas has termed the “plebian temper” of this period. Before describing the hallmarks of this “new” political system, however, one other observation is pertinent. John Gaventa, in his prize-winning study of the apparent acquiescence of Appalachian miners and mountaineers in the decades of neglect and abuse by their elected institutions, asked many questions similar to those raised at the outset of this study. Why, given their numbers, did they never mount a rebellion against those who systematically exploited them? Why did they never recognize their potential power and use it, or at least argue for an alternative arrangement of the political order? Gaventa’s conclusion is that the Appalachians’ apparent quiescence was not just the product of a political culture (similar to that in the Arkansas uplands) that was indifferent to and scornful of communal action. Rather, it was a logical, learned response, a knowledge gained from every previous attempt to protest that superior political and economic forces had and would overcome them.30 The possible analogue here would be that the populistic uprising in latenineteenth-century Arkansas, which achieved a few policy responses but

[33], (16)

Lines: 240 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [33], (16)

34

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations

no signiﬁcant amelioration of the average Arkansan’s life, was beaten by a clever racial ploy that kept the potentially powerful combination of poor African Americans and whites from organizing around and acting on their common interests. With their one major thrust to power effectively thwarted, politics again became the inconsequential pastime of a relative few rather than the arena in which the hopes of the many could be fulﬁlled. The response, as before the agrarian uprising, may appear to be acquiescence but actually was now based as much on previous defeat and disillusionment as on disinterest. With African Americans disfranchised, the agrarians demoralized, and the Republicans reduced to impotence, the Democratic Party again found itself in the ﬁrst six decades of the twentieth century securely in control.

[Last Page [34], (17)

Lines: 248 ———

361.840

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [34], (17)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter three

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation [First Page] [35], (1) At the origin of the southern one-party system stood the single ﬁgure of the Negro . . . and the Negro must be supplanted by other concerns before oneparty supremacy will break down. Alexander Heard, A Two-Party South? 1952

Lines: 0 to 65

I hope that segregation as a political issue is dead forever. I believe that essentially it is. Governor Dale Bumpers, 1971

——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX

For the ﬁrst seventeen presidential elections in the twentieth century, Arkansas went Democratic, and did so by margins far exceeding the national Democratic norm.Arkansas’s elections to the U.S. Congress were just as consistently Democratic, and the Democratic candidate won the governorship in thirty-three successive elections from 1900 to 1964. In fact, the average Republican percentage of the gubernatorial vote from 1900 to 1948 was less than 15 percent and from 1950 to 1960 only 22 percent. Republicans never held more than ﬁve seats (and usually only two) out of one hundred in the state house of representatives, and never more than one (and usually none) in the state senate from 1900 until 1982. In short, Arkansas was the most thoroughly and consistently Democratic state of any in the nation. While these ﬁgures represent a total triumph for the Democrats, however, they were produced by a political system that was only minimally democratic.1 In terms of voting participation, for example, the record was dismal both in comparison with nineteenth-century Arkansas standards and in contrast to the rest of the nation. In 1948, while 51 percent of the national votingage population was voting for president, only 25 percent of the voting-age population in Arkansas was doing so; and in 1960 the comparable ﬁgures

———

7.5pt PgV

[35], (1)

36 Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

were 64 percent in the nation and 41 percent in Arkansas. Comparisons with the national and other state electorates can be somewhat misleading given the disfranchisement of Arkansas’s African Americans (who constituted onefourth of Arkansas’s population through 1940) as well as the inconsequentiality of the general election in comparison with the Democratic primary. Even using the fairest possible comparative measures, however, it is clear how nonparticipatory Arkansas politics had become over time. Between 1920 and 1946, the average percentage of all adults voting in Democratic gubernatorial primaries was 22.6 percent (compared, say, with 56 percent in New York), and the average voting turnout of the eligible white electorate was only 30.3 percent (compared with over 50 percent in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana).2 It is impossible to estimate how much of this nonparticipation was due to the poll tax (which had to be paid and the receipt preserved far in advance of the elections) and how much was due to disinterest and/or defeatism. If an east Arkansas sharecropper or an Ozark subsistence farmer ever did get his hands on a dollar of cash money, it is difﬁcult to imagine why he would choose to spend it in this fashion. And for African American Arkansans to pay this price to vote in a general election contest already decided in the primary is to assume a civic virtue that even Aristotle would have found astonishing. Numerous other possible explanations can be offered for the low voter turnout. Although women were enabled to vote in the Democratic primaries beginning in 1918, and in all elections after 1920, female participation rates only gradually began to equal (and lately to exceed) male voter turnout. Women still lag somewhat behind men among older voters. More educated people are much more likely to be voters. In 1940, for example, only 8.6 percent of Arkansans aged twenty-ﬁve and over had completed high school, an unsurprising statistic since as late as 1948 only half of all schoolchildren had a high school to attend. Economic afﬂuence is also positively associated with voting, and per capita income in Arkansas was $332 in 1940, or 48 percent of the national average. Finally, it is important to remember that the choices offered to the electorate rarely dealt with meaningful issues. Given that the only important contests took place within the Democratic primary, the electorate was deprived of those policy distinctions and issue orientations generally associated with Democrats as compared with Republicans. Instead, they were offered a choice between competing personalities, all bearing the Democratic label. Furthermore, unlike some southern states where strong and stable rivalries

[36], (2)

Lines: 65 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [36], (2)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

37

within the Democratic Party produced a dualism somewhat approximating two-party competition, the Arkansas system was characterized by totally splintered and discontinuous groupings, which arose and faded from one election to the next with no issue salience or consistency whatsoever. V. O. Key, the greatest student of traditional southern Democratic politics, found through 1948 absolutely no statewide faction with cohesion, continuity, or content. Rather, he found “a multiplicity of transient and personal factions, not of clear-cut groupings of voters, but of rather sharply deﬁned groups of ﬁrst, second and third-string lieutenants loyal to the leader for personal reasons—mainly desire for ofﬁce—and like all such groupings, their life expectancy was short.”3 Boyce Drummond, in an extensive and thoughtful update of Key’s analysis in 1957, concluded similarly that “no candidate or faction in recent years has been successful in building a state organization that lasted longer than one or two campaigns.” Drummond went on to observe that “Lacking strong organizational support, which might obligate him to advocate speciﬁc policies or programs, a candidate simply attempts to persuade the voter that he is the best qualiﬁed candidate. Such persuasion is gained more often than not by negative methods. Constructive discussion of issues or principles of government is spurned in favor of character assassination, mudslinging, and demagogic speeches.”4 One observer described these primary campaigns as “a sort of legalized knife ﬁght and perpetual stomping contest”; another described campaigns as “dog ﬁghts” and nothing more. Occasionally, an editor would complain, “just for once we’d like to see a governor’s race in Arkansas in which candidates run on their own merits, on speciﬁc plans which they have in mind for the betterment of our state” rather than tying to prove “usually in a last minute verbal blitzkrieg that his leading adversary is a crook and an ignoramus.”5 Lacking those policy-related distinctions that party labels contribute, the only way in which candidates, all Democrats, could distinguish themselves from each other was with ﬁery oratory on their own behalf, character assaults on their opponents, and assorted campaign gimmicks. “Was this candidate or that one more showy and satisfying? Did Jack or Jock offer the more thrilling representation of the South in action against the Yankee and the black man?”6 The system practically guaranteed a campaign of “bucket and bile” and did provide an entertaining and therefore welcome diversion in a world that offered few others. The money for these campaigns seems minimal by today’s standards: an estimated $20,000 in the 1920s, up to $100,000 in the 1930s, and up to

[37], (3)

Lines: 71 to 7 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [37], (3)

38 Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

$200,000 by the 1950s for a strongly contested gubernatorial primary. Most of this money seems to have been contributed in very large amounts from those who, whether because they did business with the state, were regulated by it, or sought employment from it, recognized the clear consequences of state elections on their fortunes and were therefore willing to invest in the possibility of favored treatment. Consequently, the major contributors were highway contractors and related construction and road machinery ﬁrms, printers and textbook publishers, wholesale grocers, bond houses and insurance ﬁrms, railroads, the utilities and the liquor dealers, as well as state employees, who were routinely “maced” by gubernatorial and other candidates. For a few self-interested individuals, then, politics commanded very close observation and attention.7 In addition to low participation and issueless campaigns, two other features of traditional Arkansas politics helped to deﬁne its nature and limit its utility as an instrument of popular governance: the importance of local leaders in “delivering” the vote and the widespread existence (and acceptance) of fraud. In the absence of party competition to clarify issue differences and of mass technology for reaching the voters, a statewide contest depended largely upon lining up the support of local leaders who could corral their area vote. Again, according to Key, “These local potentates loom larger in Arkansas than in most southern states.” The foremost function of any statewide campaign manager was to line up these local bosses, and in some instances their leadership was based on prominence and respect in the community and could be secured on the basis of persuasion. In many other instances, however, it was necessary to bargain on the basis of a quid pro quo. One gubernatorial campaign manager of the 1940s recalls, “Some wanted jobs, some wanted roads, some wanted both—but they all wanted something.” Many also expected a cash payment, euphemistically entitled “walking-around money,” and many of these local leaders, understandably, were centered in the county courthouse.8 In many counties, jobs working for the county were the only cash-paying jobs available and therefore highly prized. County roads, the lifeblood of farmers and merchants, were built or not built depending upon the grace of the county judge. Furthermore, with the cooperation of the county clerk, it was easy to determine who had voted and for whom. Given a very small and therefore highly manageable electorate, a signiﬁcant percentage of which was economically dependent upon the goodwill of the courthouse crowd, the power these local potentates wielded is unsurprising. The bosses may occasionally have exaggerated their actual power to inﬂate their self-importance and bargaining position. However, based upon Key

[38], (4)

Lines: 79 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [38], (4)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

39

and Drummond’s observations, as well as the authors’ numerous personal experiences and interviews, there is little question that most statewide races depended primarily on local organization and maneuver. A 1940s candidate for the state supreme court recalled that in eastern Arkansas it was necessary to see only one or two people in each county: “If they were for you, they delivered; if not, they beat your brains out.” As recently as 1966, a political activist seeking support for a young man making his ﬁrst statewide race asked a friendly hill-county leader to give his man a little encouragement, “say like 800 votes.” Exactly 800 votes were tallied for him. Brooks Hays recalled that in seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 1928, he had made all the arrangements necessary for carrying Boone County and asked the local boss to telephone in the results early on election night. That would not be possible, the gentleman said, since there was no telephone. Hays persisted: Could the results be wired by telegraph? That would also be difﬁcult, said the county leader, but then added: “Look here, Brooks, if you’re that anxious I can tell you what the vote’s going to be and we could just write it down now.” Hays also ruefully recalled how viciously this system of local control was used against him in the special Democratic primary for Congress in 1933. He was “counted out” in Yell County (often known as “the free state of Yell”), which certiﬁed a vote of 2,454, although ofﬁcial poll tax lists contained only 1,651 names.9 As these and numerous other incidents indicate, the entire electoral process in Arkansas was frequently manipulated through an almost inﬁnite variety of techniques made possible by both the voting process and the apparent tolerance of the public. The poll tax itself, the only voter registration system Arkansas possessed until 1965, was an open and frequently accepted invitation to abuse. Huge blocks of poll taxes could be purchased and then distributed to “friends” (or simply voted in the desired direction). Liquor stores, anxious to protect their legitimacy in wet localities, would buy large lots of poll taxes and distribute them to their customers, who would presumably vote wet in any future local option elections. Eastern Arkansas planters routinely bought poll taxes for all their tenants and sometimes saved them the bother of even making an appearance at the polls, a “favor” also frequently performed for their womenfolk. Illiterates who did vote were given a notch stick (a stick that could be placed on the ballot whose notches coincided with the “right” choices) to facilitate their voting. Any “wrong” choices could be easily detected and corrected, since there was virtually no secrecy of the ballot. The paper ballots contained a carbon duplicate, signed by the voter, and both the original and duplicate contained identical numbers, which allowed interested parties to match names to votes. And despite a state

[39], (5)

Lines: 87 to 8 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [39], (5)

40 Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

law requiring such, there were almost no voting booths in Arkansas until the late 1960s.10 Should all these measures prove insufﬁcient, there remained the inﬁnite possibilities of outright fraud: deliberate defacement and subsequent discarding of ballots as they were counted and wholesale destruction (through burning, trashing, and even, in one instance, eating) of ballots if necessary. These kinds of practices were much more widespread and ﬂagrant in some localities than in others. They varied with the manageability of the electorate, the skill and enthusiasm of local leaders, local mores, and the perceived stakes (in Garland County, for instance, the illegal gambling operations absolutely necessitated a compliant political establishment). In Newton County, for example, it was traditional to wait outside the courthouse on election day until one got the “highest dollar” and then a congratulatory slug of whiskey afterward. In other counties, chicanery was limited to the absentee ballots; those counting the vote completed any blanks with the names of machine-favored candidates.11 Virtually any statewide contest was tainted by the tactics necessary to ensure victory in certain counties, and despite numerous charges of fraud by the losers and occasional court challenges, the courts were generally as inclined as the citizenry to look the other way. Drummond, writing in 1957, concluded that “at least three gubernatorial races, two United States Senatorial races, and one Congressional race since 1930 were decided by corrupt practices.” Key concluded that while “Tennessee has the most consistent and widespread habit of fraud,” Arkansas was “a close second.”12 Arkansas’s ﬁrst political problem, Key concluded, was the failure to establish “the essential mechanisms of democratic government.” In this context Key was referring to the fundamental requirement of honest elections. More broadly, however, he was referring to the fact that democratic nations have found political parties to be indispensable instruments of self-government. They are an absolutely essential means through which identiﬁable groups of politicians, anxious to secure control of government, provide for the organization and expression of competing viewpoints on public policies, from which voters can choose and through which they can hold government accountable. This fundamental requirement for self-government was missing in Arkansas. the no-party system Arkansas’s solidly Democratic nature had enormous instrumental value in preserving the segregated status quo. In an unwritten but clearly under-

[40], (6)

Lines: 89 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [40], (6)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

41

stood trade-off, any Democratic presidential candidate in the early twentieth century was guaranteed virtually all the electoral votes of the South provided he made no unsettling moves in the direction of racial equality. Furthermore, southern Democrats, once elected to the U.S. Congress, could remain for decades without serious challenge, thereby acquiring powerful committee chairmanships through the seniority system as well as a veto on any presidential programs deemed threatening to the southern way of life. Following the 1964 elections, not a single member of Arkansas’s congressional delegation had been in ofﬁce for fewer than 20 years. The two senators and four congressmen had 138 combined years of seniority as well as the chairmanships of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations and Government Operations committees and the House Ways and Means and Interstate and Foreign Commerce committees and choice rankings on Senate Appropriations and Finance, House Rules, and Agriculture. This determination to preserve Democratic dominance—stemming originally from and sustained by its instrumentality in maintaining the subordinate status of the African American population—condemned the entire political system to partyless, and so in most respects meaningless, politics. As the preceding discussion indicates, the Arkansas Democratic Party was not an electoral organization, bound to recruit the most attractive candidates and frame the most beneﬁcial issue appeals to ensure victory over their Republican opposites. Rather, it was a very loose holding company under whose name transient and candidate-oriented factions competed for power on the basis of personality appeals and local alliances.13 The Arkansas Republican Party was no more an electoral organization itself. It was organized solely to secure federal patronage for its exclusive membership and to receive whatever rewards (appointments, prestige, cash) might be offered by presidential aspirants seeking support at the Republican National Convention. Often termed “post-ofﬁce Republicans” (because postmasterships were the most plentiful patronage prizes), the typical southern state Republican organization was characterized by Alexander Heard as follows: “The most signal characteristic of the party’s southern leadership has been a lack of interest in winning elections. They have been big ﬁsh in little ponds and they have liked it. They have not sought to disrupt their closed corporation by electing local candidates. . . . They have been patronage referees or palace politicians, but not candidates or campaign managers.”14 The Arkansas Republicans clearly ﬁt this description. Dominated for years by Powell Clayton and his faithful assistant Harmon Remmel (and thus

[41], (7)

Lines: 104 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [41], (7)

42 Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

sometimes called a two-family system), unhappy insurgents occasionally charged that the organization was antielectoral because so long as the party was small there were fewer of the faithful to reward and no mass following demanded accountability. Certainly, no serious effort was made to build a voting constituency until well after the middle of the twentieth century. In fact, the ﬁrst efforts to do so in the 1960s were vigorously opposed by the established organization. This led Jeannette Rockefeller to recall that, in 1960, “the Republican Party was truthfully about ﬁve old men who sat on a porch until there was a Republican President and then held out their hands for some patronage.” Conﬁrming this analysis, Thomas Kielhorn concluded: “If by party we mean a political organization that actively seeks votes in the pursuit of ofﬁce, then with the exception of two hill counties in the Arkansas Ozarks, it can fairly be stated that Arkansas did not have a Republican Party until the early 1960’s.”15 In spite of this nonelectoral Republican Party mechanism, there continued to be a small but faithful Republican electorate. The hereditary Republicans of the highlands, especially in Newton, Searcy, and Madison counties, consistently voted for Republican presidential candidates and usually for Republican gubernatorial candidates, sent Republicans to the state legislature, and even held Republican primaries for local ofﬁces. Those African Americans who voted stayed loyal to the party of the Great Emancipator, and some migrants from northern states brought their Republican afﬁliations with them. Republicans, however, made no genuine effort to break the Democratic stranglehold, and voters had no way to reliably ascertain, within the kaleidoscopic, transitory factionalism of the Democratic Party, which of the faces and names would best serve their own interests. Key traced many political and governmental inadequacies to the South’s curious brand of one-party and therefore essentially no-party politics: low voter participation; issueless campaigns; a disposition to fraud and favoritism; an emphasis on demagogic personalities; fragmented, timid, and ineffective state governments. But his most serious charge was that, given that politics generally comes down to a conﬂict between those who have and those who have less, this kind of political disorganization consistently favors the haves over the have-nots. In the great ongoing issues of taxation, expenditures, and regulation, Key asserted, the grand objective of those comfortable with the status quo is obstruction—leave us alone to enjoy what we already have—for which little organized action is necessary. For those still aspiring, still attempting to climb the ladder, and needing such institutional supports as schools and roads to do

[42], (8)

Lines: 110 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [42], (8)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

43

so, sustained organization is necessary but inArkansas was nearly impossible to achieve. No mechanism existed through which to act, and these have-nots’ wishes found expression in ﬁtful rebellions led by transient demagogues who gained their conﬁdence but often had neither the technical competence nor the stable base of political power to effectuate a program.16 Recently, some political scientists have suggested that Key overemphasized party politics, or the lack thereof, as the major contributing factor in the South’s regressive public policies. They have suggested that certain economic development factors have much more direct causal impact on public policies than do electoral politics. For them, Arkansas’s retarded school system, inadequate roads, stingy social services, and regressive tax policies can be much more directly attributed to its agrarian economy—to its lack of industrialization, urbanization, and wealth—than to its lack of two-party competition. Nevertheless, if politics was not the chief enemy of progress, neither was politics its instigator and ally.17 Some steps forward had been made from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Verbal violence had largely replaced physical violence, although terrible physical violence still occasionally erupted when local elites perceived threats to the racial or economic order—most notoriously in the Elaine Race Massacres of 1919. State ofﬁcials’ active or passive complicity in those events must not be understated. The absolute control ofArkansas by a handful of relatives had been replaced with a more pluralistic pattern in which no group controlled more than its own locality. The potential electorate was doubled when Arkansas extended the primary suffrage to women in 1918 and became the second southern state (and the twelfth in the nation) to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, giving national suffrage to women. A few governors pressed for progressive change and occasionally had been successful in enacting (though not always implementing and rarely sustaining) programs that acknowledged pressing public problems. However, even the best of these leaders never seriously challenged either the economic or the political status quo.18 James MacGregor Burns provided a provocative distinction between two kinds of democratic leadership: transactional and transformational. Transactional leadership, according to Burns, is based on an exchange or brokerage relationship between leaders and followers. It can be constructive in negotiating and securing basic needs and interests of followers, but it is also superﬁcial and limited, dominated ultimately by a calculation of political costs and beneﬁts. Transformational leadership, based on a symbiotic or collective relationship that binds leaders and followers together, is much

[43], (9)

Lines: 114 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [43], (9)

44 Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

more educative and elevating because the “leader’s task is consciousnessraising on a wide plane.” It arouses and elevates the hopes and demands of followers to an awareness of their needs and entitlements, and leaves permanent institutions behind that sustain progress after the leader is gone.19 Arkansas voters did elect some genuinely distinguished delegates to represent them in Congress. Senator Joseph T. Robinson, who was Alfred E. Smith’s vice-presidential running mate in the 1928 election, was Democratic majority leader from 1932 to 1937 and capably assisted President Franklin D. Roosevelt in securing passage of New Deal legislation. Senator J. W. Fulbright authored the resolution committing the United States to support of and involvement in the United Nations, established the highly successful international scholar-exchange program that bears his name, and as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee led the challenge to Cold War “myths,” which, he contended, were crippling rather than strengthening U.S. foreign policy, most notably in Vietnam. Congressman Wilbur D. Mills became known as “the third House of Congress” during his long tenure as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, from which all revenue legislation (and at that time all House Democratic Committee assignments) must originate. Congressman Brooks Hays distinguished himself by efforts to meliorate rather than escalate the 1957 Central High desegregation crisis, and after his electoral defeat he was honored by presidential assignments and academic appointments. Still, none of these luminaries in Arkansas’s national delegation ever challenged the political and economic establishment in Arkansas. In fact, they worked closely and comfortably with it.20 At the state level, those few governors who had a reformist bent were either thwarted or co-opted by the establishment, or they found the traditional two two-year terms totally inadequate for making or sustaining real change. Using Burns’s very broad distinction, theArkansas political system produced a few capable transactional leaders but no transformational ones. Admittedly, that kind of leadership would have required extraordinary skill and determination against staggering odds: Arkansas’s ruralism and continued isolation from the mainstream of modern ideas, an uneducated and provincial population struggling for economic survival and characterized by widespread economic dependency, a religious tradition that emphasized salvation in the next world rather than reform and justice in this one, and what Drummond has summarized as “the general cultural immaturity of the state.” What any leader would have had to overcome is what Arsenault, in describing both Governor Jeff Davis and his followers, has termed “the anti-institutionalism of the nineteenth-century frontier”—a distrust of all

[44], (10)

Lines: 120 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [44], (10)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

45

concentrations of power and an ambivalence about governmental activism. “They knew that good politics would make them feel better, but they were not sure what good government would do for them.”21 And lacking any experience with good government, how could they? For a great variety of reasons, then, politics continued to be an occasionally entertaining but generally irrelevant sideshow. Arkansas state government entered the last half of the twentieth century having yet to demonstrate its capacity for making a signiﬁcant and positive difference in the lives of its citizens. Counting from 1888, the high-water mark of the agrarianRepublican challenge, until the 1966 gubernatorial election of Republican Winthrop Rockefeller, this one-party, low-participation, issueless politics characterized Arkansas’s political life for over three-fourths of a century. Well before 1966, developments were underway that would challenge and change almost every aspect of this system. Signiﬁcantly, however, the major stimuli for change were generated by forces totally outside the state. Dissenters within could never generate sufﬁcient sustained force to overcome the countless social, economic, and political supports for the status quo. the transformation of traditional politics By the end of the twentieth century almost every visible feature of traditional Arkansas politics had been transformed. African Americans, against whom the entire ediﬁce was originally established, had become signiﬁcant participants in, rather than negative objects of, the political system. Elections had become generally honest and much more participatory. Courthouse rings and county bosses were approaching obsolescence. Perhaps most signiﬁcant, the general election had generally become the contest that matters rather than a perfunctory ratiﬁcation of the Democratic primary. Part of this transformation is the story of individual leaders and speciﬁc events combining at critical junctures to thrust the political process into unprecedented directions. Senator Huey Long’s successful foray into Arkansas in August 1932 on behalf of Senator Hattie Caraway’s reelection lasted only one week, but hundreds of thousands heard and remembered his exhortations to the dispossessed to stand up against the economic establishment. Sidney McMath and other leaders of the gi revolt sensitized Arkansans to the shame of widespread, casual election fraud and the desirability of honestly conducted elections. Orval Faubus’s escalation of the events at Central High temporarily plunged Arkansas into political turbulence, racial ugliness, and economic decline. These same events, however, galvanized scores of

[45], (11)

Lines: 126 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [45], (11)

46 Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

previously apolitical citizens (many of them women) into the political arena, where they remained long after Faubus had departed.22 There is no adequate measure for the contributions to change that were generated by the serendipitous 1953 arrival in Arkansas of Winthrop Rockefeller. Across a very broad spectrum of economic development, race relations, party competition, and governmental reform, it is no exaggeration to say that he “exerted a greater—and more beneﬁcial—inﬂuence on a single state than any ﬁgure of his generation.” This opinion was resoundingly conﬁrmed by the later “Big Three” of Arkansas Democratic politics, Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, and Bill Clinton, each of whom acknowledged that Rockefeller paved the way for their own political progressivism and had been “the beacon who showed us out of the dark days of Arkansas politics.” Hundreds of lesser-known individuals made their own distinctive and essential contributions, and their actions cumulated into an important part of the explanation of change. Fortunately for the student of Arkansas politics, excellent narrative accounts of Arkansas’s recent political history have been published and are readily available.23 It is also essential to understand that these individual actions were taking place in a political climate that was being radically altered by historic, technological, and economic forces that arose outside the Arkansas political system but touched and transformed the lives of all Arkansans. Though the Great Depression ravaged Arkansas for over a decade, the New Deal had more lasting political consequences. By 1939 the federal government had poured over $700 million into the state in grants and loans, much of it for the simple alleviation of human suffering, but also, through the Works Progress Administration (wpa) and other work projects, for 11,471 miles of roads; thousands of bridges and viaducts; 467 schools; and countless libraries, hospitals, courthouses, ﬁre stations, parks, and other public facilities. Severe threats from the federal government had forced the state government to enact its ﬁrst general revenue program and also to assume a commitment, modest but permanent, toward public welfare for the elderly and the indigent.24 Though many of these programs encountered enormous hostility and obstructionism from Arkansas’s political and economic establishment, the popularity of Roosevelt and the New Deal not only reinforced the commitment of Arkansas’s voters to the Democratic Party but provided many Arkansans with their ﬁrst look at the potential beneﬁts of politics and government. Perhaps poverty was not a God-willed inﬂiction to be suffered individually and independently. Perhaps politics could and should be something more than oratory and barbecues and hillbilly bands. One longtime participant in

[46], (12)

Lines: 140 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [46], (12)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

47

Arkansas politics noted the watershed quality of the New Deal as follows: “Before, politics was just a game. It didn’t matter who won, because they weren’t going to do anything anyway.”25 World War II was another turning point that had profound political consequences in Arkansas, enormously stimulating the economy with defense plants and military installations, quickening urban growth, and revitalizing agriculture with its demands for food and ﬁber. Although poor education and poor health led to incredibly high rejection rates for Arkansas inductees, more than two hundred thousand Arkansans—over 10 percent of the total population—served in the nation’s armed forces, and many returned to Arkansas with a fresher, more critical view. They not only precipitated the gi revolt but now, having some standards of comparison, contributed signiﬁcantly to what George Tindall has described as “a growing sense of Southern deﬁciencies.” Many took advantage of the gi Bill, which created explosive enrollment increases on the state’s college campuses. Others, ﬁnding little economic opportunity, left the state and joined the outward stream ofArkansans who were attracted to economic opportunities elsewhere and/or were displaced by the agricultural revolution.26 To label the changes in Arkansas’s economy over recent decades as revolutionary is not to exaggerate. Fueled largely by technological developments (mechanization of equipment, pesticides, fertilizers, improved seed and livestock strains), agriculture was transformed into a productive, scientiﬁc, and diversiﬁed enterprise that employed many fewer Arkansans on much larger farms at far greater proﬁt. In 1940 a majority of the population was employed as farmers, farm managers, and laborers. Cotton still reigned supreme and was grown on over three million acres in virtually every county, with total agricultural cash receipts of about $100 million for the entire state. By 1997, in contrast, only 4.7 percent of the population were so employed, soybeans and rice had far outstripped the acreage and cash value of cotton in the Delta, cotton had been totally displaced by proﬁtable poultry and cattle operations in the rest of the state, and net farm income was in the billions of dollars. Leland Duvall and others have told this compelling tale of economic metamorphosis with rich detail, but one statistic is especially eloquent in its implications: a two-row cotton picker, operated by one person, can do the work of more than one hundred ﬁeld hands.27 It is estimated that half of Arkansas’s population still makes its living by means in some way connected to agriculture or forestry. By the turn of the twenty-ﬁrst century, however, just over half of Arkansas workers were employed in a broad range of service, sales, and management jobs. Moreover,

[47], (13)

Lines: 148 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [47], (13)

48 Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

the second-highest number (24 percent) were employed in manufacturing, which experienced a 172 percent increase in number of establishments from 1939 to 2000. In short, Arkansas had changed from an agrarian economy, with feudal conditions in the lowlands and patchy, subsistence farms in the uplands, to a more diversiﬁed, white-collar, service-oriented economy.28 It is still possible to drive for days in Arkansas without seeing any building taller than a county courthouse and no men in coats and ties. Still, the numbers are now in the towns and cities, which are no longer strictly subservient to the rural areas surrounding them but important in their own right and driven by their own varied interests. Though per capita income in Arkansas has remained in the very bottom ranks, varying from forty-sixth to forty-ninth of the ﬁfty states in the latter decades of the twentieth century, that income had moved from 40 percent of the national average in 1940 to 75 percent in 2000, a dramatic narrowing of the perennial gap. As will be discussed in the following chapter, this newfound material adequacy for many, and afﬂuence for some, still eludes signiﬁcant portions of Arkansas’s population, especially in those east Arkansas counties where thousands of former cotton pickers and choppers still live with the cruel legacy of the cotton kingdom. This is especially true for many African American Arkansans. However, thousands of Arkansas blacks migrated to better economic opportunities elsewhere, steadily reducing the African American percentage of the population from 26.9 percent in 1920 to 22 percent in 1950 and 15.7 percent in 2000. Having migrated northward, they made their contribution to the transformation of the national Democratic Party—from an orientation toward rural, small-town, white southern voters to the New Deal coalition of urban, ethnic, labor, and increasingly minority northern voters. And this in turn gradually transformed the Democratic Party from the major protector of white supremacy to its most ﬁerce critic and challenger. By the late 1930s the strains between the southern and nonsouthern wings of the Democratic Party began to surface. By 1948 they erupted into open warfare. By 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson campaigned on the promise of eradicating every vestige of racial injustice while the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, the only nonsouthern U.S. senator to have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the entire rationale for the solid oneparty Democratic South had evaporated, in fact had been reversed. Meantime, the U.S. Supreme Court, joined in the 1960s by the U.S. Congress, steadily eliminated virtually all of the legal mechanisms and subterfuges that had sustained the southern social and political system.

[48], (14)

Lines: 155 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [48], (14)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

49

Smith v. Allwright (1944) put an end to the “white primary,” and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed all racially based voter restrictions (although an amendment by Senator Fulbright explicitly exempted his state from initial coverage under the vra). Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and numerous subsequent decisions outlawed separate (and always unequal) school systems, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination in all public programs and institutions as well as in accommodations offered to the public. Baker v. Carr in 1962 and Reynolds v. Sims in 1964 struck down the inequitable apportionment of state legislatures that had sustained rural domination of state legislative politics into the urban age. Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections in 1966 ended the legality of poll-tax requirements in state and local elections, thus closing the door left open by passage of the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the poll tax in federal elections.29 Arkansas did not submit quietly to any of these changes. Governor Homer Adkins’s reaction to the end of the white primary was to fulminate, “If I cannot be nominated by the white voters of Arkansas, I do not want the ofﬁce.” The state Democratic Party’s reaction was to adopt a set of “principles” deliberately repugnant to African Americans to which all Democrats were required to afﬁrm allegiance. The furious reaction to court-ordered school desegregation precipitated an immediate round of demagoguery, segregationist laws, constitutional amendments and popular initiatives, and political success for those who rode the tides of resistance.30 The fury began subsiding almost as quickly as it had arisen. By 1962 Orval Faubus was using little racist rhetoric. By 1964 he was patching up some of his differences with the naacp and appointing some African Americans to state boards and commissions. And in 1966 Winthrop Rockefeller, a Republican who had assiduously courted and registered African American voters after his unsuccessful gubernatorial race in 1964, got 54 percent of the gubernatorial vote against James D. (“Justice Jim”) Johnson, a Democrat who had organized the Arkansas White Citizens Councils, been highly instrumental in forcing Faubus into his segregationist stance, and refused throughout the 1966 campaign to shake black voters’ hands.31 The essence of traditional Arkansas politics was African American exclusion and easy Democratic dominance. Thus, the black-supported election of the ﬁrst Republican governor since Reconstruction, and the ﬁrst ever freely chosen by the native Arkansas electorate, is the single most visible symbol of the political consequences of the sweeping economic and social changes of preceding decades. Before looking further into the contemporary

[49], (15)

Lines: 163 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [49], (15)

50 Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Table 3. Voter Turnout in Arkansas and the Nation, 1948–2002 Percentage of Voting-age Population Who Voted Arkansas 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002

21.9 36.9 38.0 41.2 53.4 53.9 48.1 51.1 36.0 51.5 49.0 52.5 40.8 48.3 40.3 54.0 39.8 48.0 37.6 47.6 40.1

United States 51.1 61.6 59.3 64.0 63.0 62.8 55.2 53.5 34.9 52.6 39.0 51.4 36.4 50.1 36.5 55.1 38.8 49.1 36.4 51.3 36.2

Source: Compiled from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population (Washington dc: Government Printing Ofﬁce or www.census.gov, various years); Federal Election Commission reports; Richard M. Scammon, ed., America at the Polls (Pittsburgh: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965); Arkansas Secretary of State, Ofﬁcial Election Returns (Little Rock: Secretary of State, various years); Arkansas Secretary of State, The Voter’s Choice 2000 (Little Rock: Secretary of State, 2001); United States Election Project, available at http://elections.gmv.edu

partisan complexion of Arkansas, we should note some additional major modiﬁcations in traditional Arkansas politics. First, as shown in table 3, Arkansas voters have become much more participatory, now generally matching national levels of voter turnout. Obviously, Arkansas’s improved record is due in part to declines in national turnout percentages. The fact that Arkansas turnout now occasionally exceeds national turnout (by 4 percent in 2002, by nearly 3 percent in 1994) is due to the fact that Arkansas governors are elected in nonpresidential years, which creates more “off-year” interest in Arkansas than in many other states. Nevertheless, Arkansas voter turnout has escalated sharply over time, and

[50], (16)

Lines: 215 ———

0.94606

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [50], (16)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

51

for a variety of reasons: the elimination of the poll tax and the white primary; the occasional vigorous voter registration efforts by candidates, parties, and interested organizations; a secretary of state’s ofﬁce that, by the 1990s, was enthusiastically encouraging voter registration with a host of educational and outreach activities; the stimulation provided by spirited close contests replacing predictable outcomes; and, of course, the enfranchisement of the African American citizenry. It is estimated that in 1940 only 3 percent of African American adults had, through payment of poll taxes, qualiﬁed themselves to vote. Following abolishment of the white primary (that is, when voting in the more meaningful Democratic primary became possible), this ﬁgure increased to 21 percent in 1948 and climbed slowly upward to 33 percent in 1958. In the 1960s the [51], (17) salience of racial issues in several contests (Barry Goldwater versus Lyndon Johnson, George Wallace and Richard Nixon versus Hubert Humphrey, and especially Jim Johnson versus Winthrop Rockefeller) combined with the Lines: 227 to intensive efforts of Rockefeller to recruit black voter support brought the ——— percentage of the African American population registered to vote to 68 per0.0pt PgV cent by 1968 and to 72 percent by 1970. By November 1984 that percentage ——— had slipped slightly to 67.2 percent (compared with 74.4 percent of the Normal Page white population). Even at somewhat lower registration and turnout levels, * PgEnds: Eject however, African American voters—as will be discussed in the following chapter—have become a critical factor in swinging close statewide elections. Indeed, they have sometimes been the decisive factor in those counties and [51], (17) localities where African American citizens predominate.32 This new, more participatory tradition has not spread evenly across the state. As map 2 shows, the range is considerable, from the exceptionally high turnouts in some of the upland counties to exceptionally low turnouts in some of the lowland counties. This contrast substantiates Elazar’s suggestion that there is a “Moralistic” inﬂuence in the Ozark uplands amid an otherwise “Traditionalistic” state. Furthermore, these ﬁgures reﬂect averages in the best possible showings of exciting, visible contests. They can shoot sharply upward in individual counties when a controversial local contest or emotionarousing ballot issue occurs. They universally scale sharply downward to only a fraction of the electorate in routine school elections. The fact that state government can no longer routinely conduct itself in an environment relatively immune to mass pressures and desires, however, is a major break with the past.33 This trend toward “popularization of politics” has been reinforced by the decimation of the once all-powerful county rings and leaders. Again, the

Boone

Van Buren

nk

Johnson

Fr a

Conway

bas

White

Se

Faulkner Yell

Lonoke

Prairie

Saline Garland

Lee

Phillips

Hot Spring

Sevier

Cross St. Francis

e ro on M

Pulaski

Polk

Mississippi

Poinsett

Perry

Scott ry me tgo on M

Craighead

ce en nd pe de In

Cleburne

Pope Logan

Lawrence

Stone

Ja ck so n

lin

Searcy

n de en itt Cr

tia n

Crawford

Newton

Greene

Sharp

Izard Madison

Washington

Clay

Randolph

Fulton

Baxter Marion

W oo dr uf f

Carroll

Benton

rd wa Ho

Grant

Arkansas

Jefferson

1972

Pike Clark Dallas

Cleveland Lincoln

Over 60%

Desha

La fa

Miller

yett e

Little River Hempstead Nevada

Ouachita

Drew

Calhoun

50–60%

Bradley Columbia

Chicot

Ashley

Union

Less than 50%

[52], (18) Marion

lin

Searcy

Van Buren

nk

Johnson

Fra

Conway

tia bas

n pe de In

Cleburne

Pope Logan

Lawrence

Stone

White

Se

Faulkner Yell

Lonoke

Prairie

Garland Grant

1980

Pike Clark Dallas

Cleveland Lincoln

Little River Hempstead Nevada

tte

Madison

lin

Searcy

nk Fra

n pe de In

Cleburne

Pope Conway

bas

tia

Stone

Van Buren

Johnson

Logan

Lawrence

White

Se

Faulkner Yell

Pulaski

Prairie

Garland

Grant

Jefferson

rd wa Ho

Dallas

Cleveland Lincoln Desha

Little River Hempstead Nevada

Ouachita

e fay ett

Drew

Calhoun

Union

Ashley

Over 60% 50–60%

Bradley Columbia

Lee

2000

Clark

La

Cross St. Francis

Arkansas

Pike

Miller

Mississippi

Poinsett

Phillips

Hot Spring

Sevier

Lonoke

Saline

e ro on M

Polk

Craighead

Perry

Scott ry me tgo on M

e nc de

n de en itt Cr

n

Crawford

Newton

Greene

Sharp

Izard

Clay

Randolph

Fulton

Baxter

Less than 50%

Marion

Ja ck so n

Boone

Chicot

Ashley

Union

W oo dr uf f

fay e

Carroll

Benton

50–60%

Drew

Calhoun Bradley

Columbia

La

Miller

Ouachita

Chicot

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

Over 60%

Desha

Washington

———

Lee

Arkansas

Jefferson

Lines: 232

-0.8160

Phillips

Hot Spring

Sevier

Cross St. Francis

e ro on M

Pulaski Saline

ry me tgo on M

Mississippi

Poinsett

Perry

Scott

Polk

Craighead

e nc de

n de en itt Cr

n

Crawford

Newton

Greene

Sharp

Izard Madison

Washington

Clay

Randolph

Fulton

Baxter

Ja ck so n

Boone

W oo dr uf f

Carroll

Benton

rd wa Ho

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Less than 50%

Map 2. Percentage of Voting-Age Population That Voted, by County, 1972, 1980, and 2000.

[52], (18)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

53

contributing factors are complex. The widespread use of privacy-protecting devices (voting booths and to a lesser extent voting machines) and new expectations of conﬁdentiality have generally freed voters from whatever consequences might once have ensued from bucking the establishment’s wishes. Furthermore, relatively few voters now fear the sanctions of the courthouse crowd. County jobs have lost their unique cash-paying luster; the county judge, since 1974 reforms, no longer has total discretionary authority over the placement and repair of county roads; and widespread economic independence has brought a newfound political independence to all of the urban and most of the rural regions.34 The major explanation for the crumbling of the courthouse rings is the spectacular rise in the range, power, and inﬂuence of the mass media, a development that is transforming politics—and governance—everywhere. The ﬁrst major media campaign in Arkansas was Francis Cherry’s radio talkathon, which he successfully used in his bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1952. That same year also brought what has been described as Arkansas’s ﬁrst radio campaign jingle: “Why don’t you haul off and vote for Noble Gill, and tell all your friends so they will?” Both the use and the sophistication of mass-media techniques accelerated rapidly in the 1960s, with television increasingly becoming the campaign medium of choice. The year 1970 brought the most spectacular demonstration of television’s effectiveness in Dale Bumpers’s skyrocketing rise from total obscurity to triumphal victory over Faubus in the primary and then over Rockefeller in the general gubernatorial election.35 By the 1980s virtually all statewide contests and increasing numbers of county and even local elections were depending heavily on television to convey the messages once transmitted by local intermediaries. In fact, as the comparative ﬁgures in table 4 demonstrate, the new media techniques (extensive, sophisticated public opinion surveys, forcing television and radio advertising to be crafted accordingly) have become by far the heaviest weapons in today’s campaign arsenals. In 1946 the only broadcast media available was radio, to which only 8.7 percent of the campaign budget was allocated. By 1994 television and radio consumed 56.7 percent of Jim Guy Tucker’s campaign budget, and if professional and consulting fees (many of which relate to what is broadcast and when) are added to this category, the percentage rises to 72.5. Table 4 also clearly reveals the soaring costs of running a statewide competitive campaign. Since the number of voters has also escalated enormously during this time, in part this is the necessary price of reaching a

[53], (19)

Lines: 247 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [53], (19)

$2,500 $2,000

$1,000 $79,500

Telephone & telegraph Auto & loudspeaker rental

Headquarters rent Travel Newspaper Election day activities Miscellaneous

Television Radio Professional fees (polls and contract services Other advertising Salaries Headquarters (rent, supplies, equipment) Direct mail Telephone

1982

$20,130 $19,530 $10,200 $6,941 $783,444

$29,453 $24,082

$70,356 $32,765 $30,664

$372,201 $91,615 $75,507 Television Other Advertising Professional fees (polls, research, etc. Salaries Postage Headquarters (rent, (supplies, equipment Fundraising Miscellaneous

1994

$76,255.87 $82,146.76 $2,276,708.88

$129,737.21 $29,495.23 $90,852.96

$1,217,266.69 $249,827.53 $400,726.63

Source: 1946 ﬁgures in V. O. Key Jr., Southern Politics (New York: Random House, 1949), p. 465; 1982 ﬁgures from Bill Clinton Campaign Committee, “Report of Campaign Expenditures,” July 8, 1982 ﬁled with the Secretary of State; 1994 ﬁgures from Jim Guy Tucker Campaign Committee, “Campaign Expenditure Report Page 2” ﬁled monthly with the Secretary of State during the primary and general elections of 1994.

Note: Figures for 1946 are estimated expenses; those for 1982 are reported expenses; 1994 ﬁgures are reported expenses compiled from adding each monthly expenditure with the exception of the February 1994 General Election Report, which was missing.

$5,000 $4,000 $2,500

$40,000 $10,000 $12,500

Salaries Postage Travel expenses

Newspaper advertising Radio advertising Printing

1946

Table 4. Democratic Gubernatorial Campaign Expenditures, 1946, 1982, 1994

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [54], (20)

Lines: 301

*

494.0pt

———

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[54], (20)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

55

larger and more attentive public. Nevertheless, many political scientists have strongly suggested that the new media politics has gone a long way toward depopularizing politics. Political campaigns, it is argued, were once giant battles between contending armies, with victory going to whichever army could place the most foot soldiers in the ﬁeld. The new media politics, in contrast, is a battle between advertising agencies, with victory going to the product, or candidate, who can select and afford the most skilled professional talent. The old politics was labor-intensive; the new politics is capital-intensive. The old politics consisted of parades and rallies, of crowds who gathered at the town square to the strains of gospel music to be personally touched by lengthy appeals from the candidate himself. Thousands of indispensable, dedicated grassroots workers assisted by spreading information about local issues and opinions upward to their candidate and personally carrying the word about their candidate’s virtues downward to their precincts and neighborhoods. The new politics, it is argued, has made these thousands of human intermediaries between candidate and voter superﬂuous. Scientiﬁcally constructed opinion surveys can reveal much more about the likes and dislikes of voters and the range and intensity of their opinions (plus all the correlations with demographic variables) than the old political squires ever dreamed of doing. Skilled consultants can precisely tailor media appeals around these documented strengths and weaknesses. And since Little Rock television stations now reach 80 percent of the state’s viewers, why spend months touring the small towns and countryside when a sixty-second prime-time spot can reach inﬁnitely more people? Though much of this is undeniably true, any broad distinction between the participatory glories of the old politics as compared with the technocratic impersonality of the new politics simply does not ﬁt Arkansas reality. First, it must be remembered that traditional Arkansas politics involved very few Arkansans. Crowds did assemble to hear the candidates rail at each other and to eat the free barbecue, but very small percentages of the potential electorate ever got themselves to the polls, and only a handful of Arkansans ever moved from the status of spectator to gladiator. Particularly in the counties where local political bosses had the most control, candidates and their agents did not even go through the pretense of making the rounds. A very few people “did” politics; most did not. Second, state candidates still ardently seek and prize skilled county coordinators and strong local organizations, who can mobilize volunteers to staff local phone banks, distribute yard signs, manage the candidate’s

[55], (21)

Lines: 301 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [55], (21)

56 Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

local visits to maximum effectiveness, and provide feedback on issues and appointments especially sensitive to local voters. Local activists, however, do not, cannot, “deliver” an entire county, or even an entire precinct, as once was possible. The difference they make is at the margins; but in an increasingly competitive environment, these margins can be critical. When the Washington County activist Billie “Momma” Schneider died in 1985, Senator David Pryor gave the eulogy, and the governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, land commissioner, and other elected ofﬁcials were her pallbearers. All had been grateful beneﬁciaries of the “margins” she could deliver from the young people who worked in her bars and the nursing-home residents she fed and feted on holidays. By the 1990s, many Republican candidates were relying on church-based organizations for communication and activation purposes, an organizational resource long employed in Arkansas to mobilize the black electorate. Betsey Wright, Clinton’s campaign manager in his early 1980s campaigns (and his chief of staff for most of the remainder of the decade), was prototypical of the “new breed” of political professionals: well educated and supremely comfortable with and competent in the technological paraphernalia of the day. However, in analyzing the difference between Clinton’s defeat in 1980 and his successful comeback in 1982, she ascribed decisive importance to the lethargy of grassroots workers in 1980 and the galvanization two years later of thousands of volunteers for whom Clinton’s comeback became “a passionate mission.” As Clinton himself once observed, “If you have twelve good people who really believe in you, you can still carry a rural county.”36 Indeed, speaking in West Memphis in 1999, President Bill Clinton made the point even more emphatically: I will never forget the ﬁrst time I ran for governor and I discovered how many communities over here had no water and sewer. And we tried to do something about it. The most emotional moment I ever had in all the years I was in government occurred when I was running for reelection as governor in 1982, and there was a big meeting in a barbeque joint in Forrest City of all the black leaders in the Delta. And they were trying to decide whether they were going to be for me or not. I had just gotten beat two years before and an articulate young lawyer got up and said we can’t be for him, he’s a loser. And we’ve got to win and we can’t afford to lose. I’m telling you, my whole life since then was riding on the outcome of what these eighty-ﬁve people in this barbeque joint were going to do. And you could feel the tone of the meeting go cold. And

[56], (22)

Lines: 307 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [56], (22)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

57

all of a sudden, this guy stands up in the back named John Lee Wilson, who was the mayor of a little town called Haynes, Arkansas, 150 people. And he said the young lawyer may have a point, but all he knew about this whole deal was that before I became governor the ﬁrst time, sewage was running open in the streets of Haynes and the children were sick. And after I had served, they weren’t sick anymore. And he said if we don’t stick with people who stick with us, what kind of people will we be. And the room changed again, and the Delta stayed with me, and the rest is history.37

Furthermore, for every highly advertised and strongly salient Senate or gubernatorial contest, there are still scores of races where little-known candidates compete for obscure ofﬁces, and the preferences of local political leaders can be decisive. On election eve, political activists still receive many calls and e-mails inquiring “who are we for?” in the less visible races.38 Finally, as will be discussed in chapter 14, Arkansas voters still expect, indeed demand, the human supplement to the televised appeals. They will punish those who never personally appear in their vicinity (or fail to call them if they do so). David Pryor, once the acknowledged master of the personal touch in contemporary Arkansas politics, issued the deﬁnitive word: “If you don’t like catﬁsh don’t run for ofﬁce.” (Pryor also told his U.S. Senate colleagues that he was “living proof that you can eat catﬁsh nine times a day . . . and survive.”) In short, the new politics has not supplanted the old politics in Arkansas campaigns. It has been superimposed upon it; and contemporary Arkansas politics, with all its media gimmickry, is certainly no less participatory than was the traditional Arkansas politics.39 Nor has the mass-media age made Arkansas political campaigns more negative and vicious. Voters frequently complain that today’s campaigns, in Arkansas and elsewhere, consist exclusively of television ads conveying nothing but negative assertions and ominous insinuations. Though these spots admittedly do little to enlighten the public, they are no more brutal and unenlightening than the “bucket and bile” once spilled by the gallon load on Arkansas’s traditional campaign trail. Even if the advent of mass media and other modern campaign techniques have led to less one-on-one interaction between candidates and voters, these innovations have nevertheless produced an electorate more informed on the issues of the day. Radio and television have probably done more than all the other mentioned factors combined to pierce the physical and intellectual isolation that had shielded so many Arkansans for most of the state’s history from any consciousness of broader, and occasionally better,

[57], (23)

Lines: 323 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [57], (23)

58 Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

worlds. More than Huey Long and his tirades, more than the New Deal’s tangible presence or the returning gi’s and their idealism, more than the recent inﬂux of in-migrants, radio and television have made immeasurable inroads into what has been described as “pluralistic ignorance,” that isolated and inbred provincialism, which, knowing nothing different, accepted the status quo as the universal and desired condition and viewed the outside (that is, modern) world with hostility and suspicion. Where people once lived in almost total isolation from even nearby neighbors, giant satellite dishes now dot the landscape, and political contests and choices take place within an inﬁnitely broader frame of reference.40 In addition, the synthesis of government reforms and the presence of a modern media have created a relative openness in Arkansas politics and government that contrasts dramatically with the policy-making process of the past, hidden to all except the elites. This trend toward openness began with the enactment of the state’s Freedom of Information Act during the Rockefeller administration. That 1967 act gives citizens access to most public records and opens almost all state and local government meetings to the public. A 1999 investigation by Arkansas reporters of local ofﬁcials’ compliance with the act showed continued resistance to the sharing of information. However, the state’s attorney general statement that “[o]ne hundred percent is the acceptable rate of compliance” marked a sharp contrast to the view of the state government ofﬁcials who had blocked passage of the measure in the 1950s and 1960s. Similarly, Arkansas, unsurprisingly for Traditionalistic state, lagged behind much of the rest of the nation in establishing ethics laws governing the relationships between government ofﬁcials and those who lobby them as well as disclosing the ﬁnancial interests of those governmental ofﬁcials. Nevertheless, two initiated acts (in 1988 and 1990) and subsequent statutory measures established a code of ethics, an Ethics Commission, and disclosure requirements. Finally, the mechanics of voting continue to be dogged by problems in each election cycle in parts of the state (most noticeably in the largest county, Pulaski), and disputes still arise about the interpretation of state election laws. Still, these clearly are not the purposeful shenanigans seen as recently as the early 1970s. Governor Mike Huckabee’s statement on Don Imus’s nationally syndicated radio program just before the 2000 election—that Arkansas was a “banana republic” rife with “ballot fraud”—was undeniably hyperbolic, and fellow Republicans quickly distanced themselves from the governor’s remarks.41 Traditional Arkansas politics stemmed from ruralism and agrarianism, from economic dependency and physical isolation, and from widespread

[58], (24)

Lines: 341 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [58], (24)

Traditional Politics and Its Transformation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

59

poverty in material terms and severe malnutrition of mind and spirit. Above all, it stemmed from the encompassing, supreme purpose of suppressing the black race. With race substantially removed from the agenda, with the economy transformed and modernized, with material sufﬁciency widespread and parochial suspicions diminishing, Arkansas could ﬁnally practice a new, more participatory, and potentially more useful politics. One crucial, ﬁnal point must be made regarding the comparative gubernatorial campaign expenditures presented earlier as we move toward a fuller analysis of the dynamics of contemporary Arkansas politics. The $87,000 estimate for 1946 was entirely for the primary since it was recommended that none would be necessary for the perfunctory general election. (It was anticipated, however, that an additional $25,000 would likely be necessary for the runoff election). In sharp contrast, by 1982, Bill Clinton had to spend not only over $783,000 to secure the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, but another $884,699 to win the general election. Since then, the percentage of total spending that occurs in primaries has continued to shrink. Clearly, the Democratic domination of Arkansas politics was giving way to a more competitive model.

[Last Page] [59], (25)

Lines: 345 to ———

270.86002 ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [59], (25)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter four

Contemporary Political Patterns

[First Page [60], (1) A political machine runs Arkansas. . . . It caters to its special interest friends. There is one set of rules for them and another for the rest of us. Huckabee for Lieutenant Governor tv advertisement, 1993

Lines: 0 to ———

If what has clanked along as the state Democratic Party since 1970 is indeed a political machine, then it’s a real Rube Goldberg machine—one of these honky-hooty Featherstone Kite contraptions with the bicycle-wheel pulleys, batwing pinwheels, whistling teakettles, dunking birds, mousetraps and barking dogs. Bob Lancaster, 1996

Reﬂecting all the social, economic, and legal upheavals described in the previous chapter, the ﬁrst partisan cracks in the “Solid South” began appearing in presidential contests, and speciﬁcally in 1948, when four southern states deserted the Democrats for Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. Other southern states actually bolted into the Republican column for the popular war hero Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, and still others departed from the Democratic reservation to support Richard Nixon over John Kennedy in 1960, and Barry Goldwater over Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Finally, in 1968, twenty years after the apostasy had begun elsewhere in the South, Arkansas cast its ﬁrst non-Democratic electoral votes since Reconstruction. But George Wallace, candidate of the American Independent party, not Richard Nixon the Republican, was the beneﬁciary of this Democratic disenchantment. It was not until 1972, courtesy of the candidacy of Democrat George McGovern, that Arkansas ﬁnally crossed the line to Republicanism. Four years later, as if in penance for this monstrous act of heresy, Arkansas gave

7.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [60], (1)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

61

Jimmy Carter his largest majority (65 percent) of any state but Georgia (66.7 percent). In 1980 Arkansas took its second cautious dip into presidential Republicanism, giving Ronald Reagan a very thin plurality (48.13 percent) over Carter (47.52 percent). Finally, in 1984, Arkansas went wholeheartedly for Reagan over Walter Mondale, this time by a margin (61.2 percent) that exceeded the national average, a pattern repeated in 1988 when Arkansas selected Bush (56.3 percent) over Michael Dukakis. With native Arkansan Bill Clinton leading the Democratic ticket in 1992, the pattern was understandably and dramatically reversed. Clinton’s 53.8 percentArkansas margin in a three-way race was his largest percentage in any of the ﬁfty states, while Bush’s percentage in Arkansas was sharply reduced from 56.3 percent in 1988 to 35.6 percent four years later. Clinton prevailed again in Arkansas in 1996 with 53.2 percent, though he performed better in several other (mostly northeastern) states. In 2000, after a furious campaign for Arkansas’s six Electoral College votes, George W. Bush returned the state to the Republican column by a (surprisingly large, considering the intensity of the campaign in the state on both sides) ﬁve-percentage-point margin over Clinton’s vice president Al Gore. The main point is that Arkansas, having voted for none but Democratic presidential candidates from statehood until 1968 (with the artiﬁcial exceptions of the Civil War and Reconstruction), voted Democratic only once in the six presidential elections from 1968 to 1988. Moreover, it returned to the Democratic column in two elections after that primarily because an Arkansan was the Democratic nominee. The following breakdown, showing the average Democratic percentage of the popular presidential vote in the twenty-two presidential elections from 1908 to 1988, depicts a virtual revolution in presidential preferences:1 1908–24 59.6 percent 1928–44 75.4 percent 1948–64 55.4 percent 1968–88 42.4 percent By the 1980s, statewide races for U.S. Senate evidenced sharp ideological overtones and—like modern presidential contests in the state—had become distinctly more competitive. That competition was in the general election. Dale Bumpers, for example, after a ﬁerce primary victory over incumbent Senator Fulbright in 1974, was elected to the Senate that fall with 85 percent of the vote. In 1980 he had no primary opposition but received only 59 percent over a very unimpressive Republican challenger. David Pryor, after

[61], (2)

Lines: 63 to 9 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [61], (2)

62

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

a close and bruising Democratic primary in 1978, cruised effortlessly through the general election with a 76 percent victory. Seeking reelection in 1984, however, he was unchallenged in the Democratic primary (as was Bumpers again in 1986) but had to spend over $1.5 million and campaign nonstop for a year to achieve a 57 percent general-election victory margin. However, it was not until 1996 that Arkansas became the second-to-last state in the Union to elect a Republican to the U.S. Senate with the elevation of Congressman Tim Hutchinson to the Senate. The ﬁrst Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives had been elected two decades earlier. John Paul Hammerschmidt rode Winthrop Rockefeller’s 1966 coattails to victory in the northwestern Third Congressional District (see map 3), and he was brieﬂy (1978–84) joined in the congressional delegation by Republican Ed Bethune from the Second Congressional District (metropolitan Little Rock and the surrounding rural counties). It was a momentous turning point in 1982, however, when for the ﬁrst time in the twentieth century, all four congressional seats were contested in the general election, a feat repeated in 1986.Arkansas, which had almost specialized in congressional seniority, had only twenty-six years of it following the 1978 elections, and its most senior member was Republican Hammerschmidt. By 1992, the U.S. House delegation from the state was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, a balance that held for the remainder of the century. Indeed, in 1994, for the ﬁrst time in Arkansas, a majority of the votes in congressional races were cast for Republicans.2 As elsewhere in the South, fading memories of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the New Deal; the unacceptability of a series of Democratic presidential candidates; and a much more industrialized, urbanized, and generally modernized environment had ﬁnally made it possible for Republicans to compete seriously in national elections. The focus of this study is state politics, however, and Republican development in Arkansas state politics differs not only from the national level but also from the general patterns of Republican emergence elsewhere in the South. Whereas in most southern states Republicans had their ﬁrst victories in presidential contests,Arkansas’s ﬁrst Republican victory came in a gubernatorial contest; and whereas in most southern states the Republican Party ﬁrst succeeded in state politics by offering a more conservative alternative to state Democrats, Winthrop Rockefeller’s victories in 1966 and 1968 represented a more progressive alternative to Arkansas voters. Most important, by any traditional measure (number of electoral victories, percentage of seats in the state legislature, or partisan self-identiﬁcation), the emergence of the Republican Party in

[62], (3)

Lines: 94 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [62], (3)

Contemporary Political Patterns

kli n

Van Buren

Johnson

Fra n

Pope

ry

Prairie

n

Garland

Lee

Phillips

Hot Spring

Sevier

Lonoke

Saline

St. Francis

e ro on M

Pulaski me tgo on M

Polk

W oo

Se ba

Scott

Cross

n

2

Perry

Poinsett

de

Yell

1

en

White Faulkner

Mississippi

Craighead

itt

stia

Cleburne

Conway

Logan

ce en nd pe e d In

Cr

n

Crawford

Stone

so

Searcy

3

ck

Newton

Lawrence

Ja

Washington

Greene

Sharp

Izard Madison

Clay

Randolph

Fulton

Baxter Marion

uf f

Boone

dr

Carroll

Benton

rd wa Ho

Grant

Jefferson

Arkansas

[63], (4)

Pike Clark

4

Dallas

Little River Hempstead Nevada Ouachita

Cleveland Lincoln Desha

7.26402pt

Bradley Columbia

Union

Ashley

Lines: 107 to ———

Drew

Calhoun

tte fay e

Miller

La

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

63

Chicot

Map 3. Arkansas Congressional Districts, 2001

——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [63], (4)

Arkansas took longer than the party competition shifts in any of its southern neighbors. resistance to republicanism Arkansas’s long resistance to partisan realignment reﬂects many factors, but four rise to the surface: deeply rooted Democratic traditions, the personal popularity of three Democratic leaders from the 1970s into the 1990s, unique electoral arrangements in the state, and the state’s demographic patterns. The attachment of Arkansas voters to the Democratic Party (and their negative view of Republicans) has been unsurpassed by voters in any other state, and therefore took longer to change. As proof of this assertion, one public opinion survey of Arkansas voters in 1958 found that “the single most negative concept in the state was the concept of Republicanism.” And, in contrast to other southern states, where prominent Democratic political leaders and ofﬁceholders encouraged and led the bolt from the increasingly

64

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

pro–civil rights national Democratic Party and its candidates, Arkansas’s political establishment, especially its congressional delegation, generally defended and supported the national Democratic ticket.3 Though Arkansas was not as devastated by the Civil War as other southern states and therefore had less lingering cause to detest the Republican Yankees, we have already noted that a strong argument can be made that no other state suffered more deeply from the 1930s Depression, nor beneﬁted more fully from the New Deal. Well into the 1980s and 1990s, students would recount stories of grandmothers leaving the room when a Republican appeared on television and grandfathers pulling out empty trouser pockets and calling them “Hoover’s ﬂag.” Senators Bumpers and Pryor regularly invoked in remarks and debates the beneﬁcence of the New Deal Democrats compared to the heartlessness of Hoover Republicans. And Bill Clinton was fond of noting that his grandfather, who ran a little country store and fed hungry people before the advent of government programs, “thought he was going to Roosevelt when he died.”4 A second important factor that helps to explain Arkansas’s long-lasting attachment to Democrats relates to the intensely personal nature of Arkansas politics (which is explored more fully in chapter 14) and the extraordinary careers of three men who became the “Big Three” of late-twentieth-century Arkansas politics: Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, and Bill Clinton.All served as governor ofArkansas (Bumpers from 1971 to 1975, Pryor from 1975 to 1979, and Clinton from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992). All three were elevated by the Arkansas electorate from the governorship to national ofﬁce: Bumpers to the Senate in 1974, Pryor to the Senate in 1978, Clinton to the presidency in 1992. Presenting themselves to statewide electorates forty times between 1970 and 1996, the Big Three won thirty-eight of those contests, more often than not by landslide margins.5 Though none of the Big Three was universally popular nor unfailingly successful in sustaining his appeal to the Arkansas electorate, each undoubtedly helped prolong the appeal of the Democratic label. The popularity, presence, and political skills of the Big Three presented a formidable bulwark against any signiﬁcant trickle-down effects of Republican presidential popularity. The moderately progressive positions they took helped mediate what many Arkansas voters deemed the ideologically inappropriate stances of the national party during the Reagan years. Their extensive campaign organizations ensured a healthy turnout by those most likely to vote Democratic. Additionally,Arkansas governors make approximately ﬁve hundred appointments annually to various boards and commissions. Thus, the gubernatorial years

[64], (5)

Lines: 118 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [64], (5)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

65

of the Big Three translates into at least ten thousand appointees, who likely extended some loyalty to their Democratic benefactors. Perhaps most important, as state political columnist John Brummett has observed, “The genius of David Pryor, Dale Bumpers and Bill Clinton was that they fashioned populist images while earning or commanding establishment backing.” The dominant players in the state’s business and ﬁnancial community, interested in maintaining access to the political power structure, may have been Republican in philosophy (and, indeed, perhaps in the voting booth), but most of them publicly supported Democratic rather than Republican nominees. Finally, because thousands of young Arkansans worked in the campaigns and ofﬁces of the Big Three, a new generation of political activists was socialized into the ranks of the Democratic Party (though it was a party that lacked organizational structure, as will be discussed in Chapter 5).6 Unique electoral arrangements also frustrated Republican candidacies in Arkansas. In a lingering vestige of the once private (and therefore all white) primaries, Arkansas remained, until 1995, the only state in which primaries were ﬁnanced by candidate ﬁling fees paid to the parties rather than the state government. This often resulted in far fewer and dramatically less convenient polling places for the Republican nominating contests. (In rural Greene County in 1988, for instance, there were thirty-two Democratic polling places but only a single Republican site.) A 1995 ruling by the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared this system unconstitutional. Until then, however, the combination of noncompetitiveness and relatively low ﬁling fees for the Republican primary (compared with ﬁerce competition and steep ﬁling fees in the Democratic primary) frequently saddled the state Republicans with some embarrassing nominees who did nothing to promote the party’s image. Examples of gop nominees from the 1980s included a nonlawyer (who claimed he was being bombarded by mysterious waves emanating from the Reagan White House) for attorney general, a white supremacist for the state supreme court, a convicted spouse abuser for attorney general, and the national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan for state representative.7 Finally, all of these factors were reinforced by the state’s demographics. The relative rurality of Arkansas (the ninth-most rural state in America in 1990) helped sustain Democratic tendencies in two ways: traditions, including partisan afﬁliations, die hardest in rural regions, and it was chieﬂy the South’s large metropolitan areas, with population concentrations in excess of 250,000 residents, in which Republicans originally made their

[65], (6)

Lines: 124 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [65], (6)

66

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

twentieth-century inroads. Little Rock’s population was only 132,483 in 1970 and, as late as 1990, the Little Rock metropolitan area was the only one in the state that exceeded 250,000. Racial demographics also favored Democrats in Arkansas. Arkansas is usually classiﬁed as being in the Peripheral or Rim South rather than the Deep South, a distinction partly based on its geographic location at the border of the Old Confederacy but also a demographic distinction. Arkansas had an African American population of only 21.7 percent in 1960 and only 16.9 percent in 1970, and thirty-seven of its seventy-ﬁve counties had a black populations of less than 5 percent. As a result, it was not so universally touched and threatened by the civil rights revolution as were Mississippi, Alabama, and other Deep South states. Thus, while Goldwater was sweeping the Deep South in 1964, in Arkansas he carried only a handful of counties, those with a high African American population bordering Louisiana and few traditional Republican counties in the northwest uplands. In an interesting analysis of presidential voting behavior in the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta, Barry Brown noted the greater predominance of the plantation economy in the Mississippi counties; the focus on racism as an issue in most major twentieth-century Mississippi political campaigns; the greater ease with which African Americans, because of their lower numbers, became registered voters in Arkansas; and a great difference in White Citizens Council membership (about 300,000 in Mississippi, but never more than 20,000 in Arkansas). In only a few Arkansas counties, therefore, was the African American population large enough to induce the white ﬂight into Republicanism often noted elsewhere in the South.8 On the other hand, Arkansas’s still sizable African American population and African American voters’ cohesiveness in supporting the Democratic Party’s candidates in state elections means that Republican candidates in statewide elections need much more than a mere majority of the white vote to prevail. Thus, in Arkansas, Democrats have received the beneﬁts of African American loyalty without the costs that have been faced by their counterparts in other southern states that have larger (and, in the eyes of whites, more “threatening”) African American populations.9 This combination of deep traditions, the cumulative personal draw of the Big Three, the rules of the electoral game, and demographics checked, but did not choke, partisan change in Arkansas. Still, after the late 1960s foray into Republicanism at the state level, Democrats remained dominant until Bill Clinton’s departure from the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion for the White House in 1992.

[66], (7)

Lines: 130 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [66], (7)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

67

rockefeller and a legacy of democratic dominance in recent state politics Winthrop Rockefeller came to Arkansas in 1953 for personal rather than political reasons, spent his early years in the state immersed in developing his vast agricultural enterprises, and only gradually was drawn into civic contributions and public service, most notably as Faubus’s appointee to head the newly established Arkansas Industrial Development Commission in 1955. During his nine-year chairmanship, over six hundred new industrial plants were built and more than ninety thousand new jobs (with an annual payroll of almost $300 million) were created. Rockefeller could personally claim considerable credit for these developments, and he derived much satisfaction from them. His involvement in Arkansas public affairs increasingly convinced him that sustained economic progress necessitated a more modern, open, and honest politics that, he decided, only a competitive party system could provide.10 By the early 1960s, Rockefeller had begun ﬁnancing one of the most sophisticated partisan apparatuses in America, complete with professional pollsters, elaborate headquarters, well-paid ﬁeld workers, and a public relations campaign. That campaign was speciﬁcally designed to discredit state Democrats as the party of bossism and corruption and to persuade voters of the legitimacy and desirability of the Republican Party and a two-party system. In 1962 Rockefeller personally ﬁnanced the race of the Republican gubernatorial candidate as well as 22 state legislative aspirants (only one of whom won), and in 1964 Rockefeller campaigned in his own right for governor, leading a ﬁeld of 154 Republican state and local candidates. Faubus and other Democrats held their ground, but Rockefeller’s vote (43 percent) set a new high for any Republican gubernatorial candidate in the twentieth century. Perhaps equally important, Rockefeller carefully kept his campaign separate from the right-wing appeals of Barry Goldwater. This left him in an excellent strategic position to appeal strongly to Arkansas’s as yet largely unregistered African American voters.11 Rockefeller spent freely on black registration efforts between his defeat in 1964 and his expected rematch against Faubus in 1966, but then events played even further into his hands. In the crowded Democratic gubernatorial primary that suddenly developed when Faubus announced his “retirement,” the wildly ﬂamboyant, militantly segregationist “Justice Jim” Johnson was able to distinguish himself from a pack of less colorful contestants and secure the nomination. While Johnson used the fall campaign to accuse

[67], (8)

Lines: 142 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [67], (8)

68

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

Rockefeller of being a plutocrat, a socialist, a cemetery wrecker, and a “prissy sissy,” Rockefeller talked of economic development and educational advancement. Given the choice between what Johnson represented (further instability, racial disharmony, possible adverse economic consequences) and what Rockefeller represented (racial peace and economic progress), the voters narrowly (54 percent) gave Rockefeller the governorship.12 Rockefeller’s appeal was especially strong among African American voters (an estimated 71 percent voted for him) and urban voters. When the Democrats nominated another old-time Democratic establishment candidate in 1968 (the former state house Speaker and Faubus ally Marion Crank), the same coalition of African Americans, urban voters, and disgusted Democrats gave Rockefeller a slim (52 percent) reelection victory. Rockefeller’s second term, however, became increasingly problematic. The overwhelmingly Democratic legislature became even less cooperative, and his fragile base was eroded by Rockefeller’s unwillingness to play even the most basic political games, his increasingly evident drinking problems, and his insistence on a substantial tax increase. In 1970, then, Rockefeller was doomed when the Democrats ﬁnally nominated Dale Bumpers, a candidate with virtually no ties to the old Faubus machine, no segregationist or indeed any other kind of political record, and a proﬁle as an articulate, intelligent, and forwardlooking candidate. Rockefeller received less of the vote in 1970 (32 percent) than he had in 1964 (43 percent).13 Following their new and seemingly more successful formula of nominating younger, cleaner, and more “progressive candidates who had been unwilling to make the Faubusian bargain with racist sentiment” (namely, Dale Bumpers again in 1972, David Pryor in 1974 and 1976, and Bill Clinton in 1978), Democrats held Republican gubernatorial candidates to an average of only 29 percent of the vote in the ﬁve gubernatorial contests after Rockefeller’s 1968 victory, a throwback to traditional margins. Indeed, in the decade of the 1970s it seemed Rockefeller’s most potent contribution to political change in Arkansas was the improvement he had forced upon the Democrats, who then, in their new progressive mode, could reassume their total domination of state elections.14 The return to Democratic dominance was abruptly interrupted in 1980 with Republican businessman Frank White’s defeat of Bill Clinton, one of the most stunning upsets in Arkansas political history. White became only the second Republican governor since Reconstruction, and Clinton became only the second twentieth-century governor to be denied his bid for a second, sometimes called “courtesy,” two-year term. The gop victory,

[68], (9)

Lines: 150 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [68], (9)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

69

however, was an ephemeral one. In 1982 Clinton became the ﬁrst Arkansas governor to recapture the ofﬁce (with 55 percent of the vote), and then secured reelection by even more impressive margins (63 percent in 1984 and 64 percent in 1986, again over Frank White). Since voters in 1986 also endorsed a constitutional amendment providing the governor with a fouryear term, this brought Arkansas through the 1980s with the Democrats still commanding the state’s political scene.15 By the start of the last decade of the twentieth century, Republicans were showing increasing electoral muscle in state elections elsewhere in the South, but the decade began with Democratic victories as usual in Arkansas. Clinton sought and received an astonishing ﬁfth gubernatorial term (albeit with a slimmer 57 percent margin), and David Pryor was “reelected” to the U.S. Senate without an opponent. Republicans contested, but failed to gain, an open Attorney General’s seat. All told, after the elections of 1990, all seven of the statewide executive branch ofﬁcials were Democrats. Indeed, up to that point, Republicans rarely contested any of the six executive ofﬁcials other than the governorship, and a lone Republican ever had captured one (in 1966 and 1968 when Maurice L. “Footsie” Britt rode into the lieutenant governorship on Rockefeller’s coattails). It is here, and even more revealingly in state legislative and local races, that the Republican problems were most evident.16 In contrast to some other Peripheral South states where Republicans had secured between 25.8 percent (in the Texas Senate) and 45 percent (in the Virginia Senate) of state representative bodies by 1990, the growth of Republican representation in the Arkansas legislature was dramatically more measured. After the 1990 election cycle, over 90 percent of the 135 state legislators remained Democrats. Moreover, only twice had a Republican challenger ousted a Democratic incumbent. Symbolic of the dire straits of the gop in Arkansas below the national level was the fact that, in a local race for the county governing body in Crittenden County, an independent whose death was announced three weeks before the election still beat the Republican candidate. Arkansas returned to the Democratic column in presidential politics in 1992, an election that also saw Dale Bumpers’s reelection to the U.S. Senate and, despite postcensus redistricting, Republican gains of only one seat each in the state senate and state house. It may well have appeared that Arkansas would end the century as thoroughly, some would argue as tyrannically, Democratic as it began. Beneath the surface of sweeping Democratic victories of the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, however, two developments of critical importance

[69], (10)

Lines: 156 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [69], (10)

70

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

to future Republican strength were taking place. First, as a result of the Rockefeller years, and most speciﬁcally as a result of his carefully crafted “acceptance” strategy and public relations campaign, most Arkansans had come to accept the concept of two-party competition as a positive public good. The pervasive hostility toward the mere concept of Republicanism that Rockefeller had found in the late 1950s had been replaced by 1970 with attitudes that went beyond mere acceptance of legitimacy to articulated positive evaluations: that a two-party system meant wider choices, better government, more honesty. In a political environment where any hint of Republicanism was once considered socially unacceptable if not treasonous, this was an attitudinal change of surpassing signiﬁcance. More tangible evidence of this growing sense that political alternatives were appreciated was provided by the rise in ticket-splitting in Arkansas during this period. Election returns during this era of Democratic dominance in state politics make it clear that Arkansans became more adept than other Americans at splitting their tickets.17 The classic example of truly rampant ticket-splitting in Arkansas is the election of 1968, in which Arkansans simultaneously reelected Rockefeller, a Republican, to the governorship; reelected J. W. Fulbright, a Democrat, to the U.S. Senate; and gave a plurality of their presidential votes to George Wallace, candidate of the American Independent party. The historian C. Vann Woodward, asked to explain this enigma, candidly responded, “Your guess is as good as mine!” Political scientist Jim Ranchino suggested that voters were showing some consistency in choosing three antiestablishment candidates, all known for their independence and individualism on controversial subjects. Perhaps even more fundamental in explaining not just 1968 but countless examples of ticket-splitting since is that Arkansans have been accustomed for decades to voting for whom they consider “the best man,” almost without regard to party. Since all signiﬁcant choices took place within the Democratic primary, where party label was essentially irrelevant, the choice had to be made on the basis of individual appeal. Voters have simply begun using this long-familiar choice mechanism in the general election.18 Perhaps even more illustrative ofArkansans’newfound ability to split their tickets is the general election of 1972. Every one of Arkansas’s seventy-ﬁve counties gave substantial margins (ranging from 58.1 percent to 81.4 percent) to Nixon, a Republican, and even more substantial margins (ranging from 57.5 percent to 85.7 percent) to Bumpers, a Democrat. In that year, nearly half of all voters split their tickets, and the phenomenon has continued to occur since.19 The phenomenon that Key described as “presidential Republicanism”

[70], (11)

Lines: 162 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [70], (11)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

71

(Republican gubernatorial and Senate candidates polling less than half the votes of the Republican presidential contender) remained slightly in evidence in election cycles near the end of the twentieth century. However, the gaps had narrowed considerably and were occasionally reversed. Furthermore, the Republican vote in all major races, once very loosely and occasionally inversely connected, became much more closely correlated. That is, increasing numbers of voters began to vote straight Republican tickets, building a signiﬁcant base on which the party could build in post–Big Three elections.20 A second major development of the 1970s and 1980s was that the Arkansas Republican Party began more and more to resemble ideologically its national counterpart and to develop into a sharper alternative to the moderate Democratic Party. As long as Rockefeller led the Arkansas Republicans, the party had a progressive, reformist cast, and those whom Rockefeller had brought into the party continued to dominate party ofﬁces and shape presidential preferences until 1980. After Reagan’s sweeping nomination victory and subsequent election, however, power within the Arkansas gop switched sharply to the right. In 1976, Republican voters favored Reagan (62 percent) over Ford (37 percent) in the presidential primary and Arkansas convention delegates were pledged accordingly. But they quickly switched to Ford on the ﬁrst ballot, publicly criticizing Reagan’s right-wing extremism. In 1980, over the objections of Reagan partisans who wanted another presidential primary, party ofﬁcials opted for a convention delegate selection process. The decidedly moderate delegates who were selected divided as follows: eight for Howard Baker; seven for George Bush; three for Ronald Reagan; one for John Connally. In the aftermath of Reagan’s election in 1980, a mild “purge” of remaining Rockefeller moderates occurred. By the time Bill Clinton left Arkansas politics behind, those running for ofﬁce and being elected as Republicans were prototypically “young, Reagan disciple ﬁrebreathing conservatives.” The products being offered the voters of Arkansas in general elections were now distinct ones.21 As the 1990s continued, those Arkansas voters, while still lagging behind their southern neighbors, began purchasing conservative Republican products like never before in Arkansas political history. The story of the most recent decade in Arkansas politics must focus on the way in which the four key factors that had stymied Republicanism in the state in the post-Rockefeller era—the deep Democratic tradition, the personal appeal of the Big Three, rules of the political game that advantaged Democrats, and distinctive demographic patterns—all have been transformed to the beneﬁt of the ascendant Republican party. First, the gop has been able to turn Democratic tradition on its head through ongoing effective critiques of

[71], (12)

Lines: 170 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [71], (12)

72

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

the “Democratic machine.” Second, the departure of the Big Three from the Arkansas political scene and the rise of the ﬁrst truly talented state Republican leader has diminished the Democratic advantage by consistently offering voters more personable candidates for ofﬁce. Third, key changes in the electoral rules of the game, most importantly the implementation of term limits, now favor the traditional “out” party. Finally, and most important for any long-term conclusions about the direction of Arkansas politics, the shifting demographics of the state now decidedly advantage Republican growth. changing arkansas in the 1990s Ironically, the ﬁrst three of these transformations facilitating the signiﬁcant upsurge in Republican fortunes in Arkansas at century’s close have their seeds in the November 1992 general election in which an Arkansas Democrat won a historic victory in the presidential race. With Clinton’s election to the presidency and the succession of Lieutenant Governor Jim Guy Tucker (another Democrat in the ideological mode of the Big Three) to the governorship, a summer 1993 special election was held to ﬁll the lieutenant governorship. In that election, Republican Mike Huckabee, the former president of the Arkansas state Southern Baptist Convention and the 1992 gop nominee against Dale Bumpers, narrowly (with 50.8 percent) defeated Democrat Nate Coulter. Huckabee’s victory—the ﬁrst statewide victory for a Republican since 1980—was helped by uniquely favorable circumstances: Huckabee’s name recognition was heightened by the $1 million he spent in the Senate race less than eight months earlier; the small-turnout special election was particularly beneﬁcial to an “out” party candidate with a more committed following; and, President Clinton’s public approval was at the low point of his eight-year presidency at the time of the election. Still, it is crucial to note the effectiveness of the message that was at the heart of the Huckabee campaign, a message that consciously turned the tradition of Democratic dominance on its head. Echoing Rockefeller’s reform themes, Huckabee effectively utilized an “outsiders vs. insiders,” clean-up-the-system motif that tapped into both the contemporary voter anger at and mistrust of government. Huckabee’s chief consultant in his 1993 victory was Dick Morris, who explained this winning strategy as follows: A southern Republican must separate himself from the country club and high society ethic with which his national party is associated and stake out ground

[72], (13)

Lines: 174 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [72], (13)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

73

as a rural populist. If the spin in a southern state is rich/poor, the Republicans will lose. But if we can make it insider/outsider we win. Huckabee ran an ad which saidArkansas was run by a political machine. . . . “A political machine runs Arkansas . . . It caters to its special interest friends. There is one set of rules for them and another for the rest of us. We can unplug the machine on July 27th and empower the people.”22

Dick Morris’s advice has consistently been taken to heart by Arkansas Republicans since the 1993 race. When he was state gop chair, Asa Hutchinson often used his public appearances to suggest that it was Democratic machinery as much as a Democratic mindset that had locked Republicans out of power. He also championed, lobbied, and litigated for nonpartisan judicial elections, state funding of primaries, recall provisions for all elected ofﬁceholders, and a bipartisan state ethics commission. All were espoused in the name of making the political system a more open and level playing ﬁeld, but all also redounded to the partisan interests of state Republicans. In his public roles since 1993, Huckabee has also continued the critique of the “machine” several instances, especially with respect to local voting practices in the state (as he jokingly put it in 2000, “[I] thought about calling Jimmy Carter in to see if he could come monitor our elections.”). Janet Huckabee, in her race for secretary of state in 2002, continued the electoral-reform theme in laying out her platform for the ofﬁce.23 Whether any of the late-twentieth-century Arkansas Democratic politicians operated a genuine political machine is certainly debatable. According to one longtime political observer, Bumpers, Pryor, and Clinton “demonstrat[ed] during their governorships various degrees of lack of control over the part[y] that spawned them, the legislatures that bedeviled them, and the wellful or rebellious elements in their own administrations.” No matter the accuracy of the charge, the strategy for tarnishing the Democratic Party’s image proved especially proﬁtable when a series of indictments and convictions of Democratic ofﬁceholders—many emanating out of the so-called Whitewater investigations—gave credence to intimations of widespread corruption.24 Governor Tucker’s 1996 conviction by a federal court was for activities that occurred exclusively during his time as a private businessman, as the jury found that he had borrowed federal money under false pretenses to his ultimate personal enrichment. Other scandals, however, in which the secretary of state, two state education department directors, and—most notably—a number of prominent and powerful legislators were accused

[73], (14)

Lines: 196 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [73], (14)

74

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

of everything from bribery and racketeering to insider dealing and fraud clearly involved abuse of public power for private gain. That some of the corruption involved the diversion of funds originally intended to help children from broken homes and state employees injured on the job was especially egregious and shocking, to the beneﬁt of the Republican Party.25 The 1990s also witnessed the exit fromArkansas’s political stage of each of the Big Three and the entrance of the ﬁrst Republican governor with the sort of political talent exhibited by Bumpers, Pryor, and Clinton. David Pryor was the ﬁrst of the three to retire. He chose to forego a run for a fourth term in the U.S. Senate in 1996 and was replaced after a brutal campaign by Republican Hutchinson. Two years later, Dale Bumpers more unexpectedly retired from the Senate after twenty-four years in Washington. He was replaced by a Democrat, former Congresswoman Blanche Lincoln. She was a politician some have compared to David Pryor in personal style, and whose effective television advertisements successfully blended masculine rhetoric with a focus on issues (e.g., education) that woman are perceived to be experts in. Finally, Bill Clinton appeared for the ﬁnal time on the Arkansas ballot in November 1996. Pryor, Bumpers, and Clinton remained visible in Arkansas politics in the years after their retirements, campaigning and raising money for Democrats in the state. (Pryor, for instance, was the centerpiece of his son Mark’s early television advertisements in the attorney general’s successful 2002 campaign to regain his father’s seat). But their campaign organizations melted away, and the intensity that they brought to campaigning on their own behalf was gone.26 Clinton’s departure from the state in 1992 had additional negative ramiﬁcations for Arkansas Democrats in terms of their arguably most important ongoing resource: the perception that the party was the incubator for political talent. The Democrats’ advantage in possessing more experienced political operatives and a “farm team” of prospective candidates was removed when the president took to Washington some of his most able organizers as well as those who would likely have become the next generation of Democratic statewide and congressional candidates. Some of those individuals would never return to the state.27 Entering the stage as the Big Three left it was Republican Huckabee. Huckabee’s 1993 special-election victory became a retrospective watershed when, in May 1996 a federal jury in the Whitewater trial of Governor Tucker and Jim and Susan McDougal convicted Tucker of two felony counts involving mail fraud and conspiring to deceive federal regulators. Huckabee, who had previously announced for the U.S. Senate seat from which Pryor was

[74], (15)

Lines: 213 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [74], (15)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

75

retiring, abandoned that bid. After a day ﬁlled with some of the most bizarre and tumultuous events in Arkansas political history—including Tucker’s reneging on his promise to depart the ofﬁce peacefully ﬁve minutes before his successor was scheduled to be sworn in—Huckabee succeeded to the governorship on July 16, 1996.28 Huckabee’s masterful handling of that four-hour crisis (one longtime Huckabee critic termed it “soothing, but forceful”), covered live on statewide television, gave him much goodwill upon entering the ofﬁce. But consequential shifts that occur in a political environment because of the entrance of a new political actor are not a product of the initial election of that candidate (or, in this case, his succession). Rather, they derive from that public servant’s performance over the long haul in a way that the public favors. For example, Earl Black and Merle Black make the clear case that it was Ronald Reagan’s performance as president as well as his distinctively effective leadership style that brought about permanent shifts among white conservative southern voters in the 1980s. Thus, more relevant than the way in which Huckabee entered ofﬁce is the fact that his high public-approval ratings remained remarkably stable throughout the ﬁrst six years of his governorship, that his 1998 election to a full term with 59.8 percent of the vote marked the largest victory for an Arkansas Republican in a statewide race in modern history, and that four years later the Democrats had major difﬁculties ﬁnding a name opponent who would take the governor on.29 Moreover, while operating in a much smaller context than Reagan, Huckabee’s public and governing style have much in common with that fortieth U.S. president. Critics of Huckabee parrot the criticisms that were often lodged against Reagan: that he has no interest in the details of governing (to the point that mismanagement has occurred on his watch); that his statements on matters of public policy are simplistic, hyperbolic, and anecdote-driven; and that he cares more about entertaining (through making puns, doing impressions, and playing guitar) than truly improving the lot of the disadvantaged Arkansans. Indeed, more than one analyst has noted (with the same envy-ﬁlled disparagement as Reagan’s critics) the Reaganesque “Teﬂon” that seems to protect Huckabee from permanent damage for political and personal mistakes.30 However, it is crucial to note that political Teﬂon is grounded in skill rather than luck; it is a depth of goodwill among the public that provides the political protection. Like Reagan, Huckabee is a “big-picture” politician who has a consistent clarity of “vision” not muddled by details and a masterful ability to communicate in all media—including speeches (exploiting his skills honed

[75], (16)

Lines: 219 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [75], (16)

76

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

as a preacher), radio appearances (capitalizing on his early career as a radio host), and television (especially his use of free media, as when he took ownership of the arkids child health insurance program, discussed fully in chapter 11).31 Finally, Huckabee shares Reagan’s conservative populism, both in ideology and style, which works with white rural voters in Arkansas, a group (as we will discuss later in this chapter) often decisive in electoral outcomes in the state. On occasion, Huckabee has used the “racial code” that Reagan (and a Lee Atwater–consulted George Bush) used so effectively with these voters. One radio advertisement, titled “Oprah,” from his aborted 1996 U.S. Senate race characterized the people he would go to Washington to represent with the following imagery: “people who get up at 6 in the morning, ﬁx a sandwich for lunch and come home at dark worn out . . . [who are] tired of paying taxes for those who get up at 10 o’clock, watch Oprah all afternoon, and cruise the streets at night.” More consistent is Huckabee’s appeals to cultural values. In his 1992 race he said, “When I was in school they passed out Gideon Bibles. Today, they pass out condoms.” Appearing at Boys State in 1996, Huckabee joked, “I’m a little worried about the ones who didn’t cheer,” after telling the male students he had arranged for the Girls State delegates to visit. Finally, borrowing a tactic long used by southern populists, Huckabee on occasion pits these rural voters against urban Arkansans: “I feel like people in Arkansas want a governor who’s plain spoken. . . . What they see is what they get and . . . that’s why maybe I’m not popular among the Little Rock elite, but out there in real Arkansas, people like honesty.” In written form, much of this rhetoric appears overly combative, but—again, like Reagan—the barbs are delivered in a velvety package by a man who shares many voters’ passions for the Razorbacks and bass ﬁshing (and lets that commonality be known). Certainly, only time will tell if Huckabee’s impact on the politics of his state are as consequential as were Reagan’s on the politics of his nation. However, no doubt remains that the Arkansas Republican Party ﬁnally had its ﬁrst political “star” in the same league as the Democrats’ Big Three.32 Changes related to two vital “rules of the game” in Arkansas electoral politics in the 1990s also worked to the Republican advantage. The ﬁrst was the successful 1995 lawsuit that deemed the primary system unconstitutional and led to subsequent state legislation that assured state funding for primaries and brought Democratic and Republican primary voting into the same precincts. In addition, the imbalance in ﬁling fees, which once attracted dubious candidates to the Republican ticket, also has nearly disappeared.

[76], (17)

Lines: 225 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [76], (17)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

77

Indeed, it is one small sign of the change wrought by these shifts that in the Fourth Congressional District, which narrowly elected its ﬁrst Republican congressman in 1992, the 1996 Democratic nominee against the incumbent Jay Dickey was a twenty-nine-year-old paralegal and poet, recently returned from California. After ﬁling his nomination papers, he virtually disappeared for the remainder of the campaign.33 But the rule change that has proved even more helpful to Republicans was the 1992 state constitutional amendment that imposed term limits on state ofﬁceholders, including state legislators. Term limits produced dramatic changes in the workings of the General Assembly, which we will discuss in chapter 9. But it also had signiﬁcant electoral implications. Arkansas had long had one of the nation’s lowest turnover rates. As the term limits went into effect (ﬁrst in the state house in 1998, then in the state senate in 2000), an unprecedented number of open seats were created to the beneﬁt of the traditional “out” party. Indeed, though less change has occurred in the state senate, the number of Republicans in the lower house more than doubled from fourteen after the 1996 election cycle to thirty after the 2000 elections. Because House members may serve a maximum of three two-year terms and senate members two four-year terms, legislative turnover will now be an ongoing presence in Arkansas legislative politics. This will have electoral implications that in most election cycles should favor the minority party.34 Despite these three key alterations in the state’s party system in the 1990s, two key barriers remain in place that limit further quick upticks in Republican Party growth. First, while its candidates are unlikely to be the embarrassments that the gop put forward in the recent past, the party still lacks a healthy supply of candidates. In 2002, the party was still unable to ﬁeld a candidate at all for the position of attorney general, arguably the second-most important statewide elected ofﬁcial in Arkansas. In addition, unlike other southern states, where prominent conservative Democrats (Phil Gramm in Texas and Richard Shelby in Alabama, to name just two) have switched to the gop, taking their supporters with them, this tactic has had little success in Arkansas. Moreover, even when the gop nominates candidates who are high quality (by traditional measures such as name recognition and fund-raising ability), these individuals are often inexperienced in art of campaigning, to their party’s detriment. For instance, in his 1996 campaign for Congress in the Second District, Republican Bud Cummins lost momentum (and a close election) when he said in a television interview that his “liberal” opponent Vic Snyder has “chosen a philosophy to pursue . . . [that] kind of leads to

[77], (18)

Lines: 229 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [77], (18)

78

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

socialist, kind of leads to communist.” The former Vietnam marine Snyder reminded voters that “Communists tried to kill me.” Similarly, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Fay Boozman, a medical doctor, bogged down his 1998 race against Blanche Lincoln with his rather bizarre statement—when discussing a rape exception to his pro-life viewpoint—that “it is rare for women to get pregnant by rape, because fear triggers a hormonal change that blocks conception.”35 The other barrier stunting Republican growth is that, for a small organization, the Arkansas Republican Party has more than its share of internal divisions, most resulting from difﬁcult personal relationships between party leaders. Though surprising considering their common backgrounds in religious institutions, this discord has shaped the relationship between Governor Huckabee and the Hutchinson brothers. Congressman Jay Dickey and state party chair (and eventually Congressman)Asa Hutchinson had deep personal disagreements as well. There is some evidence that Republican party activists are conscious of this personality-based factionalism that distracts from party work.36 The fourth change in the nature of Arkansas’s party system that evidenced itself in the 1990s is arguably the most important for understanding the future of Arkansas party politics. As discussed earlier, demographic patterns have historically hindered Republicanism. Now, key recent demographic shifts, most of which are grounded in the regionalism that had been a factor in Arkansas politics since its origin as a state, seem to favor the continued rise of Arkansas Republican success in the new century. regionalism in contemporary arkansas politics As discussed in chapter 2, Arkansas’s northern and western uplands and the southern and eastern lowlands were originally settled by migrants who came from somewhat different areas (predominantly from Kentucky and Tennessee and later from Missouri in the uplands, predominantly from Deep South states in the lowlands) and practiced very different agricultural pursuits (small subsistence farms in the uplands, large cotton plantations with slave labor in the lowlands). From the 1830s through the 1850s, Democratic support was strongest among the Jacksonian yeoman farmers in the uplands, and Whigs found more favor in the wealthier, lowland areas. As slavery and secession came to dominate political choices, however, these geographic tendencies sharply, and permanently, switched. The slaveowning lowlanders became the staunchest advocates of “the Democracy.”

[78], (19)

Lines: 235 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [78], (19)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

79

The relatively slaveless uplands, where secession was originally opposed and only reluctantly and inconsistently accepted, sent nearly ten thousand troops to ﬁght for the Union and developed some lasting pockets of Republicanism. Newton, Searcy, and Madison counties consistently voted Republican in presidential contests from the Civil War onward and often elected Republican state legislators and local ofﬁcials as well. For the ﬁrst half of the twentieth century, however, sectionalism was for the most part submerged within an overwhelming consensus for Democrats. None but a few highland counties showed any tendencies whatsoever to disrupt Democratic dominance, nor were there any consistent tendencies for any region to support more liberal or conservative candidates within the Democratic primary through the 1950s. In the 1944 Senate race between HomerAdkins and J. W. Fulbright Key did detect “a glimmer of the general tendency of the upland people of the south to be more enthusiastic over candidates who can be considered progressive,” and certainly through the 1940s the more liberal members of Arkansas’s congressional delegation (Clyde Ellis, Brooks Hays, J. W. Fulbright) had a northwestern base. But Drummond, who also found no persistent regional voting patterns, noted that this northwestern “liberalism” was a “curious mixture of rugged individualism and social conformity compounded with the inﬂuence of fundamentalist evangelical churches.” Bartley and Graham also concluded that, into the early 1950s, “Arkansas voters betrayed few indications that there were any differing interests between lowlands and mountains, countryside and city, afﬂuent and non-afﬂuent. Whether counties were located in the black belt or mountains or whether they were metropolitan or rural made little consistent difference.”37 There remained, however, strong demographic, economic, and cultural differences within Arkansas. In the later 1950s and into the 1960s they began to manifest themselves, ﬁrst within some Democratic gubernatorial primaries, and increasingly in actual partisan tendencies in the general election. In a thoroughgoing analysis of these regional differences, Robert Savage and Richard Gallagher assembled and analyzed seventy-one social, economic, and political county-level attributes. While emphasizing that Arkansas was highly homogeneous and that moving from the northwest to the southeast corners was not like moving through separate worlds, Savage and Gallagher still found sizable clusterings or loadings into three distinctive county types, which they labeled Ozark, Delta, and Urban (see map 4).38 The Ozark counties, centered in the northern and western areas, were most distinctive for their higher voter participation, somewhat older population,

[79], (20)

Lines: 248 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [79], (20)

Boone

Fulton

Baxter

Searcy

Johnson

Fra

ep

White

Se

bas

Faulkner

Pulaski

on

tgo

Prairie

Saline

Cross St. Francis Lee

Garland

Phillips

Hot Spring

Sevier

Poinsett

e ro on M

Lonoke ry me

Mississippi

Craighead

Perry

Scott

M

ce

n de en

Conway

Yell

Polk

en

itt Cr

n

d In

Cleburne

d en

Pope Logan

tia

Lawrence

Stone

Van Buren

nk

lin

Crawford

Newton

Greene

Sharp

Izard Madison

Washington

Clay

Randolph

Marion

Ja ck so n

Carroll

Benton

rd wa Ho

Grant

Jefferson

Arkansas

[80], (21)

Pike Clark

Dallas

Cleveland Lincoln Desha

Little River Hempstead Nevada Ouachita

Urban

Lines: 275 ———

Drew

Calhoun

5.68098

Bradley

tte fay e

Miller

La

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

W oo dr uf f

80

Columbia

Union

Ozark

Ashley

Chicot

Delta

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

Map 4. Ozark, Urban, and Delta Counties

[80], (21)

somewhat greater expenditures on education and highways, and more favorable disposition toward Republicans. The Delta counties, centered in the state’s southern and eastern portions, had a more youthful and relatively poorer population, which was much more likely to be nonwhite and less educated and showed the greatest commitment to the Democrats. Five counties labeled Urban, located in different parts of the state, were distinguished by higher measures of modernity (lower birth rate, better housing, larger manufacturing establishments, greater percentage of professionalmanagerial positions in the labor force) and a support for Republicans that did not lag far behind the Ozark counties. The partisan voting tendencies observed by Savage and Gallagher, who used voting returns from 1970 to 1974, have become even more consistent and pronounced (especially with respect to the Ozarks and the Delta), as map 5 shows (which is based on recent presidential and gubernatorial elections). However, a contemporary

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Governor

President

1960

1964

[81], (22) 1968

Lines: 275 to ———

6.13708pt ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX

1980

[81], (22) 1984

1990

1992

1998

2000

Map 5. Counties Carried by Republican Gubernatorial and Presidential Candidates, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1980, 1984, 1990, 1992, 1998, and 2000

82

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

analysis of regionalism in Arkansas voting requires that attention be paid to demographic patterns that had not yet surfaced when Savage and Gallagher completed their work. Rather than the three regions noted by Savage and Gallagher, ﬁve distinctive political regions are now apparent in the state.39 County voting patterns, of course, are very broadly descriptive (rather than predictive). They subsume thousands of individual voters who were in the minority (and sometimes a substantial one) into a pattern not of their choosing and suggest a monolithic quality to “a county vote” that is not there. Indeed, in a more recent analysis, JanineA. Parry and William D. Schreckhise found that it is the demographic characteristics of the individuals who happen to be disproportionately clumped in an area that are really the driving force in whatever regional trends do exist in the state. Even with such caveats against the ecological fallacy, however, these maps offer important insight into the strong and signiﬁcant regional tendencies in contemporary Arkansas politics.40 Clearly, in both presidential and gubernatorial contests, northwestern Arkansas, containing the prototypical Ozark counties, has become reliably Republican. Republicans have had a base here since the uplanders’ opposition to secession. Signiﬁcantly reinforcing and expanding this base, however, has been extraordinary recent population growth in that portion of Arkansas, due in large part to in-migration. Although growth was relatively ﬂat in the 1980s, in both the 1970s and 1990s Arkansas’s growth rate was one of the fastest in the nation. Over 70 percent of that growth in the 1990s was due to in-migration. As map 6 illustrates in showing the most recent decade of population growth data available, most of that growth and in-migration was concentrated in these Ozark counties.41 Many of these in-migrants are retirees, exchanging the higher taxes and harsher winter climates, especially of the Midwest, for the lower taxes, milder climates, and plentiful natural recreational resources of northern Arkansas. And many of these in-migrants have brought their Republican preferences with them. This is not to suggest that all retirees are Republicans. The retirees’ ranks include former union stewards as well as plant managers, Social Security pensioners as well as coupon clippers, and many of those moving into Arkansas have some previous Arkansas ties. Nevertheless, as a group, they have been measurably less Democratic than longtime natives, as evidenced by both opinion surveys and voting trends. An analysis of a statewide opinion poll from 2001, for example, shows that barely one in ﬁve (21.4 percent) of those with residency in Arkansas of ten years or less considered themselves Democrats, compared with 36.8 percent of those with

[82], (23)

Lines: 275 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [82], (23)

Contemporary Political Patterns

Clark 9.8

Fra n

n so

ck

Ja

Prairie 0.2

-9.5 Grant 18.0

Jefferson -1.4

St. Francis 2.9

1.9

Lee -3.6 Phillips -8.3

[83], (24)

Arkansas -4.2

Dallas -4.2

Cleveland Lincoln 5.9 10.2 -2.4 Little River Hempstead Nevada Ouachita Drew 9.1 -1.4 Calhoun 7.8 -5.8 -1.4 Bradley Miller 6.8 5.1 Ashley Union Columbia -0.5 -2.3 -0.3 -11.2

Lines: 292 to

Desha -8.7

———

6.04395pt

La

fay e

tte

5.4

uf f

kli n

Hot Spring 16.2

Lonoke 34.5

Cross 1.6

n

Garland 20.0

Pulaski 3.4

Saline 30.1

-8.2

Poinsett 3.9

de

Perry 28.1

-2.8

White 22.8

Faulkner 43.3

Mississippi -9.6

Craighead 19.1

e nc de en ep d In 9.7

en

Sevier 15.5

Pike 12.1

Conway 6.2

Cleburne 23.9

Greene 17.4

itt

m tgo on M 17.9

Polk 16.6

Van Buren 15.6

Pope 18.7

Sharp 21.3 Lawrence 1.8

Cr

ery

Stone 17.6

Clay -2.8

Randolph 9.9

e ro on M

Johnson Crawford 25.0 25.3 19.3 n Logan a sti 9.4 ba Se Yell 15.5 19.0 Scott 7.8

Izard 16.6

Searcy 5.4

Newton 12.3

Fulton 16.0

Baxter 23.1

Marion 34.5

dr

Madison 22.6

Washington 39.1

Boone 20.0

W oo

Carroll 35.9

Benton 57.3

rd wa Ho

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

83

Loss

0.1–16.6

——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX

Chicot -10.2

16.7–57.3

Map 6. Percentage of Population Growth in Arkansas Counties, 1990–2000

lifelong residency in the state. County analysis shows strong correlations between nonnativism and Republicanism.42 From 1980 onward, much more of northwest Arkansas’s growth was stimulated by rapidly expanding economic development in the counties of the region. Wal-Mart (the world’s largest retailer) and Tyson Foods (the nation’s largest poultry producer) were both founded in the region decades earlier, and now rank as the state’s second- and third-largest employers behind state government. They were joined by other long-standing major employers in the region, such as major trucking ﬁrms, led by the nation’s largest, J. B. Hunt Trucking. Wal-Mart’s impact on the area’s economy (and its politics) is expanded by the presence of outposts for dozens of its suppliers (such as Proctor & Gamble), infusing many white-collar workers, most new to the area. In the early 1990s, more than half of all jobs added in Arkansas came in Washington and Benton counties, and, all told, the Fayetteville-Springdale-

[83], (24)

84

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

Rogers metropolitan area ranked seventh in the nation in employment growth between May 1999 and May 2000, and showed few signs of slowing in the near future.43 As a result of this economic and population growth, historically inherited Ozark Republicanism and retiree Republicanism have been augmented by the Republicanism that has accompanied the “metropolitanization” of northwest Arkansas counties, especially the more northern ones, strung together by Interstate 540 along Arkansas’s western border. Benton, Washington, Crawford, and Sebastian counties have nearly begun to merge into one urban-suburban entity. Many along the corridor live in one county, work in another, and shop, “school,” or recreate in another. Sebastian, Benton, and Washington counties are almost prototypical examples of the white new middle-class suburban Republicanism described most clearly by Earl Black and Merle Black. Its residents rarely supported any Republican nominees until the Eisenhower years but have voted almost consistently Republican in every presidential and most gubernatorial elections since then. Sebastian County, perhaps further inﬂuenced by its signiﬁcant concentration of military retirees, has become one of Arkansas’s most consistently Republican counties, its inﬂuence clearly spreading to the more rural counties (especially Franklin, Scott, Logan, and Crawford) within its metropolitan orbit. Even more dramatic has been the political transformation of Benton County (the state’s fastest growing in the 1990s and projected to be the largest county in the state by 2025 in one 2003 University of Arkansas population study), where only Republicans have held legislative and county ofﬁces since the latter years of that decade.44 Inheritance, in-migration, and (sub)urbanism have uniquely combined in the Ozark counties to produce an environment where the Republican label is not only acceptable but increasingly advantageous. This area, closely coinciding with the Third Congressional District, has been represented by four different Republicans since John Paul Hammerschmidt gained the seat in 1966. It also supplies most of the votes in Republican primaries and is the foundation of recent Republican strength in U.S. Senate and gubernatorial elections. Indeed, until the 1990s, almost all Republicans elected to the state legislature came from this area. In the aftermath of the 1980, 1990, and 2000 censuses and subsequent reapportionments, the northwest section of Arkansas obtained additional seats in the legislature, and future reapportionments are expected to be equally advantageous as a base for potential Republican growth. Also working strongly to the beneﬁt of Republicans is the exceptionally high voter

[84], (25)

Lines: 294 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [84], (25)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

85

turnout in the Ozark counties. Only here does voter turnout occasionally exceed 80 percent of those registered to vote. The Republican presence in Arkansas is regionally concentrated, but its strength within that region continues to grow steadily. More important for the future of the state’s partisan dynamics, that region itself is growing in population and political inﬂuence.45 One demographic trend does create a signiﬁcant question mark about the future politics of a northwest Arkansas, however. That is the dramatic growth of the area’s Latino population (mostly Mexican in origin) in recent years. Other communities in the state have also evidenced dramatic increases in immigrants from Mexico, but it is northwest Arkansas where the Latino presence is most sizable and growing the most steadily. (In 2000, the Latino population of the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metropolitan area was 8.5 percent.) Originally, these immigrants had direct connections to the area’s poultry industry, but in time they have grown beyond this niche. As of the early 2000s, the Latino population remains relatively unpoliticized, and because much of the population is young or not yet nationalized, it is a community underrepresented in the electorate. For instance, no state legislative district is yet majority Latino. However, both state political parties have begun to focus on the Latino community as a source of future votes, and, if neighboring states such as Texas are a guide, it is the Democrats whose pro-government message is more likely to be a draw to these new and prospective voters. Chapter 14 will discuss the potential impact of the increasing role of Latinos in Arkansas politics. In the short term northwest Arkansas will likely continue to produce Republicans at the rate that it creates new jobs. At the other extreme—geographically, economically, and politically—lie the Delta counties. The lasting effects of geography upon politics are revealed in map 7, which illustrates the natural regions of Arkansas as well as the percentage of African American population in Arkansas’s counties. A subset of the counties that Savage and Gallagher termed “Delta,” the Mississippi Alluvial Plain region has absolutely level terrain and some of the world’s deepest soils. During the nineteenth-century settlement period, cotton—with its attendant slavery—reigned supreme in this plain (and, to a lesser extent, in the neighboring West Gulf Coastal Plain). The bulk of Arkansas’s African American population still resides primarily in the old cotton kingdom. Today it is the site of vast soybean, rice, and cotton plantations (owned by an increasingly small number of corporations); limited economic diversiﬁcation beyond that agricultural base with accompanying low incomes (the Arkansas

[85], (26)

Lines: 300 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [85], (26)

86

Crowley’s Ridge

nk Fra

e nc

uf f dr W oo

bas

n

Perry

Pulaski

Prairie

Lee

on

Lonoke

St. Francis

M

Saline

ro

Garland

Mississippi Hot Spring

Grant

Jefferson

Phillips

Arkansas

Alluvial Plain

Pike Clark

Dallas

Ouachita

Drew

Calhoun

West Gulf Coastal Plain

Bradley

te yet

La fa

Miller

Columbia

Union

Ashley

Lines: 311 ———

Cleveland Lincoln Desha

Little River Hempstead Nevada

[86], (27)

e

ry me tgo n o M

Cross

de

Se

White

en

Faulkner

itt

Conway

Arkansas River Valley

Sevier

Poinsett

Pope

Scott

Mississippi

n

pe

de

so

In

Cleburne

Greene

Craighead

e nd

Yell

Polk

Lawrence

Clay

Cr

n

Stone

Van Buren

Logan

tia

Sharp

Izard

Searcy

Johnson

lin

Crawford

Marion

Ozark Mountains Newton

Randolph

Fulton

Baxter

ck

Madison

Washington

Boone

Ja

Carroll

Benton

rd wa Ho

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

Chicot

0–10%

11–20% Over 20% Map 7. Natural Regions of Arkansas and Percentage of Black Population, 2000

Delta includes some of the poorest counties in the country); and signiﬁcant disparities of wealth. This is the Delta in its most undiluted form.46 Since Reconstruction, the Delta has been the area of staunchest Democratic strength. However, the demographic basis of that strength has totally changed from that of whites, who saw in Democratic solidarity the most certain security for continued white supremacy, to African Americans, who responded favorably to the more egalitarian programs of the Democratic Party. Arkansas’s African Americans constitute only 17.7 percent of its registered voters. This means, however, that with overwhelming support from the African American electorate, a candidate can receive just above 40

2.86406

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [86], (27)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

87

percent of the white vote and still win a statewide race. Conversely, without any African American support, a candidate needs a true landslide of the white vote to win. Clearly, in any closely competitive race, black support can be critical. African American voters kept Arkansas in the Democratic column for Lyndon Johnson in 1964, were essential to Rockefeller’s victories in 1966 and 1968, provided Clinton with both his primary and general-election winning margins in 1982, and saved Congressman Bill Alexander of the First District from primary defeat in 1986.47 Two features of the contemporary African American vote in Arkansas are especially noteworthy. First, it tends to be monolithic, giving 90 percent or greater margins to candidates who have found favor in African American communities. In the 1982 Democratic gubernatorial primary runoff, for example, Clinton won by 579 to 7 at the East Little Rock Community Center, and by 724 to 12 at the Townsend Park School in Pine Bluff. Second, theAfricanAmerican vote has tended, since the Rockefeller years, to be thoroughly Democratic. Between 1928 and 1936 northern black voters made a massive switch from the party of the Great Emancipator to the party of the New Deal, and have generally maintained a ﬁrm Democratic loyalty since. In contrast, for Arkansas African American voters the early years of sizable voting participation (more than doubling between 1958 and 1968) were characterized by partisan schizophrenia. The Democratic Party was the party of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Hubert Humphrey, but it was also the party of Orval Faubus, Jim Johnson, and Marion Crank. The result, for a while, was massive ticket-splitting. It has been estimated that in 1968, for example, over 90 percent of Arkansas’s African American voters chose the Democrat Hubert Humphrey and the Republican Winthrop Rockefeller. In 1970 African American voters stayed with Rockefeller against the Bumpers sweep, although by lesser margins. In 1972, however, with Rockefeller no longer leading the state Republican ticket, and Bumpers having proved that he was not simply a nonsegregationist but a sympathetic friend, African American voters left the state Republican ticket in droves and have not yet been tempted to return.48 In particular, Bill Clinton’s connection to rank-and-ﬁle African Americans in Arkansas was truly unique for a white politician, as evidenced by the precinct returns noted earlier. In one east Little Rock precinct in 1996, for instance, Clinton gained 649 votes to 5 for Bob Dole, a more than resounding 99.4 percent of the two-party vote. As one Democratic Party ofﬁcial put it, “it’s such a personal appeal. People have met him; he’s been in their churches; he’s been in their houses. He’s come to their organizational dinners. He’s

[87], (28)

Lines: 317 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [87], (28)

88

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

invested a lot of time in connecting with [African Americans in Arkansas].” A mark of this connection was Clinton’s induction into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2002, the ﬁrst white to be so honored.49 Periodically, African American political leaders become angry over what they see as the tendency of the state Democrats to take their support for granted. And periodically, the state Republicans announce new plans for recapturing the African American vote that once was theirs. However, the election results for the Republican who has most aggressively courted African American support, Governor Rockefeller’s son, Lieutenant Governor Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, show the limitations of any such strategy. In the almost totally African American Little Rock precinct in which Dole won 5 votes in 1996, Rockefeller won 99. Still, that was only 15.1 percent of the votes cast in the precinct.50 The Delta counties, then, together with the urban African American precincts in Pulaski County (Little Rock) and Jefferson County (Pine Bluff) have become a signiﬁcant source of Democratic strength. They provide hefty majorities and sometimes winning margins to statewide Democratic candidacies, who capture a number of ofﬁces in legislative districts and communities that have substantial African American populations (particularly after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1982). If the Delta counties still possessed the preeminent power that was theirs in most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, continued Democratic dominance of Arkansas might be assured. Several factors, however, make the Delta counties a less impressive base for the Democrats than the Ozark counties are for the Republicans. First, as map 6 shows, the Delta counties are generally slow-growth to absolute-loss counties. Second, as indicated in map 2, voter turnout is usually much less in the Delta counties than in the Ozarks. Turnout differences become even more pronounced in low-interest elections such as special elections. Indeed, the low turnouts in these areas have been identiﬁed by many observers responsible for the Democratic loss to Huckabee in the 1993 special election.51 Third, according to campaigners and campaign managers, the African American vote is not an “easy” vote. Candidates expecting large turnouts in many African American communities are still expected to foot the bill for “knockers and haulers” (those who knock on doors and drive carloads of voters to the polls) and for other “election-day” expenses. This is the contemporary version of the traditional “walking-around money” (nowadays termed “contract labor”) and at least through 2004 is still considered essential.52

[88], (29)

Lines: 323 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [88], (29)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

89

Finally, there is the reality that the personalism of Arkansas politics can trump everything else, as we explore in chapter 14. This makes the study of Arkansas politics fascinating but immensely frustrating to those who prefer neat regional or demographic generalizations. For example, Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District consisted almost entirely of so-called Delta counties in 1992 and had by far the largestAfricanAmerican population (26.6 percent) of any of the four districts. Yet, voter distrust of the Democratic nominee created an opening for Republican Jay Dickey, whose constant and highly welcome personal attention to the district helped him hold the seat for the rest of the decade. Nevertheless, the Delta counties, primarily because of the voting tendencies of their African American populations, have become almost as essential a support case for most Democratic candidates as the Ozark counties are for the Republicans, as all recent statewide races, especially those for U.S. senator and governor, have demonstrated. What about the Urban counties, those ﬁve counties (Pulaski, Sebastian, Washington, Craighead, and Garland) with high loadings on “modernity” factors that Savage and Gallagher found to be almost as favorable to Republicans as the Ozark counties in the 1970s? Do they hold the balance of power between the Republican-leaning Ozark counties and the Democraticdominated Delta counties, and if so will a rising urban Republicanism tilt Arkansas toward a more Republican future? Unfortunately for typological neatness and predictive power, there are no such clear-cut patterns. Though Sebastian and Washington counties, and to a lesser extent Garland County, have shown some strong Republican tendencies, this is best explained it seems their geographic location in the uplands region than by any urbanism per se. Craighead County, bordering the Delta, has been much more tentative in its Republicanism. The most urban county in the state, Pulaski County, contains the state’s largest and third-largest cities (Little Rock and North Little Rock), and it is justiﬁably a “region” unto itself in understanding contemporary voting in the state. Little Rock is not only the largest city in Arkansas, it is also the economic, governmental, and communications center of the state, home of the sole statewide newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and of television stations that reach almost all Arkansas viewers. Its cultural, commercial, and medical resources attract huge numbers of business professionals, visitors, and shoppers who enjoy its amenities and appreciate its services. In the 1960s several political scientists predicted that the urban areas of the South would provide the strongest building blocks for emerging Republicanism as the new industrialists, professionals, entrepreneurs, and afﬂuent

[89], (30)

Lines: 331 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [89], (30)

90

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

suburbanites began to vote their economic interests, that is, Republican, rather than the traditions of their ancestors. Pulaski County, it was assumed, would be “the most fertile territory for the growth of Republicanism in Arkansas.” Analysis of election returns by precincts within Little Rock does indeed indicate some of the predicted “class” divisions: the more afﬂuent neighborhoods increasingly favor the more conservative candidates, who are most often Republicans.53 More generally, however, Pulaski County deﬁes any easy characterizations. Little Rock, for example, elected a Republican mayor in 1951 and 1953, voted consistently Republican in congressional elections from 1978 to 1984, and has begun consistently sending several Republicans to the General Assembly. It also, however, served as a strong electoral base for Bill Clinton and other Democratic ofﬁceholders have relied upon it in recent election cycles. It is also crucially important to note that Pulaski County is one of the slower-growing counties in Arkansas in terms of population, with a population increase of 3.4 percent between 1990 and 2000, only one-fourth of the state population growth rate during the period. Therefore, the state’s largest county—while still highly relevant in determining election outcomes—is becoming comparatively less important. On the other hand, the remainder of the Little Rock metropolitan area joins northwest Arkansas as the fastest-growing (and the most overwhelmingly Republican) parts of the state. As map 6 shows, three suburban counties— Faulkner (43.3 percent), Saline (30.1 percent), and Lonoke (34.5 percent)— grew at rates akin to the booming counties of the northwest corner of the state. Moreover, like those counties, they contain disproportionate numbers of the new middle-class citizens who are overwhelmingly accepting of Republicanism. They are also overwhelmingly white; large numbers of these counties’ residents have taken “ﬂight” from Little Rock’s troubled public schools and high crime rates. This reﬂects the patterns seen throughout the contemporary South (a strongly Democratic central city surrounded by Republican suburbs). Saline County’s (now mostly dead) aluminum industry provided a reliably Democratic union-inﬂuenced voting base for decades, and its county courthouse grounds traditionally hosted a “speaking” on the night before the Democratic primary that was rarely missed by statewide candidates. Here, the shift is particularly remarkable; as of 2002, the county judge, sheriff, and prosecuting attorney were all Republicans. If we think of these suburban counties as an additional political region (and assume that it will continue to grow and become more distinctive in its political trends), this shift bodes well for the continued rise of Republicanism in the state.54

[90], (31)

Lines: 339 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [90], (31)

Contemporary Political Patterns

Fra n

Pope

e nc de en ep d In

Cleburne

uf f dr W oo

Se ba

n

Lonoke

Prairie

Saline

e ro on M

Pulaski m tgo on M

St. Francis

Perry

Scott ery

Cross

de

White

en

Yell

Garland

Lee

Phillips

Hot Spring

Sevier

Poinsett

itt

Conway Faulkner

Polk

Mississippi

Craighead

ck

Van Buren

Johnson

Logan

stia

Stone

Ja

kli n

Searcy

Lawrence

Cr

n

Crawford

Newton

Greene

Sharp

Izard Madison

Washington

Clay

Randolph

Fulton

Baxter Marion

n

Boone

so

Carroll

Benton

rd wa Ho

Grant

Jefferson

Arkansas

[91], (32)

Pike Clark Dallas

Cleveland Lincoln Desha

Little River Hempstead Nevada Ouachita

3.52405pt

Bradley Columbia

Union

Ashley

Lines: 356 to ———

Drew

Calhoun

tte fay e

Miller

La

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

91

Chicot

Supported Carter (D) and White (R) in 1980, and Wallace (AIP) in 1968 Supported Carter and White in 1980, but not Wallace in 1968

Map 8. “Rural Swing” Counties

One “region” in Arkansas remains that had not been formally identiﬁed or typologized in scholarly studies before the ﬁrst edition of this book but has been important in recent Arkansas politics. This is the “Rural Swing” region, those twenty-six counties that remained true to their Democratic traditions through the Carter race of 1980 but in that year’s gubernatorial contest, did something most had never done before: they voted Republican (map 8). When Clinton recaptured all but four of these counties in 1982, he recaptured the governorship. By 1984 all but one were back in the Democratic gubernatorial fold, where at least twenty-three remained in every election cycle through the remaining elections of Clinton and the 1994 election of Jim Guy Tucker.55 Most of these counties run along the northeast-to-southwest diagonal

——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [91], (32)

92

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

line described in chapter 2 and though all majority white vary in their African American populations depending on which side of the diagonal line they lie. They have a potent voice in Arkansas’s near-term political future. The average percentage of urban areas in these twenty-six counties is 24.1 percent, well under half of the 1990 statewide average of 53.5 percent. Even more graphically, as late as 2000, sixteen of these twenty-six counties had no towns with a population of more than ﬁve thousand, and none possessed a town with more than twenty-ﬁve thousand people. Most all of the Rural Swing counties ban the sale of alcoholic beverages, another indication of traditional rural values in a state where local elections have turned many Arkansas counties “wet” (including almost all urban and Delta counties). Thus, neither Ozark nor Delta, and certainly neither urban nor suburban, these twenty-six counties make up their own political region. Politically, the Rural Swing counties joined the Delta in their support of the entire Democratic slate. In presidential elections, for example, most voted Democratic in at least twenty-two of twenty-three residential contests from 1876 to 1964, attracted neither by Eisenhower’s personal popularity in the 1950s nor by Goldwater’s anti–civil rights stance in 1964. In 1968, however, twenty-one of these twenty-six counties gave pluralities to George Wallace. In 1972 no Arkansas county supported McGovern. With southern farmer Jimmy Carter heading the ticket in 1976, however, all twenty-six trooped strongly back into the Democratic fold and remained with Carter against the state swing to Reagan in 1980. Also by 1984, however, twenty-four of the twenty-six had swung, and swung strongly, to Reagan, with whom they remained in 1988 before swinging back to Arkansan Clinton in 1992 and 1996. In the closer 2000 election, ﬁfteen of the twenty-six swung back to Republican Bush. The record of the Rural Swing counties in gubernatorial contests has been even more consistently Democratic until the Huckabee era, with only six of the twenty-six supporting Rockefeller in 1966, and only four in 1968. These, then, have been the most rock-ribbed “yellow dog” Democrats in Arkansas, a generalization conﬁrmed by one opinion survey that indicated that Wallace voters in Arkansas were the strongest of all Arkansans in their self-identiﬁcation as Democrats.56 The 1980 “rural rebellion” against Clinton was precipitated primarily by Clinton’s sponsorship of a hefty increase in motor vehicle registration and license fees in the 1979 legislature. To thousands of rural Arkansans, who from necessity own several vehicles, usually in the vehicle classes subjected to the biggest increases (the heaviest and oldest), these increases seemed

[92], (33)

Lines: 361 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [92], (33)

Contemporary Political Patterns

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

93

as punitive and insensitive as any governmental action could possibly be. Undoubtedly other factors fed the disgruntlement—like thousands of ﬁercely unwanted Cuban refugees being located by Clinton’s good friend President Carter at Fort Chaffee, concerns about an unusual number of “outsiders” (many of them young and bearded) being imported into the ﬁrst Clinton administration, and perhaps even disgust at the “unmanliness” of the governor, reﬂected in his wife’s retaining her birth name. None of these factors, however, could have turned the tide had not the angry atmosphere, originally created by the car-tag increases, already existed in these rural counties. Having decided to attempt a rematch in 1982, Clinton systematically tried to recapture those he had lost. He began with an unprecedented series of preannouncement television ads to apologize for his insensitivity on the car-tag issue (and also for having been too “soft” in commuting prisoners’ sentences). The Rural Swing counties did not capitulate easily. Indeed, in the 1982 Democratic primary the rural vote favored longtime Democratic ﬁxture Joe Purcell. Clinton won the nomination, however, and in the general election contest between Clinton and White the media campaigns of both candidates clearly targeted the Rural Swing counties. Not only was Clinton’s appeal effective in 1982, but in everything from appearance to staff to legislative program he showed enormous sensitivity to the preferences and potential power of the Rural Swing counties until he left for Washington in 1992.57 As discussed earlier, in his time in public ofﬁce Mike Huckabee has shown similar respect for these “real” Arkansans. This has had a major payoff for him, as he won twenty-three of these counties in his 1994 election for lieutenant governor and twenty-one in 1998, only losing ﬁve near the northeast Arkansas home of his opponent Bill Bristow. Huckabee has consistently reached out to white rural voters in his policy stances, which disproportionately appeal to rural voters’ way of life (such as dramatically simplifying the car registration system by eliminating vehicle inspections) as well as their strong support for cultural traditions (such as introducing “covenant” marriages). He has also reached out to them through his distinctive personal style in his role as symbol of the state. In 2000, for example, he decided to accept the donation of a triple-wide manufactured home to serve as a temporary “mansion” during a renovation of the Governor’s Mansion. The event was much publicized, and included national television show tours led by the self-described “Queen of the Triple-Wide,” Mrs. Huckabee, who said, “There are no words to describe the excitement I feel,” when the mobile home arrived on the mansion grounds. Though it was much derided by urban elites, the symbolic decision resonated wonderfully with the Rural Swing

[93], (34)

Lines: 367 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [93], (34)

94

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Contemporary Political Patterns

county electorate where, as of 1990, twenty-one of the twenty-six counties exceeded the state average in the percentage of residences that were mobile homes. Indeed, in two of these counties one in three homes was a mobile home at century’s end.58 Because the occasional Republican success in these rural counties in national and statewide contests has not tended to percolate down to state legislative and local contests, it might be concluded that in the foreseeable future the Rural Swing counties will remain securely Democratic below the state level and in lower-proﬁle state contests. But these counties are now winnable for Republicans who effectively put forward populist conservative messages. For Republicans to move quickly to a position of true parity in the state rather than waiting on continued demographic shifts, they must not only enlarge their existing (sub)urban appeal but cultivate the countryside outside of the Ozarks. However, it must be remembered that voters, rather than counties, are the decisive actors in politics. It is to those individual voters that we now turn.

[Last Page [94], (35)

Lines: 371 ———

299.0pt

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [94], (35)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter five

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties in Contemporary Arkansas

[First Page] [95], (1)

Modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties. E. E. Schattschneider, Party Government, 1942 The party platform in Arkansas has been as completely irrelevant to meaningful politics as any such document could conceivably be. Patrick F. O’Connor, “Political Party Organization in Pulaski County, Arkansas,” 1967 “Y’know, we’ve got a lot of good family traditions like ﬁshing, hard work, and voting Democratic. But, the old Arkansas Democratic Party of John McClellan’s day is gone. It’s been taken over by liberals who won’t stand up for what’s right. . . . This year me and Kenny are gonna . . . vote for some Republicans, ’cause another Arkansas tradition is doing what’s right.” Arkansas state Republican party advertisement, 1984

Although diverging on which is the most important, political scientists have suggested that three major mechanisms help to explain declining Democratic voting in the South: migration, generational turnover, and individual conversion. Clearly, all three of these factors have been at work in Arkansas.l The important Republicanizing effects of in-migration have already been noted. Its inﬂuence has been enhanced by its concentration in those very Ozark areas where a Republican base already existed and voting turnout is traditionally high as well as in the suburban areas of Little Rock whose disproportionately upscale voters are also more likely to vote because of their elevated education and income levels. Conﬁrmation of the in-migration inﬂuence is offered by 2000 election returns. While the state generally

Lines: 0 to 73 ———

1.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [95], (1)

96

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

gained 13.7 percent population between 1990 and 2000, George W. Bush won between 54.9 and 64.9 percent of the vote in the seven counties that had an average growth rate of at least 30 percent during this same period. Conversely, Al Gore won sixteen of the twenty Arkansas counties that actually lost population during the 1990s. Furthermore, the out-migration of Arkansas’s black population, many of whom would have probably been Democrats, has further enhanced Republican chances: between 1940 and 2000, Arkansas’s white population increased 45.9 percent while its black population declined 15.4 percent. The generational turnover mechanism suggests that as those who have had the strongest attachment to the Democratic Party die, they will slowly be replaced by voters for whom the traditional appeals of history, sectionalism, and racism will become increasingly meaningless. While this factor clearly helps to explain the declining distinctiveness of the southern electorate generally, it has been difﬁcult to measure in Arkansas because of the absence of reliable longitudinal survey data with age or generational breakdowns. Furthermore, as recently as 1970, Kielhorn found that young (age twenty to thirty-ﬁve) Arkansans were typical of all other Arkansas age groups in terms of their party identiﬁcation.2 Still, more recent Arkansas polling data suggest that signiﬁcant “generational turnover” has begun, and in the predicted—that is, Republican— direction. This showed itself most clearly in the Reagan era as younger Arkansas voters joined their cohort around the nation in being Reagan’s most loyal supporters. Indeed, among some of the more afﬂuent and upscale young, being a national Democrat had become as socially unacceptable by 1984 as any admitted Republicanism had been in the past. More striking is the behavior of the youngest Arkansas voters in the elections of the 1990s and 2000. In the nation as a whole young voters returned to the Democratic tickets led by Clinton and Gore, creating a curvilinear pattern between age and vote choice (with middle-aged voters remaining disproportionately Republican). But in Arkansas voting patterns a strong and direct relationship between age and Democratic support has shown itself. In 1996, exit poll results showed a 63 to 29 percent landslide for Bill Clinton among Arkansans over the age of sixty, but Bob Dole actually gained a plurality of Arkansas voters between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine. In 2000, exit polls indicated that Gore won the support of 52 percent of Arkansans over the age of sixty-ﬁve but lost the eighteen-to-twenty-nine age cohort by nine percentage points (53 percent to 44 percent). Similar patterns are shown in party identiﬁcation data from this period. Perhaps most telling, according to a survey of local

[96], (2)

Lines: 73 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [96], (2)

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

97

Democratic Party activists in the state in 2001, Democratic activists over eighty years of age now actually outnumber its activists under forty!3 The third important force for change in the South as a whole has been individual conversion. This hypothesis begins with the assumption that there have been millions of southerners who have thought Republican, that is conservative, but voted Democratic. Often, of course, there was no choice. But also, since many southern Democratic candidates were as conservative or more so than most northern Republicans, this was not ideologically inconsistent. The gradual estrangement in recent decades, however, as the national Democratic Party has repeatedly espoused economic and social policies in profound opposition to the views of many native southerners, may lead to a total alienation of affections and eventually to a complete conversion to Republicanism. In Arkansas, at least through the 1960s, the necessary conditions for such individual conversion simply did not exist. As long as the Democratic Party was dominated by the Faubus old guard and represented in Congress by such conservative stalwarts as Senator John L. McClellan, while the state Republican Party was a progressive Rockefeller coalition, the ideological lines were not only blurred but reversed. By the end of the 1970s, however, both state parties had assumed the ideological coloration of their national counterparts. The Republicans and Democrats in Arkansas’s congressional delegation were splitting along Republican-conservative/Democratic-liberal lines, Republican and Democratic contestants in major state races were generally in line with national party philosophy, and the stage was thus theoretically set for the state Republicans to begin collecting their long overdue conservative constituency.4 The state Republicans have certainly collected some prominent disaffected Democrats as candidates and candidate supporters, many of whom indicated that they were “converting” to the party that better reﬂected their own conservatism. A former Democratic state senator and candidate for attorney general publicly announced that now that he had outlived his grandparents, he “would be coming out of the closet and openly casting his ﬁrst Republican vote.” As the highest-proﬁle convert, then Second District congressman Tommy Robinson, colorfully put it at his White House announcement of the switch in 1989, “The Arkansas Democrat is nothing like the national Democrat. They’re hard-working people, they believe in God and motherhood and chivalry and apple pie, and the eastern liberals have pointy heads and they carry big briefcases around with nothing inside them but ham sandwiches.”5

[97], (3)

Lines: 77 to 1 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [97], (3)

98

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

Table 5. Party Identiﬁcations of Arkansas Voters (in percent) Democrats (with leaners) 1962 1966 1970 1980 1983 1984 1986 1994 1997 1999 2001

66.0 58.0 59.0 59.0 59.0 57.0 53.0 47.0 40.0 43.0 44.1

Republicans (with leaners) 11.0 8.0 17.0 13.0 16.7 26.5 21.0 21.0 19.0 33.2 36.8

Independents 23.0 34.0 24.0 28.0 23.5 16.5 21.0 29.0 35.0 23.0 11.1

Note: All of these polls used a statewide sample of 400 or more. Because survey questions varied, percentages do not always add to 100. Source: Figures for 1962 and 1966 are from Rockefeller polls reported in Kielhorn, “Party Development and Partisan Change: An Analysis of Changing Patterns of Mass Supports for the Parties in Arkansas” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1973), 108. Figures for 1970 are from Jim Ranchino, Faubus to Bumpers, (Arkadelphia ar: Action Research, 1972), 11. Figures for 1980 are from polls conducted by Precision Research, Inc., Little Rock, in author’s possession. Figures for 1983 are from “A Report on Public Attitudes toward Arkansas Louisiana Gas Company,” Precision Research, Inc. Figures from 1984 are from “Arkansas Senatorial Polls,” conducted for Sen. David Pryor. Figures for 1986 are from author interview with then-Governor Bill Clinton, 1 November 1986. Figures from 1994 are from a candidate poll, in author’s possession. Figures for 1997 are from a poll conducted by the University of Central Arkansas Survey Laboratory, reported in Gary Wekkin, “Republicans on the Move,” The Log Cabin Democrat, 31 September 1998. Figures from 1999 and 2001 are from the Arkansas Poll, conducted by the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, plsc.uark.edu/arkpoll/.

Despite the high-proﬁle switch of Robinson (and that of the man who defeated him in the 1990 Republican primary for governor, Shefﬁeld Nelson)— and unlike the situation in most other southern states—no major ofﬁcial originally elected as a Democrat in Arkansas has switched and successfully run as a Republican, taking his or her constituency along into the Republican electorate. Indeed, in the cases of Robinson, Nelson, state auditor Julia Hughes Jones (who then ran for secretary of state as a Republican in 1994), and Little Rock legislator Phil Wyrick (who then ran for Tommy Robinson’s old seat in Congress, losing to Democrat Vic Snyder in 1998), candidate

[98], (4)

Lines: 115 ———

6.292pt

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [98], (4)

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

99

party switching has been an unmitigated failure in the state. Even without any stirring role models of “defection,” however, there are obvious signs of dealignment—a decline in the attachment of voters to any party—among Arkansas voters generally (see table 5). Since the data for table 5 were collected by a number of different pollsters using different methods and serving different purposes, the precise results must be treated with caution, especially given that the Arkansas electorate has expanded so enormously since the 1960s. Even with these caveats, however, two conclusions seem undeniable: Democratic strength has eroded signiﬁcantly, and Republican identiﬁers have increased somewhat. Simply put, there is no longer a majority party in Arkansas. The days of Democratic dominance at the mass level are gone. That said, while Democratic candidates begin contemporary contests with a smaller and more fragile base than ever before, it remains a larger base than that of the gop.6 The greater sophistication of more recent opinion polling allows a deeper analysis of the social and demographic characteristics of those most likely to identify themselves with the two parties. In general, these do reﬂect trends seen in the nation as a whole. For instance, a signiﬁcant gender gap shows itself in contemporary Arkansas politics. While a slight plurality of men (32 percent) identify with the Republican Party, according to the 1999 Arkansas Poll, women break by a two-to-one margin in the Democratic direction (46 percent to 23 percent). This sharp division between women and men in attitudes—and, according to exit poll data, in behavior—suggests that Arkansas may be more likely to see gendered rhetoric and issues enter the state’s politics in the elections ahead. That poll also shows the typical relationships between income and education and party identiﬁcation, with Republicanism being positively related to higher levels of both.7 Therefore, the battle in Arkansas’s statewide elections is for voters who have allegiance to neither party. This will likely create an unpredictability in electoral outcomes (and a potential for dramatic shifts) never before seen in the state in general elections. An excellent example of this potential for drama occurred in the 1990 gubernatorial election in which Clinton faced Shefﬁeld Nelson, who had run an aggressive race by portraying Clinton as a liberal tax-and-spender whose expensive educational initiatives had produced few results but Nelson had, apparently, come up short. In the closing days of the campaign, however, the Nelson campaign began running an ad that repeated over and over a decontextualized clip of Clinton saying the words “raise and spend” during a state of the state address, bringing the tax-and-spend charge to life. Though some inside the Clinton campaign

[99], (5)

Lines: 115 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [99], (5)

100

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

seriously doubt his veracity, Clinton pollster Dick Morris stated that his tracking poll indicated that the governor was in “real trouble” (a ﬁnding later conﬁrmed by Nelson operatives) on the Saturday before the Tuesday election. The Clinton campaign rushed out television and radio ads of their own that stopped whatever hemorrhaging was occurring and won the race with 57 percent of the vote.8 Because it has always had to reach out to voters who do not identify themselves as Republicans, the traditional minority party is perhaps more adaptable to this newly dealignedArkansas politics. Moreover, the consistent conservatism of the post-Rockefeller Republican Party is generally in synch with the plurality of these voters who identify themselves as ideologically conservative. However, as we will discuss later in the chapter, the Arkansas Republican Party’s occasional veers toward positions out of step with the signiﬁcant chunk of these independents who see themselves as “moderates” may limit the party’s fortunes. national and state partisans As early as 1949 V. O. Key pointed to the potential signiﬁcance of the presidency as an organizing inﬂuence in state and local politics. “The issues of the Presidency are dramatic enough to reach down into traditional oneparty states and divide the voters,” he observed. Data in table 5 on Arkansas party identiﬁcation suggest that some of that pulling power has indeed occurred (with bumps when national trends favored one party, as in Reagan’s 1984 dominance). Since 1986 onward Arkansas’s gubernatorial contests have taken place in presidential off —years; so any such coattails will be limited in their electoral impact.9 Furthermore, Arkansas’s Democratic candidates have developed a capacity for disassociating themselves from their national party at election time and instead emphasizing their “independent” nature. In 1984, for example, when all Democratic candidates knew that Reagan’s coattails might be strong and Mondale’s association damaging, Pryor ran an “Arkansas Comes First” campaign and released ﬁgures showing that he and his opponent had supported Reagan’s legislative initiatives by quite comparable percentages in 1984. More recently, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor employed similar rhetoric in their media messages in their Senate races. In 1998, Lincoln’s paid media included an ad—focused on welfare reform and balancing the federal budget—in which she said to the voters, “In Congress, I worked hard with both parties. . . . The voters of Arkansas want an independent senator who

[100], (6)

Lines: 123 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [100], (6)

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

101

will ﬁght for our values.” Pryor, whose 2002 campaign offered supporters bumper stickers in traditional red, white, and blue or camouﬂage, said in one of the ﬁrst spots run in his campaign to regain his father’s Senate seat for the Democrats, “People matter more than political parties. And just because something’s a Democratic idea doesn’t mean it’s a good idea and not all Republican ideas are bad ones.” Especially in the days of the national media’s dominance of political information, can state Democratic candidates continue to divorce themselves successfully from the image-shaping power of the national parties? Continued ticket-splitting and increasing numbers of self-identiﬁed independents offer partial solutions to these cross pressures, but the present two-tiered system, which rests on some shaky foundations, is showing signs of erosion and is likely to continue to crumble. First, those most active in the Democratic Party at the local level have liberalized over the past decade, with 44.7 percent now calling themselves “liberals,” according to a 2001 survey. Conservative Democrats, a decade ago the plurality of grassroots party activists, now make up a meager one-fourth of Democratic activists. Moreover, statistical analyses of county-level voting show strong relationships between the votes for Republican presidential candidates and those for state candidates of the gop, suggesting a growing convergence between national and state politics.10 Both history and contemporary political science, however, suggest caution against any easy assumption that the South in general is so inherently conservative that inevitably most southerners will come to realize that their true ideological home is in Republicanism. Dewey Grantham and William Havard, for example, emphasized the strength of the southern reform tradition and that the South encompassed much greater support for economic liberalism than conventional wisdom might suggest. V. O. Key insisted that southern public opinions were not nearly so conservative as the behavior of southern political leaders would indicate. And these historical insights have been conﬁrmed by ﬁndings of some contemporary political scientists.11 Perhaps most illuminating for the purposes of predicting Arkansas’s future political choices is the work of William S. Maddox and Stuart A. Lilie. Maddox and Lilie challenge the traditional division of voters into a dichotomy between liberals, who favor government intervention in the economy and also expansion of civil rights and liberties, and conservatives, who oppose government intervention in the economy and also oppose expanded civil rights and liberties. Maddox and Lilie suggest that the economic dimension should be separated from the social or lifestyle dimension. When so sep-

[101], (7)

Lines: 135 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [101], (7)

102

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

arated, two ideological types emerge in addition to the traditional liberals and conservatives: populists, who favor economic intervention but oppose expansion of civil rights and liberties; and libertarians, who oppose government involvement in the economy but support expansion of civil rights and liberties. Populists, for example, strongly favor sufﬁcient governmental intervention to regulate giant corporations and utilities, to balance excessive concentrations of wealth on behalf of the “little guy.” In that sense, they are economic activists, or “liberals.” On such issues as school prayer or women’s liberation or penal reform, however, they tend to be profoundly preservationist, or “conservative,” suspicious of and angry about many of the social and moral changes of recent decades.12 Since the time of Maddox and Lilie’s original analysis, when populists were a plurality of Americans generally, other scholars’updates of their work have shown an increase in conservatives and libertarians in the American citizenry. Still, none of the four even neared a majority of Americans in the last years of the twentieth century. Maddox and Lilie further found populists to be especially prevalent in the South. The only test to date of the MaddoxLilie typology on the Arkansas electorate was inconclusive. Nevertheless, the demographic proﬁle of the typical populist offered by Maddox and Lilie (New Deal generation and older, high school diploma or less, low to middle income, working class, southern) strongly suggests that a signiﬁcant number of Arkansans may ﬁt most comfortably into the populist mold. Indeed, a more recent analysis by William D. Schreckhise, Janine A. Parry, and Todd G. Shields, employing 1999 Arkansas poll data, captures the presence of a populist ideological strain in the Arkansas electorate.13 Additional evidence for an essential populism in the Arkansas citizenry is shown in data culled from the General Social Survey (gss) by Paul Brace and his colleagues. Although the picture of Arkansans visible in this data is unsurprisingly conservative, compared to other states’ citizens, across any number of social issues (race, abortion, feminism, and homosexuality) Arkansans are decidedly in favor of increased welfare spending relative to other Americans, ranking ninth out of the forty-four states included in the analysis.14 Indeed, returning to the insightful 1982 rematch between Clinton and White, it is apparent that both candidates were pitching their negative and positive imagery not only to the Rural Swing counties but to the presumed populists therein. White’s advertisements portrayed him as a tough-minded, no-nonsense, execution-eager good old boy in contrast to the bleedingheart, East Coast, Ivy League, aclu-liberal Clinton, who specialized in

[102], (8)

Lines: 141 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [102], (8)

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

103

commuting killers’ sentences. Clinton’s advertisements portrayed White as an untrustworthy interest-dominated plutocrat who might run with the goodold-boy hounds by day but slept with the utility foxes at night. In contrast, Clinton was just a caring and concerned down-home Baptist family man who wanted nothing more than another chance to ﬁght the fat cats on behalf of the little guys. Mike Huckabee’s conservative populism, described in detail in the previous chapter, likewise has appeals directed at these voters—particularly on the lifestyle dimension. Moreover, while his ideology on taxing and spending policies is generally in line with the national Republican Party, many observers note his essential belief in the role of government. Moreover, Huckabee often emphasizes his personal background as the son of workingclass parents, both of whom lacked a college education, in distinguishing himself from country clubbers (“I’m not one of those rich Republicans,” Huckabee has noted).15 In 1982 Clinton’s pitch to the populists was more successful than White’s, and, as previously noted, the lessons of the 1980 rural rebellion left a lasting impression on Clinton. Nevertheless, as the two political parties in Arkansas have increasingly come to resemble their national counterparts, thousands of low- to middle-income small-town and rural Arkansas voters may well be wondering if they have a place in either. Surely they do not belong with the wealthy bankers and businesspeople, the feudal landowners, the retired Yankees, the golf-playing country clubbers in the state Republican Party. But how can they feel comfortable in a state Democratic Party where power seems to be shifting into the hands of African American activists, labor leaders, and abortion rights advocates? When economic issues dominate the agenda, populists are more attracted by the kindhearted Democrats than the hardhearted Republicans. When economic concerns are less pressing, however, giving social or lifestyle issues the opportunity to predominate, populists are much more attracted by the puritanical Republican right than by the permissive Democratic left. Sarah Morehouse has described this anomaly in contemporary American state politics: Outside the South, partisan competition is characterized by rural and smalltown Protestant America represented in the conservatism of the Republican party and the liberal coalition of metropolitan minorities and industrial labor supporting the Democrats. In terms of this competition, there is no doubt that the South really belongs to the Republicans in ideological terms, being the

[103], (9)

Lines: 147 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [103], (9)

104

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

most rural, homogeneous, small-town and Protestant section of the country. Partisan politics in the South, however, are the exact mirror of those found elsewhere in the country, and they have shown a remarkable resistance to change.16

Nothing illustrates this resistance more vividly than the comparative voter turnout ﬁgures in Democratic and Republican primaries inArkansas in recent decades. It is true that, in a major break with past patterns, only twice between 1962 and the end of the Big Three era (in 1974 and 1978) did the number of Democratic primary voters exceed the number of voters in the general election. Still, monstrous differences persisted between the usual turnout in Arkansas’s Democratic and Republican primaries. In 1982, for example, 567,125 persons voted in the Democratic primary and only 13,147 in the Republican. In most Arkansas counties, fewer than ﬁfty people participated in the Republican primary; and in some counties, no Republican primary votes were cast at all. Another way of illustrating this imbalance is that in 1982 Frank White won the Republican primary with 11,111 votes, exactly 1,796 fewer votes than the last-place candidate in the ﬁve-man Democratic primary. In 1984 an increase in Republican turnout of nearly 50 percent still resulted in only 19,562 Republican primary voters as opposed to 492,595 voters in the Democratic primary. The major explanation for the ongoing disparity in primary turnout is not a matter of formal party identiﬁcation. Indeed, Arkansas voters have consistently resisted any legal requirement for party registration. Rather, Arkansas voters remained more likely to participate in the Democratic primary because that was where the action was, where most state contests and nearly all local contests (outside a few Ozark counties) were decided. In 1986 only ﬁve counties had contested county or local races on the Republican primary ballot.17 In the post–Big Three era, turnout in the Democratic primary has dropped precipitously: from slightly over 500,000 in the 1992 primary to 280,273 in the primary ten years later. In that 2002 cycle, the Republican Party had its largest primary electorate in history although fewer than 100,000 voters participated. This clearly represents an additional sign of progress for the gop. The primary race that gained the bulk of media attention during the primary season in 2002 was in the Republican primary (a U.S. Senate primary between incumbent Tim Hutchinson and State Representative Jim Bob Duggar). County ofﬁcials who had never done so before were forced to grapple with the mechanics of running a local Republican primary. When

[104], (10)

Lines: 164 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[104], (10)

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

105

confronting a gop candidate for justice of the peace a Ouachita County ofﬁcial said, “We don’t have an ofﬁcial procedure for ﬁling. No one runs.”18 Although the gop’s primary electorate remained centralized in northwest Arkansas, the afﬂuent enclaves of Pulaski County, and in the suburbs of Little Rock, the increased gop turnout also shows that the changed electoral laws that enable citizens to vote in Republican primaries without driving to the county seat are paying dividends for the party. Another election law change—discussed in chapter 10—that went into effect in 2002 also indirectly enhanced Republican turnout: the nonpartisan election of state judges at all levels meant that voters in many locales could vote Republican in the primary and still have a voice in judicial elections. The slight closing of the gap between Democratic and Republican primary participation in the most recent election cycles (caused mostly by the decline in Democratic participation) is signiﬁcant. However, an even larger story is the shrinking of the primary electorate more generally. Though 49.4 percent of Arkansas’s registered voters participated in one of the two party primaries in 1990, only 23.9 percent did so in 2002. This shows that, increasingly, the elections that matter inArkansas are now held in November rather than in late May (since 1972 the date of the Arkansas primary elections) or three weeks later in early June (in the subsequent runoff elections). It may be heresy to the thousands of Arkansans who never miss an opportunity to vote (and, in rural Arkansas, an opportunity to socialize at the community voting site), but a sound argument can be made that those increasingly dealigned voters make a rational decision when they participate in democracy in Arkansas only in the general election. This dramatic change in the dynamics of state politics is most obvious in the elections for the highest-proﬁle ofﬁces. In no governor’s election since 1990 has there been a competitive primary on either the Republican or Democratic side. Though token opposition arose in most cases (the absence of opposition for Governor Tucker in 1994 was exceptional for a Democratic primary), in each of the three cycles it was clear before the ﬁling period even opened who would be each party’s standard bearer. But even lower on the ticket shifts are occurring. In the state legislature between 1968 and 1990 only 3.2 percent of state house races and 6.6 percent of state senate races were competitive (deﬁned as the losing candidate receiving at least 40 percent of the vote) in November. In the elections in the 1990s (most of which occurred before term limits went into effect), the competitiveness rates for the state house jumped to 17.5 percent and to 19.5 percent in the senate.19 As the twenty-ﬁrst century began, Republicans showed more strength

[105], (11)

Lines: 180 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [105], (11)

106

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

among rank-and-ﬁle Arkansans than at any point in history. Moreover, the Republicans—while smaller and regionally concentrated—have a more cohesive, and more participatory, following. Still, it was those without a strong attachment to either party who determine electoral outcomes in Arkansas’s dealigned electorate. In this era in which no majority party exists, the quality of the candidates being offered to voters, the shaping of the message presented to voters, and the efforts to mobilize the voters who do show ideological sympathy for a candidate all matter increasingly in Arkansas. It is exactly those roles that political parties, as organizations, are expected to play. Neither the Democratic nor Republican Party entered this era of dealignment used to playing those roles consistently. As the next section indicates, both parties are measurably stronger than they were in recent decades, but both still fall considerably short of what a political party is supposed to be in a competitive political system.20

[106], (12)

Lines: 188 political parties Though most political scientists assume and understand the value of political parties, many citizens, most college students, and a surprising number of Arkansas politicians and political activists do not. Brieﬂy, then, political parties evolved as an essential means for putting notions of democratic self-government and popular consent into practice. Political parties are sometimes deﬁned as groups of individuals organized for the purpose of gaining control of government, a deﬁnition that in itself has little inspirational ring. Since the only legitimate means of capturing control of government in a democracy is by winning elections, however, political parties must perform certain public-serving functions if they are to obtain their goal: they must nominate (and if necessary recruit) candidates better qualiﬁed and more attractive than those of the opposition party; they must offer programs that address and fulﬁll popular needs and wishes; and they must deliver on at least some of their promises or face certain criticism and possible defeat at the next election. Perhaps most important, competing political parties provide citizens with the assurance that if those in ofﬁce are not performing responsibly and responsively, their shortcomings will be publicized, probably in exaggerated form, and alternative candidates and programs will be offered. It is possible that revolutions in mass communications, an increasingly educated and issue-conscious electorate, and the rise of thousands of specialinterest pressure groups will eventually make parties obsolete. To date,

———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[106], (12)

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

107

however, despite many dire predictions that parties are withering away, they continue to dominate the paths to political power in America. Certainly, no democratic system has yet operated successfully without them. As should be clear from previous chapters, these great, essential implementers of democracy existed in name only in traditional Arkansas politics. The Democratic Party, described as one of the most “moribund and backward in the South,” was a mere holding company under whose name all candidates sought ofﬁce; and the Republican party “wavered somewhat between an esoteric cult on the order of a lodge and a conspiracy for plunder.” Arkansas had essentially a no-party system, with two very elitist and ephemeral organizations that called themselves parties but that rarely met, had no signiﬁcant electoral purposes, and no discernible value to the voters (except that the Democrats did manage, staff, and pay for the primary elections).21 For a brief period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with Rockefeller pouring money, enthusiasm, and organizational capacity into the Republicans, and the Democrats smarting from two successive gubernatorial defeats, both state party organizations took their ﬁrst tentative steps toward becoming what parties are supposed to be. Rockefeller’s death in 1973 and the Democrats’ return to seemingly easy dominance in the 1970s temporarily thwarted this emerging development. This left the Republicans with a state headquarters but little else and the Democrats, according to one informed analysis in 1976, “perhaps the weakest in the South.”22 The 1980s were periods of feast and famine for both state party organizations. Clinton’s defeat in 1980 shocked the Democrats into renewed organizational efforts, which received the serious and sustained attention of two party chairs of unusual devotion and longevity. In the 1980s the Republicans began adapting to and pursuing the fund-raising and other organizational necessities for which Rockefeller’s beneﬁcence had obscured the need. They also became more unambiguously conservative and ideologically cohesive. Both parties, however, continued to be plagued by devastating ﬁnancial crises and shortfalls. Both also continued to be hampered by “neutrality” rules, such as that prohibiting party endorsement of candidates in the primary, which some analysts offer as a major explanation for why both Arkansas parties are “weak and ineffective organizations which lack cohesiveness and clout.” The Republican Party was further debilitated by constant turnover in leadership, including eight state chairmen in a six-year period in the 1980s. A Washington Post assessment described the Arkansas Republicans as the “region’s poor relation” and noted, “If you love humility, you’ve got to love the Republican Party of Arkansas.”23

[107], (13)

Lines: 198 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [107], (13)

108

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

Despite these wrenching problems, however, both state parties seem to have at last envisioned, if not fully implemented, what a state political party should be. As one overview correctly notes, “both state party organizations have become institutionalized. They have attained a raison d’être transcending personalistic leadership within the organization or from the statehouse.”24 Both parties now have the usual formal state structure, including biennial state conventions that elect and authorize interim activities by large state committees and somewhat smaller executive committees, party chairs who ﬁll the role of voice of the party on a daily basis, and full-time executive directors who oversee other staffers in headquarters just blocks from the state capitol complex. Moreover, both are also building their capacity to offer their nominees increasingly sophisticated electoral assistance (direct mail, phone banks, donor lists, opponent and issue research). In particular, beginning around 1990, both parties established “coordinated campaigns” focused on get-out-the-vote efforts to beneﬁt statewide and congressional campaigns. Particularly in presidential years and years in which a competitive U.S. Senate race has been on the ballot, these temporary operations have become sizable, often largely staffed by non-Arkansan party operatives.25 Still, no serious candidate relies upon these party organizations. The parties are supplements to rather than substitutes for the candidate’s own, highly autonomous campaign apparatus. And, particularly with the most potent of those candidates, their organizations have been impressive ones indeed. Just after Bill Clinton left for Washington, one state senator said of his ﬁeld army, “Clinton had as strong a county organization as any politician, including [Orval] Faubus. His ties to those county coordinators were personal, and he nurtured those ties.” Even when he was in the traditionally low-proﬁle job of lieutenant governor, Mike Huckabee noted that his personal organization was larger than the gop organization in most Arkansas counties. Though smaller in geographical scope, Second District Democratic congressman Vic Snyder’s committed, progressive followers allowed him to effectively raise funds despite a commitment to never raise money until ninety days before a primary election and to consistently operate an expansive door-to-door canvassing campaign. Nevertheless, the fact that parties have any useful electoral functions at all is a giant step from the recent past and an incipient approximation of the organization envisioned by the competitive party model.26 Furthermore, both parties have developed much more extensive relationships with their parent national parties than was once the case. From the mid1990s through the 2002 election cycle, much of this relationship, of course,

[108], (14)

Lines: 206 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[108], (14)

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

109

related entirely to the transfer of soft money, which was immediately spent in the name of the state party for so-called issue ads that almost always attacked the candidate from the other party. The fact that Arkansas law places no limits on contributions made to the state party made this practice even easier in the state than elsewhere. In the 1996 Senate race, approximately $1.5 million in issue ads were run on the state’s tv airwaves in the race between Tim Hutchinson and Attorney General Winston Bryant. It is likely that the brutal nature of that advertising contributed to the fact that 4.3 percent of those who participated in the presidential race did not make a choice in the Senate race. Such spending grew over the subsequent cycles, to the point that the two national parties transferred a total of $13.75 million into the state during the 2002 cycle. Because of continuing bureaucratic machinations, much remains to be determined regarding the exact path for campaign ﬁnance reform politics after the passage of the Bipartisan Reform Act of 2002. But there is a good chance that state parties throughout the country—including Arkansas—could come to play an even more central role (either directly or indirectly) in campaign funding in the years ahead. This fact has intensiﬁed reformers’ calls for new reporting provisions for state parties’ expenditures since, despite the state’s modernized government ethics laws, state parties in Arkansas are not required to disclose any data about how they spend their money.27 In terms of national/state party interaction unrelated to the shifting of soft-money dollars, the relationship has been a generally beneﬁcial one for the state gop. It has made possible the provision of new phone systems, polling assistance, grants for staff positions, generous campaign contributions, campaign workshops for the candidates, and some presidential candidates attractive to Arkansans to head the ticket. Bill Clinton’s presidency also enhanced the relationship between the state gop and the national party in that the Republican National Committee gave the state gop funds for projects that could potentially lead to home-state “black eyes” for the president and, according to one party ofﬁcial, state party fund-raising was facilitated by Clinton’s visibility as a national ﬁgure.28 For the Democrats, the relationship with the national party has been much more complicated. Though, on occasion, the national party has provided resources for the state party, particularly for technological upgrades, the money ﬂow has been neither consistent nor unidirectional. In addition, rather than enhancing the operation of the state party headquarters to help fulﬁll the home-state political demands of President Clinton, the Democratic National Committee established a completely autonomous Little Rock ofﬁce

[109], (15)

Lines: 210 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [109], (15)

110

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

during the 1990s. As a result, the ﬁnancial difﬁculties experienced in the 1980s by both parties persisted for the Democrats. Moreover, particularly before the Clinton era, constant changes in the selection process for national convention delegates (including afﬁrmative action measures), necessitated often unpopular revisions in state procedures.29 The state Republican Party has attempted to exploit the more Republicanreceptive climate (created, in particular, by Reagan’s popularity and the intense antipathy for Clinton in some segments of the Arkansas populace) by actively recruiting candidates, particularly for the term limit–affected state legislature. In a good example of what Andrew M. Appleton and Daniel S. Ward term “horizontal innovation” across state parties, the gop implemented a targeting system ﬁrst applied successfully in Texas to identify the areas of the state that were prime for Republican growth. Moreover, the executive director of the party personally recruited potential candidates. His most effective tool was the pledge of maximum party ﬁnancial support to the candidates’ campaigns. Though the gop may still lag in electoral success in these races, the state party’s visible activism has paid off in the enthusiasm party activists have shown for their party’s direction. According to a recent survey of grassroots Republican activists (completed, it should be noted, before the late 2003 intraparty chaos created by the revelation of nearly $400,000 in party debt, including questionable payments to a party ﬁnance director and other staffers, and an Federal Election Commission audit highlighting other party mismanagement), most perceive that their party is stronger as an organization, a recruiter of candidates, a fund-raising entity, a campaign operation, and a media presence than a decade earlier. In contrast, state Democratic chairs came later, and more sporadically, to the task of strategic recruiting. Democratic activists note—with pessimism—this lack of effective work by the state party.30 Despite developmental progress, in two fundamental respects both Arkansas parties still fall far short of the competitive party model. Neither has a full complement of seventy-ﬁve vigorous county committees, and neither has a major impact on state public policy choices. The Republican local organization has come a long way since the 1940s (when the state chairman estimated that an answer to an inquiry could be expected from only half the counties), and a few Republican and Democratic county committees have a fairly full agenda even in nonelection years. However, in the vast majority of Arkansas counties these indispensable engines of democracy rarely come out of the garage. To be fair, a great gap exists between theory and practice all over America.

[110], (16)

Lines: 214 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[110], (16)

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

111

Still, even by the most lax of standards (Are all leadership and most precinct positions ﬁlled? Is there a permanent headquarters or at least a telephone listing? Does any meaningful activity take place in the intervals between elections?) the county committees of both parties were in the lowest ranks of local-party organizational strength in the most thorough analysis completed in the 1980s. The Democrats do at least have a party committee—on paper— in all seventy-ﬁve counties, though the demise of party-run primaries has removed the key traditional function of this entity. A recent Democratic Speaker of the state house of representatives said, “You would be surprised how many House members tell me their county committees do nothing.” There remain Arkansas counties that have no functioning Republican county committee.31 Beyond the mere existence of structure, however, is the question of the energy and enthusiasm those within the structure exert in pursuit of their tasks. A county chair and a handful of activists may organize an occasional fund-raiser, sponsor a political rally, and mount a booth at the county fair, but year-round efforts to build and sustain the party are exceptional. (Only two county parties have maintained year-round headquarters in recent years, for instance.) Fortunately, two surveys of local-party activists from both parties in Arkansas, completed as part of the Southern Grassroots Party Activists project in 1991 and 2001, do provide evidence of the levels of activism (or lack thereof) by local county party chairs and committee members.32 The 2001 survey asked activists whether they had engaged in thirteen different campaign activities in recent campaigns. Majorities of Democratic activists reported engaging in only three of the thirteen activities: distributing literature (64.3 percent), distributing lawn signs (60.1 percent), and contributing ﬁnancially to campaigns (65.1 percent). At least half of Republican activities engage in those three activities as well as sending mailings to voters (50.0 percent), organizing campaign events (56.7 percent), and arranging fund-raising activities (64.6 percent). Particularly relevant in an era when fund-raising is perhaps the best measure of the health of a party organization, the gap between the levels of activity among activists of the two parties was greatest on this last activity. Fewer than one-fourth of Democrats engaged in an activity that is relatively commonplace for Republicans in Arkansas. Across the board, Republican activists are much more likely to “walk the walk” on behalf of their party than are Democrats. On every one of the thirteen activities, a larger percentage of Republicans than Democrats had engaged in the particular work. The survey results provide more evidence that the traditional minority party in the state is on the rise. Though smaller

[111], (17)

Lines: 220 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [111], (17)

112

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

in number, bunched in certain counties, and still not as thoroughly active as some idealistic political scientists might hope, Republican activists in Arkansas are more energized than their counterparts at the grassroots of politics. Another standard measure of the worth of a political position is the amount of competition for it. Here too, local-party positions must be ranked low in general importance. Though delegate positions to the quadrennial national party conventions are highly prized and therefore ﬁercely contested, most county committee positions can be secured by the simple process of ﬁling for them, and many remain perennially vacant. Until recently, contests for Democratic county committee positions in Pulaski County were fairly common, but even here party workers now spend hours calling incumbent committee members to remind them to ﬁle once again. Contests for delegate status to biennial state conventions are equally rare. Most county chairs, in fact, will happily pin a delegate badge on whomever in his or her county gets his or her welcome body to the state convention.33 Again, this organizational laxity at the local level is not unique toArkansas. However, considering the incentives that Frank Sorauf suggests have traditionally motivated individuals toward partisan activism, it becomes clear why Arkansas’s local parties are even weaker than the national norm. The major traditional incentive was patronage; people worked hard for the party because their job, or some relative’s job, was part of the spoils system and depended upon an election victory. Others engaged in partisan work as a means to secure preferments, special and advantageous consideration in the awarding of contracts, or sympathetic and tolerant oversight of a stateregulated industry. Another stimulus has been the possibility of advancing one’s political career through the visibility, contacts, and skills one acquires through partisan activity. Some individuals have traditionally engaged in partisan activity for its social and psychological satisfactions, the camaraderie of a circle of like-minded friends engaged in exciting battles together, and the pleasures of association with the great and near-great. For them, the party offers an “island of excitement in a sea of dull routine.” Finally, some have entered partisan politics as a way of promoting their political ideology or of obtaining favorable public policy on pet issues.34 Paralleling trends throughout the nation, virtually none of these incentives would powerfully motivate many people toward local-party activism in Arkansas today. Most government jobs at all levels have been removed from the spoils, or patronage, system, and jobs that do require political inﬂuence are more likely to be awarded to those who have invested hours in

[112], (18)

Lines: 224 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[112], (18)

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

113

a particular winning candidate’s campaign than to mere party functionaries. This is equally true for the political nonjobs, or “honoraries,” that Arkansas governors name by the hundreds each year. Similarly, most government contracts must now be awarded on the basis of best qualiﬁcations and lowest bids rather than party loyalty. The access and inﬂuence prized by businesspeople and other economic inﬂuentials still have a strong political base. Whatever rewards and punishments are available, however, ﬂow from contributions (especially ﬁnancial) to a particular campaign rather than from mere party committee membership.35 As for the “stepping-stone” incentive, partisan involvement is still a valuable environment for making contacts and learning the political ropes. The state Republican Party, because of its smaller recruitment pool, has frequently elevated candidates from among the ranks of party activists. Few major Democratic candidates, however, have climbed the rungs of partisan involvement to electoral success.36 Perhaps in earlier, more arid times in Arkansas, meetings of the localparty committee provided a welcome escape from life’s dull routine and some excuse for congenial companionship. The convivial atmosphere of state conventions and the friendship or at least recognition by “notables” may still offer some attractions encouraging partisan involvement. For most people, however, there are diversions far more consistently entertaining than the typical county committee meeting or party fund-raiser. In short, most of the material or solitary reasons for party activism have diminished or disappeared. Finally, there are the “purposive” incentives, those involving commitments to certain attitudes or policy goals. Many observers suggest that ideological or issue incentives have become the major attractions for today’s partisan activists. The Southern Grassroots Party Activists surveys suggest that is clearly the case for Arkansas’s Republican Party activists, 69.6 percent of whom “see working in the political party generally as a way to inﬂuence politics and government” as being “very important”. Potentially problematic for the gop is the type of “inﬂuence” these party activists hope to have. Though compared to surrounding states the Christian Right has had only a moderate inﬂuence within the Arkansas gop, over two-thirds of Arkansas Republicans now choose the term “very conservative” to describe themselves. The most “liberal” of Republican activists are now the tiny 5.5 percent who describe themselves as “moderates.”37 The ideological unity (and accompanying extremism) of the gop activists is also shown in their views on any number of the most salient issues that

[113], (19)

Lines: 230 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [113], (19)

114

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

become commonly discussed in contemporary campaigns. For instance, on the issue of gun control, 95 percent of these activists oppose any tightening of gun control laws in the United States. In contrast, recent surveys of the mass electorate in the state shows that nearly half of Arkansans support stricter gun control. Indeed, 37 percent of Republican Party identiﬁers support stricter gun control measures, according to this 1999 Arkansas poll. Thus, the Arkansas gop’s ideological coherence—a source of strength for an organization qua organization—does threaten to push the Arkansas Republican Party—and the candidates the party recruits and nominates—to the right of the political mainstream in a state where the votes of moderate independents are essential for any candidate’s success. A key question now comes into focus: Is the Arkansas Republican Party in danger of becoming too extreme for an Arkansas mass electorate that has shown a fondness for political candidates—both Democratic and Republican—who have emphasized their moderation and independence?38 For a number of reasons, true issue activists are unlikely to devote themselves to years of endeavor in local-party organizations, however. A party that wishes to win must be too ﬂexible and pragmatic to accommodate ideological purists. Most Arkansans and most Americans with a particular issue axe to grind have found interest-group activity much more directly productive of policy results. And, in Arkansas, there is still only the most tenuous connection between the political parties and public policy.39 Both state parties go through the ritual of adopting a party platform at their biennial state conventions. These platforms, however, are neither to run on nor to stand on. The state Democratic convention, for example, repeatedly endorsed ratiﬁcation of the national Equal Rights Amendment that would have barred discrimination on the basis of sex in federal or state law. But the state legislature, consisting overwhelmingly of Democrats, repeatedly refused—through a variety of imaginative stratagems—to ratify it. Even on matters affecting the party itself, no certain connection exists between the party ofﬁcialdom’s wishes and the performance of ofﬁceholders. For a number of years, the state Democratic Party pushed for a law requiring voters to declare their party afﬁliation and be limited to voting in the primary of their declared choice. The Democratic-dominated legislature, however, refused to enact such legislation.40 The supreme value to voters of a competitive party system is supposed to be its beneﬁcial policy consequences. With two coalitions of ofﬁce seekers, each is forced to promise and deliver public-serving programs or suffer the electoral consequences. But in contemporary Arkansas politics, that model

[114], (20)

Lines: 238 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[114], (20)

Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

115

little resembles operational reality. It is true that with better-organized parties ready to exploit any perceived weaknesses by the other party’s ofﬁceholders, voters have greater assurance that lapses in leadership or policy blunders will be exposed, debated (with heat if not light), and alternatives offered. Thus, when the old-guard Democratic establishment became distasteful to Arkansas voters, it was rejected in favor of Rockefeller. When Rockefeller’s failings became apparent and an attractive alternative was offered, Rockefeller Republicanism was displaced by the Big Three. When Clinton angered a major segment of the electorate, he was replaced by White; when White disappointed and Clinton did penance, the voters rejected White and restored Clinton. When the Democratic “machine” was discredited (and, in the eyes of some, properly condemned in Jim Guy Tucker’s conviction), Mike Huckabee ﬁnally provided conservative populism toArkansas’s electorate. To whatever extent these preferences had a policy base, voters do now have more clearly deﬁned choices than they did in the past and a blunt but decisive mechanism for implementing them. In that broad sense, Arkansas’s political system, while becoming more Republican, has become somewhat more democratic. Still, in a total departure from the competitive party model, no elected Arkansas governor can then automatically rely on his or her fellow partisans in the legislature to fulﬁll the promises made through his or her party platform to the electorate. For a number of reasons, which will be discussed in chapter 8, political party has only limited signiﬁcance in the gubernatorial-legislative relationship. Equally important, however, is the fact that for every major public policy issue (raising taxes, tightening school standards, building highways) in the public domain, hundreds of lesser issues (e.g., should optometrists as well as ophthalmologists be permitted to use eye drops in diagnostic procedures?) are of no general interest whatsoever, though they are of very intense interest to small, particular groups within the population. A great deal of public policy is never mentioned in party platforms, never debated in gubernatorial contests, indeed rarely discussed in public at all. Much of the state’s public policy agenda is generated and resolved in semiprivate arrangements between elected and unelected ofﬁcial decision makers and those with special interests who have cultivated their friendship.

[Last Page] [115], (21)

Lines: 244 to ———

62.86002p ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [115], (21)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter six

The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

[First Page [116], (1) Hell, we wouldn’t have a government if there were no interest groups. State legislator, 1973 I do not have time to go door to door, put up yard signs, do things a lot of volunteers do. What I have time to do is donate. Arkansas Chamber of Commerce lobbyist, 1997

In the earliest days of state government in Arkansas, interest groups would have been superﬂuous. State legislators represented individuals (and relatively few of them) whose economic interests, primarily farming, were fairly homogeneous, and state government did little that materially affected their livelihoods. Still, in Arkansas as elsewhere, as populations grew, as the economy diversiﬁed, and especially as the powers and activities of state government expanded, more and more people found it advantageous to organize around their specialized interests, particularly their economic functions, to promote and protect their particular views. Interest groups are variously known as pressure groups, lobbies, and special interests. By whatever name, they are associations organized for the purpose of inﬂuencing public policy, and they have become an integral part of the representation and policymaking process in every modern democratic system. Though every state has its own unique conﬁguration of interest groups, the same four general types of organized interests exist in Arkansas as elsewhere. First, there are those interests that are regulated by the state. Broadly, this category includes all people who do business in the state and therefore are affected by labor regulations, tax laws, environmental regulations, safety standards, and everything else that touches on the proﬁtability of their

Lines: 0 to ———

1.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [116], (1)

The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

117

enterprises. More speciﬁcally, this group includes those in certain industries that operate primarily under state regulatory authority (such as insurance companies, liquor dealers, utilities, railroads and truckers, banks and other ﬁnancial institutions, hospitals and nursing homes) and those in professions and occupations that operate under state licensure (such as lawyers, doctors, realtors, beauticians, undertakers). Second, there are those interests that do business with the state. Highway and other building contractors, printers and publishers, bond brokers, wholesale food distributors, and others may depend heavily on state contracts and therefore want good working relationships with decision makers. Third, there are those interests that are ﬁnancially dependent on the state, such as teachers and other public employees wanting better salaries and beneﬁts, counties and cities pressuring for more generous turn-back funds and taxing authority, and health and welfare services seeking greater appropriations. Each of these three types of groups has a direct economic or vocational stake in favorable public policy decisions. A fourth type of group is motivated more by philosophy or ideology than by economic beneﬁt. Religious leaders, for example, motivated by moral beliefs, have always been ready to descend upon the state legislature when they feared the passage of laws that would make it easier to drink or to gamble. In recent years they have been joined by groups dedicated to civil rights and liberties, to environmental protection, to government reform, to laws easing or restricting the availability of abortions, and to many other issues and causes. A number of groups fall into several of these categories. Financial institutions, for example, are both regulated by the state and do business with the state, such as competing for deposits of governmental funds and for the right to handle bond issues. The Arkansas Farm Bureau keeps a watchful eye on state regulations such as those on the sale and use of pesticides, livestock inspections, land use and water rights, laws that would affect its multimilliondollar for-proﬁt insurance business. It also presses for greater government support in agricultural areas (research facilities, extension centers, farm-tomarket roads) and has taken positions on certain “morality” issues (opposing the expansion of gambling). These four types of groups use an almost inﬁnite variety of means to inﬂuence public policy. Action designed to elicit favorable public policy can and does take many forms. It occurs when members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (acorn) invade a hotel meeting room to disrupt a governor’s speech; when the lobbyist-funded Country

[117], (2)

Lines: 58 to 6 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [117], (2)

118 The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Caucus provides continuous food and beverage service to lawmakers in a building conveniently located just off the capitol grounds; and when a national ammunition company with its largest factory in Arkansas gives the governor hundreds of shotgun shells inscribed “Mike Huckabee, a governor who supports the 2nd Amendment.” Public policy is also being inﬂuenced when the utilities and consumer-action groups testify for and against utility rate increases before the Public Service Commission; when a nonproﬁt organization releases a policy study on child poverty in the state; when the Arkansas Education Association (aea) patrols legislative corridors with cell phones; and when the Motor Carriers Association contributes to the campaign of every incumbent state legislator. Interest-group pressure can be as mild as a quiet conversation or letter-writing campaigns, or as dramatic as a staged cruciﬁxion on the steps of the state capitol. Broadly, however, the methods of interest groups center on public persuasion, electioneering, lobbying, and government penetration.1 Historically, public persuasion (that is, the attempt to create favorable public opinion about a group and its goals) was rarely employed in Arkansas except when a group was working for or against a ballot issue. With so few Arkansans participating in the political process, costly mass public relations campaigns would have been of dubious worth. It may be a small sign of an increasingly attentive and active public that public persuasion campaigns have become increasingly common. Although a number of interests now invest dollars in paid media to shape their images and to promote their views on issues, the most clear examples of major public persuasion campaigns came just before and during the 1997 and 1999 regular sessions of the General Assembly. In 1997, the key legislative battle was between Southwestern Bell and other long-distance companies over the shape of state telecommunications policy in the aftermath of federal deregulation. The long-distance providers—such as AT&T and mci—coalesced in a temporary entity called “TeleTruth Arkansas,” and through this entity ran a sophisticated directmail and advertising operation akin to a partisan political campaign. The TeleTruth campaign emphasized its links to proconsumer groups and the aarp and encouraged “grassroots” letter writing to legislators. TeleTruth was outspent by the ultimately successful Southwestern Bell, which combined its own public persuasion campaign with more traditional lobbying in an effective one-two punch. During the 1999 regular session, the state’s largest utility, Entergy, battled the rural electric cooperatives. Each side promoted its competing bill to shape the deregulation of electricity generation in the state. As two years earlier, both sides employed full-page newspaper

[118], (3)

Lines: 66 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [118], (3)

The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

119

advertisements and television spots (that lacked clear reference to their sources of funding). The result was a compromise between the two interests. As these examples suggest, only those organizations that have the biggest budgets can afford this very expensive method of exerting group inﬂuence through public persuasion.2 Electioneering remains a more common method of attempting to inﬂuence public policy. If the “right” people are elected to ofﬁce, interest groups will have a much easier time advancing and protecting their interests. Therefore, a great deal of contemporary interest-group activity is devoted to electing and maintaining a group’s friends and sympathizers and politically punishing its critics and enemies. This assistance takes a great variety of forms. Many groups endorse candidates and notify their members which candidates have “their” group interests at heart. This endorsement can involve a very formal proceeding (an endorsement from the aﬂ-cio, for example, takes a two-thirds vote at the state convention) with assured campaign beneﬁts to follow or can be a very informal process of “spreading the word.” It can be preceded by rigorous personal interviews (for example, those conducted by the aea) or elaborate questionnaires (especially those from organizations focused on social issues such as the Arkansas Family Council), or it can simply be based on the group leadership’s familiarity with a candidate’s background and record. Some groups, especially those with large memberships, such as labor and the aea, can offer manpower and womanpower for campaign tasks. Interests with fewer members but deeper pockets can offer their facilities: use of a company plane for transportation on a tight campaign schedule or use of a ﬁnancial institution at night for a campaign phone bank. Direct-mail campaigns necessitate targeted, reliable mailing lists, which interest groups are happy to supply to friendly candidates. Most essential, as the costs of campaigns continue escalate, is money, and a very large portion of campaign contributions in all state races comes from those with a stake in the outcome. Under campaign reform passed through a 1990 initiated act, contributions are capped at $1,000 from any individual or group per candidate per election. (The successful initiated Act 1 of 1996 capped individual contributions to statewide candidates at $300 and legislative candidates at $100, but it was deemed unconstitutional by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in a suit ﬁled by a coalition of state business groups). The surviving 1990 legislation builds upon campaign ﬁnance disclosure provisions enacted in the 1970s. Theoretically, then, there are limits on the amount of “inﬂuence” that can be purchased through campaign

[119], (4)

Lines: 72 to 8 ———

13.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [119], (4)

120 The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

contributions, and the disclosure requirement constrains candidates from relying too heavily upon only a few interested sources.3 In practice, however, these formal limits only mildly inhibit “interested” giving, especially in that only those with omniscience about the state can begin to fathom whatever patterns these contribution reports may reveal. The political action committees (pacs) of many groups, for example, are camouﬂaged behind innocuous or altruistic labels. As a result, it is not immediately apparent that contributions from vote, enpac, Public Affairs for the Elderly, and Forest Express pac represent, respectively, contributions from Blue Cross–Blue Shield, the Entergy Corporation, the nursing-home lobby, and the Arkansas paper companies. A $1,000 contribution from Mary Smith could be a generous gift from a relative or neighbor or friend, or it could be from the wife of a big group giver who has already “maxed out” (contributed the maximum), from the administrative assistant of a lawyer who owns several liquor stores, or from the daughter of one of a company’s twelve corporate executives (half of whom are backing the incumbent, half the opponent). Furthermore, except in the case of egregious violations, virtually no penalty (beyond a “letter of reprimand”) is generally imposed by the state ethics panel on those who miss the deadlines for ﬁling their reports or who ﬁle inadequate, inconsistent, or incorrect information.4 State newspapers routinely publish the names of major contributors in important state races, and members of the state press corps periodically do analytical pieces on how the major economic interests seem to be lining up in key races. The following items, strongly suggestive of the pervasive inﬂuence of interest-group involvement in modern campaigns, have been gleaned from these and other sources: • In the 1998 election cycle, Mike Huckabee’s campaign sent registered lobbyists stacks of tickets along with their invitations to a fund-raising reception-gala. The lobbyists were encouraged to ﬁnd buyers for the handnumbered tickets. In response to questions about whether the numbering provided accountability for which lobbyists had sold how many tickets, the chief Huckabee fund-raiser said, “How else are you going to keep up with who’s selling what?” • A recently retired state senator who headed the state Livestock and Poultry Commission was videotaped arriving in a state automobile to a 1994 campaign fund-raiser for a Democratic candidate for state auditor. The event was sponsored by some of the state’s most powerful lobbyists and also attended by at least two members of the state Highway Commission.

[120], (5)

Lines: 81 t ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [120], (5)

The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

121

• In a 1987 study based on interviews with thirty-six lobbyists, 83 percent reported giving ﬁnancial help in campaigns. • Between 1989 and 1992 a variety of incentive measures that beneﬁted Tyson Foods’ operation in the state were put in place and measures attacking the environmental harms caused by the company’s operation were stymied. During this period, Bill and Hillary Clinton were given free air transportation by Tyson Foods on at least nine occasions. • In 1982 the name of James Blair, then member of the Democratic National Committee and also general counsel for Tyson Foods, turned up on contribution lists as a $500 giver to the Republican congressman John Paul Hammerschmidt. Blair offered the following explanation: “Generally, a request comes in on a federal race. Tyson’s cannot make a corporate contribution. It gets down to the point that executives in the corporation kind of have to parcel them out, because no one can afford it all . . . and the question is Whose turn is it? It must have been my turn. I shouldn’t be as careless with my money.” • Governor Huckabee, whose campaign ﬁnance chair was also a lobbyist for a tobacco interest and whose campaign consultant recently retired from representing R.J. Reynolds, issued his ﬁrst reversal of a state agency regulation in 2001: a ban on smoking in restaurants. • In 2000, all ﬁfty-two unopposed state house candidates received campaign contributions (in four cases in excess of $20,000), much of it from interest groups. • Before the end of 1993 Governor Jim Guy Tucker received over $73,000 in campaign contributions for the primary election of 1994 from the nursinghome industry. This represented over 10 percent of his total contributions for the primary (in which he faced no opponent) to that date. In late 1993 the Tucker Administration lifted a state ban on new nursing-home applications. • By late April 2002 the Energy pac (the Entergy campaign committee) had made $1,000, $500, or $250 contributions to 120 state legislative candidates, most of whom were either unopposed or running against one another.5

Contributors and candidates alike insist that even the most generous of campaign contributions cannot buy a public policy outcome. Contributions can, however, ensure easy access to policymakers when decisions are being made and when the direct attempt to inﬂuence them is under way. This is a reference to lobbying, the third major technique of interest groups. It is a term that derives from those individuals who have always been found clustering in the halls of legislative chambers to ply their policy wares.

[121], (6)

Lines: 99 to 1 ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [121], (6)

122 The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

When the legislature goes into session, the normally quiet capitol suddenly becomes crammed with those who have come to protect their turf (e.g., the PhD psychologists against the ambitious master’s-level psychological examiners), plead for a special tax exemption (e.g., Arkansas horse breeders, plane and watch manufacturers, winemakers, etc.), or demand more funds for their sector of the public service. Committee meeting rooms, the long corridors outside the house and senate chambers, the galleries above, even the “quiet rooms” behind (supposedly reserved for legislators) turn into cauldrons of ceaseless pressure-group activity. Some of the lobbyists are “hired guns,” longtime professional agents with several interests to represent. In 2000, for example, Joe Bell (son of the longtime state senator Clarence Bell and a veteran of over a dozen regular legislative sessions) was registered as the lobbyist for the Union Paciﬁc Railroad Company, the Oaklawn Jockey Club, the Arkansas Association of Travel Agents, and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. That same year, former state representative Earl Jones Jr. was registered as the lobbyist for Southwestern Bell, Southland Racing, Riceland Foods, Reynolds Metals, Phillip Morris, 3m, Inc., Waste Management, Inc., and United Health Care. In the 1993 session, in what may be a record, a former state insurance commissioner registered as a lobbyist for sixty-six clients in one session. Other lobbyists are paid executive directors of interest groups, the “vice president for governmental relations” of large businesses, volunteers representing various associations and causes, or one-day citizen lobbyists bused in from around the state to show mass strength for or against a pending bill. The impact of group pressure (as compared with pressure from ordinary constituents, the governor, and other legislators) will be analyzed extensively in chapter 9.6 Lobbying by groups on behalf of their interests is a process ﬁrmly protected by the Constitution (freedom of association, of speech and press and assembly, to petition the government), hallowed by tradition, and necessitated by legislators’ need to know the potential impact of their decisions on speciﬁc groups within the general public. Lobbying, then, can be both legitimate and valuable. That said, through the 1980s, the relationships between lobbyists and legislators remained less regulated in Arkansas than in most any other state. During the legislative sessions of the 1980s, including a particularly rancorous 1988 special session, the Clinton administration put forward bills requiring lobbyists to register, disclose interactions with elected ofﬁcials, and limit the size of their gifts. The legislature shot them down each time. The registration provisions were successfully opposed on the grounds that they

[122], (7)

Lines: 126 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [122], (7)

The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

123

would “keep some timid people from appearing before committees because they wouldn’t want to register” (an argument advanced by an ArkansasLouisiana Gas spokesman). The disclosure bills were opposed for the reason candidly expressed by one state legislator: “It could be an embarrassing thing, for instance, if a legislator went to dinner with a lobbyist, it would be in the paper the next day.” The gift limits were opposed by a legislature that operated in an environment in which group-sponsored meals and parties were so accepted that the House Affairs Committee assisted in scheduling these entertainments to avoid unnecessary conﬂicts, and both legislative chambers obligingly announced and circulated an abundance of invitations. Obviously, both the formal structure and the attitudinal environment provided an extraordinarily accommodating atmosphere for lobbying in Arkansas.7 In 1988, however, Governor Clinton led a successful initiative effort that culminated in the passage of the Standards of Conduct and Disclosure Act for Lobbyists and State Ofﬁcials. The act requires lobbyists to register with the secretary of state, to ﬁle regular reports of their gifts to public servants and other expenses, and to state their associations with the individuals or groups they lobby. It also requires ofﬁceholders to disclose information about their ﬁnancial activities and gift sources. A follow-up 1990 initiated act, also promoted by Clinton, established the ﬁve-member Arkansas Ethics Commission, which gained the power to interpret and enforce ethics legislation and campaign ﬁnance measures.8 Undeniably, culture changes more slowly than regulations (as evidenced by a well-publicized $4,000 feed of legislators and their wives at the 2000 national conference of state legislators in Chicago, divvied up among several lobbyists). Arkansas, however, clearly has entered the mainstream of states in terms of ethics regulations. Particularly strong are Arkansas’s disclosure provisions, rated eighteenth in 1999 by one “good government” nonproﬁt. The Ethics Commission, affected by a nearly constant turnover in executive directors during the ﬁrst decade of its existence, has been slow to implement other provisions in the acts (some of which include imprecise language). They have relied on advisory opinions that lack the power of law rather than establish rules that are subject to public comment upon proposal but have the force of law once adopted.9 Early in the 2000s, the commission did begin establishing rules, which caused friction with both the legislative and executive branches. Most controversial was the 2000 rule that deemed illegal any gift in excess of $100 given to “reward” ofﬁcials for their job performance, even if no quid pro quo is evidenced. (This position was challenged in court by Governor Mike

[123], (8)

Lines: 132 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [123], (8)

124 The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Huckabee, a recipient of $112,366 in gifts in 1999.) The state house protested the activist commission’s rule making on this and other matters by delaying passage of the commission’s appropriations bill in the 2001 session. Still, the 2001 legislature failed to overturn the rule when it defeated a measure that would have banned gifts only when they were in speciﬁc exchange for a governmental action. Moreover, the legislature passed a bill that made illegal the actual giving of the illegal gift, albeit with small penalties for violations.10 Though the Ethics Commission has the power to impose hefty ﬁnes, ﬁle misdemeanor charges, or turn over cases to local prosecutors, in recent years it most often has relied on the public chastisement that accompanies the release of letters of reprimand. For example, in 1997 the commission ﬁned the 273 lobbyists who violated the state’s disclosure requirements only $50 per violation. Common Cause and op-ed writers argue for more aggressive prosecution of the rules and expansion of the state’s ethics laws to include a ban on gifts of any size. Nevertheless, it is clear that Arkansas now has in place the basic mechanics for regulating governmental ethics, one of the most lasting contributions of the Clinton era to state government.11 Though the semi-visible activities of legislative lobbying receive most of the attention, many groups work just as fervently to advance their interests within the executive branch, where thousands of decisions are made annually regarding allocation of funds and licensure, interpretation, and application of broadly worded laws. In fact, as state administrative agencies have acquired greater power to assist or thwart the interests of more and more citizens, the attention of interest groups has increasingly turned to ensuring that they have an impact on these administrative decisions as well as on the broad laws authorizing them. This, the fourth major technique of interest groups, is government penetration, and several political scientists have raised warning signals about the extent to which public policymaking has, in effect, been turned over to private interest groups. Boards or commissions that were established to regulate a particular industry or profession in order to protect the public may instead become captives of the very groups they were established to supervise. InArkansas, for example, approximately two hundred state boards and commissions license and regulate everything from massage therapists and manufactured-home sales to banks and catﬁsh promotion. According to one study, about three-fourths of the gubernatorial appointments to many of these boards must by law be made from lists submitted by the industries and associations that are to be licensed and regulated. The rationale for such

[124], (9)

Lines: 138 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [124], (9)

The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

125

arrangements is that nobody is more conversant with the qualiﬁcations, professional procedures, and problems of podiatrists, nursing-home operators, and inhalation therapists than are podiatrists, nursing-home operators, and inhalation therapists. The danger, of course, is that such boards may equate the public interest with their own industry-biased view and may “tend to ignore their mandate for protecting the public and often place professional interests above the public good.”12 Truly hidden from public scrutiny are the activities of certain private foundations that parallel and coordinate with state agencies but are not required to share any information about their donors or expenditures. For example, the mission of the Arkansas Economic Development Foundation, a private foundation established in 1955, is “to supplement” the activities of the Arkansas Department of Economic Development (aded), whose head is appointed by the governor, in fostering economic development in the state. Eight of the ten board members of the foundation have ties to economic development agencies. The foundation is funded by corporations that are regulated by the executive branch and further subsidized by taxpayers. It uses portions of those funds to pay for the travel of the governor and the head of the aded, among other activities. No information about that money trail, however, is subject to any state ethics provisions.13 The four major methods used by interest groups to inﬂuence public policy decisions—public persuasion, electioneering, lobbying, and government penetration—have become an integral part of the policymaking process in all ﬁfty states. General consensus prevails among political scientists, however, that Arkansas is one of the states where interest groups are most powerful. This is an unsurprising conclusion in view of those factors generally associated with interest-group strength: the status of political parties, the makeup of the economy, and the degree of government professionalism.14 Though recent scholarship has begun to question the consistency of the correlation, the relationship between political party and interest-group strength has traditionally been viewed as an inverse one. Arkansas is a case that very much supports that traditional view. Where political parties dominate the political life of a state, interest groups tend to have less inﬂuence. When political parties actively recruit candidates, generously ﬁnance their campaigns, and take forceful policy positions to which elected ofﬁcials are held accountable, interest groups have less opportunity for inﬂuence. In Arkansas, however, where political parties perform these functions weakly if at all, the resulting vacuum is ﬁlled by interest groups. They encourage “their” candidates into ofﬁce, provide the bulk of the candidates’ campaign

[125], (10)

Lines: 144 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [125], (10)

126 The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

ﬁnances, and exert enormous leverage on behalf of their particular policy goals, with no countervailing discipline from legislative party leadership.15 The relationship between economic complexity and interest-group strength is more indisputably an inverse one. Where a state’s economy is highly diversiﬁed and heterogeneous (which in turn has generally been a product of industrialization), interest groups will proliferate, but none will have the strength to dominate the political system because multiple interests are constantly competing against each other. In most southern states, however, which have been characterized until recently by an agrarian economy and widespread economic dependency, a few powerful interests historically have exploited their economic superiority for political purposes. Accounts of Arkansas politics into the 1960s repeatedly mention a few, and only a few, powerful economic interests that had equally potent political clout: the Delta plantation owners and large lumbering interests, which occasionally combined with ﬁnancial and business interests in Little Rock through an organization known as the Arkansas Free Enterprise Association to, for example, put a right-to-work amendment into the state constitution, ﬁght off New Deal and other economic reform “foolishness,” and oppose civil rights advances; the Baptist church when it was aroused to battle on morality issues; and above all, the private power utilities.16 From the 1930s through the 1950s, the inﬂuence of the Arkansas Power and Light Company (AP&L) can only be described as extraordinary. Under the leadership of its founder, Harvey Couch, and his longtime political lieutenant, legal advisor, and eventual successor, Hamilton Moses, the weight of AP&L was felt literally from the county courthouse to the White House, and at all political decision-making levels in between. With Orval Faubus’s defeat of Francis Cherry, the inﬂuence of AP&L (now Entergy) waned somewhat. In its place, the presence of the Arkansas-Louisiana Gas Company (ArkLa), under its politically skillful leader, W. R. “Witt” Stephens, came to loom ever larger, to the point that when Rockefeller became governor he discovered to his dismay that seventeen of the thirty-ﬁve state senators were on the ArkLa payroll through retainers and other devices. (This is an interesting latterday conﬁrmation of an earlier observation by both V. O. Key and Boyce Drummond that utilities and other powerful economic interests were even more involved in legislative than in gubernatorial elections, since judicious investment in legislative “friends” could protect the status quo against the efforts of whatever progressive forces an activist governor might generate.) Other interests—the liquor dealers, Farm Bureau, railroads, truckers, county judges—are also mentioned in accounts of the traditional political period as

[126], (11)

Lines: 150 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[126], (11)

The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

127

occasionally inﬂuential. But in an underdeveloped economy with only a few major sources of employment and proﬁt there was certainly no genuine balancing of a multitude of competing interests.17 Though larger in number than in the past (and, as we will discuss later in this chapter, likely to grow even larger in the near future), Arkansas remains in the bottom tier of states in terms of number of interest organizations. In their work on interest representation in the states, Virginia Gray and David Lowery found that, as of 1990, only a handful of states had fewer interest organizations.18 Finally, there is also an inverse relationship between government professionalism and interest-group strength. Where the state legislature is well paid, well staffed, and well informed, and where the executive branch consists of highly trained and secure professionals under the clear administrative authority of a strong governor, interest groups have a much more difﬁcult time exerting inﬂuence. As Harmon Ziegler has pointed out, “The relationship between legislator and lobbyists is one in which information is the prime resource. . . . That relationship is not necessary when legislators can learn all they need from their own staffs.”19 Although the Arkansas legislature, as will be discussed in chapter 9, has been signiﬁcantly upgraded and professionalized over the past decade, legislators still rely heavily on lobbyists for information. The word knowledge permeates legislators’ quotations describing the most effective lobbyists. According to Van Driesum’s interviews in 1973, when legislators were uncertain on an issue 41 percent consulted lobbyists (as compared with 31 percent who consulted constituent leaders, 17 percent turning to administrative specialists, and 11 percent turning to the governor). More recently, one state legislator, perhaps unwittingly, described the information imbalance thusly: “I try to read all the legislation that I can. But a lot of times it’s quicker and more efﬁcient to run out here and ﬁnd the lobbyist and ﬁnd out what it’s all about.”20 Some of the most potentArkansas lobbyists, according to surveys in recent decades, have been retired legislators who are respected by their former colleagues for their knowledge of the legislative process and substantive policy areas. Most prominently, Cecil Alexander, a former Speaker of the state house, was considered the state’s most effective lobbyist in the modern era in his work for Arkansas Power & Light (later Entergy). Obviously, the rise of term limits in Arkansas has increased the number of retirements from the General Assembly and, consequently, has increased the number of individuals with policy-making knowledge who are looking for employment.

[127], (12)

Lines: 156 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [127], (12)

128 The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Since the passage of term limits, theArkansas Poultry Federation and Entergy have both hired former legislators as their head lobbyists. Both of them, according to one survey, were ranked among the top ﬁve lobbyists before they had ever completed a regular session of the legislature in their roles. Several other former legislators have taken on powerful interests as clients through their own lobbying ﬁrms. During the 1999 session, Entergy had four former Speakers of the house—three of them term-limited members—on its lobbying team for the deregulation battle.21 Another impact of term limits on special interest power is the amateurism of those new legislators who replace the retirees. A new opportunity for enhanced interest-group inﬂuence has been created because these legislators’ are ignorant of the mechanics of state government and have not yet built trust with colleagues. In contrast to this ﬂux, lobbyists are a well-informed constant in a term-limited legislature.22 Inadequate institutional professionalism permeates the executive branch as well. Here, too, there have been signiﬁcant improvements since the 1950s. Before then each new governor swept the entire executive branch clean, replacing all state employees with his generally inexperienced political cohorts. Still, even at the end of the twentieth century Arkansas’s highly sophisticated multi-billion-dollar insurance industry, with about 1,350 companies, was being regulated by a department of 135 low-salaried and technologically limited employees. Similarly, the Public Service Commission (psc) is constantly plagued by the loss of employees who work just long enough to become experts on allocation and regulatory problems before being quickly lured away by the larger salaries and greater perquisites offered by the private power companies. Although the governor’s authority over his own executive establishment has been signiﬁcantly strengthened in recent years, powerful centrifugal forces that prefer a state house divided are still at work. They have managed to preserve a considerable amount of fragmentation that makes access and inﬂuence much easier.23 Though weak parties, a simple economy, and lack of professionalism in government all help to explain the strength of interest groups to date in Arkansas politics, these same factors suggest that interest groups, or at least the traditionally powerful ones, may encounter more obstacles in the future. Party strength is related to party competition. Though neither political party in Arkansas yet performs its functions with sufﬁcient rigor to counterbalance the inﬂuence of interest groups, as the parties continue to become more competitive the incentives for an organized electoral effort and greater legislative cohesion should eventually follow. Similarly, term limits aside,

[128], (13)

Lines: 164 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[128], (13)

The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

129

steady improvements in both the legislative and executive branches have already begun to strengthen these institutions against the easy penetration and power of interest groups. Finally, though Arkansas’s economy still lags behind much of the rest of the nation in many standard indicators of modern, complex, afﬂuent societies, it has become decidedly more diversiﬁed. The impact of this diversiﬁcation has already begun to appear. The pressuregroup system no longer involves just a handful of dominant economic forces but is a kaleidoscopic array of economic and noneconomic interests.24 Although small in number compared to other states, over four hundred lobbying entities now register at each regular legislative session. Many (such as the Hospice Foundation of Arkansas, New Age Entertainment, and the Arkansas Coalition Against Hate) are of obviously recent origin. Gray and Lowery also note that Arkansas’s interests are particularly transitory as compared to other states: “a whopping 64.25% . . . of all 1980 [Arkansas] interest organizations joined the true ‘heavenly chorus’ by 1990.” Some of these—such as the competing ERArkansas (organized to work to ratify the federal Equal Rights Amendment) and Family Life America God (ﬂag)— were quite high proﬁle during their brief lives. Still, the number of new entities outstripped the number of departed organizations in the state during that decade.25 This is not to suggest that all groups compete equally in the political process or are as subject to interest-group “death.” According to the most comprehensive survey on lobbying in Arkansas, nearly six in ten legislators were conscious of the power disparity between interests. First, in terms of sheer quantity, the vast majority of lobbyists represent the utilities, businesses, industries, and the professions rather than those who use the utilities, work in these industries, consume their products, and need professional services. For 2000 (a year in which the legislature did not convene a regular session), there were 381 registered lobbying interests in the state employing an estimated 540 lobbyists. Of these entities, 66 were associated with utilities (almost all with multiple lobbyists), and the vast majority of others were individual businesses or industry or professional associations (including 62 insurance ﬁrms and associations). Only 8 represented organized labor (aside from teachers) and 6 environmental concerns. On the money front, similar disparities of campaign giving exist; in 2000, labor provided only 2.3 percent of state legislative campaign contributions.26 Second, all lobbyists are deﬁnitely not equal. Recent informal surveys found a consensus among legislators and other General Assembly observers that the most effective single lobbyists were those representing Southwestern

[129], (14)

Lines: 170 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [129], (14)

130 The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Bell, The Poultry Federation, Entergy, the Stephens Group, Alltel, and the railroad industry. Still, it is increasingly rare for the economic dominants to be uniﬁed or unchallenged in their policy goals. Efforts by the trucking and poultry industries to raise permissible tonnage limits on Arkansas highways were stymied for years by countervailing pressure from the Highway Department lobby in league with the railroads.27 Increasingly, even the most powerful of interests have found that it may take a coalition of forces—on occasion leading to some strange political bedfellows—to secure their goals. The banking lobby has exceptional clout in the state legislature, perhaps because so many legislators either have banking ties or need the support of local bankers in their private occupations. Efforts by the ﬁnancial community to remove the 10 percent usury limit embedded in the state constitution were consistently unsuccessful, however, until they ﬁnally converted the mammoth Farm Bureau from opposition to support (and submitted an amendment that tied the usury limit to the federal discount rate rather than giving interestsetting power to the legislature). In 1957 Drummond noted, “Just as Arkansas politicians have customarily repudiated endorsements by Negro organizations, they now disown connections with labor and seek to place the union stamp on the opposition.” He went on to predict that “When Arkansas politicians vie for rather than shy from the support of labor groups, organized labor will have come of age.” In the Big Three era, though too-close ties to unions could still be the political kiss of death (as David Pryor learned to his dismay in his 1972 race against John McClellan), virtually all major candidates in Arkansas sought labor’s coveted endorsement because of labor’s signiﬁcant role in Democratic primaries.28 The development of a competitive party system in Arkansas has had implications for the role of organized labor in the state’s politics. Democratic candidates, as in the 1970s and 1980s, still reach out for the votes, ﬁnancial assistance, and manpower of unions. In a symbolic sign of their loyalty to labor, Democratic candidates distribute no campaign materials absent “the union bug”—the mark indicating that the printing was done in a unionized shop. But labor’s candidates had signiﬁcant difﬁculties in statewide races in the 1990s, even within Democratic primaries. (The nadir for labor was perhaps their endorsed candidate’s fourth place-ﬁnish in a six-person Democratic primary in the low-visibility special election for lieutenant governor in 1993.) Moreover, only in the most exceptional cases do the candidates of the rising party make serious overtures to organized labor. Indeed, after a brief period of initial goodwill, Governor Huckabee and organized labor have had

[130], (15)

Lines: 176 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[130], (15)

The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

131

a distinctly rocky relationship, which has caused labor’s inﬂuence within the executive branch to disappear. For example, in late 2000, Governor Huckabee went against a long tradition by appointing the “labor representative” on the state Workers’ Compensation Commission without consulting the aﬂ-cio. The appointee was the husband of Huckabee’s chief of staff. Still, organized labor—though sharply disadvantaged in theArkansas policymaking arena and still unpopular with the Arkansas electorate (18 percent favorable and 31 percent unfavorable, according to a 1995 survey)—does play a more active role than in the era described by Drummond.29 Similarly, teachers, once the timid and grateful recipients of whatever crumbs were scattered on the table, have now acquired a formidable political presence through an activist organization (the aea) that has a multimilliondollar budget. Still, teachers have also lost ground in the contemporary era since the late 1970s, when a survey of state legislators gave the aea the most mentions as the “most powerful” interest group. Six years later, in the last comprehensive survey of legislators and lobbyists, the aea, having suffered a high-proﬁle defeat in the battle over teacher testing, had fallen to a tie for second-most powerful group. Respondents were clearly quite conscious of the sharp downturn in teachers’ power. Internal discord within the aea in the late 1980s and early 1990s further harmed the organization. Most important, however, was a phenomenon akin to the situation experienced by organized labor: the aea’s unquestioned loyalty to the Democratic Party has diminished its inﬂuence in a state government where Republicans are vital players. In the most clear case of this declining inﬂuence, Governor Huckabee summoned the aea leadership after the organization endorsed his 1998 opponent to tell them that no aea member would be appointed to his administration and that the aea should expect their input to be nonexistent. This feud reasserted itself after the group once again endorsed his opponent in 2002. Still, because education is destined to remain atop the state’s agenda for the foreseeable future and because of the breadth and depth of the aea’s membership in the state, teachers will never return to their traditional irrelevance.30 Not only have new groups, such as labor and teachers, moved into the ranks of inﬂuentials, but new methods, especially litigation, have given inﬂuence to groups that otherwise could not play power politics through lack of either economic clout or large numbers. In the 1990s bills to repeal the state ban on same-sex sodomy were introduced in the legislature but never escaped committee. In 2002, however, plaintiffs, represented by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund (a national gay and lesbian rights organization), coordinating with the Arkansas afﬁliate of the American Civil

[131], (16)

Lines: 180 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [131], (16)

132 The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Liberties Union (aclu), succeeded in having the state supreme court declare the law in violation of the state constitution. On several occasions since the 1980s the naacp ﬁled suit against the state legislature’s districting plans, charging that they diluted African American voting strength in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Working with national civil rights attorney Lani Guinier, the state naacp succeeded in 1989 in overturning district lines. Most consequentially, a 2001 ruling by a lower court—upheld by the state supreme court in late 2002—gave a victory to underfunded school districts when the judge deemed the state system for funding public schools “inadequate” and “inequitable” in violation of the state Constitution. The mere knowledge that the aclu, the naacp, environmental, and other watchdog groups may ﬁle expensive and embarrassing lawsuits clearly constrains decision makers in ways that they could not have imagined in the very recent past. However, as evidenced by business’s successful attack on the 1996 campaign ﬁnance initiative, those who have traditionally been advantaged have learned that they too can use the courts to their beneﬁt.31 Ordinarily, those with greater economic resources, greater numbers, and higher status have far more impact than those who lack them. It is still true, as E. E. Schattschneider once observed, that “the ﬂaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent.” Nevertheless, an increasingly complex economy has produced many more actors in the political system, and especially when there is division among the elite groups, some of the populist and activist voices can be heard as well. As Arthur English and John J. Carroll conclude in the most thorough analysis of Arkansas interest groups in the modern era, “these groups must sometimes be reckoned with because they are capable of capturing the moment and rallying public sentiment. And while they do not win most of the time, they do win some, and provide a measure of balance to a system dominated by well-entrenched interests in which familiarity with political decision makers is the key to access and inﬂuence.”32 As the parties become stronger through competition, as both the legislative and executive branches continue to strengthen their institutional capacity, and especially as the economy becomes increasingly pluralistic, interest groups should be forced into a more modest position of strength in Arkansas politics. There are, however, two contrary forces that could sustain, or even enhance, the power that interest groups have traditionally enjoyed. One of these is the ever-escalating costs of running for public ofﬁce. As noted earlier, gubernatorial campaigns have gone from multithousand- to multimillion-dollar undertakings in recent years. Successful races for other

[132], (17)

Lines: 184 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[132], (17)

The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

133

statewide ofﬁces now usually top the $100,000 mark (and occasionally near $1 million). And races for the state legislature, which rarely cost more than $2,500 in the early 1970s, now average more than $35,000 for winners of contested races (and occasionally top $100,000). Lacking more rigorous controls or any kind of public-funding mechanisms, increasingly expensive campaigns will inevitably make candidates dependent upon those with the biggest purses and highest stakes. Frequently, that means the interest groups who envision substantial proﬁts from their political “investments.”33 The second major countervailing force is Arkansas’s ongoing search to improve its economic status vis-à-vis the other states. Because all states are constantly engaged in a ﬁerce battle for jobs for their citizens, existing and potential employers are well situated to threaten, divide, and conquer. If you regulate us too stringently, tax us too heavily, mandate overly generous worker beneﬁts, refuse to grant special tax exemptions for our operations and products, or allow intrusive lawsuits we will simply move to a state with a “friendlier business climate.” And the hungrier states, such as Arkansas, are most vulnerable to this economic blackmail.34 Any major employer who wants special consideration will generally ﬁnd that public ofﬁcials are eager to oblige, at whatever cost to a rational tax structure, a cleaner environment, a safer workplace, or the general consuming public. Several recent incidents make this point with clarity: • A “citizen” committee created by the Arkansas legislature to review the 117 exemptions to sales and use taxes (worth $1.5 billion per year and generally justiﬁed on economic development grounds) recommended in 2000 that no exemptions should be removed. The chair of the committee, a tax manager for Georgia-Paciﬁc Corporation, said, “No matter what happens, the salesand use-tax exemptions that we have reviewed should remain in place because it is a very important part of our state in getting new industry.” A 2002 state-commissioned study contended that additional tax cuts and ﬁnancial incentives needed to be put in place if Arkansas were to become competitive for a “super project” such as an automobile manufacturing facility. • Although agriculture remains the state’s largest single industry, Arkansas is the sole state without an independent Department of Agriculture because agribusiness has argued successfully that it needs freedom from regulation in a challenging farm economy. Regulatory authority over agriculture is left, therefore, with a variety of industry-controlled boards like the state Plant Board, which regulates matters such as chemicals used in farming. The

[133], (18)

Lines: 190 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [133], (18)

134 The Inﬂuence of Interest Groups

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

state’s mammoth rice industry is deeply reliant upon Facet, a weed eater that also kills tomatoes and bell peppers. Despite 324 complaints about Facet’s damaging impact over a three-year period, the Plant Board—a majority of whose membership is selected by industry groups—consistently refused to alter the rules on the use of Facet. • In 1993, having been stymied by labor over several legislative sessions, business interests (led by the state Chamber of Commerce and citing the need for a healthier business climate) pushed through major changes in the state’s workers compensation law, which made it more difﬁcult for workers to sue for compensation. Labor contended that the result was the most antiworker law in the nation (“God help the workers,” said the state’s aﬂ-cio president at the time). Claims dropped from twenty-one thousand in 1992 to fourteen thousand in 2000.35

The political climate in Arkansas has become much more open and participatory, much more clean and competitive, than ever before, and many new groups and interests have taken a seat at the political table. Still, it is well to stay alert to lingering echoes from the past. It is possible that Arkansas, having never experienced government of, by, and for the people, leapfrogged into an era of government of, by, and for its best organized groups.

[Last Page

[134], (19)

Lines: 208 ———

251.340

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[134], (19)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter seven

The Constitution: Provisions and Politics [First Page] [135], (1) A constitution . . . requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated. Chief Justice John Marshall, 1819 All afﬁdavits of Registration shall be made and executed in quadruplicate, the original and each copy of a distinctively different color. Each form shall be printed at the top thereof with the word “Original,” “Duplicate,” “Triplicate,” or “Quadruplicate,” as the case may be. . . . The forms shall be bound together in books or pads and each set of copies shall be capable of being detached from the book or pad and inserted and locked into the Registration Record Files. Arkansas constitution, amendment 51

The winds of change that produced so many modiﬁcations in Arkansas politics in recent decades also generated an intense period of attempted constitutional reform. On four separate occasions between 1968 and 1995, machinery was established to replace the existing constitution, written in 1874, with a new one that was more appropriate to contemporary circumstances and needs. Since none of these efforts succeeded, Arkansas still operates under a constitution better designed to prevent the recurrence of Reconstruction than to enable an early-twenty-ﬁrst-century government to perform effectively. In that sense, the more things change, the more they seem to remain the same. Still, the constitutional picture is not a thoroughly bleak one. The constitution itself is one of the most democratic in the nation and is one of the most majoritarian components of Arkansas’s political system. Some of the most obstructionist provisions of the 1874 document have recently been

Lines: 0 to 64 ———

1.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [135], (1)

136 The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

removed or revised, and contemporary ofﬁceholders have devised means to accommodate themselves to much of what remains. what caused the constitution Like all constitutions, Arkansas’s is both a formal, legal document establishing the rights of the people and the basic structure and powers of government and a political document reﬂecting the particular circumstances that produced it. Arkansas has had ﬁve constitutions, each of which, as Ralph C. Barnhart has noted, was “born out of some kind of crisis— statehood, civil war, military occupation, Reconstruction, and the reaction to Reconstruction.”1 The 1836 constitution was the necessary qualiﬁcation for statehood. It was fairly brief and straightforward, using the U.S. Constitution as its model but with provisions tailored to Arkansas’s frontier circumstances. It was amended only three times in its twenty-ﬁve years of existence. In fact, it was changed very little by the convention that met in 1861 to frame a second state constitution, one appropriate for admission to the Confederacy. The framers simply substituted Confederate States of America for United States of America and provided additional safeguards to the institution of slavery. The third constitution, adopted in 1864 under military occupation, was another minor revision of the original document, with the signiﬁcant exceptions that slavery was abolished and renewed allegiance to the United States proclaimed. The fourth constitution, the so-called Carpetbag Constitution of 1868, deserves a little more attention, since it was in opposition to many of its provisions, and speciﬁcally to the regime that operated under its provisions, that the ﬁfth and present constitution was written in 1874. Under the Reconstruction Act of 1867, existing southern state governments were declared illegal. No such state could reenter the Union until a new constitution, conforming to the federal Constitution, was approved by Congress. Hence, a constitutional convention (consisting of only nine native Arkansans, three of whom had been slaves) drew up a document that extended the suffrage to African Americans, disfranchised former Confederates, eliminated all distinctions based on race, and established a system of legislative apportionment that favored counties with large African American populations. Also, reﬂecting both the semimilitary character of the government and the absence of cooperative local organizations, the constitution strongly centralized power: the governor’s appointive powers were broadened to include all judges

[136], (2)

Lines: 64 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [136], (2)

The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

137

(except supreme court justices) and all county tax assessors and prosecuting attorneys.2 When the Redeemers returned to power in 1874, one of their ﬁrst acts was to promulgate a new constitution. Much of it, understandably, was devised to prohibit the abuses of power and waste of funds that characterized the Reconstruction period. Above all, the 1874 constitution was speciﬁcally designed to protect citizens from possible oppression by their own state government. This pervasive distrust of government is expressed in almost every section of the 1874 document. To ensure popular control over ofﬁcialdom, many ofﬁces that were previously appointive became elective, and terms were almost uniformly reduced from four to two years. This gave voters, according to one estimate, forty-four rather than fourteen opportunities to exercise their electoral control in any four-year period. To prevent excessive and unwise law making, the legislature was limited to one sixty-day session every other year. Maximum salaries for all state and county ofﬁcials were speciﬁed and ﬁxed. Elaborate statutory detail was included on everything from the conduct of elections to the times and places of circuit court meetings and the procedures for letting state printing contracts so any state ofﬁcial tempted to abuse his powers had little leeway. (The word his is used advisedly, since many sections dealing with ofﬁceholders specify the male gender.)Above all, the taxing and spending powers were circumscribed with every prohibitive device imaginable. Sixty-nine of the 261 sections of the unamended 1874 constitution dealt with ﬁnancial matters, and most in a restrictive way: local governments were severely limited in their taxing powers, state tax and appropriations measures required extraordinary majorities, and there could be no extension of credit or assumption of debt for any purposes whatsoever.3 This negative and restrictive document reﬂects not only revulsion against the excesses of Reconstruction but also the basic socioeconomic conditions of Arkansas in the 1870s. The state was relatively small (with a population of less than ﬁve hundred thousand) and overwhelmingly rural (over 95 percent), and most of the people lived in straitened circumstances. Only ﬁve towns (Little Rock, Fort Smith, Pine Bluff, Camden, and Hot Springs) contained more than one thousand inhabitants, so municipal powers were scarcely mentioned, local government presumably being a function of counties. The state government spent only $320,000 in the ﬁscal year 1874– 75, so a sixty-day biennial session might well have seemed adequate for determining allocation to the few state services offered. Fearing the rising tides of tenancy and economic dependency, it made sense for the framers

[137], (3)

Lines: 77 to 8 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [137], (3)

138 The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

to guarantee the people that they would be exempt from seizure of their homesteads and to specify a maximum interest rate of 2 percent on private loans. Ideally, as Chief Justice John Marshall so eloquently noted in McCulloch v. Maryland, a constitution should contain only “the great outlines of government.” Obviously, the Arkansas constitution falls far short of that ideal. It is lengthy (59,600 words as of 2004, compared with the U.S. Constitution’s 6,700), has had to be frequently amended (eighty-one amendments by 2004, compared with the U.S. Constitution’s twenty-seven), restricts more than it enables, and makes permanent much of what should have been left to changing legislative majorities. The establishment of both community colleges and public kindergartens required constitutional amendments, for example, because the original constitution authorized public educational funds only for those aged six to twenty-one. Much of the 1874 minutiae seems foolish to our modern minds, and as will be discussed, it creates some serious impediments to contemporary governance. For all its faults, however, several important mitigating factors should be kept in mind. First, it was an appropriate and understandable document for its time. Second, the Arkansas constitution is by no means the most lengthy, detailed, and restrictive of state constitutions (although it is about twice as long as the average one). Finally, unlike so many other components of Arkansas’s traditional political system, the 1874 constitution does seem to have genuinely reﬂected the will of the people. Unlike the ﬁrst and second constitutions, which were never referred to the people, and the third and fourth, which were voted upon by highly unrepresentative segments of the population, the 1874 constitution was both authorized by the people and resoundingly ratiﬁed (76,453 to 24,807).4 In many ways, then, it was a thoroughly democratic document. It was made even more majoritarian by the addition of an initiative and referendum provision in 1910, which gave citizens the right and the means to initiate amendments in their basic document of governance. Finally, and fortunately, the 1874 constitution has been repeatedly revised through a variety of updating mechanisms. constitutional change Some of the most signiﬁcant changes in the Arkansas constitution have resulted from United States Supreme Court decisions that either directly or indirectly declared certain Arkansas constitutional provisions to be in

[138], (4)

Lines: 83 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [138], (4)

The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

139

violation of the national Constitution or of federal law. Such voided provisions include those regarding apportionment of the state legislature, the requirement of a poll tax and lengthy residence requirements as voting prerequisites, and the “interposition” amendment adopted in 1956 at the peak of segregationist sentiment. Some other provisions, such as that prohibiting anyone “who denies the being of a God” from holding ofﬁce, undoubtedly would fall if there were any attempt to enforce them. The Arkansas supreme court has also been an agent of change. Occasionally, for example, it has permitted some governmental action that a more literal interpretation of the constitution might seem to preclude. More often, however, it has rendered interpretations so unacceptable in contemporary circumstances that a constitutional amendment was precipitated. A series of court decisions in the 1970s that interpreted the constitution’s property tax provisions literally would have caused dramatic increases in taxation, had not amendments 57 and 59 been quickly added (in 1976 and 1980) to keep such increases from occurring. The state legislature has also added to the constitution by ﬁlling in details left to its discretion. For instance, the original judicial circuits were established in the constitution “until otherwise provided by the General Assembly,” which has modiﬁed them frequently over the years. The executive department, which originally consisted of “a Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer of State, Auditor of State and Attorney General,” has been enormously expanded by statutory establishment of ofﬁces and departments over the years. Custom and usage have also modiﬁed constitutional practice. The constitution, for example, requires the outgoing governor to give “information by message” concerning the condition of the government “at the close of his ofﬁcial term to the next General Assembly.” In fact, however, it is the governor’s “State of the State” speech, nowhere mentioned in the constitution, that has become a traditional early highlight of the regular legislative session. Finally, the constitution has been changed by formal amendment. From 1874 to 2000 more than 175 amendments were submitted to the people for ratiﬁcation, and of these proposals, 81 have been adopted and are now printed as part of the ofﬁcial constitutional document. Most (50) of these were initiated by the legislature, which is authorized to select up to three proposed amendments at each regular session for submission to the voters at the next general election. (In recent years, the determination of these three proposals from among numerous competitors, always occurring in the ﬁnal days of a

[139], (5)

Lines: 97 to 1 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [139], (5)

140 The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

legislative session, has lead to fascinating wheeling and dealing.) The other 31 were initiated by the voters themselves by acquiring a sufﬁcient number (at least 10 percent of those who voted in the last gubernatorial election) of valid signatures (i.e., those of qualiﬁed and registered voters) on initiative petitions to get their proposed amendment on the general election ballot.5 This amendment process is further evidence of the distinctly democratic nature of the Arkansas constitution. In many states, amendments initiated by the legislature require extraordinary legislative majorities and/or approval at two regular legislative sessions. In Arkansas, a simple majority of both houses at a single session is sufﬁcient. Only ﬁfteen other states permit the voters to initiate constitutional amendments, and some states require ratiﬁcation by a majority of those voting in that election rather than, as is now the case inArkansas, a majority of those voting on that particular amendment. In fact, it has been estimated that only ﬁve other states have constitutions that are as easy to amend as Arkansas’s. (It should also be noted that the Arkansas constitution provides for popular initiation of ordinary statutes and for popular referenda on measures already enacted by the legislature, and these devices of direct democracy are available to local as well as statewide electorates.)6 In the accessibility of its constitution to popular majorities, Arkansas is much more in the Midwestern populist and progressive tradition than in the southern elitist and traditionalistic pattern. Furthermore, the use of these devices offers some evidence in support of V. O. Key’s suggestion that the citizenry of the South was not so conservative as the behavior of its political leaders might suggest. The adoption of the initiative and referendum amendment in and of itself was a triumph. It was led by organized labor (with the rhetorical assistance of populist giant William Jennings Bryan) over the conservative establishment, which was led by lawyers and judges, who argued that only a few people were qualiﬁed to vote intelligently on legislation. It was an argument that prompted a state Farmers Union ofﬁcial to complain that the opposition “must think we farmers and common people are a set of fools and anarchists.” Despite the dire warnings of the opposition, amendment 10 was resoundingly ratiﬁed (91,367 to 39,111), and in the succeeding general election of 1912 it was used to defeat a suffrage amendment that included a grandfather clause and to defeat a proposed statewide prohibition act. In that same election, voters approved a constitutional amendment permitting the recall of elected ofﬁcials and another amendment permitting cities to issue bonds for public improvements (both of which were later invalidated by the supreme court because they were

[140], (6)

Lines: 105 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [140], (6)

The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

141

not among the ﬁrst three amendments submitted). In 1914 an initiated act prohibiting child labor was approved by a vote of nearly three to one.7 These and other examples of the occasional progressivism of the Arkansas electorate must be weighed against many examples to the contrary. Voters over the decades also used their lawmaking powers to prohibit the teaching of evolution (1928) and to require compulsory Bible reading in the schools (1930), and to place a right-to-work amendment in the constitution (amendment 34 in 1944). Moreover, they defeated a proposed repeal of the poll tax (1956), ordered all state ofﬁcials to “oppose in every Constitutional manner the unconstitutional desegregation decisions of May 17, 1954” (amendment 44 in 1956), and barred state spending “to pay for any abortion, except to save the mother’s life” (amendment 68 in 1988). Especially given that such voting takes place in the general election, which meant until recent decades that only a fraction of the potential electorate was ordinarily participating, it is perhaps best not to assign any reﬂection of “public opinion” to these hundreds of popular referenda. Indeed, the three most thorough studies to date of Arkansas’s uses of the devices of direct democracy all concluded that there were no persistent patterns of liberalism or conservatism, urbanism or ruralism. This contrariness was conﬁrmed by my unsuccessful attempts to ﬁnd consistent correlations between constitutional revision voting and either demographic attributes or candidate voting patterns. For instance, an overwhelming majority of Arkansas voters passed an amendment limiting the terms of federal and state ofﬁcials in the same 1992 election in which a similar majority returned Dale Bumpers to the U.S. Senate for a fourth six-year term.8 In the most extensive of these studies, Walter Nunn analyzed voting on twenty-seven statewide ballot issues between 1964 and 1976. He reached the following conclusions: • ballot issues fail about one and a half times as often as they pass, but the success rate has increased markedly in recent elections; • the approval rate for legislature-initiated measures is about the same as that for popularly initiated measures; • there is considerable drop-off on ballot issues (that is, many of those voting for major ofﬁces do not vote on ballot issues), but that drop-off rate is decreasing; • counties above the state average in income, in education, and in black and urban populations sometimes tend to vote for ballot issues more strongly than other counties—but only sometimes; and

[141], (7)

Lines: 109 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [141], (7)

142 The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

• county population corresponds strongly with the extremes of issue approval (that is, the most highly populated counties are strongest for ballot issues, the least populated counties are strongest against) but with little correlation in the middle ranges.

Nunn’s general conclusion was that voters do seem to pick and choose quite deliberately among ballot issues but that “voting patterns provide only hazy evidence of their choices.”9 In examining the more than ﬁfty measures (amendments, initiatives, and referenda) on which the voters have expressed their views since the time of Nunn’s analysis, certain differences do emerge from that earlier period. First, the passage rate has continued to improve. Although about one and a half measures failed for each that passed in the earlier period, about one and a half passed for each that failed in the more recent period. Second, a gap has developed in the passage rates for measures referred by the General Assembly and those initiated through petition, with the overwhelming majority of legislature-initiated proposals passing and a slight majority of popularly initiated proposals failing. However, popularly initiated acts (the campaigns for almost all of which were actually led by engaged governors bypassing the legislature) have been much more successful than popularly initiated constitutional amendments during the more recent period. The legislature/petition passage rate gap as a whole is created entirely by differences in the passage rates of constitutional amendments. Federal and state judicial decisions, statutory enactments, custom and usage, and the formal amendment process have all provided essential mechanisms for occasionally updating some of the most restrictive and time-bound constitutional provisions. The amendment process, however, also added further length, complexity, and statutory detail to the original document. By the 1960s, dissatisfaction with the piecemeal amendment process began coalescing into a movement for thoroughgoing constitutional reform. recent reform efforts Since the recent constitutional revision efforts of 1968 through 1980, from their origins and proposals to their ratiﬁcation campaigns and ultimate defeats, have been exhaustively described and analyzed elsewhere, only a brief overview is necessary here. Although several governors and legislators showed sporadic interest in constitutional revision in the post–World War II period, steady attention to constitutional reform began with a group

[142], (8)

Lines: 136 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [142], (8)

The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

143

of reformist state legislators, labeled the Young Turks, who in the 1960s repeatedly tried to persuade their colleagues and the public that a new constitution was needed. Winthrop Rockefeller adopted constitutional reform as a campaign theme, and after his 1966 election he worked with the Young Turks to win legislative approval in 1967 for an appointed, blue-ribbon Constitutional Revision Study Commission. The work of the commission received sufﬁciently widespread and favorable publicity to persuade a somewhat reluctant legislature to place the question of whether to elect a constitutional convention on the general ballot in 1968. In the same curious election that produced the Rockefeller-Fulbright-Wallace victories, the people narrowly (51.5 percent) said yes and elected one hundred delegates to fashion a proposed new constitution.10 The delegates’ultimate product, the proposed 1970 Arkansas constitution, eventually obtained endorsements from an impressive number of groups ranging across the entire political spectrum: the Democratic and Republican parties as well as both parties’ gubernatorial nominees; all major business, agricultural, and “good government” organizations; everyone from the conservative Young Americans for Freedom and Associated Industries of Arkansas to the liberal National Conference of Christians and Jews and the naacp. In fact, the ratiﬁcation campaign featured the endorsements of many prominent Arkansans, and proclaimed, “Everybody is supporting the new Constitution for one basic reason: It is a much better document than our old 1874 charter.” In November 1970, however, the voters rejected the proposed new document that “everybody” favored by a margin of 57.5 percent to 42.5 percent, with favorable majorities in only eleven counties. It was an unexpected and highly demoralizing defeat.11 With the 1974 gubernatorial election of David Pryor, who had been one of the Young Turks, constitutional revision took a fresh tack. Pryor pushed for and the legislature enacted another constitutional convention, this time to consist of thirty-ﬁve appointed delegates who were prohibited from tinkering with some of what were thought to be the most hallowed and potentially controversial provisions, such as the right-to-work amendment and the independent Highway Commission. This convention was about to begin its work when the state supreme court invalidated its legitimacy, ruling that such prohibitions constituted an unconstitutional limitation on the people’s right to change their government. Somewhat surprisingly, the next legislature passed another call for a popular vote on the question of holding another elected constitutional convention. To general amazement, once more in 1976 the people voted yes, by a 56

[143], (9)

Lines: 159 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [143], (9)

144 The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

percent majority. Delegates—elected in 1978—worked with equal diligence and even greater political sensitivity than their predecessors. Again, there seemed to be widespread support for the proposed new document, and it was promoted through a somewhat more sophisticated ratiﬁcation campaign. But in 1980 voters again rejected the outcome, and by an even larger margin: 62.7 percent to 37.3 percent, with favorable margins in only nine counties. Continuing their tradition of unpredictability on ballot issues, Arkansas voters had twice within a decade expressed their support for constitutional revision by approving constitutional convention calls, then twice rejected the proposed new documents submitted for their approval. These two rejected documents were broadly similar in what they would have accomplished. Both would have shortened, streamlined, and simpliﬁed the 1874 document by pruning much deadwood: eliminating obsolescent provisions such as boundary descriptions and archaic references to canals, turnpikes, and public abattoirs and removing provisions and amendments long since superseded. Both would have maintained all the traditional guarantees of personal and political rights (speech, press, religion, and so on) while adding some new ones (freedom of information, the right to privacy and to a clean and healthful environment). In both the 1970 and 1980 constitutions, all three branches of government would have been revised in accordance with contemporary notions of institutional strength and effectiveness. The legislature, which was to consist entirely of members elected from single-member districts, would have been able to opt for annual rather than biennial regular sessions and to call itself into special session by a threeﬁfths vote. In the executive branch, the number of elected executive ofﬁcials would have been reduced (from seven to four in 1970, to ﬁve in 1980) and given four-year rather than two-year terms. A newly elected governor was to be given more time to prepare a budget and greater reorganization authority over an executive establishment, which was to consist of no more than twenty major departments. Both constitutions would have created a more administratively integrated judicial branch with the supreme court’s supervisory powers over other courts strengthened, the separate systems of circuit and chancery courts combined into district courts with separate divisions, and numerous existing courts of limited jurisdiction combined into one county trial court. In place of the existing constitution’s speciﬁcation of particular allowable millage rates for local government (one mill for policemen’s retirement, one mill for ﬁremen’s retirement, and so on), both new constitutions would have substituted a property tax of ﬁve mills for general operations of cities and

[144], (10)

Lines: 165 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[144], (10)

The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

145

counties, with any additional millage rates subject to voter approval. In fact, the thrust of both documents was to avoid statutory speciﬁcity, such as dollar limits on ofﬁcials’salaries, and, instead, give the state and local governments the decision-making power to cope with changing needs and circumstances, subject always to the scrutiny of the electorate. These and other revisions were closely comparable to the proposals advanced by constitutional reformers in the majority of American states that attempted thoroughgoing constitutional revision in the 1960s and 1970s. Like reformers elsewhere, however, those inArkansas discovered that constitutional revision is one of politics’ most complicated and hazardous thickets, much more likely to fall than to succeed. One of the most serious obstacles to constitutional reform is general citizen indifference. It is extraordinarily difﬁcult to excite most citizens about and give them a sense of stake in the composition of the State Board of Apportionment or the constitutional status of legislative interim committees. Structural and procedural matters have little glamour, especially when they are buried at the bottom of the ballot in a general election in which live, contesting candidates are spending enormous sums to capture voter attention. In both 1970 and 1980, polls showed that a majority of potential voters were undecided close to the eve of the election, and one 1970 preelection survey showed that 59 percent of the respondents had read or heard nothing about the new constitution.12 Though many citizens are indifferent to constitutional reform, some individuals and groups are always intensely interested because fearful of the harmful consequences a particular change will have on their advantageous status quo. In 1970, for example, county judges feared loss of power to a newly strengthened county legislature, chancery judges resisted their potential consolidation with courts of law, realtors feared potential increases in property taxes, and various professional associations opposed the rumored consolidation of their separate licensing boards into one administrative authority. In 1980 organized labor opposed removal of the 10 percent usury limit, the Arkansas Education Association feared the loss of the Education Department’s independent status to greater gubernatorial direction, some legislators resented the redistricting that mandated single-member districts would necessitate, and fundamentalists suspected a backdoor attempt to get an equal rights amendment into the constitution through the reference to “sex” in the revised equal protection clause. In both instances, then, as is generally the case with proposed constitutional reform, many separate groups opposed to particular provisions cumu-

[145], (11)

Lines: 169 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [145], (11)

146 The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

lated into a negative majority. And in both years, the most effective battle cry of the opponents was the threat that the new constitution would permit an orgy of tax increases. In 1970 opponents ran advertisements warning, “Danger! The Proposed New Constitution Provides 22 New Ways to Increase Your Taxes.” In 1980 similar threats of higher taxes were broadcast, together with a last-minute report from the Legislative Council that the new constitution would cost between $35 million and $48 million to implement. The combination of popular caution and indifference (both especially prevalent in a traditionalistic political culture), the cumulative negativism of opposed interests, the perceived threat of higher taxes, along with the disadvantageous setting in a general election all combined to doom both formal constitutional reform attempts. It should be noted that the failed reform attempts did produce one undeniably positive result: the conventions did help to create a new generation of political leaders for the state. Because running for a delegate spot required no previous experience and because those who held other ofﬁces were generally barred from participating, a number of individuals interested in public service but blocked from entrance either by incumbent ofﬁceholders or their own youth, gender, or race won their ﬁrst elections as delegates to the 1970 or 1980 convention. They gained their ﬁrst experience with state government in those meetings. Numerous legislators and eventual candidates for statewide ofﬁce (such as Charlie Cole Chafﬁn and Tom McRae), large-town mayors (such as North Little Rock’s Patrick Henry Hays), and other long-term activists were delegates to one of the two conventions. Constitutional reformers made one more attempt at overhauling the document in the ﬁrst half of the 1990s, an effort that was intent on learning from the lessons of 1970 and 1980. The result, however, was an even more resounding defeat for reform. In the 1991 session of the General Assembly, the senate passed a bill drafted by Lieutenant Governor Jim Guy Tucker providing for a constitutional convention. The bill ultimately failed in committee in the house after religious conservatives visibly raised concerns that the Unborn Child Amendment in the existing constitution might be altered. Other special interests more quietly raised concerns about alterations that might be made to ease the passage of taxes on corporations. Still, the Tucker effort spurred the efforts of a previously created group calling itself Arkansans for the 21st Century (many of whose members had been centrally involved in the previous revision efforts) whose mission focused on raising awareness about the consequential defects of the 1874 document in advance of the 1993 regular legislative session.13

[146], (12)

Lines: 177 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[146], (12)

The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

147

In that session, a bill creating an unfunded and appointed constitutional revision commission was passed by the General Assembly. Reform slowed, however, until Tucker reasserted his interest in revision in his State of the State address at the 1995 regular session of the legislature. He stated that another, more sensible attempt at reform should be undertaken so the state could begin the new century with a modern constitution. Tucker argued that, in contrast to the previous reform efforts that tackled controversial issues, this reform effort should focus primarily on modernizing the language of the document and eliminating contradictory and confusing provisions that created constitutional crises “at least every two weeks.”14 After rejecting Tucker’s original, constitutionally dubious proposal in which the delegates to a “convention” would have been forty-eight appointed legislators, the legislature did approve a resolution that, according to its critics, moved the reform efforts in an only marginally more democratic direction. Tucker was given the power to develop a new draft of the constitution that would begin a constitutional convention process as streamlined as the ultimate document the governor envisioned. The governor immediately appointed a twenty-three-member task force, entirely composed of lawyers, and charged them with removing any “archaic, obsolete and gender- or racespeciﬁc” language and to make updates in synch with public consensus. No changes related to abortion, interest rates, or other hot-button issues were to be considered. Based on the recommendations of the task force, Tucker sent a draft document to the legislature, whose interim committees reviewed the document throughout the summer of 1995 and made recommendations to the Legislative Council (the forty-two-member committee that conducts legislative business between sessions). After eight public meetings, the Legislative Council proposed (generally minor) revisions to Tucker. Having incorporated these, he called the legislature into special session to call for a convention vote, to ratify the draft to be sent to the convention as a starting point, to determine the membership of that convention (if agreed to by voters), and to appropriate the $1.1 million it would cost.15 Though clearly more modest than the 1970 and 1980 documents, the ﬁnal draft given to the legislature at the mid-October special session did include several noteworthy substantive changes. Within the executive branch, a new line of succession was created that moved through other executive branch ofﬁcials rather than directly to the legislative leaders. Also, in a modernizing provision, the governor would no longer lose power the moment she or he crossed the state line. The governor was also given the go-ahead to grant expansive tax incentives to new industries if they were to locate in the state.

[147], (13)

Lines: 183 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [147], (13)

148 The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Moreover, the General Assembly was given the power to call future constitutional conventions without the approval of the voters, to put in place a recall provision for state ofﬁcials, to submit to the people a plan to eliminate most statewide ofﬁces through consolidation of duties, to provide for judicial appointment rather than election, and to propose ﬁve (rather than three) constitutional amendments to the voters at each regular session and up to two amendments in a special session. The document also established an early court review of the appropriateness of ballot initiatives for any challenges brought within forty-ﬁve days of the petition being ﬁled. Moreover, if the state supreme court were to ﬁnd the ballot title ﬂawed, it was to present backers with an opportunity to rewrite the title rather than removing the entire proposal from the ballot. Perhaps the most signiﬁcant changes were in the judicial branch, which was modernized by consolidating many lower courts and was integrated top to bottom along the lines of the federal court system. Supreme court justices and lower court judges would be elected in nonpartisan elections. The document also created an option for an appointment process for judges to be developed through statutory action. Certain outmoded local elected positions were eliminated, county ofﬁcials were retitled as county executives and county commissioners to bring Arkansas’s counties—at least on their face—more in line with other states, and each county was given the power to grant its ofﬁcials four-year terms. In addition, municipalities were given home rule comparable to that held by counties. Finally, a minimum property tax rate was established for public school maintenance and operations to replace the varied local property tax rates found throughout the state. Somewhat surprisingly, the debates at the special session centered not on the substance of the document but on the process through which it would be considered. Tucker won that battle: twenty-six legislators (sixteen house members and ten senators) would be appointed to serve as voting delegates at the convention, and thirty-ﬁve delegates would be elected (from each of the state senate districts) on the same day (December 12, in the heart of the Christmas season, to ensure low turnout) that voters determined whether a convention would happen at all. In addition, the length of the convention was limited to thirty-two days. Though the theoretical possibility remained that the convention would throw out the draft and start over (with the possible inclusion of hot-button issues in the ﬁnal draft), the presence of legislators and the convention’s short meeting time made that unlikely. Finally, Tucker was given power to determine whether the vote on the ﬁnal product of the

[148], (14)

Lines: 189 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[148], (14)

The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

149

convention would be considered in a special or general election. Therefore, the ﬁnal document could then be presented to voters in a special election devoted exclusively to constitutional revision. Only those interested in that issue would therefore turn out to vote, making adoption of a new constitution, based on the experiences of other states (and the contrary experience in Arkansas), more likely. Although the house passed the plan unanimously, partisanship was evidenced in the senate where all seven gop senators voted against constitutional reform. The list of those who came out in opposition to the plan started with the Republican Party leadership. It was rankled by the inevitable Democratic dominance of a convention in which so many delegates would be appointed from the legislature (and absent the appointees of Lieutenant Governor Huckabee, who had lobbied for such a role) and saw the opportunity to give Democrat Tucker a political black eye. Other social-conservative and property rights activists focused on the undemocratic nature of the process in their public critiques. Fundamentally, however, they were concerned, respectively, about abortion provisions that were threatened through the inclusion of an explicit right to privacy and about enhanced governmental power that would threaten private property if a convention were held. Labor was opposed because the “right-to-work” provisions that are the bane of unions remained in place. Finally, “good government” groups like Common Cause were enraged by the removal of “the people” at each stage of the process. Other major groups—most importantly, those that might provide funds for an advertising campaign—simply remained neutral about the entire endeavor. In direct contrast to the 1970 campaign where “everybody” seemed to be in favor of reform, in 1995 it was difﬁcult to ﬁnd anybody (aside from Governor Tucker, of course) visibly in favor.16 Common Cause moved to the courts and ﬁled a multipart lawsuit against the plan and the process through which the election was occurring. Though rejecting most of the suit, a chancery judge found that the “emergency clause” attached to the act, which meant that the law went into effect immediately, was improper since no actual emergency was present. Her action put the election on hold. On the Thursday before the Tuesday vote, the state supreme court ﬁnally ruled (by a four to three vote) that the election could take place as originally planned. The result was that there was no time for absentee voting and general confusion over the process for delegate candidates and voters alike. It would have been better for Tucker, and for constitutional reform in Arkansas, if the election had not taken place. The defeat was resounding,

[149], (15)

Lines: 195 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [149], (15)

150 The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

with 80 percent of the small number of voters (13 percent of those registered) voting against the convention. The proposal failed in all seventy-ﬁve counties. Although constitutional reform would likely have ultimately failed in any case, the antidemocratic nature of the process tapped the inherent distrust of elite power that drives the 1874 document. Moreover, according to the polling and analysis of contemporary Arkansans’ views presented by Gary D. Wekkin and Donald E. Whistler, this distrust persists in rank-and-ﬁle Arkansans 125 years later. Some tried to warn Tucker about this perception as the process was developed, but as one veteran legislator said, “Did you ever try to tell him anything? Once he makes up his mind, it’s really made up. He’s not like Clinton.” All told, Arkansas voters actions in 1970, 1980, and 1995 left the Arkansas government still operating within its restrictive and often obsolete 1874 framework.17 The continuation of expansive “bedsheet” ballots (seven separately elected state executive ofﬁcials, as many as nine county executive ofﬁcials, plus all state and local legislators and judges) constantly asks voters to ﬁll ofﬁces whose functions are obscure with individuals whose qualiﬁcations are unknown—an open invitation to mischief. “Chief” executives ﬁnd their administrative authority diminished by a host of separately elected executive ofﬁcials and occasional political rivals. The time restrictions on legislative sessions inevitably produce some grievous errors, and the requirement of a three-fourths majority for passage of appropriation measures gives obstructionist minorities golden opportunities for legislative blackmail. Important revenue decisions may be based not on what is the fairest or most productive tax but on which tax (usually the sales tax) requires the smallest majority for passage. These and other governing problems are often frustrating to today’s ofﬁcials, who are themselves more likely to be activists and infused with expectations of accomplishment. Nevertheless, the adverse impacts of the 1874 constitution are probably more comparable to a nagging headache than to a malignant tumor of the brain. This is true both because contemporary ofﬁceholders have learned to cope with some of the most conﬁning constitutional provisions and because the voters have been demonstrating a newfound willingness to amend others. continuing constitutional adaptation A variety of devices have evolved over the decades that have enabled Arkansas government to function within the restrictive 1874 document.

[150], (16)

Lines: 201 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[150], (16)

The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

151

One such mechanism is simply to ignore it. Amendment 42, for example, mandates that no more than one of the ﬁve highway commissioners may be appointed from a single congressional district. Now that there are only four districts (compared with the six that existed when the amendment was adopted in 1952), it is impossible to have a legally constituted Highway Commission, so the requirement is simply ignored. More frequent are a number of expedients for making an end run around the constitution while still technically complying with its mandates. Although the constitution states that General Assembly sessions are not to exceed sixty calendar days every other year (the resulting sense of time limits still permeates each regular session), only once since 1965 has the legislature concluded its business so expeditiously. Rather, members vote, by a two-thirds majority, to “extend” the session, which they can apparently do ad inﬁnitum. They have also begun to “recess” rather than adjourn, so they can call themselves back into session without awaiting the governor’s call. The Arkansas legislature has rarely resorted to the device, popular in some other states, of literally covering the clock on the wall to “stop time.” However, when a deadline was approaching in 1985, one senator simply moved back the hands of the clock. Similarly, despite article 5, section 22, bills are no longer read aloud in their entirety on three separate days. Rather, the bill’s title and ﬁrst few words are read, and the Speaker quickly moves to the second “reading.”18 These and other semilegal gimmicks have some deﬁnite drawbacks. They are potential time bombs to be used in challenging the legitimacy of governmental actions. Moreover, disregard for some clearly outdated constitutional provisions probably encourages disrespect for others. The legislature, for example, refused to reapportion itself from 1890 to 1937 despite a clear constitutional requirement to do so every ten years. And despite an unmistakable requirement that all property be assessed equally at 20 percent of value, the state supreme court found in 1979 that county assessments in fact ranged from only 2.7 percent to 13.9 percent of value. The major point, however, is that despite the antigovernmentalism of the 1874 constitution, Arkansas’s governing apparatus has managed to expand from a handful of employees to nearly ﬁfty thousand, from an annual state budget of $320,000 to one of well over $3 billion annually, and both the state and local governments are providing a range of public services unimaginable in the 1870s. Furthermore, though the recent constitutional revision efforts did not produce a new constitution, the years of debate and discussion do seem to have

[151], (17)

Lines: 213 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [151], (17)

152 The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

produced a political climate much more amenable to gradual constitutional reform. One of the reasons constitutional reformers pushed so strongly for total revision was that, from the 1958 election until the 1974 election, voters had approved only one of the numerous constitutional amendment proposals submitted by the legislature.19 From 1974 to 2000, however, twenty-seven additional amendments were added, some of which wrought changes that the defeated new constitutions had proposed. Amendment 55 (1974), for example, thoroughly revised and updated county government structure and gave counties a healthy measure of home rule. Amendment 58 (1978) established an intermediate court of appeals; amendment 60 (1982) removed the 10 percent usury limit from the constitution and tied allowable interest to the federal discount rate, and amendment 61 (1982) removed the requirement that the county road tax be submitted for voter approval at each general election. Similarly, amendment 62 (1984) repealed four earlier provisions restricting local governments’ability to issue capital improvement bonds, amendment 63 (1984) gave Arkansas governors the same four-year term that forty-six other states had previously found advisable, amendment 70 (1992) removed constitutionally imposed salary limits for the governor and other state ofﬁcials and gave the power to increase their salaries to the legislature, and amendment 80 (2000) ﬁnally made Arkansas judicial elections nonpartisan and streamlined the judiciary in a variety of ways, most importantly by combining criminal and chancery trial courts. Additional changes proposed in the new constitutions have been adopted by simple statutory action (either by the General Assembly or by the people): the ethics provisions discussed in the previous chapter; a measure of municipal home rule; extensive executive reorganization. In short, of the twenty-seven major changes recommended by the 1968 Constitutional Revision Study Commission, fourteen have been accomplished by constitutional amendment or by legislative or administrative action, and additional modernizing amendments have also been passed.20 an assessment This overview of the provisions and politics of the Arkansas constitution suggests several conclusions. First, recent constitutional revision efforts offer another example of the ways in whichArkansas political history tends to repeat itself. A proposed new constitution sponsored by Governor Charles Brough was resoundingly defeated by Arkansas voters in 1918. Still, of the twenty-four signiﬁcant changes that constitution recommended, twenty

[152], (18)

Lines: 221 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[152], (18)

The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

153

were eventually enacted in the form of constitutional amendment or statute. Another period of constitutional updates, prompted in part by wholesale revision efforts, seems to be in progress.21 Second, the piecemeal approach to reform, while valuable, is still a less satisfactory approach to modernization than is thoroughgoing revision. The legislature is limited to submitting three constitutional amendments in any election, and these submissions are just as likely to reﬂect a powerful legislator’s pet proposal as to address a fundamental ﬂaw in the constitution. (In fact, in 1985, house-senate rivalries resulted in only one proposed amendment, to enlarge the jurisdiction of municipal courts.) Furthermore, additional amendments, even while accomplishing worthy purposes, nevertheless add to the length and complexity of an already verbose and convoluted document.22 The popular initiative, of course, is wholly uncoordinated by any comprehensive scheme of constitutional improvement. Furthermore, while it is theoretically equally accessible to all citizens, it is much more accessible to those with strong organizational networks, ideological appeal, and/or economic resources than it is to those simply motivated by “good government” concepts. In 2000, petitions were circulated for ﬁfteen proposals. Gambling interests and Governor Huckabee easily secured more than enough petition signatures to get their respective proposals on the ballot to legalize casino gambling and a state lottery and to develop a spending plan for the state’s tobacco settlement funds. The efforts of the Alliance for the Reform of Drug Policy in Arkansas to legalize the use of medicinal marijuana fell by the wayside. Many observers, most notably David S. Broder, have critiqued direct democracy’s role in contemporary American policymaking, particularly the corrosive effect of money that permeates initiative campaigns. Although the type of spending—for signature gatherers, lawyers, consultants, and television advertising—that arrived in California and other states decades ago was slow to arrive in Arkansas, the 1990s did witness the rise of big money in Arkansas’s initiative campaigns, particularly in the casino industry’s unsuccessful efforts to bring gambling to the state.23 Third, the initiative process is an inherently messy operation. Numerous problems with the mechanics of constitutional reform through the use of petitions began to surface in the 1990s, especially as entities opposed to proposals began to use the courts to win certain victories that might not be accomplished at the polls. In almost every election cycle, proposed amendments were challenged in the supreme court, often with success and generally after campaigns for and against the measures were well underway, and, in some cases, after ballots had been printed. In 1994, all six amendments

[153], (19)

Lines: 231 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [153], (19)

154 The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

that had been given the go-ahead by the secretary of state were kicked off the ballot for reasons ranging from inaccurate ballot descriptions to the secretary of state’s improper newspaper publication of the full text of one. In late October 1996, three competing gambling amendments were eliminated because of insufﬁcient ballot titles, and in mid-October 1998, a hotly contested property tax abolition amendment was thrown out because of questions about the validity of signatures gathered months earlier. The judicial elimination of amendments late in the campaign season indirectly led to chaos in 1996. But despite the lack of apparent opposition, an attempt by the legislature to diminish that chaos via a constitutional amendment requiring any legal challenges to occur well before the printing of ballots was shot down by the voters. However, a less full-ﬂedged version was passed by the legislature in 1999. Finally, though Arkansas voters have shown an increased willingness in recent years to remove the shackles from their governing institutions, they still seem to reserve their greatest enthusiasm for constitutional amendments that keep their taxes low (the latest was a 2000 amendment limiting property tax increases, which was adopted by a 62 percent majority). They have likewise limited their greatest disapprobation for perceived threats to public morality, such as a proposed casino gambling amendment that was defeated by 70 percent in 1984 and casino/state lottery amendments that were defeated by 61 percent in 1996 and 64 percent in 2000. It is much more difﬁcult to attract voter interest to measures dealing with governing structure and procedures. Such measures often require repeated submissions before passage: the four-year gubernatorial term had been rejected six times before its ultimate adoption.24 In the immediate aftermath of the defeat of constitutional revision in 1970, the political scientist Robert Meriwether, executive director of Arkansans for the Constitution of 1970, offered the following grim explanation: “Another thing seems obvious: state constitutional revision—from the inception of the idea, through study commissions, legislative enactments, constitutional conventions, educational programs, ratiﬁcation campaigns, or what have you—requires more political sophistication and maturity than any other type of political endeavor. Arkansas, in 1967–1970, just didn’t have it.” To the extent that that diagnosis was accurate, and it was certainly widely expressed, Arkansans’ even more negative reaction to constitutional revision in 1980 and 1995 might suggest that the political climate, though somewhat more forward-looking than in the traditional period, is still more easily tilted to reaction than to reform.25

[154], (20)

Lines: 237 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[154], (20)

The Constitution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

155

That judgment, however, must be tempered by other considerations. First, since the 1960s the electorates in many states other than Arkansas have shown immense caution and conservatism when presented with proposed new constitutions. Second, Arkansas voters have been demonstrating an increased willingness to revise some of the 1874 constitution’s most archaic provisions. The pervasive antigovernmentalism that so strongly shaped the 1874 constitution is beginning to be replaced with a recognition that state government can be beneﬁcial as well as mischievous and therefore needs the constitutional authority to service increased public needs and expectations. [Last Page] [155], (21)

Lines: 243 to ———

387.84001 ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [155], (21)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter eight

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

[First Page [156], (1) In fact, the Arkansas Constitution may so severely limit the governor that the likelihood of one of them having a signiﬁcant impact on history and events is greatly reduced. Cal Ledbetter Jr. and C. Fred Williams, “Arkansas Governors in the Twentieth Century,” 1982 “If the governor would just pick up the phone . . .” Statement by frustrated constituents frequently heard by Governor’s Ofﬁce staffers

The Arkansas governorship has been alternately described as an ofﬁce of feeble incapacity and of towering strength. Since the framers of the 1874 constitution were not only antigovernmental but ﬁercely antigubernatorial, they deliberately designed a governorship of strictly limited powers: a twoyear term; a meager salary speciﬁed in the constitution itself; executive power divided between the governor and other separately elected executives; and a veto that could be overridden by a simple majority of the legislature. The two-year term became a four-year term beginning with the 1986 elections. Since the brief term was frequently identiﬁed as the most debilitating feature of the Arkansas governorship, the extension represents the single greatest enhancement of formal gubernatorial power. Still, the four-year term also applies to the other elected executives (who have increased from four to six since 1874), and the term limits provision put in place in 1992 means that any governor begins a second term as a “lame duck.” Moreover, although now changeable by ordinary statute rather than constitutional amendment, the Arkansas governor’s salary remains the second lowest in the United

Lines: 0 to ———

7.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [156], (1)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

157

States, and the veto override majority remains unchanged. These and other factors have made the governorship a special object of constitutional reformers. They have also led to Arkansas’s relatively low rankings in comparative studies of formal gubernatorial powers, which have dropped in the past four decades as the power of most states’ governors formal powers have been enhanced.l Yet, as political scientists often acknowledge, and as any Arkansas citizen could substantiate, there is a great gap between formal power and actual inﬂuence. The governor is the central ﬁgure in the state’s political system. Certainly he (all Arkansas governors have been male, and the defeat of the ﬁrst female gubernatorial nominee, Democrat Jimmie Lou Fisher, in 2002 means that will remain the case) is by far the most visible ﬁgure on the state’s political scene. National pollsters have repeatedly demonstrated that over 90 percent of a state’s citizens can correctly identify their governor (as compared with 60 percent who can name one of their U.S. senators and even smaller percentages who can identify their member of Congress). Beyond simple name recognition many citizens have a tendency to identify state government wholly with the incumbent governor. This point was conﬁrmed by the results of a “consciousness-raising” quiz one of the authors administered for more than a decade to thousands of beginning state-and-local-government students. All students, always, were able correctly to supply the governor’s name, but beyond that most fundamental fact, there was absolute ignorance. No more than 5 percent were ever able to identify correctly the lieutenant governor, the secretary of state, or any of the other elected executive ofﬁcials, much less to describe their duties. No more than 10 percent could name their own state senators or representatives. Only a handful of students— who attended a state university, drove automobiles licensed by the state over state-built roads, picnicked in state parks, and ingeniously evaded state liquor laws—were ever able to specify three functions of Arkansas’s state government. Their working knowledge of state government was almost exclusively limited to the identity of the governor, about whom many had strong evaluative sentiments.2 As will be emphasized, this singular visibility makes the governor both extremely inﬂuential and very vulnerable. There is no other likely object on whom to confer credit or cast blame for much of what happens within the state’s borders, whether the governor was instrumental in those events or not. In terms of public familiarity, media focus, political clout, and policy imprint, the governor is the sun around which many lesser planets revolve. Nevertheless, the portrait of gubernatorial impotence also has consid-

[157], (2)

Lines: 68 to 7 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [157], (2)

158 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

erable legitimacy. Governors must convince an often indifferent public, critical press, and reluctant legislature of the correctness of gubernatorial initiatives. None may be ordered into submission or even acceptance. State agencies, especially those with independent constitutional status and/or powerful interest-group clientele, can remain supremely indifferent to the governor’s alleged administrative authority. The governor’s political base must be constantly nourished and courted or it will evaporate or migrate elsewhere. Furthermore, much of the gubernatorial agenda is set by forces— everything from natural disasters to international economics—far beyond his control. The Arkansas governor has more inﬂuence than any other single actor in the state’s political system, and both his formal and informal powers have been signiﬁcantly strengthened in recent decades. The central questions, however, are whether the governor’s actual powers are equal to the expectations surrounding this ofﬁce and whether this institution has become a reliable and responsive mechanism through which citizens can effectuate their public service preferences. These questions can best be addressed by reviewing contemporary gubernatorial functions and the powers and limitations inherent in each. Most scholars who have analyzed the American governorship have found it useful to specify the various roles governors perform. There is considerable agreement in the literature on the parts today’s governors are expected to play: chief administrator or manager; legislative leader; ceremonial chief of state; leader of public opinion; head of political party; chief crisis manager; and, increasingly, manager of intergovernmental relationships. This standard array differs somewhat from those articulated, in a very impromptu fashion, by Governor Bill Clinton fairly early in his time as the state’s governor. Since the focus here is Arkansas, it seems best to employ those categories and titles that the longest-serving contemporary Arkansas governor identiﬁed: legislative leader, chief administrator, crisis manager, liaison between the state and federal governments, economic promoter, symbol of the state, and governor’s ofﬁce manager.3 super legislator Two months after a gubernatorial election, the state legislature meets for its biennial regular session. This session lasts no more than ninety days, but it may set the tone for the entire gubernatorial term, and governorselect therefore must spend most of their transition time preparing for it.

[158], (3)

Lines: 74 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [158], (3)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

159

Unlike the situation in traditional Arkansas politics, when the winner of the Democratic gubernatorial primary, certain of a November election, had leisurely months to prepare for the session, such planning must now await the general election outcome, which lends a frantic quality to the brief transition period. Also unlike the past, when a governor’s winning coalition was largely held together by patronage promises, which then preoccupied the transition, today’s governors-elect turn their ﬁrst attention to policy rather than personnel considerations.4 Most speciﬁcally, a governor-elect must give ﬁrst attention to the budget that the legislature will shortly be adopting and that will guide state spending for the next two years. By the time of the general election, the Legislative Council has already begun reviewing agency requests and making its recommendations. If a governor wants to have any impact on spending priorities, he must quickly inject his preferences into the process. The process and politics of state budget making will be analyzed extensively in chapter 13. It is therefore sufﬁcient to note here that, though the public may be more interested in the ﬁrst demonstrations of gubernatorial style, and nervous administrators and ambitious aspirants are more interested in personnel decisions, the greatest substantive impact is made by the governor’s budgetary decisions. Chief among all of today’s gubernatorial roles is policy leadership. Theoretically, under the classic concept of separation of powers, it is up to legislative bodies to initiate and create public policy. The executive’s job is simply to apply and administer whatever statutes are enacted. By midtwentieth century, however, at every level of government policy formulation had largely passed into the executive domain, which possesses superior resources of expertise, unity, popularity, and media focus. Executive policy formulation is especially likely in a state such as Arkansas, where the legislature remains a part-time and unprofessionalized institution. As one veteran legislator admitted in 1997, “We’re still basically an ‘executive propose, legislative dispose’ body.”5 The legislature is, of course, a critical obstacle between gubernatorial advocacy and ofﬁcial adoption, and the governor’s legislative proposals must often be revised and trimmed to meet legislative objections. Since confrontation makes good copy, the clashes between the governor and the legislature claim much of the media’s attention. In fact, however, Arkansas’s governors have become both more active and more successful in their legislative leadership role. Particularly since 1965, governors have initiated more legislation over a broader range of subjects than did their predecessors.

[159], (4)

Lines: 86 to 9 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [159], (4)

160 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Aside from the streamlined agenda he presented at his ﬁrst legislative session as governor, Republican Mike Huckabee has shown himself to be an activist governor for a southern Republican, presenting agendas comparable to the Democrats who preceded him in terms of number of items, if not in programmatic substance. Moreover, since the Faubus era, all governors except Winthrop Rockefeller steered at least three-fourths of their major policy proposals successfully through the legislature. Evaluations of the most recent sessions report equal or greater batting averages for governors of both parties. For example, Mike Huckabee was able to pass more than 90 percent of the bills in his package in both the 1999 and 2001 sessions before facing major challenges in a 2003 session for a package that was substantively large yet short in the number of items it included. In that atypical regular session only 39 percent of the governor’s package passed before adjournment.6 Success rates are even higher at special sessions, which are sometimes aptly called governor’s sessions since they may be convened only upon the governor’s call. Only after the legislature has dealt with the items listed by the governor, and then only upon a two-thirds vote of both houses, may it deal with other matters, for a period of no more than ﬁfteen days. Special sessions were once a rarity (only one was called between 1880 and 1907) but have recently become commonplace, averaging more than one per gubernatorial term for the past quarter century (including six during Clinton’s last full term). Because many legislators are inconvenienced by this unplanned interruption in their income-producing occupations, governors usually ﬁnd an assembly that is anxious to deal quickly with the gubernatorial agenda and return to their private pursuits. For instance, Jim Guy Tucker used the special session masterfully in his ﬁrst two years as governor, bringing the legislature into session three times during that period. In one, a summer 1994 juvenile crime session, all forty-four of the governor’s bills were briskly passed. It concluded with four of the state senate’s Republican members presenting a resolution praising Tucker for calling the session.7 Even in regular sessions, however, gubernatorial preferences tend to prevail, and that is somewhat surprising. Unlike their counterparts in many other states, Arkansas governors no longer have any voice in selecting legislative leadership or in making committee assignments. Governors cannot introduce bills; that can be done only by representatives and senators. Gubernatorial bills receive no priority treatment in the senate, and the priority scheduling they once enjoyed was canceled by a change in house rules in 1985. Furthermore, the simple majority (unlike the extraordinary majority of two-thirds or three-fourths required in forty-four states) that is required to override a

[160], (5)

Lines: 92 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [160], (5)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

161

gubernatorial veto might logically weaken the governor’s legislative leadership.8 In fact, however, the veto power has typically been a strong one, and governors have a host of informal powers that more than compensate for their modest arsenal of formal powers. The strength of the gubernatorial veto is suggested by the infrequency with which it has been overridden. From 1958 to 1995 there were only ﬁfteen overrides, an average of less than 1 percent, with none occurring between 1985 and 1995. Eleven occurred during Rockefeller’s tempestuous legislative sessions, and of the remaining four overrides, two occurred with explicit or tacit gubernatorial consent. Much of the strength of the gubernatorial veto relates to timing. During the session, the governor has ﬁve days to sign or to veto legislation presented to him, and if he does neither, the bill becomes law. On bills presented during the last ﬁve days of the session, as many are, the governor has twenty days from the date of adjournment to act, by which time legislators have returned to their respective homes. Furthermore, Arkansas’s governor (like most governors but unlike the president) has the item veto on appropriation bills—that is, he can selectively negate particular expenditures within a general spending measure. The 1997 legislative session did see a sharp uptick in veto overrides. In his ﬁrst session, Republican Huckabee had ten of his sixteen vetoes overridden; this easily surpassed the record six overrides (of thirty-nine vetoes) during Rockefeller’s ﬁnal session. Although they had completed their business, the legislature purposely reconvened (for the only time in the modern era) to override an expected Huckabee veto on a capital improvement project spending bill, which we will discuss later in this chapter as an example of the rising partisanship in Arkansas executive-legislative relations. Thus, the timing advantage traditionally held by the governor was removed. While the legislature was in session to override the veto about which they most cared, its members, agitated at Huckabee, overrode that veto and seven additional vetoes in a four-hour period. Thus, the Huckabee 1997 override numbers are artiﬁcially inﬂated, as shown by the more typical absence of overrides on an atypically small number of vetoes in the 1999 and 2001 sessions. Still, the increasingly partisan atmosphere now operating in Arkansas, which promotes personal animosity between the legislature and governor, makes situations like 1997 more likely than ever before.9 Of course, at least some bills are introduced by legislators simply to placate constituents or organized interests. The sponsoring legislator knows (and even hopes) they will be vetoed, thereby protecting the public from

[161], (6)

Lines: 96 to 1 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [161], (6)

162 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

bad policy while giving the legislator credit for having tried. Conversely, governors customarily notify sponsoring legislators of their intent to veto, thereby giving legislators the opportunity to withdraw bills in instances where the veto would be genuinely embarrassing. Despite the simple majority requirement for overrides, then, the veto power is a strong one, so formidable in fact that usually the mere threat of its exercise is sufﬁcient to stop a bill’s progress. Still, it is something of a penultimate weapon, which works more by its mere existence than by actual usage. However, it does enhance the governor’s capacity for legislative leadership.10 Arkansas’s weak political parties have traditionally been neither a significant help (when a Democrat was in the governor’s seat) nor a determining hindrance (when a Republican held the post) in driving gubernatoriallegislative relationships in Arkansas. Rockefeller’s failures with the Democratic-dominated legislature had much more to do with the perceived liberality of his proposals to an as-yet unreformed legislature and the ineptness of his personal dealings with legislators than with partisan differences per se. This tends to be conﬁrmed by Frank White’s general success with a very modest legislative package in 1981 in an equally Democratic-dominated legislature. However, the 1990s witnessed the ﬁrst signs of partisan disaccord in a divided government, and partisanship undeniably will shape the interactions between governors and legislatures in years to come. Mike Huckabee’s able handling of the crisis created by his convicted predecessor’s refusal to leave the post quietly in mid-1996 created a mandate unusual for an unelected governor. Nevertheless, the relationship between the governor and Democrats in the legislature quickly soured during the regular session early the next year. First, the Democratic Speaker of the house made public a letter to the governor demanding that he apologize for “strong-arm” tactics in lobbying legislators, which included a broadcast “smear” of a popular house member for his vote, sent to the member’s own radio station. An ongoing exchange between the governor and Democratic leader created the context for partisan battles to come. The most visible of these disputes involved the control of money for construction projects throughout the state. Since 1971, in dramatic contrast to the process in Congress and in almost all other states, decisions about the actual spending for capital improvement projects had been delegated to the governor by the legislature through a lump-sum appropriation rather than the appropriation of money for individual projects (although they are placed in prioritized categories). In 1997, however, the legislature removed 60 percent of the capital improvement funds from

[162], (7)

Lines: 102 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [162], (7)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

163

Republican Governor Huckabee’s control. And, as partisan rhetoric became more pointed, both houses overrode Huckabee’s veto of what he termed an “outrageous assault on the treasury.”11 While varying in its intensity, the partisan discord between the Democratic legislature and Huckabee continued throughout his ﬁrst full term. It was sharpened by Huckabee’s involvement in a number of legislative races, where he raised money and campaigned for Republican candidates (most of whom lost) against Democrats, including incumbent ofﬁceholders. Although Huckabee emphasized that he “only spoke out for” and “never attacked” Democratic incumbents, the difference was difﬁcult for those Democrats to understand. Late in that term, in the summer of 2002, the release of several embarrassing e-mails from individuals in the Huckabee administration to the ﬁred state “computer czar” evidenced hostility toward the Democraticcontrolled legislature. Many of the messages emphasized that legislators’ involvement in state technology policy should be limited. One e-mail from the Huckabee chief of staff said that legislators “shouldn’t have an opinion unless we give it to them.” Still, although partisan animosity is now a more potent force than at any time in the history ofArkansas’s executive-legislative relationship, it remains sporadic and less consequential than in most other states.12 In a state where partisanship is a weak concept both among the elites and the masses, the governor’s capacity to strengthen or weaken a legislator’s relationship with his or her constituency is far more useful in the ordinary course of exerting legislative inﬂuence. In the past, this inﬂuence largely revolved around how many jobs and how many roads a legislator could secure for the district. Now that most state jobs are removed from the spoils system and roads are built where the Highway Commission determines, these are no longer such signiﬁcant coins of exchange in the legislativegubernatorial relationship. Nevertheless, governors still make more than ﬁve hundred appointments annually (a conservative estimate) to a multitude of boards and commissions. Legislators are anxious to secure a “fair share” of these prestigious prizes for their district. Also, gubernatorial recommendations, though diminished somewhat by the 1997 actions of the legislature, can be critical in securing funding for or deciding on the placement of state facilities. These material testaments to a legislator’s inﬂuence are a much larger component of constituent evaluations of legislative effectiveness than are voting records. Additionally, the governor’s discretionary authority over the awarding of some federal funds, especially community development grants, has augmented the persuasive devices in the gubernatorial arsenal.

[163], (8)

Lines: 106 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [163], (8)

164 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

During the legislative session, a cadre of temporary gubernatorial aides vigorously works the legislature, ascertaining what the particular price for legislative cooperation might be. Many legislators, however, require personal conversations with the governor himself to feel conﬁdent that the distribution of the gubernatorial loaves and ﬁshes will actually occur: “That’s not to say that [the governor’s liaisons] aren’t nice people, but they can’t give you anything, they can’t bargain.” Clinton’s personal engagement in the lawmaking process, in which he addressed wavering legislators armed with data as well as deals, was apparent throughout his governorship, particularly on his signature policy proposals. The following account of one 1985 gubernatorial-legislative exchange is indicative of many others: [164], (9) The sources said Mr. Clinton told Hogue he’d “done everything for Jonesboro except move the state Capitol up there,” and he expected more support from Jonesboro-area legislators in return. Mr. Clinton has appointed Hogue to be his House representative on the Legislative Council, a key appointment, as well as keeping a campaign commitment to Craighead County by appointing Dalton Farmer of Jonesboro to the powerful Highway Commission. The source said Mr. Clinton also reminded Hogue that he’d appointed a Jonesboro man, Fred Carter, to be adjutant general of theArkansas National Guard and had promised to provide funding for construction of a convocation center-gymnasium at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

Veteran legislative observers have noted the comparative detachment of Governors Tucker and Huckabee as partial explanations of their more limited effectiveness in gaining noteworthy victories in the legislature.13 Finally tipping the balance in the executive’s favor are his political clout and public stature. Unlike many legislators, no contemporary Arkansas governor merely walks into ofﬁce. He gets there only after a campaign trial by ﬁre that severely tests and hones his abilities to assemble an effective organizational apparatus, to employ the media effectively, and to shape an attractive and appealing leadership image. Governors, if they wish, can share their political resources with legislators who ﬁnd themselves cross-pressured between interest-group or other demands and gubernatorial preferences. This was Governor Bumpers’s sales pitch, for example, in persuading reluctant legislators to vote for a substantial income tax increase in 1971: “I doubt that a vote for this tax will cause you opposition because it will likely be forgotten by next year’s election. Should it cause problems, however, I personally will call my friends in your district (many of whom are not presently your

Lines: 110 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [164], (9)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

165

friends) and see that they give you all possible assistance in your re-election campaign.”14 As has been aptly observed, “When it comes to getting support for policies in the legislature, a governor who has the support of public opinion is tough to beat on the important issues.” Arkansas governors have proved themselves adept at bringing that public opinion to bear on legislators. This is not a new development. Governor Faubus, for example, in building the legislative majority for a sales tax increase in 1957, made personal phone calls to supporters in wavering legislators’ districts. This ensured that the ﬁrst few people a legislator encountered on weekend trips home from the session would be prominent local personages who would express their strong support for the tax.15 However, today’s governors use today’s technology to reach voters. For instance, Huckabee spent $20,000 from his campaign coffers in the middle of the capital-improvement fund battle with the legislature on radio and television ads on that issue. (The Democratic Party responded with ads of its own, claiming that Huckabee proposed to “create a slush fund for him to control.”) Computers, fed with campaign lists of donors and workers, address and print letters to tens of thousands of gubernatorial “friends” urging immediate contact with legislators on behalf of the governor’s legislative program. Both Clinton and Huckabee established separate campaign operations (both invisibly funded) to support their education plans by producing public support. Legislators know that the displays of public backing that emanate from such efforts are orchestrated, but they are reluctant to ﬂout that relatively small portion of the population that is attentive to legislative decisions and is politically active.16 Success in the superlegislator role is also the product of a more receptive legislature than traditional governors usually encountered. The “reapportionment revolution” of the 1960s created an environment in which governors and legislators now share somewhat common constituencies. Huckabee notes the importance of his vote-getting ability throughout the state in giving him a legislative “mandate”: “That’s darn important—the fact that I got as many votes in most legislative districts as the legislators did.” Together with many of the previously described changes in the state’s political environment, these developments have produced more of a “new breed” of legislator, motivated by many of the same policy concerns that fuel today’s governors. Another example from the Bumpers’s years is illustrative of this. A freshman senator complained to Bumpers that he had consistently supported every administration bill but had received nothing tangible for his constituents in

[165], (10)

Lines: 136 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [165], (10)

166 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

return. “True,” Bumpers replied, “but did you ever vote for anything you didn’t think was right?” That kind of exchange is still rare, but it would have been unthinkable in the past, when the gubernatorial-legislative relationship was based exclusively on material quid pro quos.17 A focus on the lawmaking that takes place in regular or special legislative sessions misses the fact that the verdict on some of the more consequential gubernatorial policy initiatives in recent Arkansas history came not in the capitol but in precincts all over the state. Beginning with Bill Clinton’s initiated acts on ethics and campaign ﬁnance reform in the late 1980s (a gubernatorial use that one expert on direct democracy noted was “unusual,” if not unique), recent Arkansas governors have used initiative and referenda campaigns to bypass the legislature and powerful interest groups. They failed in only one case: Tucker’s 1996 $3.5 billion road plan, which was overwhelmingly defeated in a special election by a coalition of antitax activists, tax-fairness advocates, and the trucking industry.18 Otherwise, in 1994 Governor Tucker protected a soda pop tax passed to solve a Medicaid funding crisis from a referenda aimed at overturning the tax by employing an aggressive campaign involving some of the most emotive television ads in recent Arkansas political history. And Governor Huckabee had two legislative victories at the polls: an interstate spending program much less expansive than the failed Tucker effort (presented to the voters by the legislature for their approval in a 1999 special election) and, more impressively, a program favored by public health policy advocates for spending the state’s dollars from the settlement with tobacco companies. (The latter went through the petition process after the governor’s plan was stymied in a special legislative session in 2000.) Thus, recent governors’ connection to the voters has beneﬁts in the policy-making arena not only in aiding their lobbying efforts among legislators but also through the direct democracy options present in Arkansas. Recent Arkansas governors have chosen to be policy activists to greater or lesser degrees, and they have ample powers to effectuate their role as superlegislators. Ironically, governors are much more limited in their executive functions. chief administrator The 1874 constitution assigned to the governor the responsibility for “seeing that the laws are faithfully executed” and also established that the “supreme executive power shall be vested in a Governor.” Other and later provisions, however, divided the executive power among other elected ofﬁcials,

[166], (11)

Lines: 142 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[166], (11)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

167

took away the word supreme, gave constitutionally independent status to two major state agencies (the Game and Fish Commission in 1944, the Highway Commission in 1952), and established appointive “buffer” boards with lengthy, staggered terms between the governor and all educational, penal, and charitable institutions.19 This fragile formal base for the governor’s administrative authority might have been inconsequential when a few hundred employees, all working in the state capitol, provided some basic state services. By the 2000s, however, tens of thousands of employees were scattered throughout the capital city and around the state, providing a wide range of services out of a multibillion-dollar budget. Clearly, the governor’s responsibilities as supervisor of the executive establishment had become much more complicated and compelling. Arkansas, like most other states, has responded to the challenge of enlarged budgets and payrolls by strengthening somewhat the governor’s managerial capacity. According to most analysts and most governors, however, here— where public expectations may be highest—powers are weakest. Governors, because they are identiﬁed as the “chief executive” and are also the public personiﬁcation of state government, will be held accountable for the efﬁciency, courtesy, integrity, and competence of anyone working for the state. The governor’s ability to inﬂuence the actions of state agencies and the behavior of state personnel, however, is much more limited than is commonly supposed. An authoritative chief administrator requires adequate powers of ﬁscal management, supervisory control, and appointment and removal. With respect to ﬁscal or budgetary powers, timing, incrementalism, debt prohibitions, and constitutionally earmarked revenues all constrain the gubernatorial impact on state spending. Nevertheless, Arkansas has moved from a strictly legislative budget to one in which the governor’s recommendations are weighty ones. It is with respect to both supervisory control and appointment and removal that Arkansas governors are weaker than many other states’ chief executives and less authoritative than the title of chief executive suggests.20 Supervisory control means the governor’s ability to direct and oversee the operations of state agencies, to make his policies and priorities known throughout the bureaucracy, and to secure acquiescence to them. Since any administrator’s span of effective control is limited, this process works best when related functions (everything regarding health or energy or the environment) are integrated into a limited number of departments, each with a single director who reports to the governor and is accountable to him. A

[167], (12)

Lines: 156 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [167], (12)

168 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

giant step from complete chaos toward this administrative ideal was taken in 1971, when Act 38 consolidated sixty separate state agencies into thirteen major departments, each with a single director reporting to (though not in all cases solely selected by) the governor. Theoretically, this reversed the proliferation of separate state agencies, increased the governor’s effective span of control, and provided the governor with a cabinet (the thirteen department heads) to serve as his accurate informants and loyal lieutenants in overseeing state government. That this reorganization increased the governor’s administrative authority is conﬁrmed by the fury with which this plan was opposed by interest groups (who prefer administrative separatism, where they can directly inﬂuence agencies, bypassing the governor) and by the regularity with which legislators (whose agency inﬂuence is also enhanced by administrative separatism) have attempted to dismantle the original consolidation. Still, the 1971 reorganization was in fact a very modest and limited one (as several studies, such as that by the high-proﬁle Murphy Commission in the late 1990s, have noted). Only two of the then-existing 180-plus state agencies were abolished. The consolidations that did take place were primarily in terms of “housekeeping” functions (centralized purchasing, personnel, and budgeting) rather than rule making or policy authority. The plan left hundreds of boards and commissions of varying stature and authority running around loose, and the original thirteen major departments had escalated to forty by the new century. Governor Huckabee reacted by proposing unsuccessfully another reorganization in 2003 to create ten cabinet-level departments, with other departments relegated to “bureaus” beneath them. These factors, plus the separate election of six other executive ofﬁcials, give Arkansas governors one of the lowest comparative rankings in terms of formal administrative powers.21 Probably the greatest administrative insufﬁciency stems from the powers of appointment and removal. To be a forceful administrator the governor must have the authority to assemble his own administrative team of top subordinates, people who share his policy preferences, will be responsive to his managerial directives, and will be political allies rather than adversaries. Such powers are universally granted to corporate chief executives, to football coaches, and to some state governors. But Arkansas governors ﬁnd themselves surrounded by many important “subordinates” who are not of their choosing or whose selection is surrounded by compromising complications. The other six executives are directly elected by the voters. Afterward, the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, auditor, treasurer,

[168], (13)

Lines: 162 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[168], (13)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

169

and land commissioner run their own separate campaigns and manage their own operations absolutely distinct from the governor. Unlike twenty-four other states, where the governor and lieutenant governor run as a team, there is no team-ticketing of the governor with the one who will take his place when he is out of the state or leaves the ofﬁce. (This latter fact was reafﬁrmed by a state high court ruling when several parties challenged Tucker’s gaining all the perquisites of the governorship upon Clinton’s 1992 resignation.) Also unlike many other states in which the lieutenant governorship has been a prime steppingstone to the governorship, and therefore the locus for a potentially dangerous rival, before the two successive successions in the 1990s only one elected Arkansas governor was a previously elected lieutenant governor. Indeed, the period when Tucker and Huckabee held the two ofﬁces was the only time in Arkansas history when individuals from different parties held the posts. That future Arkansas governors may face more problems created by their ambitious lieutenant governors is indicated by the occasional discord shown in that period (when Huckabee publicly opposed Tucker’s constitutional revision and road improvement initiatives) and by the increasing tendency for Arkansas’s lieutenant governors to establish themselves as “policy entrepreneurs” (exerting inﬂuence over at least some niche of public policy).22 A far more likely locus for division and rivalry—based on both historical ambition patterns and duties of the job—is in the relationship between the governor and the attorney general. First, of the last seven Arkansas attorneys general, ﬁve made a bid for the governorship (and the other two for the U.S. Senate). Understandably, they are more interested in their own political visibility than in assisting the governor in running his ship of state. Second, modern attorneys general are activists in a number of public policy areas (the most salient being crime, but also consumer affairs, elder care, environmental regulation, utility regulation, and a variety of others) that overlap with the governor’s duties. For the 2003 session, Attorney General Mike Beebe’s twenty-ﬁve-bill package created a list of legislative items longer than that of the governor; when 88 percent of those items passed, the gubernatorially ambitious Beebe touted that batting average. As a result, numerous conﬂicts have arisen in recent years, such as those over the ofﬁce in which a new state “drug czar” would be housed and over whether the state police should continue to carry out background checks on gun purchasers. Third, one major responsibility of attorneys general is the issuance of advisory opinions about the legality of the actions of other governmental actors, including the governor. In one example of the regular conﬂict between the ofﬁces created

[169], (14)

Lines: 168 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [169], (14)

170 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

by this authority, Attorney General Mark Pryor told Huckabee that it would be illegal for his administration to shift money from a tobacco settlement fund to a ﬁnancially strapped Medicaid program. Though the attorney general is the statewide elected ofﬁcial most likely to compete with the governor in the public arena, the fact that term limits apply to all the constitutional ofﬁces means that none can gain ofﬁce and stay until retirement (as was often the case in the recent past). The 1990s saw the holders of low-proﬁle ofﬁces enhance their visibility both in the press and through publications that resembled the newsletters “franked” out by members of Congress. Not surprisingly, in 2002 three of the ﬁrst four term-limited constitutional ofﬁcers sought another post.23 Of those who do constitute the governor’s “cabinet,” most are selected by the governor (or nominated by a board to the governor) and can be dismissed by him. They, however, like all appointees, require senate conﬁrmation, which may require extensive lobbying and consideration of inﬂuential senators’ preferred choices. Furthermore, because of the longstanding practice of statutorily specifying certain qualiﬁcations for many administrative positions, governors must either narrow their choices to those with the requisite residence or occupational backgrounds or try to change the requirement. In 1979 before Clinton could hire the West Virginian with special expertise in rural health care whom he desired for state health director he ﬁrst had to change the law requiring that that post be ﬁlled by someone who has practiced medicine in Arkansas for seven years. Most frustrating of all are the numerous “buffer boards” and the constitutionally independent agencies. The Game and Fish Commission and the State Highway and Transportation Department, for example, march to their own drummers. Receiving just under one-ﬁfth of all state revenues, they are shielded from the governor by their own sources of revenue and headed by directors selected by their governing commissions. The Game and Fish Commission has gone directly to the people with special requests for more revenues (sometimes with the governor’s support and other times over his opposition), and the power of the Highway Department as an interest is legendary. Because in the minds of many Arkansans roads are the most important beneﬁt the state provides, many legislators are much more anxious to please the Highway Commission than the governor. As one legislator observed, “I’d rather have a highway commissioner than a governor from Craighead County.”24 The buffer boards, consisting of ﬁve-, seven-, or ten members with staggered ﬁve-, seven-, or ten-year terms, were deliberately designed to keep

[170], (15)

Lines: 170 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[170], (15)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

171

governors from ever capturing a majority on the board and therefore from ever being able to dominate any of the institutions the boards govern. The device has generally protected these institutions from what were once the unsettling ravages of the spoils system. Although the gubernatorial four-year term has helped here, a governor who wishes to make innovations in nursing home operations, educational television, or the prisons may ﬁrst have to overcome the wishes of hundreds of individuals appointed by gubernatorial predecessors. Governor Pryor, in a moment of deep frustration, once mused, “What this state needs most is a few good funerals.” In the absence of such divine intervention, members of boards and commissions can be removed only for a criminal offense involving moral turpitude, gross dereliction of duty, or gross abuse of authority. In substantiating these, the governor has the burden of proof (Act 160 of 1979). Therefore, a governor may call a press conference to rant about a board action that he ﬁnds outrageous, but he can do little of substance to immediately change the decision.25 In practice, of course, many administrators offer their resignations to incoming governors, or ﬁnally ﬁnd themselves so frozen out from gubernatorial access that they get the message and step down. When a governor of the opposing party comes into ofﬁce, those who wish to remain must show his or her loyalty to the new governor quickly and convincingly. In practice also, however, many administrators chosen as the governor’s own people soon “go native,” that is, become increasingly more responsive to pressures from their agency employees and clientele groups than to the governor. For these and other reasons, the cabinet has not been extensively used by recent governors. Instead, they rely on gubernatorial staff members who have speciﬁc agency liaison assignments to keep them informed of problems and to convey gubernatorial directives.26 The once absolute authority of incoming governors to ﬁre all state employees and replace them with their own people has gradually been modiﬁed by both law and custom. Technically, no state employees are fully covered by an institutionalized merit system (by contrast, most national employees are). In practice, however, nearly all state jobs have been removed from the realm of easy patronage, and merit system principles permeate the executive branch. Permanent expectations began under Governor Faubus’s extraordinarily long twelve-year tenure. Governor Rockefeller’s promise to the people was one of state professionalism, which precluded any massive ﬁrings. Governor Bumpers’s election took place without the assistance and often over the opposition of those who traditionally demanded jobs in return for support. Despite occasional charges that Governor Clinton engaged in more

[171], (16)

Lines: 176 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [171], (16)

172 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

blatantly political hiring and ﬁring than any of his immediate predecessors, at the middle and lower echelons state jobs are now clearly immune from gubernatorial turnover. Since the policy consequences of such positions are often negligible and governors have many more consequential demands on their time this is probably a net plus for gubernatorial power.27 Governors must still devote an extraordinary amount of time (in Bumpers and Pryor’s estimate, as much as one-fourth of their working hours) to making more than ﬁve hundred appointments annually to hundreds of boards and commissions. At the level of the Highway Commission or State Board of Education, careful selections are critical to a governor’s administration and well worth the time expended. For every such major appointment, however, scores more are to be made to such entities as the Small Business Stationery Source Advisory Board, the Auctioneers Licensing Board, and the Kidney Disease Commission. Since for even the most obscure position aspirants always outnumber openings, one recent study, based on extensive interviews with governors and their aides, concluded that these appointments were so excessive as to be counterproductive: “At the lower levels, where the vast majority of appointments are made, the decision-making process is elaborate and exhausting, the policy consequences may be negligible, and the political consequences are frequently a net minus.” The longest-serving Republican governor, Mike Huckabee, faced particular difﬁculty ﬁnding a sufﬁcient number of Republican sympathizers in traditionally Democratic Arkansas for these board and commission positions, especially because of the explicit professional or geographical criteria laid out for many of the spots.28 Because the four-year term, and particularly election to more than one four-year term, gives Arkansas governors the opportunity to secure a majority of “their” people on all boards and commissions, some have predicted a signiﬁcant strengthening of gubernatorial administrative authority: “A governor will no longer be in a position where it is necessary to spend one year learning the job and the next year campaigning for reelection. With a four-year term and the freedom from constant campaigning that this brings, a governor can be a full time executive for three years instead of one and can spend at least part of that time managing the state.”29 Perhaps so, but it would take more than a strengthened appointive power and a more leisurely schedule to make the governor’s administrative authority equal to popular expectations surrounding it. A study made in 1948 of the Arkansas governor’s agenda suggested that only 10 percent of his time was spent on being chief administrator. Contemporary governors give more of their time to administrative matters, but they are still more likely to engage

[172], (17)

Lines: 180 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[172], (17)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

173

in sporadic intervention than continuous direction and control. Enormous political credit and energy must be expended to make even the slightest changes in the bureaucratic establishment, and political rewards are rare for simply being a more competent manager. Few contemporary governors, then, are willing to give the chief administrator role their foremost attention.30 Though no political beneﬁt results from mere competence, political cost can result from cases of incompetence by any of the thousands of employees who fall under the executive branch that the governor oversees. Governors do spend signiﬁcant time and energy “crisis managing” within the agencies under their purview. In an era when media reports on government malfeasance incite public consciousness (and, often, win the reporter professional awards) governors are conscious of the need to manage public crises so they do not fester. Governor Huckabee quickly closed a state detention facility where widespread abuse of juveniles had been uncovered by a Little Rock investigative reporter in 1998. This announcement—at a news conference in front of the center—is only one example of such administrative crisis management.31 handler of emergencies Willingly or not, most governors will ﬁnd their time and attention intermittently consumed by the eruption of even more severe crises. The constitution makes the Arkansas governor commander-in-chief of the state militia and gives him the power to call out the national guard to “execute laws, repel invasion, repress insurrection and preserve the public peace.” By the late twentieth century, invasions and insurrections were unlikely. On numerous occasions, however, governors have used the National Guard to assist citizens during and after natural disasters and to preserve order in potentially explosive situations. Most memorably, Governor Faubus mobilized the Guard at the onset of Central High School’s integration in 1957, arguing that riots were imminent. More recently, Governor Pryor used National Guardsmen to take the place of striking ﬁremen in Pine Bluff. Governor Clinton used them to reinforce federal security measures when a thousand Cuban refugees stormed past the barricades at Fort Chaffee in his ﬁrst term. (The video of that event, however, was used effectively against him in the fall campaign because he had not prevented the refugees from arriving in the state in the ﬁrst place.) In one sense, emergencies are empowering situations. Administrative agencies respond most expeditiously in life-threatening circumstances, which strengthens the concept of chief executive. The governor’s leadership

[173], (18)

Lines: 186 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [173], (18)

174 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

image is reinforced by extensive media coverage of him directing the troops, hovering in a helicopter to inspect damage to the electricity infrastructure by an ice storm, or—in particular, because of its emotional power—visiting tornado-ravaged communities to comfort suddenly homeless victims. Furthermore, governors now have a $500,000 emergency fund at their disposal, subject only to a usually routine legislative advice procedure. Emergencies are also potentially emasculating situations, as Governor Clinton learned when a cumulation of crises—tornadoes, drought, a national recession, a nuclear power plant spill, a Titan II missile explosion, and especially the inﬂux of Cuban refugees—ultimately enervated his leadership image. (The role of this failure in his 1980 reelection failure resulted in Clinton’s commitment to a strong state emergency management team throughout the remainder of his governorship and carried over into his presidency with the much-praised restructuring and reenergizing of the Federal Emergency Management Agency by Arkansan James Lee Witt.) Who lives by the sword dies by the sword. A governor who overplays his role as hero, constantly riding out to protect “his” people against the forces of evil, can appear ineffectual when the problems are intractable. As modern technology multiplies the list of life-threatening hazards, so the Handler of Emergencies role becomes more potent and more risky, especially because many of today’s crises precipitate extensive and often frustrating relationships with the federal govemment.32 Although weather-related emergencies remain seemingly omnipresent in Arkansas, a conﬂuence of factors that emerged about 1990 have created regular appearances of man-made emergencies in the form of personal scandals. Most of these were transitory, but others (most notably the federal case against Jim Guy Tucker) festered. Such personal crises differ from the administrative crises discussed at the end of the last section because they focus on the individual actions of the governor or his intimates. Handling them has therefore become a most important test for recent governors. The post-Watergate mass media, an increasingly combative political environment, and the openness created by more expansive ethics regulations came together in 1990 in the case of Attorney General Steve Clark. Clark’s use of ofﬁce credit cards for hundreds of “business” lunches and dinners with individuals who the Arkansas Gazette showed were not in fact present to consume the elaborate meals and drink the Dom Perignon at the state’s fanciest restaurants, led to his conviction on theft of public monies. Since the Clark case, governors (and other state ofﬁcials) have consistently had to deal with questions related to personal integrity pointedly posed by the

[174], (19)

Lines: 200 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[174], (19)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

175

press, federal and state prosecutors, the state Ethics Commission, and the state legislature. Most serious, of course, were federal convictions of Governor Tucker derived from the Whitewater investigation into Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Arkansas ﬁnancial dealings. Perversely, considering Tucker and Clinton’s political competition, these hit Tucker more directly. Governor Huckabee, however, has dealt with a series of questions related to his integrity on a variety of topics. These have included the funding of a charitable organization (with secret contributors) that paid him for speeches, the questionable use of funds in the Governor’s Mansion account by the Huckabee family, and the receipt of large numbers of gifts. They have also included the frequent use of his pardon and commutation power (a unique power of the governor), most controversially in the Huckabee-promoted parole case of convicted rapist Wayne DuMond, who was charged with murdering a woman in Missouri soon after his departure from an Arkansas prison. Similarly, his integrity was questioned over his involvement in the attempted cancellation of a public television show hosted by a political critic and in the departure of the state “computer czar” when it became clear that the czar was going to go public over the troubled implementation of the state computer system. In all these cases, documents that raised questions about Huckabee’s judgment and integrity were brought forward and publicized, and it became necessary for him to handle another emergency. It is clear that any future Arkansas governor will deal with similar challenges to his or her personal character. To succeed, they will need both integrity and, just as importantly, an ability to maintain their composure when that integrity is questioned. national intermediary Governors have always been the focal point in the various horizontal (stateto-state) and vertical (nation-state, state-local) relationships necessitated by the American federal system. Until recently, however, this role was a rather limited one involving requests for extradition (the return of fugitives from justice who have ﬂed a state’s jurisdiction), handling occasional border disputes with neighboring states, and annual trips to the Southern and the National Governors Conferences. National government concerns were largely left to the state’s delegation in the U.S. Congress, and state-local relationships revolved around providing sufﬁcient jobs and roads to satisfy the courthouse crowd. Now, especially with the growth of federal aid to state and local gov-

[175], (20)

Lines: 205 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [175], (20)

176 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

ernments in recent decades, the governor’s responsibilities as chief lobbyist and negotiator for the state have multiplied astronomically. The nature and politics of Arkansas’s contemporary federal relationships will be explored at length in chapter 11. What is important to note here is the extent to which these relationships are primarily the governor’s responsibility. As with the chief executive role, public expectations are high: get our state’s fair share of federal funds, get quick federal disaster aid in an emergency, make us look good to the world outside. They are also somewhat contradictory: pay ﬁrst attention to Arkansas; don’t go gallivanting around beyond our borders; don’t let the federal government tell us how to manage our affairs; don’t shine too much in the national press or we’ll suspect you’re more interested in promoting your political ambitions than in the state’s well-being. Since decisions made in Washington or Detroit or Taiwan or Tokyo can have enormous economic consequences in Arkansas, governors no longer have the option of remaining insular. Many of the governor’s chief staff members have intergovernmental responsibilities, and governors must frequently exert themselves personally to capture the sympathetic attention of other actors (White House aides, congressional committee chairmen, federal power commissioners) in the federal system. In the cases of Bill Clinton, of course, and, to a lesser extent, Mike Huckabee (who has been a presence at national meetings of the Christian Coalition and other conservative organizations), some of this national activity by governors has been connected with their desire to have national prominence. Probably the only time when their extra-state efforts are safe from potential political criticism, however, is when they are explicitly devoted to seeking more jobs for Arkansans. promoter of economic health As noted in one analysis (and reafﬁrmed by recent works), southern governors have become “the de facto executive directors of the state chambers of commerce.” The behavior of recent Arkansas governors conﬁrms this observation. In fact, Governor Clinton estimated that this was his single most time-consuming task. More recent governors have replicated this focus on bringing particular employers to the state and on changing the perception of Arkansas as a “business friendly” environment more generally. For example, Governor Huckabee’s 1996 trip to New York centered on meetings with business newspaper writers.33 As noted in earlier chapters, this role has long historical precedent. What is new, however, is the intensity with which economic development is pursued,

[176], (21)

Lines: 217 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[176], (21)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

177

and the extent to which gubernatorial campaigns now revolve around the jobcreation theme. Now all candidates spew statistics on what has and has not been accomplished and which of their efforts will ﬁnally elevate Arkansas from its perennially low rankings into full-ﬂedged economic prosperity. The emphasis is understandable: “more jobs and bigger payrolls” is a language everybody understands and applauds (with only a few cautionary objections from no-growth environmentalists chorusing in the background). Governors are never more popular than when they are announcing the coming of a major new industry or cutting the ribbon at a plant-opening ceremony, and legislators are especially cooperative in responding to governors’ economic development initiatives.34 The problem, of course, is that as the campaign rhetoric has escalated, so have public expectations. Many—perhaps most—of the forces determining Arkansas’s economic prosperity are far beyond the governor’s sphere of inﬂuence. For decades, it was argued that key barriers to overcoming Arkansas’s persistent economic stagnation were the two-year gubernatorial term that encouraged quick economic ﬁxes before the ever-looming next election and the constant turnover in the directorship of the economic development commission. These observations, while not incorrect, missed a more fundamental point: even the lengthiest of gubernatorial terms and the most experienced of industrial development directors cannot prevent competition from cheaper foreign imports or other adverse by-products of complex international markets. For example, foreign imports cost Arkansas 49 percent of its total employment in textiles when three plants closed on one weekend in the 1980s. Governors who promise too much can be hoisted by the petard of their own rhetoric, but the exigencies of elections make this role increasingly essential and tempting. symbol of state In contrast to the ﬁve previous gubernatorial roles, in each of which the governor must share power with many others, when it comes to public attention, the governor reigns supreme. Whereas other participants in state politics and government must ﬁght for whatever scraps of popular and media attention they receive, a gubernatorial press conference is an automatic draw, and the gubernatorial presence at any event elevates it to a major media happening. Because of the reﬂected glory a governor’s presence presumably sheds upon events, he is bombarded with invitations to speak, preside, dedicate, inspect, and merely attend thousands of beneﬁts, conventions,

[177], (22)

Lines: 229 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [177], (22)

178 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

openings, rallies, commencements, and so on. Adept schedulers, then, may pick and choose those appearances that will best suit gubernatorial needs. Some of these events take place out in and around the state. Others are constantly orchestrated in the resplendent gubernatorial conference room as the governor solemnly declares that it is Turnip Planting Week, or Registered Land Surveyors Week, or Gospel Music Month, or American Adopta-Grandparent Day, followed by much hand shaking and picture taking. The Governor’s Mansion is not only the state-provided residence of the governor and his family but also a quasi-public place, where many charitable organizations hold their beneﬁts and galas and where the governor and ﬁrst lady annually shake hands with long lines of valedictorians from the state’s hundreds of high schools and their parents. These unceasing ceremonies mean that it is a rare day when the newspapers and nightly television broadcasts do not portray Arkansas’s governor in some appealing pose: in a hardhat turning the ﬁrst symbolic shovel of earth; sitting on the hard ﬂoor of the conference room reading to children during Literacy Month; handcuffed to a state trooper on law enforcement day; or cuddling a bunny during Rabbit Breeder’s Week. Governor Huckabee, for example, issued nearly three hundred proclamations in 2001, most of them involving sheer ceremony.35 All of this constitutes much more than fun and foolishness. These “pics and procs” are a constant reminder to citizens of their governor’s identity and symbolic association with the state. They offer boundless opportunities for the governor to cement his relationships with the citizenry while pressing for and propagandizing his priorities and policies. The governors of all states employ their ceremonial obligations to create favorable public images and opinions, but according to one study an activist approach is especially characteristic of governors who have weak or moderate formal powers, who thus can “use their public role to overcome the lack of other more formal powers at their command.”36 Though most nineteenth-century Arkansas governors followed what has been described as the Whig tradition of a digniﬁed and somewhat passive chief of state, by the early twentieth century Jeff Davis refused to “refrain from stirring up emotion in politics,” as Cal Ledbetter Jr. noted. “He saw the possibilities which the ofﬁce offered for dramatizing if not achieving reform.” It remained for contemporary governors, however, to use the ofﬁce systematically and deliberately for dramatizing and publicizing, and to employ today’s technology to do so.37 Public opinion polls and television commercials had become part of the

[178], (23)

Lines: 239 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[178], (23)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

179

Arkansas election scene by the 1960s. By the 1980s, they were being employed in governance as well. Governor Clinton used television commercials to remind people of his accomplishments after the 1983 and 1985 legislative sessions and radio commercials to urge people to call their legislators and express support for teacher testing during the 1985 session. Though Jim Guy Tucker continued the practice on occasion, Mike Huckabee’s time in the governorship took outreach to citizens to a new level, both in variety of media used and constancy of interaction. Huckabee used radio and television appeals as speciﬁc issues rose to the surface. For example, they helped him lay out his side in the capitalimprovement fund battle noted earlier and support an eighth-of-a-cent sales tax primarily for Parks and Tourism and the Game and Fish Commission, ads for which featured his four-day bass boat ride down the Arkansas River. Nevertheless, it was Huckabee’s more ongoing use of the media that made him, an effective communicator, a regular presence in the lives of Arkansans. Early in his administration, for example, he began engaging in a monthly call-in radio show broadcast throughout the state. Throughout his governorship, Huckabee appeared on a regular television call-in program on educational television (a practice that gave rise to a legislative attempt to limit what derisively was nicknamed “Huck tv”). Most effectively, through omnipresent public service announcements, Huckabee claimed ownership of the arkids First child health insurance program (the Arkansas version of the federal chip program). The rise of the Internet also coincided with Huckabee’s governorship, and he effectively used his photo-ﬁlled web page (and invitation for personal e-mails) to make information about his policies and ofﬁce accessible. Three books published by Huckabee—each mixing his public life experiences with lessons arising from his Christian faith— added additional variety to his media outreach, touching voters not normally conscious of gubernatorial actions. Furthermore, polling is now done throughout a gubernatorial term, and those surveys are at least one inﬂuential factor in deciding the political tactics if not the substance of policy development. There is something deeply disturbing about the concept of a professional pollster in Texas or Virginia having any inﬂuence in public policy decisions for the state of Arkansas. The practice seems faintly Machiavellian, with ominous overtones of Orwellianism; and quite naturally governors deny that their decisions are ever governed by polling results. There is, however, a curious irony here. To the extent that contemporary governors do in fact “look to the polls as the Greeks consulted the oracle at

[179], (24)

Lines: 247 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [179], (24)

180 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Delphi,” they may know more about, and hence give more weight to, public sentiments and preferences than was ever true in Arkansas’s political past. If that information is used to shape what has previously been described as transformational or educative leadership, the results could prove beneﬁcial. On the other hand, if polls are used to avoid the controversial and unpopular, to reﬁne the governor’s capacity only for clever transactional leadership, then extensive reliance upon them could clearly have a chilling effect upon democratic dialogue and competition.38 For better or worse, then, contemporary Arkansas governors are the chief symbol of the state and have unparalleled opportunities, enhanced by modern technology, for inﬂuencing popular opinion on public issues. No rivals vie for this role, nor do any formal constraints rein it in. There are, however, some very practical restraints and limits. First, as suggested at the outset, to be visible is to be vulnerable. Since few citizens know more about state government than the governor’s name and the size of their state tax bill, the more noticeable the governor becomes, the more exposed he is to blame for taxes, spending, or other essential but unpopular state government activities. A different type of vulnerability is created by the fact that this visibility also prevents the governor from maintaining any real sense of private life. The last name of a spouse, the stability of a marriage, weight gain or loss, the public behavior of children, and even the attire and appearance of the ﬁrst family on the annual Christmas card all become a matter of public discussion and critique.39 Second, because the governor is the state’s personiﬁcation, and because of what has been described as the profoundly personalized nature of Arkansas politics, the governor cannot possibly give his personal time to all those who feel entitled to it. This is where a skilled gubernatorial staff is critical, which leads to the last major gubernatorial role. running the governor’s office As the range and complexity of gubernatorial functions have increased, so have the size and intricacy of the governor’s staff. Through the early 1960s, the staff consisted of seven to ten persons, mostly clerical and stenographic assistants. By 2004 there were nearly sixty persons on the governor’s staff, most with professional responsibilities for policy development, agency liaison, and constituent and intergovernmental relations (and more than a few with salaries higher than the governor). Because these are considered uniquely the governor’s own employees, incoming governors, even when

[180], (25)

Lines: 253 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[180], (25)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

181

the transition is intraparty, sweep out the old staff and bring in an entirely new crew, whose only loyalty and accountability is to that particular incumbent. Under the chief of staff’s management, thousands of calls and letters (invitations, recommendations, requests for jobs and honorary appointments, policy views, complaints about state agencies, questionnaires) receive responses, while other staff members initiate and generate policy, administrative suggestions, press coverage, and constituency contacts. Whatever the assorted professional responsibilities of individual staff members, all have speciﬁcally political functions as well. Unquestionably, the growth in the governor’s staff apparatus has been an empowering inﬂuence. No longer does the governor need to spend 75 percent of his time, as Governor Charles Brough complained was necessary, on decisions regarding pardons and paroles. Special aides can handle the most time-consuming aspects of this function. The author of a 1948 study of the Arkansas governor’s schedule concluded that over 60 percent of a governor’s visitors came to request jobs and other special favors, for social reasons, or as representatives of civic, church, and school organizations. This reﬂected not only the time-consuming aspects of the old spoils system but the absence of staff who could handle many of these matters in the governor’s name. A routine function performed by a staff member, or at least adequately prepared by staff for gubernatorial decision, saves the governor’s time for more useful matters, and is therefore a net plus.40 As always, however, every plus has its minuses. First, the expansion of the gubernatorial staff has created something of a mini-bureaucracy with personnel and supervisory problems of its own. Governor Pryor alluded to this problem in a postgubernatorial interview: “And a lot of times a public ofﬁcial will spend almost as much time keeping his staff and cabinet and the people he has around him happy as he does keeping his constituency happy.”41 More important is a problem that may be unique to Arkansas, or at least to states like Arkansas that are still in transition between the old, small-scale, slow-paced, personalized atmosphere of traditional state government and the new, bigger, bureaucratized and more complex era. Tens of thousands of people in Arkansas feel that they have a personal claim to the governor’s time, and cannot be satisﬁed by any staff aide, no matter how efﬁciently the aide performs the requested function or favor. Surely in most other states a county committee contest, a child’s school problems, a late Social Security check, do not necessitate a chat with the governor, but they often do in Arkansas. Surely, in most other states those who ﬁnd themselves in

[181], (26)

Lines: 267 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [181], (26)

182 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

the state capital on business or pleasure do not feel compelled or entitled to drop by the governor’s ofﬁce for an impromptu visit. As late as 2004, however, that frequently occurs in Arkansas. Surely, in other states e-mails addressed to “Brother Mike” asking for assistance in getting potholes in front of the e-mailer’s home ﬁxed are not common—but that is still the pattern in Arkansas. And staff aides who are overly protective of the governor’s time and schedule can create sticky political backlash as word spreads that “you can’t get through to the governor.” Gubernatorial staff members must not only make thousands of politically sensitive decisions about the most appropriate use of the governor’s time but must also deal with a fervent belief in gubernatorial omnipotence. It is up to the governor’s staff, who helped create these heightened expectations of gubernatorial forcefulness during the campaign, to explain the limits of the ofﬁce to disbelieving action seekers after the campaign is over. In identifying and describing this role, Clinton—the only incumbent Arkansas governor to be defeated at the polls in the past half-century— candidly admitted how thoroughly he mishandled it in his ﬁrst administration. In assembling an effective staff, he learned, it was most important to ﬁnd people “who are not only good at government, but good at making people feel good.” Managing the governor’s ofﬁce does not appear in political science literature as a major gubernatorial role, but in Arkansas it is a critical one.42 an analysis Having reviewed contemporary gubernatorial functions, and the powers and limitations encountered in each of these roles, we can now return to the questions raised at the outset: Are the Arkansas governor’s powers equal to the demands of modern governance? Has the governorship become a reliable and responsive link between citizen preferences and governmental action? First, regarding gubernatorial power it seems fair to conclude that though the formal strengths of an Arkansas governor are comparatively modest, the actual power and inﬂuence of that ofﬁce are far greater than those of any other single actor in the state’s political system. The most serious incapacities are those involving what was intended to be the governor’s preeminent role as chief executive. The governor’s role as legislative leader has expanded far beyond original expectations, however, and additional functions involving economic development, intergovernmental relationships, crisis management, and policy and opinion leadership have all combined to give the governor unrivaled centrality in both politics and governance. This review also suggests that much of the governor’s power is somewhat

[182], (27)

Lines: 273 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[182], (27)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

183

fragile and illusory, based as much or more on the political skills, personal energy, staff competence, and perceived popularity of the incumbent as on constitutional provisions and legal authority. A person of modest talents, average vigor, and little charisma might well ﬁnd the insufﬁciency of formal power incapacitating. Since much of state government’s vitality depends upon the governorship, and this in turn depends heavily upon the personal aptitudes of those who hold the ofﬁce, it is important to understand which individuals are most likely to seek and to obtain that ofﬁce. Thus far, all of Arkansas’s forty-three governors have been white male Protestants, and most (thirty-two) have been lawyers. Arkansas’s governors have also tended to be younger (an average of 44.3 years old upon election or succession) than their national counterparts (on average, over 3 years older).43 In part this relative youthfulness reﬂects Arkansas’s divergence from the norm of many other states, where aspiring politicians are expected to slowly ascend the political ladder, paying their dues and proving themselves at each rung. By contrast, Arkansas’s politics—especially because of the traditional weakness of its political parties—is highly porous, accessible to anyone with the ambition to enter it at any level. Whereas in most states governors are usually chosen from the ranks of those with previous state legislative experience (52.6 percent nationally in the 1970s and 1980s) or in statewide elective ofﬁce (27.8 percent nationally), only one of Arkansas’s past twelve governors served in the state legislature (David Pryor, a state representative from 1961 to 1966). Moreover, only three (the last three) held a previous statewide elective ofﬁce (i.e., Tucker’s stint as attorney general two decades before his governorship; Clinton’s two years as attorney general; and Huckabee’s time as lieutenant governor before succession). Governors Faubus and Bumpers were defeated in earlier attempts for the state legislature, and Pryor’s state legislative background was dimmed by six intervening years in the U.S. Congress.44 In fact, looking at those who have governed Arkansas for the past thirty years, one is struck by what seems to be the dissimilarity of their backgrounds and career paths to the governorship: a hill county newspaper publisher, a transplanted New York multimillionaire businessman, a small-town trial lawyer and cattle rancher, a former state legislator and congressman, a law professor, a savings and loan executive, a former prosecutor and congressman turned cable television entrepreneur, and a Southern Baptist minister. If there is no standard career path to the governorship, is there some common attraction that the ofﬁce offers to a variety of potential candidates? Certainly none of these recent ofﬁceholders was attracted, as in earlier

[183], (28)

Lines: 289 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [183], (28)

184 The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

times in Arkansas some were, by the salary. (In 1923, when the ofﬁce paid $4,000 annually, one gubernatorial hopeful bemoaned the estimated cost of a race in his diary as follows: “It is a sad day for civic righteousness when one has to spend more than 4 years salary to get into ofﬁce.” What might he have thought of spending more than thirty-six times what the ofﬁce paid to obtain it?) Nor, despite the high-proﬁle success of the Big Three—has the governorship been a particularly reliable steppingstone to higher ofﬁce. Of eight twentieth-century governors who attempted to move up to the U.S. Senate, only four were successful.45 Rather, what seems to have attracted most of Arkansas’s recent governors to the ofﬁce was the unparalleled opportunities it offers for making things happen, for being at the political center, for making a difference in the capacities and image of the state and in the lives of its citizens. California Speaker Jesse Unruh once attempted to explain political ambition as follows: “Until you’ve been in politics you’ve never really been alive. It’s the only sport for grownups, all other games are for kids.” In the Arkansas context, all but gubernatorial politics are essentially games for kids. If, as has been suggested, political change and progress depend uniquely on gubernatorial initiatives, and if gubernatorial effectiveness in turn depends heavily on the personal drive and forcefulness that individual incumbents bring to that ofﬁce, some comfort may be taken in the likelihood that only those individuals with the strongest ambitions are likely to seek and obtain the ofﬁce. That such individuals always offer potential dangers to the body politic should also be obvious.46 There remains the question of the extent to which the ofﬁce has become an effective mechanism through which Arkansas citizens, for whom little such linkage existed in the past, can express and implement their will. Because of the vigorous competition entailed in gubernatorial elections, a competition that now involves partisan and broad policy differences as well as personality contests, an opportunity does seem to exist for an increasingly participatory citizenry with heightened expectations about state services to articulate its general political values in choosing one candidate over others. Furthermore, if the modern techniques of opinion research are used for public-regarding purposes, today’s governors have the opportunity to serve as a critical catalyst between public preferences and policy results. In one recent comprehensive study of Arkansas governors from 1900 through Clinton, the authors reached the conclusion that only one (Dale Bumpers) had been “great,” that seven of the twenty could be classiﬁed as “good,” that most had been “average” (7) or “below average” (5). However,

[184], (29)

Lines: 297 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[184], (29)

The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

185

two modern governors—Bumpers and Clinton—were in the three highestrated governors. It is clear, then, that this ofﬁce that was once strong only by default, strong simply because it was less weak than any other position in a totally fragmented political system, has now become the potential source of transformational as well as transactional leadership. Whether it will be consistently or even occasionally used for those purposes is, of course, unpredictable.47 Furthermore, although the governorship is the mightiest force in state politics, the executive remains only one of three branches of government. Both the legislative and judicial branches have also strengthened their capacity to deal with contemporary issues, but they have not embraced modernity so enthusiastically or comprehensively as has the executive.

[Last Page] [185], (30)

Lines: 303 to ———

348.84001 ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [185], (30)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter nine

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

[First Page [186], (1) “Honey, if we only did things that were constitutional we’d have gone home months ago.” State legislator, to the executive director of the Arkansas aclu, 1997

Lines: 0 to ———

I’ll make a[n] . . . assertion about the Arkansas Legislature, aware that someone will surely send the following sentence to Ripley: Our Legislature is less dishonest and less ineffective than it used to be. Longtime legislative observer John Brummett, 2000

State historians have not attempted to rank Arkansas legislatures as they have governors, but it seems fair to say that if few governors achieved very impressive records of achievement, their efforts still shine in contrast to those of the legislatures with which they dealt. Indeed, the institutional ineffectiveness of the legislative branch was a constant thread in Arkansas political history from the 1830s through the 1960s.1 Unlike the governorship, which began the twentieth century in the straitjacket imposed by the 1874 constitution, the legislature brought at least some of its institutional disabilities upon itself. The constitution established a biennial session not to exceed 60 days, but permitted the legislature to extend the session by a two-thirds vote in both chambers and to set their own compensation. By 1901 the legislature had extended its meeting to 107 days, by 1907 to 117 days, and by 1909 to 145 days, all at a per diem expense rate. Because much of the legislators’ time was spent on purely local legislation (for example, regulating the number and place of train stops) and they constantly yielded to the bribery and coercion of railroad, insurance, liquor, and other lobbyists, the patience of the people snapped, and they

1.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [186], (1)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

187

used their new power of the constitutional initiative to slap on the handcuffs. Amendment 5, ratiﬁed by a 78 percent majority in 1912, provided a payment of six dollars per diem for the ﬁrst 60 days of a session, three dollars per diem for the ﬁrst 15 days of extraordinary sessions, and nothing thereafter. Five subsequent amendments over the decades have raised legislative salaries (and now allow for increases by statute). Moreover, additional statutes have provided supplementary compensation and beneﬁts, and few sessions in modern times have concluded their work within the 60-day limit. Nevertheless, the concept of a limited legislature with part-time pay for parttime work still prevails. Indeed, until 1973, the legislature simply ceased to exist at the close of the brief biennial session: no professional staff, no ongoing committees, and no permanent legislative leaders maintained the institutional presence of the legislature in the interim. And, again until recent reforms, the sessions were destined to be nonproductive. Each new term brought a large proportion of newcomers who wandered in bewilderment through a raucous and undisciplined atmosphere in which lobbyists swarmed onto the chamber ﬂoors (and frequently joined in the voting), bills were scheduled or buried at whim through mysterious manipulations, committees and committee assignments were so numerous as to be meaningless, and whatever real business the legislature accomplished was worked out in latenight (and frequently liquor-fueled) sessions in the downtown Marion Hotel.2 The state press occasionally fulminated against the boodle and booze, and a few citizen reform groups sometimes protested, but there is little to suggest that legislators themselves were embarrassed by their ineffectiveness or that citizens really expected the legislature to do much more than it did. Nor was this situation unique to Arkansas. As the Citizens’ Conference on State Legislatures aptly observed in 1973, “We have never really wanted our state legislatures to amount to much, and they have obliged us.” Furthermore, at least some Arkansans greatly preferred and deliberately perpetuated a passive rather than interventionist assembly. As V. O. Key pointed out, Arkansas’s atomized politics made it possible “to elect a ﬁre-eating governor who promises great accomplishments and simultaneously to elect a legislature a majority of whose members are committed to inaction.” This situation, Key continued, “gives great negative power to those with a few dollars to invest in legislative candidates . . . and redounds to the beneﬁt of the upper brackets.”3 The aura of inaction was further guaranteed by apportionment schemes that overweighted the votes and inﬂuence of rural areas at the expense of a slowly urbanizing and more action-oriented citizenry. The constitutional

[187], (2)

Lines: 62 to 6 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [187], (2)

188 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

guarantee (article 8) of one representative to each of seventy-ﬁve counties, with the other twenty-ﬁve (and all thirty-ﬁve senate districts) apportioned on the basis of population after each decennial census, ensured a slight rural bias. However, this bias was enhanced by the legislature’s refusal to reapportion itself at all from 1890 to 1936 (when a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment gave the apportionment power to a nonlegislative Board of Apportionment). It was further strengthened by the continued guarantee of at least one representative to each county in that and a subsequent 1956 amendment, which also froze existing senate districts permanently in place. Until federal court-ordered reapportionment in 1965, state legislators represented from 4,927 to 31,641 persons, with the result that 35.7 percent of the population could elect a majority of the lower house.4 By the 1970s and continuing thereafter, all representatives and senators were elected by approximately equal numbers of citizens (about 27,000 in the average house district, 76,000 in senate districts after the 2000 reapportionment), and all senators and representatives are now elected from singlemember districts. In the strictly numerical sense, then, today’s legislature is much more representative than it was in the past. Of equal or greater importance is that structural and procedural reforms ﬁnally resulted from equitable apportionment, plus the rising power in the 1960s of the dissident backbenchers known as the Young Turks, buoyed by an increasingly reformist atmosphere as reﬂected in Winthrop Rockefeller’s and Dale Bumpers’s elections over old-guard opposition. In 1971 the General Assembly created a special committee to make a comprehensive study of the legislature and report its ﬁndings to the 1973 session. The Committee on Legislative Organization employed the Eagleton Institute of Politics to assist with the study. The subsequent adoption of most of its major recommendations has contributed to a dramatically upgraded legislative operation.5 The atmosphere in which the legislature conducts its business has become much more digniﬁed and disciplined. Both lobbyists and liquor have been ofﬁcially banished from the chamber ﬂoors, and the occasional hog calling, ﬁddle playing, or rubber-band shooting is a rare tension reliever rather than a routine occurrence. Committees have been drastically reduced from more than sixty to ten standing subject committees in each chamber, with the ﬁve A committees and ﬁve B committees meeting on alternate mornings so legislators can attend all meetings of the two major committees to which they are assigned and still attend all afternoon chamber sessions. Furthermore, these committees are now authorized to meet during the interim between sessions to study problems and shape legislation before the hectic session begins. The

[188], (3)

Lines: 68 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [188], (3)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

189

Legislative Council, established in 1949 both as a legislative committee for presession review of budget requests and as a legislative reference bureau, now offers a sixty-person Bureau of Legislative Research, which provides professional staff assistance to the interim committees and to individual legislators as they envision and draft legislation. The legislators themselves are markedly more devoted to their responsibilities, and most are more likely to spend their evenings poring through the contents of bulging briefcases than pouring down drinks in hotel bars. In the 1989 and 1991 sessions, half of the members reported working at least sixty hours per week during the session, with the vast majority of that time devoted to formal lawmaking chores. Even if we should be wary of such self-reported responses about their hard work, the notion that such intense workloads is an expected response is a dramatic change among Arkansas state legislators in and of itself.6 Though the constitutional limitations ensured that the legislature would remain an amateur body, more signs of natural maturation were reﬂected in legislators’ increased professionalism and in the instances when reformist legislators demanded increased openness and even-handedness in the legislative process. Among these instances was the 1987 session when the so-called White Lights house members held up the appropriations process because they felt too few leaders controlled money decisions in the legislature; after the 1990 election cycle in which several powerful old-guard state senators were defeated or retired and several open government-types entered the senate and promptly limited the number of committees senators could chair; and, ﬁnally, in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the senate changed its rules twice to make it more difﬁcult for powerful senators to trap legislation in committee. However, the 1992 passage of the strict term limits amendment, allowing state senators only two four-year terms and state house members three two-year terms, derailed the natural institutional growth of the legislature. The lack of continuity created by the removal of all veteran legislators has interrupted the evolution of the legislature into a more fully reformed body. Instead, term limits means that the vast majority of legislators will continue to see their role as being “more like a city council member” than as vital state policymakers and that more activist members will be necessarily conscious of taking actions that will help them stay in public life (through election to another position) rather than fully investing in their legislative duties. In addition to interrupting the natural institutional growth of the legislature, the arrival of term limits has altered nearly every other characteristic of the membership and operation of theArkansas General Assembly.7

[189], (4)

Lines: 72 to 8 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [189], (4)

190 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

the legislators The formal requirements for seeking a two-year term in the house or a four-year term in the senate are those of age (twenty-one for the house, twenty-ﬁve for the senate) and residence (at least two years in the state, one year in the legislative district) and, after the term limits amendment, previous service. Informally, however, judging by those actually elected to the General Assembly, citizens prefer middle-aged legislators (in their midforties to mid-ﬁfties, with the post–term limits house exhibiting a slightly wider range of ages) who have been longtime residents of the area they represent. In the 1999 assembly (the ﬁrst completely term-limited session in the house), just under three-quarters of the 135 lawmakers were born in Arkansas, and of those who were not, all but sixteen had been born in a neighboring state. Furthermore, a healthy majority of the legislators were representing either the county in which they were born (47 percent) or a contiguous county (10 percent). Though slightly less homegrown than the legislature of a generation earlier, in the sense of having roots deep in the particular areas they serve Arkansas legislators are highly representative of their constituents.8 Legislators also reﬂect the predominant Protestant preferences of the state. For the 2001 session, for example, only 5 Catholics and 1 Jewish member were elected, compared with 123 Protestants. Unlike some turnof-the-century legislatures where ministers comprised one-ﬁfth of the membership, ministers have become very rare, never more than two in recent sessions. Nevertheless, religiosity is still an important qualiﬁcation: only a smattering of legislators (six in the most recent session) fail to specify their religious afﬁliation, which over 60 percent of the time is either Baptist or Methodist. Interestingly, while the number of Protestants not from mainline denominations in the state house has increased slightly, the fast-growing nondenominational churches that increasingly mark the landscape of the state are underrepresented in the state legislature. As with age and nativity, term limits seems to have affected the religious afﬁliation and religiosity of the legislature very little.9 Arkansas legislators are much less representative of race and, especially, sex than they are of religion. No African Americans served in the Arkansas legislature from 1893 until 1972, when three black representatives and one black senator were elected. Reapportionments after the Voting Rights Act of 1982, however, have created additional majority black districts in both the house and senate, and, in almost all cases, African Americans have

[190], (5)

Lines: 80 t ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [190], (5)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

191

been selected to represent these areas. The 2003 session, for instance, saw twelve African American house members and three African Americans in the senate. Though dramatically more representative than the legislators whose pictures line the hallways of the capitol building, this 11 percent lagged behind the state’s overall 2000 African American population of just under 16 percent. In the area of racial composition, term limits has had only a minimal impact on the legislature. Two white incumbents who had found success in majority black districts were term-limited and were replaced by African Americans in 1998. Importantly, though, term limits mean that individual African American representatives will never have the opportunity to develop the seniority that pays off for the communities they represent. Moreover, as discussed in chapter 4, future reapportionments will likely see decreases in majority black districts as other, whiter (and, possibly, browner) parts of the state have greater prospects for growth.10 Term limits have had an impact on the gender composition of the legislature, and not in the direction anticipated. Women gained numerical strength faster than African Americans and, into the 1990s, showed prospects of additional growth (especially in the house). Arkansas’s lower house actually neared the national average when 22 women served in the 100-member state house in 1997 (although only one of 35 senate members was female) and, as will be discussed later in the chapter, these women showed instances of coalescence. Term limits advocates argued that the departure of male incumbents would take away the single largest barrier to women’s success in legislative elections. More women were term-limited than were sent to newly opened seats in the ﬁrst couple of post–term limits cycles, however. Especially hard hit were African American women; ﬁve were term-limited in 1998, and all were replaced by black men. The decrease in women in the Arkansas legislature to 14 percent before the 2002 elections meant that the state was well behind the national average of 22 percent and, indeed, more representative on gender than only six other states. As several scholars have found in their analyses of the effects of term limits in Arkansas and other states, it is in the area of gender where the most obvious compositional changes from the pre–term limits days show themselves. A rebound in the 2002 election cycle—when a record 7 women (20 percent) were elected to the state senate—may be a blip or may portend a delayed beneﬁt of term limits for women’s representation.11 In an unrepresentative sense that many would deem fortunate, most legislators are considerably better educated than the general population. Whereas only 16.6 percent of Arkansas citizens were college graduates in

[191], (6)

Lines: 86 to 9 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [191], (6)

192 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

2000, 54 percent of all 2001 lawmakers had at least a college degree (and all but a handful had spent some time in college), and over 20 percent had a graduate or professional degree (though these numbers do denote a drop in education levels from the pre–term limits era). As the education data suggest, and as the part-time nature of the legislature practically compels, the legislature is also markedly unrepresentative in terms of occupation. A realtor or banker, the owner of a furniture store or car dealership, may have the time ﬂexibility and ﬁnancial security to adjust his or her schedule to a regular session of two months or more, increasingly frequent special sessions, and countless committee meetings and constituent obligations in between. The realtor’s administrative assistant, a bank teller, and the furniture and car salespersons who must be at work if they are to receive an income, simply cannot serve. Understandably, then, the great majority of Arkansas legislators are self-employed, mostly owners or proprietors of business or agribusiness establishments; real estate, investment, or insurance brokers; or professionals. The number of farmer-legislators sharply declined through the twentieth century into the next century, and, more surprisingly, the percentage of lawyer-legislators has dropped steeply in recent decades: from 58 percent of the senate and 39 percent of the house in 1949, to 20 percent of the senate and 9 percent of the house by 2001. What has always been true and remains so, however, is that only a handful of Arkansas legislators, as compared with most Arkansas citizens, work for wages as the employee of somebody else.12 The compensation for Arkansas legislators has become much more generous than it was in the recent past. A 1992 constitutional amendment raised the annual salary and allowed limited pay raises to be instituted by statute. As a result, as of 2002 legislators made $12,789 a year, which together with various per diem payments, expense and travel allowances, can amount to about $25,000 annually. For someone otherwise proﬁtably employed that is enough to break even, and for a retiree it is a nice supplemental income. It is not however, and is not designed to be, a full-time income on which to support a family.13 Obviously, most of those in the informal pool of eligibles (middle-aged white males with long residence, an acceptable religion, a good education, and occupational ﬂexibility) do not seek a legislative seat. What might motivate those relative few who are attracted to the legislative arena? One of the most thorough investigations of state legislators’ ambitions was done in the 1960s by James Barber, who concluded that there were four basic types of legislators, distinguished in terms of personal motivation:

[192], (7)

Lines: 90 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [192], (7)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

193

Reluctants, who are pressed into service by the local elite to keep some wholly unqualiﬁed and undesirable individual from winning an open seat by default; Advertisers, who see legislative service as a means to economic self-advancement (especially true of ﬂedgling lawyers in past times when they could not legally advertise); Spectators, possessing modest ambition and limited skills who nevertheless enjoy the ego-building fellowship of their colleagues and attention from their constituents; and, least numerous, the Lawmakers, who devote an exceptional amount of time, energy, and leadership to the actual formulation of legislation and management of the legislative process. More recent analyses of state legislators nationally suggest that Reluctants and Advertisers are rapidly disappearing, that Spectators are diminishing, and that serious Lawmakers are increasing, a generalization that seems applicable, with some qualiﬁcations, to Arkansas as well.14 When Arkansas legislators are asked to identify what drew them to the legislature and what they like about serving there, they most frequently respond in terms of community service and helping people. They also, however, mention their general enjoyment of and interest in the political process as well as the prestige and inﬂuence associated with the ofﬁce. Like state legislators elsewhere, then, some combination of altruism and ambition, of public-mindedness and private desire, stimulates those with an existing predisposition toward politics to make a try for the legislature when an inviting opportunity arises—such as the term-limiting or resignation of an incumbent or a new seat created by reapportionment.15 Still, several aspects of the Arkansas legislative recruitment process are somewhat distinctive. First, unlike those states where close party competition forces active party recruitment of capable candidates, parties have been uniquely uninvolved in encouraging legislative candidacies in Arkansas. This was particularly true until the last decade of the twentieth century when the Republican Party began some systematic persuasion (through application of the Optimal Republican Voting Strength system successful in other southern states and other methods), and Republican competition stimulated Democrats to informal recruitment in portions of the state. As late as 1996, however, two-thirds of the state legislative seats in Arkansas were uncontested (in striking contrast, every seat in the Massachusetts legislature was contested in that year). In 80 percent of those cases, the absence of competition resulted from the gop’s failure to ﬁeld a candidate.16 The large number of open seats created by term limits—forty-eight of the one hundred house members were ofﬁcially barred from reelection in 1998 (with additional retirements creating a majority of “open” seats in that

[193], (8)

Lines: 94 to 1 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [193], (8)

194 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

cycle)—provided new opportunities for the parties to become more active in shaping the pool of candidates who would run for the legislature. A survey of lobbyists at the end of the century found that 65.1 percent perceived increased party involvement in recruitment after the onset of term limits. It should be noted, however, that interest groups—always active in Arkansas in recruiting candidates—have also become much more active in recruiting in the post–term limits legislature.17 Evidence suggests that the gop has taken fuller advantage of this opportunity. According to a 2001 survey of local party activists in the state, over two-thirds of Republican activists perceive that their party is stronger as a recruiter of candidates than a decade earlier. Only 25.2 percent of Democratic activists see their party as having made strides in this area. Still, though there has been change since a 1978 survey when only one of ﬁfty-ﬁve Democratic legislators interviewed had been approached and asked to run by the local Democratic organization, self-recruitment remains the norm in the state for both Democrats and Republicans.18 It is crucial to note that both parties’ limited recruitment energies focus almost entirely on “open seats” rather than on challenges to sitting members. Indeed, as indicated by the data shown in table 6, in the post–term limits era, while the number of election “contests” has necessarily risen through the elimination of incumbents, the number of challenges to house incumbents has remained steady from the pre-term-limits era. (Not surprisingly, and as additional evidence of the rise of two-party politics in the state, the rare challenges are more likely to come in the general election than in the primary.) Most tellingly, the number of successful challenges has dropped to the point that they are now truly exceptional. The election cycles of 1982 and 2002 both immediately followed redistrictings, which generally promote challenges to incumbents who have to face unfamiliar constituents. The comparative numbers for these two cycles are particularly striking, with incumbent challenges in 2002 remarkably low in both houses. Clearly, potential candidates are patiently waiting for the open seat that will come to house districts in two or four years rather than challenging an incumbent. Though this is rational behavior on the part of prospective candidates, the result seems to be the creation of de facto six-year terms in the Arkansas house in which voters are offered alternatives only when open seats are present. It should be expected that similar patterns will develop for the senate after term limits have fully gone into effect for that body. Second, the traditional lack of competition in legislative races resulted primarily from the fact that before term limits the ofﬁceholding ambitions of Arkansas legislators were notably limited. Indeed, Alan Rosenthal cited

[194], (9)

Lines: 100 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [194], (9)

10 8 2

11 6 1 26 3

Total Incumbents Challenged Total Incumbents Defeated

1980

5 5 2 2 1 0

30 18 3 16 7 1 31 6

1978

8 6 2 2 1 0

38 18 6 15 5 0 30 8

63 12

20 17 1

33 22 5

House

11 9 1

19 15 5

Senate

1982

7 2 0

28 7 0 33 20 0

8 5 0

40 5 0 51 14 2 28 2

4 1 1

25 16 4 11 7 0 24 5

30 1

16 2

35 13 0

32 11 1

14 3 0

11 2 2

11 1 1

6 4 0

1 0 0

2002

2000

1998

1984

Source: Compiled from Arkansas election returns, 1974–84, 1998–2002.

Note: In elections subsequent to the decennial census (1982, 2002) and reapportionment, all thirty-ﬁve senators must run for reelection and redrawn districts characteristically provoke increased challenges.

34 7

31 20 5

2 1 0

2 1 0

29 17 2

7 5 0

5 2 0

1976

Primary Election Number of Contests Incumbent Challenges Incumbent Defeats General Election Number of Contests Incumbent Challenges Incumbent Defeats

Primary Election Number of Contests Incumbent Challenges Incumbent Defeats General Election Number of Contests Incumbent Challenges Incumbent Defeats

1974

Table 6. Competitiveness of Arkansas Legislative Elections 1974–1984, 1998–2002

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [195], (10)

Lines: 161 to

*

507.0pt Pg

———

——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX

[195], (10)

196 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

the Arkansas legislature as an unparalleled example of “static”—that is, nonprogressive—ambitions: “Not many legislators inArkansas, for instance, have any hope of higher ofﬁce. . . . Indeed, if an individual were interested in higher ofﬁce, he or she would probably not have run for the legislature in the ﬁrst place. Thus, the ultimate ambition of those in Arkansas who run for the legislature is to serve in the legislature.” Between 1972 and 1982, the senate and house averaged, respectively, only 20 percent and 19 percent turnover rates. This was in marked contrast to state legislative turnover rates generally. In the mid-1970s, only one other senate and two state houses had less turnover than did Arkansas. In 1986 an extraordinary ninety-eight of one hundred representatives and ﬁfteen of the seventeen senators whose terms were expiring sought reelection. In Arkansas, a legislator gained ofﬁce with little desire to move on to another ofﬁce, was rarely challenged, and was almost never defeated. Of course, term limits has transformed Arkansas’s legislature from a paragon of stability into a poster child for instability.19 The unusual stability and tenure yields of pre–term limits Arkansas brought both beneﬁts and detriments. Legislators had a strong institutional commitment to their assembly and ample opportunity to acquire the procedural and substantive knowledge requisite for thoughtful lawmaking. Long tenures for key members gave the legislative branch as a whole a continuity that strengthened its stance in dealing with the governor and administrative agencies. Finally, because members valued their legislative position and wanted to prolong it, they were sensitive to their constituents’ opinions. On the down side, the remarkably homogeneous nature of the membership replicated on a much smaller scale the provincialism, parochialism, and limited vision that have long plagued Arkansas politics and policymaking. Arkansas legislators, for example, having none but Arkansas experiences, were intolerant of the kinds of state salaries that might attract more qualiﬁed people into public service. Also, legislators gained both formal and informal rewards for simply being there for decades (in several cases, over four decades), regardless of any programmatic knowledge acquired or leadership skills displayed along the way. Finally, because so few legislators had higher aspirations, there was little incentive other than personal satisfaction for creative policy activism or risk taking. While pre–term limits Arkansas legislators had ample opportunity to become serious and forceful Lawmakers (because of the exceptional power of incumbency), they were equally free to indulge themselves safely in the less demanding role of Spectator. To what degree have term limits corrected the deﬁciencies of the traditionally “static” Arkansas legislature? Clearly, where seniority is removed as a

[196], (11)

Lines: 161 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[196], (11)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

197

meaningful variable, individuals with legislative skills and policy expertise rise more quickly to the surface. There is also evidence that the post–term limits legislators spend more time on formal law making, that is, their jobs, than on socializing. Though they are not necessarily less provincial (as the demographic data summarized earlier suggests) there is considerable evidence that the post–term limits legislators are less parochial in their legislative behavior. Evidence from a variety of sources also indicates that they put less time into constituent services and district-focused spending projects. Term-limited legislators are signiﬁcantly more likely to think about the needs of the “state” as a whole than their district when analyzing policy proposals, according to the work of Carey, Niemi, and Powell. However, a key question results from this ﬁnding: Is this decrease in parochialism due to diminished concerns about reelection (as term limits advocates argued would result) or is it, conversely, the rise of progressive ambition in a formerly static legislature? Though both explanations are part of the story, there is particularly strong evidence for the latter. The election cycle of 1994, the ﬁrst after the passage of the amendment, was four years before term limits kicked in for the house and six years in advance of any effect in the senate. The contest saw dramatic jumps in legislative turnover, with most of those “retirees” seeking other political ofﬁce. Thus, much of the decrease in parochialism may be preparation for running outside of that district. Speaking from experience, as he had already announced his senate candidacy, the Speaker of the house noted just after the 2000 redistricting process that “It also has led to house members, knowing their time is limited in the house, to protect or inﬂuence the boundaries of senate seats for a possible future campaign. Current senators have been known to do the same for a future house race.” Indeed, ﬁfteen of the sixteen new state senators elected in 2002 had previous house service; and, in historic moves, several term-limited state senators have gained seats in the “lower” house. In addition to shifting the energies of would-be lawmakers to seeking out another ofﬁce, term limits poses additional, obvious downsides.20 Gary Moncrief and Joel A. Thompson’s survey of lobbyists, who watch the legislature in action, noted slight drops in collegiality in a body where legislators see it as unnecessary to invest in long-term relationships and have less time to do so because of the steep learning curve. These surveys also indicate an even clearer demise in the willingness to compromise by term-limited legislators, who feel that they may never be the beneﬁciary of a compromise in return. A near majority (47.6 percent) of lobbyists perceived

[197], (12)

Lines: 165 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [197], (12)

198 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

this. Both of these ﬁndings directly relate to inherent focus on the short term by short-time, part-time lawmakers. As one staffer puts it, “What you’ve effectively cut out is long-term solutions to problems.”21 Perhaps most obviously, the nation’s most stringent term limits create a continuous lack of experience in the legislature. Experience with rules and procedures, experience with the details of arcane tax and health policy, and experience in leadership are all limited within individual members and within the body as a whole. Enhanced orientation sessions (with titles such as Property Taxes 101 and Introduction to Retirement Systems) have little hope of fully ﬁlling the void. In the 2003 session, the Senate Judiciary Committee had only a single lawyer member (out of seven members) because of term limits. Even the ambitious Speaker of the house, Shane Broadway, elected to the post at the age of twenty-six, admitted, “I would have been more prepared” by having served a few terms before becoming Speaker. The institutional ramiﬁcations of term limits for a legislature that had only recently begun to modernize is twofold. First, it loses power to the full-time, relatively well-staffed governor and the unelected bureaucrats and lobbyists whom these inexperienced legislators must look to as experts, and, second, it forces the realization that, much like Peter Pan, the Arkansas General Assembly may never fully “grow up.”22 the legislative process The fundamental steps in the legislative process are summarized as follows: 1. Introduction. Any member (or members) may introduce a bill by ﬁling the original and a dozen copies with the clerk of the house or fourteen copies with the secretary of the senate. Bills may be preﬁled, but less than 5 percent usually are. Appropriation bills must be introduced by the ﬁftieth day, other bills by the ﬁfty-ﬁfth day (unless two-thirds of each house agrees to an exception). 2. First and Second Readings. Usually only the title is read, and customarily both readings take place on the same day. Amendments can be proposed only on second reading. 3. Committee Referral. The Speaker of the house and the president of the senate refer bills to the standing committees with relevant jurisdiction. 4. Committee Consideration. Public hearings may be held. Usual committee recommendations are Do Pass, Do Pass As Amended, or Do Not Pass. If the bill fails in committee, it can be reconsidered. Discharge from committee is

[198], (13)

Lines: 169 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[198], (13)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

199

possible in the house by a two-thirds vote of the chamber membership and in the senate twenty days after the bill’s introduction, through a majority vote (three-fourths vote on appropriation and tax measures) of the members. 5. Calendar. Placed on calendar for third reading. Scheduling is done by house and senate rules committees. 6. Debate and Amendments. Bill must be placed back on second reading for amendment. 7. Vote. Constitution requires roll-call votes on ﬁnal passage. House uses electronic voting; ayes and nays are called in the senate. Most bills require simple majority, but most tax and appropriations bills require a three-fourths majority. If the bill fails it can only be reconsidered by a majority vote, unless the unique “clincher” motion has been passed at the time of the initial failure. A “clincher,” which is typically requested by a raised ﬁst, is two motions in one: a motion to reconsider and a motion to table that motion. Only a majority is required to pass the “clincher,” and, if passed, the record must be expunged (requiring a two-thirds vote of either chamber’s membership) for a reconsideration to occur. 8. Other Chamber. If bill passes one chamber, it is sent to other chamber, where steps 2 through 7 are repeated. 9. Chamber Disagreement. If amended in second chamber, bill must be returned to originating chamber for a vote as amended. If the two chambers disagree, a rare conference committee is appointed by Speaker of house and president of the senate to reconcile differences, after which both chambers vote. 10. Governor. If governor takes no action, bill becomes law within ﬁve days; if vetoed, bill returns to chambers where a simple majority of both houses can override the veto. Bills presented during the last ﬁve days of session must be signed or vetoed within twenty days of adjournment.23

These steps suggest that the legislative journey is an arduous one, especially given the time constraints within which hundreds of bills must overcome each of these potential pitfalls. To some extent that perception is accurate. Those opposed to legislation, especially if they have the cooperation of some skilled colleagues, have numerous opportunities to prevent passage: arranging referral to a hostile committee; persuading a sufﬁcient number of legislators to be absent to preclude a committee quorum; adding deliberately offensive amendments; objecting to action on obscure procedural grounds; or delaying consideration until the bill is lost in the lastminute crush. Especially on tax and appropriations measures that require

[199], (14)

Lines: 198 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [199], (14)

200 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

extraordinary majorities, an obstructionist minority can easily become the tail that wags the dog. Obstructionism is especially apparent when legislators do not wish to take a stand on a highly controversial issue. In four successive sessions from 1973 to 1979, for example, neither the house nor the senate ever took a straightforward roll-call vote on the proposed national Equal Rights Amendment. They thereby incurred the contempt but never the electoral wrath of dedicated proponents and opponents. Despite these pitfalls, however, the legislative process in Arkansas more closely resembles an assembly line than an obstacle course. Whereas only 4 percent to 6 percent of introductions usually become enactments in the U.S. Congress, and only 20 percent to 30 percent of all state legislative introductions become law (although a signiﬁcant range exists across the states), the Arkansas legislature has traditionally passed between 50 percent and 60 percent of all bills proposed. Moreover, that percentage has crept upward in recent post–term limits sessions. Indeed, in 1999 the legislature passed over two-thirds (70.7 percent) of all introductions, a percentage nearly matched two years later. This provides additional evidence that membership turnover does not harm the assembly-line nature of the legislative process. Furthermore, the sheer number of laws enacted each year in Arkansas is extraordinary: with its 1,843 new laws passed in the 2001 regular session, Arkansas trailed only California and Virginia in absolute number of enactments in the 2000–2001 legislative cycle, even though most state legislatures had two annual sessions during that time period. Especially given Arkansas’s fairly cautious, antiregulatory political culture and generally noninventive legislature, what can account for this abundant output?24 One part of the explanation is Arkansas’s unique budget process, which we describe in detail in chapter 13. Because of the atypical constitutional requirement that “appropriations shall be made by separate bills, each embracing but one subject” (article 5, section 30), the biennial budget is broken down into hundreds of separate measures (at least ﬁve hundred per session— more than four times any other legislature). Some of these create controversy, but few are ever defeated. However, beyond budgets, and of signal importance in understanding the Arkansas legislative process, is the dominant attitude of acquiescence to and accommodation of one’s colleagues’ wishes. Amendment 14, initiated by the people and enacted in 1926, states, “The General Assembly shall not pass any local or special act.” Many are passed, however, and are enforced unless successfully contested in the courts. As one legislator put it in 1995, “Got a problem up in Imboden? Hey, solve it at the state Capitol—get legislators involved who’ve never heard of Imboden and don’t care.” Many other bills are highly particularistic and personal,

[200], (15)

Lines: 223 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[200], (15)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

201

falling into the category that Frank Triplett once described (and denounced) as “microphilia.”25 Just as extraordinary as the mass of legislation considered by the General Assembly in a regular session is the fact that almost all members contribute to that mass. In the 1999 session, for instance, twenty-six of the thirty-ﬁve state senators introduced in excess of ten bills. The sharp increase in the number of introductions (and enactments) since the coming of term limits shows members’ awareness of the ticking clock on their time in the legislature. If a legislative goal (small or large) is to happen on their watch it must happen quickly. Recent survey data shows legislators’ overwhelming opposition to a change in rules that would limit the number of bills each member could introduce. The same survey indicates that almost all members surveyed “strongly agree” that “many legislators do not know the proper legislative procedures” in the aftermath of term limits. Thus, term limits has both limited the expertise for dealing with mounds of legislation and increased the size of that mound in each session.26 The positive view of this mass-production process is that it signiﬁes a highly accessible and responsive legislature, that “if a citizen . . . can get a bill introduced and cultivated, it will have a fair chance of passing.” Also, since time is short and all legislators have an understandable relish for their own measures, this accommodational attitude helps to keep the process running without excessively bruised egos or short tempers. The less benign view is that a chamber in which bills are rarely given a Do Not Pass recommendation by committee and are rarely defeated on the chamber ﬂoor has only a dubious claim to being a genuinely deliberative body. The closing days of a legislative session are marked by an endless parade of legislators standing brieﬂy in the well to utter the traditional incantation (“My bill, my amendment, I’d appreciate a good vote”) or by ﬁfty appropriation bills rushed simultaneously through the senate (to be later recorded as separate roll calls) as a senate leader urges “Vote ’em.” Anyone who has witnessed this chaos inevitably questions whether all proposals thus moved onto the statute books are worthy ones.27 The answer, of course, is that some are not. Special sessions, such as one in 1989 to reauthorize appropriations from the regular session called into question by the state supreme court, are often necessitated by the errors of the regular sessions. Perhaps most infamously, the “scientiﬁc creationism” law (Act 590 of 1981) was passed with virtually no committee hearings or debate in the senate (where it originated) and with perfunctory committee hearings and little debate in the house, and it was never read by the governor, all at an eventual cost of $430,000 in legal fees to the state.28

[201], (16)

Lines: 229 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [201], (16)

202 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

The most egregious examples of law making by accommodation are those measures known as “merely” or “do nothing” bills because they merely provide some exemption from state retirement law requirements for the deserving clerk of one legislator’s circuit judge. Though such a bill may indeed seem a “little old bill that don’t do nothing” it nevertheless applies to all those in a similar situation for all time to come. According to the chief legislative aide of one recent governor, the governor’s most solemn responsibility in the legislative process is that of sifting out and vetoing the “do nothing” bills.29 Much of the microphilia (for example, establishing the square dance as the state’s ofﬁcial folk dance in 1991) is fortunately free of major import. The ease and frequency with which legislators enact their colleagues’ constituency-oriented tax exemption bills, however, has cumulated into very consequential and costly public policy. Each legislative session in recent years has responded to particular pleas for tax relief for interests as varied as Falcon Jet, farm equipment dealers, coin-operated car washes, horse breeders, moviemakers, International Paper, and The Poets Roundtable. By 2002 a report to the legislative commission studying comprehensive education reform estimated that the state was losing $580 million a year from sales and use tax exemptions. Similar reports have noted the tens of millions lost to personal income tax exemptions. An earlier report by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation estimated that the state “exempts from the sales tax twice the amount that the tax generates in revenues.” Nevertheless, as study after study has been released, legislatures have continued to obligingly accommodate their colleagues’ further proposed exemptions.30 Fortunately, there are some institutional limits to this legislative leniency. Committees will ignore bills unless the sponsor speciﬁcally requests action on them, and members of the other chamber are not quite so indulgent as members of the originating chamber, which underscores the virtues of a bicameral legislature. Nevertheless, today’s legislature must make rapid decisions on hundreds of often obscure legislative propositions. Assuming that these are public-spirited individuals who wish to remain in ofﬁce (as long as allowed by the constitution), what pressures and factors are most inﬂuential as they attempt to arrive at rational voting decisions? influences on decision making The standard technique by which political scientists attempt to assess patterns of legislative decision making is roll-call analysis. Votes that witnessed a

[202], (17)

Lines: 237 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[202], (17)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

203

signiﬁcant division of opinion are analyzed through various scaling and correlation techniques. The usual conclusion is that in the U.S. Congress and in most state legislatures, political party is the most important variable in explaining voting divisions on major policy issues, with other variables rising to the surface on votes in certain policy areas. However, roll-call analysis is of limited usefulness in illuminating voting patterns in the Arkansas legislature. Despite the fact that the constitutional requirement of a recorded vote on ﬁnal passage of any bill produces an extraordinary number of roll calls, the overwhelming majority of them produce no negative votes at all. In 2001, of 2,564 roll-call votes in the house, on only 5.9 percent (151) was a minority position of 25 percent or more created, and only 244 (9.5 percent) even created a minority position of 10 percent or more. Such is not the stuff of which rigorous roll-call analyses can be made. Despite this, certain sporadic factional patterns in the Arkansas legislature should be highlighted.31 Not surprisingly, in one of the most extensive assessments of Arkansas legislative voting patterns, Patrick O’Connor found that party afﬁliation played no role in the votes cast in the 1959 to 1969 sessions. Party could hardly be relevant in a legislature that has only a handful of Republicans and no organized party caucuses. As late as 1987, a Washington Post reporter could not ascertain who the house minority leader was for a story he was writing on Bill Clinton’s possible 1988 presidential candidacy. A senate leader summed up the situation in the early 1980s, “We’re well integrated. We’ve got one Republican, we’ve got one woman, and one black. The rest of us are Democrats and that’s the way it should be.”32 Though the Republican Party is limited in its pool of candidates and limited geographically, the coming of term limits has helped it move from a gadﬂy party to a more legitimate minority party in both houses of the state legislature. The Republican development in recent years, discussed in previous chapters, made some gop state legislative increases inevitable. However, as shown in table 7, term limits undeniably hastened the transformation of Republicanism in the electorate into Republicanism in the state legislature, with notable increases in house gop membership as Democratic incumbents were term-limited beginning in 1998. The state Republican Party has continually been frustrated by the limits of its legislative gains, but the growth of the party in the legislature has been signiﬁcant (albeit still lagging behind other southern states). Moreover, the fact that the gop held thirty seats in the House and eight seats in the Senate in the 2001 and 2003 sessions meant that, because most taxation and spending measures require three-fourths support to pass, Republicans alone could hold up the such measures in the

[203], (18)

Lines: 249 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [203], (18)

204 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

house (and, with the aid of one Democratic stray, in the senate). In addition, through strategic assignments Republicans gained a majority on one house committee (the State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee), a ﬁrst since Reconstruction, in 1999. For the 2003 session, they used similar tactics to gain a majority on the chamber’s Judiciary Committee. Still, a recent analysis comparing the rates of success in getting legislation approved shows that gop members have actually become less successful compared to Democrats as their numbers have grown.33 An institutionalization of party in the legislature also has occurred. Just before the 1989 session, Democrats in the House formed a caucus and elected, for the ﬁrst time, a majority leader. Meeting haphazardly until the Huckabee era, in 1997 the Democratic caucus hired a media consultant for the session and began buying radio airtime to counter Huckabee’s weekly radio addresses. More ideologically cohesive, the Republican minority caucus now meets most mornings when then legislature is in session to strategize. Clearly, while less relevant than in other American legislative bodies, party matters more than ever before in modern Arkansas legislative dynamics. Though O’Connor found that party was irrelevant in the time period he analyzed, he did uncover regional divisions in voting patterns. Most commonly exhibiting itself in an urban/rural split, regionalism does persist in the legislature. In their study of legislators in the 1997 session, Clement Gollier and Art English found that regionalism—whether expressed as “urban vs. rural,” “Pulaski County vs. rest of the state,” or “county vs. state”—was perceived as representing over a third of the conﬂict during that session. In an earlier example, the Clinton administration’s struggle to pass an appropriation to cover the state’s federal court–mandated responsibility in the Little Rock school desegregation case required two special sessions in 1989, with rural legislators serving as an obstacle to the necessary seventyﬁve votes. (In one of the more infamous legislative episodes of recent times, rural south Arkansas legislator “Nap” Murphy “lost” the key to his voting device at the crucial moment in the ﬁrst special session. As a result, the “yea” vote of an absent Little Rock legislator with which his “nay” was “paired” could not count, and the measure gained only seventy-four votes.) The urban/rural divide rose to a new level of intensity during the regular and special sessions of 2003 when Governor Huckabee proposed shrinking the number of school districts dramatically, a particular threat to the rural caucus. As discussed in chapter 13, after a year of verbal jousting between the majority of legislators with rural sentiments and Governor Huckabee and his urban allies the rural legislators refused to yield over consolidation

[204], (19)

Lines: 253 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[204], (19)

91 (91) 9 (9)

9.6

93 (93) 7 (7)

5.9

Democrats (%) Republicans (%) Independents (%) TOTAL REPUBLICAN %

31 (89) 4 (11)

34 (97) 1 (3)

1987

Democrats (%) Republicans (%)

1981 30 (86) 5 (14) 89 (89) 10 (10) 1 (1) 11.1

31 (89) 4 (11) 91 (91) 9 (9)

9.6

1993

1991

Table 7. Party Composition of the Arkansas General Assembly

14.1

87 (87) 13 (13)

House

29 (83) 6 (17)

Senate

1995

1999 28 (80) 7 (20) 76 (76) 24 (24)

23.0

1997 28 (80) 7 (20) 86 (86) 14 (14)

15.6

28.1

70 (70) 30 (30)

27 (77) 8 (23)

2001

28.1

70 (70) 30 (30)

27 (77) 8 (23)

2003

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [205], (20)

Lines: 302 to

*

494.0pt Pg

———

——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX

[205], (20)

206 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

by numbers. As a result, only a small number of districts in the state were eliminated.34 Two newer factional divisions—related to gender and race—also have evidenced themselves on occasion in the workings of the General Assembly. Diane D. Blair and Jeanie R. Stanley’s interview-based work on the attitudes and behavior of the ﬁrst sizable group of Arkansas women legislators found that these women shared similar notions of “power” with their male colleagues. However, they found real difﬁculty in forming collegial bonds with those men in a social setting that was shaped by stereotypically “male” activities and felt pressure to project “toughness” constantly. Thus, a separate social sphere did develop for women legislators after hours (it was later formalized in a legislative women’s caucus). Though private bonds had developed among outnumbered women in the legislature, the reaction of female legislators to the 1997 parole of convicted rapist Wayne Dumond, an action publicly supported by Governor Huckabee, served as the ﬁrst public exhibition of this unity. Seven female legislators came to the well of the house to voice their anger. One stated, “I would like to urge victims of rape and other crimes of sexual violence not to hear the message that was sent yesterday. . . . Continue to come forward.” Republican Carolyn Pollan said afterward, “I’m hoping to use this as a springboard to do more for women.” Moreover, analysis of the 2001 session found that women legislators were more likely than their male colleagues to be members of committees that focused on women’s issues and to sponsor women’s issue legislation. But, just as males remained more successful in getting legislation through the legislative process generally, legislation on women’s issues was not more successful if sponsored by a female legislator.35 Similarly, racial factionalism has shown itself on a number of civil rights issues. In an analysis of African American legislative inﬂuence in the years when their numbers were small, Donald E. Whistler and Mark C. Ellickson found that black members were the one group that was distinctly disadvantaged in the Arkansas law-making process. This ﬁnding was reafﬁrmed in the work of Kathleen A. Bratton and Kerry L. Haynie, who analyzed sessions after African American legislators’ numbers increased. After 1989 African American members formed a standing Legislative Black Caucus and have sponsored successfully a number of substantive and symbolic measures related to civil rights in more recent sessions. (Haynie also found that African American legislators were signiﬁcantly more likely to introduce “black interest” bills than white colleagues.) However, African Americans have been deeply frustrated by their limited numbers and absence from

[206], (21)

Lines: 302 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[206], (21)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

207

senior leadership. For example, in Jim Guy Tucker’s 1994 special session on juvenile crime the primary splits on nonunanimous votes were racial in nature. The most outspoken African American member of the legislature said the session was “designed to appease the fears of the voting white public.” Members of the Legislative Black Caucus voiced fears thatAfricanAmerican youths “in the wrong place at the wrong time” would be the primary targets of some of the new provisions. Though the numbers of women and African Americans remain small, their occasional organized unity—like the party and regional divisions—helps to explain some of the rare instances when divisions are expressed in the voting of Arkansas’s legislators.36 Another method of exploring the effective pressures on voting is by surveying the legislators themselves. When eighty Arkansas legislators were asked in the 1980s about the relative weight of various inﬂuences, they responded that the most inﬂuential voting cues came from constituents (especially friends and supporters in their districts) and from fellow legislators. They also indicated that the bill’s sponsor, county and local ofﬁcials, and lobbyists were moderately inﬂuential and that the governor and his staff, newspapers, and legislative staff and leadership were of only moderate or negligible inﬂuence. These trends are generally reconﬁrmed by more recent conversations with key legislators, although survey data show that, once again, term limits are creating deviations from the past.37 Since the previous chapter suggests that the governor is in fact a powerful force in the policy process, the governor’s low ranking in the self-reporting of legislators requires some clariﬁcation. In part it reﬂects the institutional rivalry that has existed since the ﬁrst kings battled the earliest parliaments, a rivalry compounded by the constant publicity and popularity that most recent governors, but few legislators, enjoy. Legislators very much want to be independent of executive inﬂuence, and often the wish colors the fact. It also reﬂects the fact that governors use a coterie of like-minded, supportive legislators to sponsor their bills and to do much of their legislative legwork for them, so the “other legislators” who are acknowledged to be inﬂuential are sometimes operating as the governor’s surrogates. Most important is the fact that the governor’s bills, in numerical terms, constitute a small part of the legislative agenda—a package of ﬁfty or so bills out of the two thousand or more introductions. The governor’s bills usually give the legislature their most comprehensive and often most controversial items, but on most bills requiring legislative decision making, the governor has no stated position and therefore exerts no inﬂuence. For years, governors’ staffs have used grades—ranging from “A” (part of governor’s package) to “F” (a measure

[207], (22)

Lines: 306 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [207], (22)

208 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

to be fought hard)—to rank the ﬂood of bills. The vast majority fall in the “C” (neutral) category.38 On the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches there is almost complete agreement about the impact of term limits, with the governor as beneﬁciary of the change in the rules of the game. In the most comprehensive analysis of term limits’ inﬂuence in the various states where they have been adopted (including Arkansas), John M. Carey and his colleagues found a signiﬁcant increase in the perceived inﬂuence of the governor. Indeed, the governor was the actor whose degree of perceived inﬂuence had changed the most in either direction. Arkansas-speciﬁc data reassert the presence of these perceptions, and, in politics, perception is reality. A survey carried out as part of the National Conference of State Legislatures’ 2001 assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly found that strong majorities of the legislators and staff polled felt that term limits had weakened the body “relative to the governor.” Nearly 80 percent of lobbyists asked agreed with this evaluation. As one legislative veteran said during the 1995 session (the ﬁrst touched by term limits because many members departed in advance of their inevitable exclusion): “The new members have no sense of tradition; worse, no real grasp of what government is, what a legislative branch is designed to do. They’re giving up prerogatives they don’t even know they have. If you have even a passing concern for the concept of balance of powers, you have to be concerned.” Thus, in the years ahead, term limits will enhance the power of the governor compared to the legislature.39 On most matters, therefore, legislators are most likely to be affected by constituents, lobbyists, and/or their colleagues; and according to most Arkansas legislators, constituents come ﬁrst. This is no mere lip service to the democratic ideal. Most lawmakers were born and raised in their district, continue to live and work among their constituents, have numerous organizational afﬁliations there, and even during legislative sessions are home on weekends. Furthermore, unlike contemporary congressional districts, most state legislative districts are sufﬁciently small and economically homogeneous so the prevailing opinion on matters of great concern in the district are self-evident. A representative from Springdale is as unlikely to vote against the best interests of the poultry industry as is a Stuttgart representative to vote against rice farming or a Fayetteville representative against the university. A legislator representing many small rural school districts will, of course, work for a different school-funding formula than will a legislator representing large urban school districts. All of these factors

[208], (23)

Lines: 310 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[208], (23)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

209

combine to ensure that most legislators, if they hear the voice of the people, will attempt to obey its commands.40 Two caveats should be presented about this assertion, however. First, there is an intervening twist, which Malcolm E. Jewell and Samuel C. Patterson have succinctly stated thusly: “Legislators in the United States are deeply concerned, sometimes even obsessed, with their image among their constituents; but constituents do not, on the whole, reciprocate with commensurate concern about their legislators.” A 1967 Gallup poll indicated that only 28 percent of Americans knew who their state senator was, and only 24 percent could name their state representative. This invisibility is strongly conﬁrmed by the unsuccessful attempts to elicit the names of their state legislators from thousands of students over the years, as mentioned in the previous chapter. (The continual legislative turnover brought about by term limits will likely enhance confusion about the identity of one’s representatives at the capitol.) Similarly, a 1999 statewide survey indicated that 48 percent of the population “ha[d]n’t thought much” about the quality of the previous state legislative session. For Arkansas legislators as for French revolutionists, it may well be true that vox populi, vox Dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God). However, on most issues requiring a vote, that voice is silent.41 On a very few highly salient issues, such as tax increases or teacher testing, the people may have strong and vocal feelings. But how do they feel about a bill establishing conditions under which a member of the Cosmetology Board who also runs a beauty school can participate in the preparation and giving of exams, or a bill transferring regulation of the State Burial Association to the Insurance Department? Hundreds of detailed budget bills, bills sponsored by state agencies, and bills such as those just cited—which are of no concern to most citizens but of vital concern to those who got them sponsored and initiated—constitute much of the legislative agenda.42 Second, in the term limits era, it is doubtful whether legislators are as likely to have their ears open to hear those generally soft-voiced constituents. Surveyed legislators in both 1981–83 and 1991–93 placed much greater weight on “looking after the needs and interests of his own district” than “looking after the needs and interests of the state as a whole.” Moreover, in contrast to state legislators generally, they were strikingly disinclined to follow their own consciences when in conﬂict with constituent opinion. Carey, Niemi, and Powell found that legislators in the term limits era are “more inclined toward both the state as a whole and to their conscience, rather than district demands.” Again, some Arkansas-speciﬁc data conﬁrms

[209], (24)

Lines: 314 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [209], (24)

210 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

this more general ﬁnding. Lobbyists surveyed in 1999 and 2000 indicate that 83.7 percent of term limits members are more ideological as a group than the members whom they replaced. An incident from northwest Arkansas in 1999 serves as a tangible example of this phenomenon. A Republican county judge publicly chastised two Republican house members for their votes against a highway plan, saying, “The bypass at Bella Vista is gone for 20 years. . . . [W]e elect you to represent us and you’re not doing it.” The more ideologically pure, antitax mantra of the Republican legislators did little to pacify the judge or the crowd in attendance.43 The critical and often legitimate and useful role that interest groups have come to play in Arkansas state politics was discussed in chapter 6. To assess their impact in the legislative process, several of those observations are worth reiterating here: • hundreds of lobbyists, predominantly representing business and industry, are an active and forceful part of contemporary legislative sessions; • because of the traditional weakness of Arkansas political parties, the relatively low level of legislative professionalism (brief sessions, modest salaries, little staff), and the extraordinary power of a few dominant economic interests, interest groups have been generally adjudged to have greater strength in Arkansas than elsewhere; • term limits have further diminished professionalism by reducing institutional memory, leaving an informational void which interests are happy to ﬁll; and • the appropriate relationships between legislators and lobbyists have only recently become regulated in any real sense.

Chapter 6 also suggested that while some recent developments (especially increased legislative professionalism and increased economic diversiﬁcation) may have weakened what was once the unchallenged ability of a few dominant interests to work their legislative will, the rising costs of political campaigns have given interest groups an important new avenue of inﬂuence. The General Assembly’s working environment indeed has been signiﬁcantly professionalized in recent decades. In 1927 the two-year appropriation to operate the assembly amounted to $149,169 (including $82 for telephones, $301 for typewriter rental, $547 for fountain pens, $447 for pocketknives, and $132 for drinking water). By 1951 the biennial appropriation for legislative operations had little more than doubled, to $369,000. By the end of the century, the General Assembly was spending more than that amount on new computers for all members. By 2001–2 the legislative appropriation was

[210], (25)

Lines: 320 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[210], (25)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

211

$43,560,417. Much of those expenditures supported the full-time staff of the Legislative Council and of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee (established in 1955 to ensure that appropriated funds are honestly and efﬁciently spent). Unlike past times, when the total absence of professional staff meant that most bills were drafted by lobbyists, sixty staff members of the Legislative Council now provide professional assistance to legislators in their lawmaking responsibilities and draft about one-half of the bills introduced. The sharp reduction in the number of standing committees, the provision of some committee staff, and the authorization for committees to operate in the interim between sessions are all signiﬁcant steps in the direction of a professionalism. By providing legislators with objective information, these steps diminish their total dependence on the self-interested information supplied by interest groups.44 There are lingering limits, however, to the degree of legislative professionalism in Arkansas. Analysts still place Arkansas’s General Assembly in the bottom ten of the states in professionalism, despite the recent improvements. Political scientists generally agree that “no single factor has a greater effect on the legislative environment than the constitutional restriction on the length of legislative sessions.” By the new century Arkansas was one of only ten states that still eschewed regular annual sessions (and three of those ten have de facto annual sessions). Most standing committees have only one professional staff person (with additional counsel shared by several committees). Only a few interim committees have actually wrestled with complex policy issues, and the recommendations of those that have are often ignored. No transcripts of committee hearings are available for noncommittee members to read for voting guidance. A Do Not Pass recommendation from a committee means that a bill can reach the calendar only through suspension of rules, and this extraordinary means alerts legislators to suspicions somewhere about a bill’s worth. A Do Pass recommendation, however, while carrying the assuring imprimatur of committee support, is not accompanied by any committee report explaining what a bill would accomplish and why it is worthy of passage. Especially since those with particular occupational and economic interests typically self-select themselves onto committees that deal with their particular concerns, what is accepted as the recommendation of specialists may in fact represent special-interest advocacy.45 The problem of conﬂicting public and private interests is an inherent one for all part-time state legislatures. One certainly cannot expect parttime legislators on part-time salaries to sever their ties permanently with the occupation that provides their primary income, nor is it reasonable to

[211], (26)

Lines: 357 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [211], (26)

212 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

expect that farmer-legislators should excuse themselves from voting on agricultural legislation or that lawyer-legislators should excuse themselves from voting on the laws under which they will practice. Whereas some states have laws and/or strong traditions that preclude the outright use of one’s legislative position for personal gain, Arkansas has neither. In fact, nothing prohibits legislators from serving as the paid representatives of interest groups while simultaneously sponsoring bills of great economic value to their professional clients. Some have done so. It was a real sign of change that, in 2000, senators hired as lobbyists by Entergy and the Poultry Federation resigned their senate positions to take the new positions (although the Entergy lobbyist did so under public pressure). Still, other legislators continue to both sponsor and vote on bills of economic beneﬁt (or detriment) to their primary occupations.46 In 1979, after years of debate and previous defeat, a state code of ethics law was enacted that required legislators and other ofﬁcials to disclose their ﬁnancial interests annually on forms ﬁled with the secretary of state. Additional information was required under later initiated acts, and as the state press regularly use this data as the bases of stories, it is possible to ascertain which potential conﬂicts of interest exist. The laws, however, do not clearly deﬁne a conﬂict of interest, and they impose penalties only for concealing such conﬂicts, not for having them or for acting in pursuit of them.47 Thus, despite the new openness that exists in the area of ethics and the new laws governing interest-group activity discussed in chapter 6, truth still resides in Harry Ashmore’s old observation that the Arkansas legislative environment exhibits “a sort of unholy meshing of public and private interests without any effective restraint from an electorate bemused by other, perhaps in fact more important, matters.” Still, at least the new ethical and legal environment enhances the likelihood that the sins of legislators operating under old rules will be brought to light (and punished when explicitly illegal). At the turn of the century, a series of federal criminal investigations led to prosecutions of two sitting senators, two former senators, and two state representatives for attempting (and, in some cases, succeeding) to cash in on their ofﬁces. Most importantly, the most powerful member of the state senate through most of the 1990s, Nick Wilson, pled guilty to masterminding a scheme that was paying him about $370,000 in taxpayer money in the form of kickbacks. (Even more kickbacks—stemming from his role in funding a program to provide legal services to children in custody cases—would have beneﬁted him and the other senators if not uncovered by federal

[212], (27)

Lines: 361 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[212], (27)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

213

prosecutors). Much like the self-inﬂicted wounds of the early-twentiethcentury legislatures discussed early in the chapter, these instances of public corruption both harmed the institution and provided more ammunition for term limits defenders. As the greatest beneﬁciary of legislative impotence, Governor Huckabee, put it, “We lose some good [legislators], but let me tell you about the other side. We also lose some real scoundrels.”48 The methods of lobbyists are much less crude than in decades past, and most of those who have systematically studied the legislator-lobbyist relationship in Arkansas have concluded that most legislators are fairly sophisticated in their dealings with lobbyists and fairly effective at weighing and balancing their pressures. One recent study concluded rather optimistically, in fact, that while lobbyists have very extensive and successful relationships with Arkansas legislators, access to the decision-making process is not restricted to professional insiders but extends to marginal and amateur citizen lobbyists as well.49 In another study, however, the same authors acknowledge that the attention given to constituents “readily becomes translated into attention to interest groups” because of low citizen participation and a relatively homogeneous economy. Reinforcing this observation is the purposeful and effective blurring of constituent and interest-group pressure that is created when interests successfully recruit key constituents to make contacts on their behalf. A legislator’s remembrance of one incident makes this point well: Don Allen of the Poultry Federation was trying to lobby me about something. A constituent from Danville called. [It was] the man who was my peewee football coach, who had been my counselor in the Methodist Youth Foundation when I’d been in it. Somehow Mr. Allen had found that man. He visited me on the same subject, and I’d trusted and known that man most of my life.

When legislative matters vital to an interest group are being considered, that group will ensure that its point of view is conveyed and considered. Other points of view may or may not be heard.50 What happens to the harried lawmaker when, as is frequently the case, the signals from constituents, the governor’s ofﬁce, and interest groups are either absent or conﬂicting? During a legislative session, most of a legislator’s transactions are with his or her fellow legislators. These constant interpersonal relationships, enhanced by a feeling that those outside the legislature do not fully understand or appreciate the hard work and sacriﬁces of those within it, tend to produce remarkable affection, respect, and concern for other legislators’ needs and wishes. Hence, as longtime Representative

[213], (28)

Lines: 367 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [213], (28)

214 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

David Matthews noted, “Much more important than party, profession, or philosophy is friendship.”51 In part this is a sensible technique of reciprocity, as the advice of one Arkansas legislator clearly expresses: “Don’t oppose anyone else’s bills unless there is strong reason to, because it hurts the chances of your bill’s passing.” At times, however, this spirit goes far beyond the usual legislative norms of mutual expediency to something bordering on sentimentality. Consider the following example. In 1979, Representative Mack Thompson’s persuaded the House State Agencies Committee to give a Do Pass to Representative Arlo Tyer’s bill making it a crime to show X-rated pictures. Thompson’s reasons were that Tyer had been a faithful committee member, had attended all meetings, and “this is the only bill he’s had and it’s important to him.”52 Camaraderie aside, unless a bill directly affects his or her district, has produced substantial public debate, or has come before one of his or her committees, a legislator is unlikely to know anything about a bill’s contents (what does it really do?) and impact (will it help or hurt me?). This substantive and political knowledge is most readily and reliably obtainable from one’s colleagues. Depending upon time constraints, a quick conference with the bill’s sponsor or with one’s seatmates may sufﬁce. Over time, however, a few legislators are most consistently the cue givers and therefore have the most inﬂuence on their colleague’s voting behavior. In neither house nor senate does a formal leadership position necessarily coincide with inﬂuence over individual members’ decision making. This is in part because (with the exception only of Bobby Hogue’s four years as Speaker in the mid-1990s) every two years a new Speaker of the house and president pro tempore of the senate are elected by their colleagues. However, there is a real sense that, in the term limits era, members are more consciously selecting strong leaders for those roles in each house; moreover, recent rules alterations have strengthened the Speaker institutionally. The Speaker was a formidable ﬁgure through the early 1960s, making committee assignments, naming committee chairs, assigning bills to friendly or hostile committees at will, and totally controlling the calendar. Similarly, until 1967 in the senate, the twenty-year service of Nathan Gordon as lieutenant governor, and hence president of the senate, cumulated into an enormous concentration of power in that ofﬁce (making committee assignments, referring bills, establishing the calendar). During Faubus’s twelve-year governorship, these leaders were Faubus men as well and worked closely with him in producing outcomes he desired.53

[214], (29)

Lines: 397 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[214], (29)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

215

In 1966, a Republican, “Footsie” Britt, won the election for lieutenant governor, and the Democratic-dominated senate stripped the ofﬁce of much of its legislative authority. Legislative reforms, and an unusual inﬂux of newcomers in the early 1970s also changed leadership patterns and prerogatives. The house Speaker still “made” committee assignments and “referred” bills to committees, but committee assignments and chairmanships were strictly governed by seniority. Bill referrals were strictly governed by subject matter. Furthermore, any attempt to end-run the established calendar in the house produced such strong procedural objections that it was rarely worth the effort. The Speaker was occasionally inﬂuential, but only when additional power stemmed from other sources; the Speaker was not even named as one of the ten most inﬂuential leaders in a 1980 survey of the house. Bobby Hogue was the ﬁrst Speaker-designate after the 1992 election that imposed future term limits. Knowing that he would be operating as Speaker in a much-altered house, Hogue shepherded a series of rule-change proposals through a special committee established to prepare the institution for term limits. A full house caucus met before the 1995 session when Hogue would take the Speakership; it approved the changes. The seniority-based committee assignment system of old was replaced by a system in which caucuses roughly corresponding to the congressional district boundaries would divvy up standing committee memberships. More relevantly, the Speaker’s role was heightened by his or her appointment of the chairs and vice-chairs of all standing committees as well as the entire membership of select committees. Hogue’s leadership period (including his reelection as Speaker for a second term, his ﬁnal term in the body) saw these new formal powers buttressed by more leader-speciﬁc informal power, as Robert S. McCord has noted: “He used the bully pulpit of the speakership far more than his predecessors, at one point threatening to adjourn the House before the passage of major appropriations bills if [Governor] Tucker and other negotiators did not compromise on the school funding issue. Late that afternoon—presto—a compromise was reached.”54 Hogue’s successors as Speaker (each, of course, only serving a single term because of term limits) have followed in his template, with the same formal powers but with greater challenges because of the continual turnover in membership. However, because the new rules adopted in 1995 limit members to only one committee chair (and because of the Speaker’s role in appointing those chairs), power is dispersed in the body and potential competitors to the Speaker are limited in their ability to consolidate power. The coalescence of Speaker’s power in the house contrasts with the

[215], (30)

Lines: 405 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [215], (30)

216 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

increased dispersal of power in the senate since 1990. By the mid-1970s and through the 1980s, two of the senate’s most senior members had accumulated sufﬁcient seniority, standing and select committee chairmanships, and legislative skill to reconcentrate the power that had been separated when the lieutenant governor was stripped of it in 1967. Senator Max Howell, elected to the senate in 1950, was co-chair of the Joint Budget Committee and chaired the Judiciary Committee (from which all legislators at times had to solicit special bills for “their” judges and court personnel) and the Efﬁciency Committee (which hires and ﬁres all senate personnel). Furthermore, as was said at the peak of his power, “He not only chairs committees, he rules them.”55 Senator Knox Nelson, elected to the senate in 1960, was by the mid-1980s ranking member of the Joint Budget Committee; chaired the Public Health, Welfare, and Labor Committee; chaired the Committee on Committees (which makes committee assignments); and most notably chaired the Rules Committee (which, no matter what the rules stated, referred bills to committees and established the order of business). Nelson’s style was that of helping rather than terrifying his colleagues. The ﬂow in the senate was governed by Nelson with whatever rule suspensions were momentarily useful. When his usually quiet voice was suddenly raised in the senate chamber with “Now, I want you’all to pay close attention to this bill,” it was as effective as a Roman emperor’s thumbs down.56 In 1990, however, everything in the state senate changed when Nelson was defeated by a reformist fellow senator after redistricting placed them in the same district. Nelson’s conqueror joined with a large set of “reform-minded young golfers” (several of whom were also elected in 1990) in immediately voting to limit any senator to a single committee chair. Without Nelson and several of his committees, Howell’s power was obviously diminished, and he retired following the 1991 session. Nick Wilson, continually at odds with the reformists (despite the fact that Wilson was even more liberal than most in this generally progressive group), did try with some success to ﬁll the void left by Howell and Nelson’s departures. He became deeply inﬂuential because of his exceptional commitment to full-time legislating, with the knowledge of state government that it gave him; his willingness to work to gain tangible favors for fellow members and constituents; and his effectiveness at “getting even” for opponents’ attempts to limit his power, though certainly not to the degree of his predecessors. However, a federal investigation that eventually led to guilty pleas on racketeering counts made him so “radioactive” that colleagues refused to work with him in his ﬁnal session in the senate. Therefore, power is incredibly dispersed

[216], (31)

Lines: 411 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[216], (31)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

217

in the Arkansas senate and will likely become even more so in the initial sessions after term limits have fully cleared the chamber of veteran members. For instance, while seniority has remained more relevant than in the house, as the chamber prepared for the term limits era rules were proposed to give all senators positions of inﬂuence as soon as they arrive: “These guys are only here eight years so if you don’t open up the process, they may spend their whole time without input,” as one senate advocate of the rules changes put it.57 Arkansas legislators, like state legislators everywhere, are subject to a variety of pressures during the decision-making process. In a permissive atmosphere (made more permissive by the ticking clock that all members hear in the term limits era) that suggests that all bills are good bills unless signiﬁcant opposition emerges. Legislators are most eager to follow their constituents’ wishes, which frequently means the wishes of the best organized and most predominant economic interests in their districts. The governor’s legislative program, which constitutes the bulk of major public policy proposals, is generally accepted (although legislative battles are typically waged over the speciﬁcs). Though there are a variety of reasons for this, outlined in chapter 8, one is that contemporary legislators know that contemporary governors have the beneﬁt of extensive survey research and expertise provided by staffers lobbying inexperienced legislators. The special interests that account for most items on the legislative agenda, especially those groups with skilled, informative lobbyists and the key funders of either a legislator or an opponent in future races, are able to exert signiﬁcant pressure in an environment both institutional and attitudinal that enhances their inﬂuence.Above all,Arkansas legislators seek and follow the advice of their colleagues, and some are more equal than others. legislative functions and future State legislatures are expected to perform three major functions in state governance: provide services for constituents, oversee the administration of the state bureaucracy, and make public policy. How effectively does the Arkansas legislature perform these functions? Are they performed in a fashion consistent with popular expectations and preferences? We will conclude this chapter by addressing these remaining questions. Arkansas legislators are quick to identify the ﬁrst of these three functions, constituent service, as one of their most important and time-consuming responsibilities. Most observers would agree with their self-assessment that

[217], (32)

Lines: 413 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [217], (32)

218 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

they perform this function superbly. A relatively new constituency services ofﬁce assists members in these chores and is highly respected by members. Whether the matter beneﬁts the entire district (a community development grant, a four-lane highway, more employees in the local branch of the State Revenue Ofﬁce) or a single constituent (locating misplaced documents, straightening out a computer snarl in the processing of a car title transfer), most legislators respond energetically and effectively to constituent requests. These activities have much more to do with the legislator’s visibility and popularity in the district than does the generally unknown voting record, and even among the attentive public, a reputation for “getting things done” may count for more than the legislator’s policy positions. Though some lawmakers carry the practice to extremes, spending hours during session phoning home to wish constituents a happy birthday, most simply perform in response to constituent requests. Constituents get someone to run errands and interference for them in the state capital, legislators get visibility and credit: a beneﬁcial exchange at bargain rates. This norm of emphasizing constituent service remains in place, but the ﬁndings of Carey, Niemi, and Powell suggest that legislators of the term limits era are signiﬁcantly less engaged in casework and securing pork than their predecessors. Therefore, it would not be surprising to see Arkansas legislators shift such energies toward legislation-focused activities in the years to come.58 The second function, administrative oversight, is more problematic. The legislature’s most important instruments for supervising the executive branch is the extensive review of budget requests performed by the sixty-eight members on the combined Legislative Council and Joint Budget Committee and the continuous postauditing conducted by the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee. The details and politics of this ﬁscal review process are discussed in chapter 13, but it is important to note here that no more effective means exists for ensuring administrative discipline than the threat of reducing or denying funds. Since the legislative branch is intended to be the guardian of the public purse, there is no question of its right to grill agency heads during budget hearings, or to ensure that appropriated funds are being spent according to legislative intent. Beginning in 1969, however, the legislature began requiring state agencies to obtain the “advice” of the Legislative Council (speciﬁcally, the Council’s Review and Advice Committee) before taking certain actions, such as granting exceptions to the uniform classiﬁcation and compensation plan for state employees, awarding professional service contracts involving more than $5,000, or anointing federal grant applications. This requirement raised

[218], (33)

Lines: 425 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[218], (33)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

219

constant questions about the appropriate line between legitimate legislative oversight and unlawful interference with executive authority. In 1988, the state supreme court declared that this process was indeed an unconstitutional violation of the principle of separation of powers. The result was an undeniable reduction in legislative oversight power.59 Aside from the more typical budgetary powers that remain, the legislature is ill equipped to oversee the operations of state agencies in any systematic manner. A “sunset” law enacted with great fanfare in 1977 would have abolished 283 state agencies over a six-year period unless each agency was found worthy of being continued. However, it was effectively repealed in 1983 because the Joint Performance Review Committee had neither the time nor the staff to do continuous, effective performance evaluations on that many agencies.60 As a practical matter then, the most pervasive form of legislative oversight is stimulated neither by laws nor by committee mandates but by constituent or interest-group complaints or media attention that stir legislators into investigatory and sometimes punitive action. When the pollution control agency tried to close a cotton gin on the grounds that its emissions were health threatening, the representative from that district proposed legislation exempting cotton gins from state air pollution control regulations. When the Livestock and Poultry Commission ﬁled suit against a livestock sale barn, alleging failure to comply with state brucellosis regulations, the senator from that district (who was also the attorney for the sale barn) attached an amendment to the commission’s appropriations bill to weaken the regulations, prompting the commission director to resign. When the former state “computer czar” released e-mails that highlighted deﬁciencies in the integrated computer system (and included governor’s ofﬁce potshots at the legislature), an intense media ﬁrestorm developed that led the Legislative Council to form its ﬁrst specially called session in three decades to investigate the charges. These and countless other examples underscore the Arkansas legislature’s extreme responsiveness to constituency demands. They also suggest that oversight is episodic and punitive rather than systematic and constructive and that it is prompted more by parochial pressures than by general public policy concerns. Legislators are aware of the institution’s weakness at this oversight role, according to a 2001 survey, and feel term limits further diminish its ability to fully carry it out.61 Similar criticisms are justiﬁed with respect to the legislature’s third and presumably most fundamental lawmaking function. The contemporary Arkansas legislature is meeting longer, passing more bills, and appropri-

[219], (34)

Lines: 429 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [219], (34)

220 The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

ating much more money than would have seemed possible in the recent past. The interim committees combined with the ceaseless exertions of a few lawmakers have given the General Assembly a more constant and consequential role in state governance, and the institutional reforms of the 1970s produced a much more orderly, serious, and impressive legislative operation. The legislature also gets high marks for its wholehearted desire to please and represent those who have expressed or ascertainable preferences. Because of a strong district orientation, legislators are especially successful at drawing attention to local interests and objections when state policy is being made. According to legislators themselves, however, “Statewide policy decisions are largely the governor’s responsibility.” And Whistler and Dunn’s characterization of the General Assembly as “an extremely neutral processing system of constituency-originated policy preferences with very little decision-making regarding the contents of constituents demands” is even truer after term limits than when they ﬁrst made it in the 1980s.62 The legislature is a signiﬁcantly improved and upgraded institution in the present period than it was traditionally, but its persisting disabilities are glaringly apparent. Trapped in some of the same dilemmas that hobble other part-time state legislatures, the Arkansas General Assembly has additional shackles created by term limits. There has long been public consensus in Arkansas that a full-time professional legislature is neither necessary nor desirable; but it is unrealistic to expect thoughtful and constructive decisions on multibillion-dollar budgets and on hundreds of other proposed statutes by a part-time unprofessional assembly. This realization has stimulated renewed legislative interest in regular annual sessions and deepening interest in lengthening the term limits. However, either of these alterations would require passage of a constitutional amendment by voters who are grounded in a political culture deeply suspicious of governmental expansiveness. Importantly, many of the proposals included in the Eagleton Institute report in the early 1970s that empowered and modernized the GeneralAssembly could be achieved by rules changes within the two houses and by enhanced staff. The next major legislative-sanctioned report on the effectiveness of the institution, conducted by the National Conference of State Legislatures in 2001, also proposed rule changes and staff reorganization, but its recommendations numbers one and two were abolishing or lengthening term limits, and implementing annual sessions were close by in priority. Therefore, massive constitutional barriers block the path of additional legislative maturation. The 2003 legislature included an extension of term limits (doubling the house limits and increasing senate

[220], (35)

Lines: 435 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[220], (35)

The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

221

terms from two to three) among three proposed amendments it sent to voters for the 2004 general election. However, a 2002 statewide survey indicating that 70 percent of Arkansas voters favored current term limits shows the long odds against any constitutional change effort.63 But those constitutional limitations are not the General Assembly’s only difﬁculties. Over the past thirty-ﬁve years, sharply contested and extensively publicized gubernatorial races have become a forum in which some issues of importance to the state’s electorate have been debated. In them, Arkansas voters have voted with near consistency for the candidate who promised the more forceful leadership and (in almost all cases) the more forwardlooking platform. In sharp contrast, most state legislative contests remain weakly contested or uncontested, featuring candidates who consciously avoid controversial issues. Until a more observant and critical public gives the same searching and demanding attention to legislative contests that it has begun giving to gubernatorial contests, the governor will continue to be the major source of public policy, attentive interest groups will continue to have better legislative results than the average citizen, and those few legislators who can and care to exert extraordinary inﬂuence in their short time in ofﬁce will dominate those who are content with the satisfactions of simply being there.

[Last Page] [221], (36)

Lines: 441 to ———

247.0pt Pg ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [221], (36)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter ten

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

[First Page [222], (1) [Nonpartisanship]’s a move in the right direction in the election of judges who are going to resolve disputes that you and I have in this life. I don’t think that should be political. State senator Bill Walter, 1997

Lines: 0 to ———

7.5pt Pg Who says politics should be totally removed? You want judges who care about people. Otherwise, how can you make laws that everybody can abide by? Justice Darrell Hickman, Arkansas supreme court, 1977

In the past, state judicial systems were considered to be above the ordinary pulls and pressures of politics and therefore beyond the legitimate concern of political scientists. In recent decades that antiseptic approach has been almost entirely displaced by a more realistic recognition that judges at courts are deeply rooted in a state’s political system and have many strong linkages to it. Some of these linkages have already been mentioned. In chapter 7 it was noted that some judges’ opposition to judicial reforms in the proposed 1970 and 1980 constitutions ran deep, and they were among the most articulate and effective opponents of the documents. And the “do nothing” bills described in chapter 9 are often those that particular legislators sponsor on behalf of “their” judges or for other court personnel in their constituencies.l Assuredly, and fortunately, there are laws, canons of ethics, and general proprieties that preclude judges from engaging in some of the more overtly political activities commonplace in the executive and legislative branches. Judges do not postpone decisions on controversial issues until they have taken public opinion surveys, nor do they let lobbyists swarm through their chambers. They do, however, because they must, maintain good political

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [222], (1)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

223

rapport with the local governments that provide a large chunk of the operating funds for all but the appellate courts in Arkansas and with the legislators who establish their salaries and expense allowances. As one state senator advised a group of judges, “If you want a pay raise you should come to see us and remember, we are like teenagers—every once in awhile we have to be stroked.” Not all judges follow the practice of one Washington County judge who sent Christmas cards to his past jurors before every election year, but all judges must cultivate sufﬁciently strong ties to their constituents and clientele groups, especially the bar, to ensure their survival in the electoral system.2 State courts also are political in the impact they have on public policy. One 1961 study of the Arkansas supreme court noted that “basically, the Supreme Court of Arkansas is a private law court. . . . It is not a court before which many of the great political issues of the day are paraded and whose decisions arouse the interest and passions of the citizenry.” There remains considerable truth in this statement. Of their 208 civil decisions in 2000, only 13 dealt with the constitutionality of state statutes as compared with 47 dealing with contracts or other legal obligations and 98 dealing with automobile negligence or other torts.3 However, the study understates signiﬁcantly the impact of the modern court in taking actions that do have policy implications. Although the state supreme court acts rarely on matters that enter the public debate, when it does it has a catalytic impact in altering the agenda that other actors face. Indeed, though some scholars have noted the waning of the so-called new judicial federalism (i.e., state appellate courts’willingness to go beyond the U.S. Supreme Court to protect individual rights using expansive interpretations of state constitutions), considerable evidence suggests that Arkansans do increasingly see litigation as a means of changing public policy when majoritarian institutions are nonresponsive to them. Moreover, on occasion, the state’s generally moderate courts oblige them.4 As we will explore in chapter 13, a series of decisions challenging the constitutionality of school-funding formulas and property tax assessment practices forced these items to the top of the gubernatorial and legislative agenda and indicated the constitutional parameters within which acceptable solutions would have to be drawn. In 1986 the supreme court decided that no bond issues by local governments were legal without a vote of the people. This narrow interpretation of the constitution created angst among ﬁnancial and local government interests and brought about a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision.A2002 decision striking down the state’s same-

[223], (2)

Lines: 64 to 6 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [223], (2)

224 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

sex sodomy law on privacy and equal protections grounds brought criticism from traditionalists and praise from modernizers. Decisions to strike proposed constitutional amendments from the ballot because of complex, faulty, and misleading language outraged those who wanted to prohibit abortions in 1984 and those who wanted to bring casino gambling to the state in 1996. Clearly, state judicial decisions do have policy consequences and do work to the advantage of some interests and groups and to the disadvantage of others, all of which is the essence of politics. Arkansas’s courts undeniably are much less politicized than they were in the 1920s and the 1930s. Then, many supreme court justices obtained their seats as rewards for successfully managing gubernatorial campaigns and, in the case of C. E. Johnson, continued to act as the governor’s chief patronage dispenser and political adviser while on the bench. Today’s judges are much less political and inﬁnitely better behaved than those in the nineteenth century, who were among the most enthusiastic participants in the family favoritism, blatant partisanship, and occasional violence that characterized the early Arkansas political tradition. In 1824, one superior court justice mortally wounded another in a duel delayed for six weeks until they could clear their dockets. And in 1827 an employee of the Arkansas Gazette wrote to his brother, “The Secretary of the Territory and the Judges of the Supreme Court drink whiskey out of the same cup as the lowest born, and roll together in the gutter.” Like politics in general, trials may have provided an entertaining distraction from ordinary routine, but the quality of justice was far from even. Few citizens would exchange the judges and courts of today with their distant predecessors.5 Nevertheless, the state judiciary is not apart from, but part of, the Arkansas political system, and an examination of Arkansas politics must include the distinctive politics of the bench. The early years of the twenty-ﬁrst century is a time of signiﬁcant transition with the Arkansas judicial branch, rendering some of this analysis conjectural. Following other late-twentiethcentury amendments that modernized aspects of the Arkansas judiciary, the 2000 voter ratiﬁcation of amendment 80 overhauled both the structure of Arkansas’s court system and the manner in which judges operating within that system are selected. That act, as Sidney McCollum, bar association leader on the issue, aptly put it, “kind of brings the courts into the 20th century.” Still, such structural reforms take years to fully implement, and the judges who operate within that modern structure are almost all individuals ﬁrst elected under the previous system. Consequently, though it is dramatically more coherent and streamlined structurally than the court system in

[224], (3)

Lines: 68 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [224], (3)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

225

place before amendment 80, the transitional judicial “system” consists of many individual judges operating with relative autonomy in their individual courtrooms, and therefore, as Robert A. Leﬂar once noted, “The quality of our judges is the quality of our justice.”6 judicial structure

The judicial functions in Arkansas are performed by hundreds of courts, which, in their broad structure, resemble the general patterns of state courts elsewhere. There are courts of limited jurisdiction, limited both in terms of geographic area and in the minor nature of most of their business, as well as courts of general jurisdiction, where most major civil and criminal cases are [225], (4) tried and decided. There are also two appellate courts: a supreme court and, since 1979, an intermediate court of appeals, which functions primarily to review decisions of the lower courts on appeal (ﬁgure 1).7 Lines: 72 to 8 Until the 1960s, very little was known about the precise number of courts ——— in Arkansas or how many cases they were handling. In 1965, however, 0.0pt PgV the legislature ofﬁcially created the State Judicial Department—renamed ——— the Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts (aoc) in 1989—with the chief Normal Page justice of the supreme court designated as its administrative director. Since * PgEnds: Eject then, considerable data on ﬁlings and dispositions have been systematically collected and periodically published. What these statistics indicate is that in the 2000 calendar year there were over 1.2 million ﬁlings in the various [225], (4) courts of Arkansas, a somewhat astonishing ﬁgure in a state with an adult population of just two million. Indeed, Arkansas led the nation in per capita felony ﬁlings in 2000 and was above the mean in almost every other ﬁling category. The statistics also indicate that 84 percent of these ﬁlings were in courts of limited jurisdiction.8 Amendment 80 eliminated a variety of courts of limited jurisdiction presided over by “judges” who were generally not trained in the law (police courts, courts of common pleas, and justice of the peace courts). However, in reality most of these courts had become irrelevant and heard few cases annually. Another “court” that once had signiﬁcant judicial power was the county court. It remains after amendment 80 but only with the very limited original jurisdiction of claims involving county taxes and expenditures. The most signiﬁcant step in the de facto demise of these courts came in 1987 when the state supreme court ruled that it was unconstitutional for county courts (presided over by county judges) to handle juvenile matters. The supreme court unanimously concluded that juvenile justice was a state, rather than a

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Arkansas Supreme Court *1 chief justice, 6 associate justices, each elected statewide for an eight-year term of ofﬁce.

Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts

Arkansas Court of Appeals *1 chief judge, 11 judges, each elected circuit wide for an eight-year term of ofﬁce.

Circuit Courts *115 circuit judges, each elected circuit wide in one of twenty-eighth circuits for a six-year term of ofﬁce. *Criminal and civil jurisdiction *Jury trials *Equity *Juvenile Division/ neglect, delinquency, families in need of services (ﬁns)

District Courts *124 courts *115 judges elected to a four-year term. *Minor civil & criminal *Small claims

1. Arkansas Court System

*Domestic Relations *Guardianships *Adoptions *Civil commitments

[226], (5)

*Estates

Lines: 85 t ——— *

25.4540

——— Normal Pa * PgEnds: Pa

City Courts *114 courts *87 judges *Minor civil & criminal

[226], (5)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

227

local, concern. For that reason, a new system of state courts was established to handle these cases. The courts of limited jurisdiction, in which over one million cases per year are heard, are the district courts—the main limited-jurisdiction courts called “municipal” courts before amendment 80—and the city courts. District courts are established by the state (124 existed in 2002) and handle minor criminal matters and civil cases involving sums up to $5,000 with a countywide jurisdiction. City courts exist in locales lacking a district court (114 had been created by towns as of 2002) and hear cases relating to violations of city criminal statutes or of other misdemeanor offenses occurring within city limits. However, though the supreme court has recommended that in most counties only a single district court exist in the near future, much remains to be determined by the legislature before the complete consolidation of the district courts, set for 2005. It will have to ﬁx the exact number and locations of these district courts, their speciﬁc responsibilities and procedures, and the fate of the city courts (which were saved in the drafting of amendment 80 because of the power of judges in small towns around the state).9 Fortunately for the litigants, these limited-jurisdiction court judges now must be lawyers (nonlawyer mayors presided over a number of city courts even after a 1977 supreme court ruling raised signiﬁcant due process issues with the practice). However, since few cities have a sufﬁcient volume of cases to warrant a full-time district or city court judge, most of the state’s local judges spend only part of their time on the bench, where they may occasionally be faced with sentencing their clients or clients of their law partners. Such real or perceived conﬂicts of interest have been the basis for hundreds of complaints before the state judicial discipline commission. Only a handful of the state’s district judges are prohibited from maintaining a private law practice, and only Little Rock’s municipal judges made in excess of $100,000 in 2002. In other jurisdictions, where state-set (but locally paid) salaries range from $3,600 to $90,000 a year, district judges may be retired lawyers earning some supplemental income or inexperienced young lawyers who need a guaranteed income as their private practice gets established or who are positioning themselves for a future judicial race. Perhaps most ironically, Dean Morley, who retired in 1986 after sixteen years as a municipal judge over trafﬁc cases (including dwi offenses) in North Little Rock, served simultaneously as the attorney and lobbyist for the Arkansas Wholesale Liquor Dealers Association. (The supreme court has recommended that district judges be full-time and, in certain circumstances, be barred from continued lawyering, but ﬁnal rules on their work are yet to

[227], (6)

Lines: 298 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [227], (6)

228 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

be determined.) There is an automatic right of appeal from all these courts of limited jurisdiction to circuit courts, but since limited-jurisdiction courts are not courts of record (that is, there is no formal transcript of proceedings from which to appeal), such cases are in fact tried anew.10 Most major civil and criminal cases are handled by the courts of general jurisdiction, which are courts of record and whose judges must be lawyers. At this level, amendment 80 mandated even greater structural changes. Only Delaware, Mississippi, and Tennessee persist, as did Arkansas until the amendment’s passage, in maintaining a dual system of courts of law and courts of equity. The origins of the dual system in Arkansas had much more to do with politics than with justice, which explains the state’s resistance to a shift away from it. The pre–amendment 80 “circuit” courts heard major civil and criminal cases, and juries were used unless waived. “Chancery” courts handled cases involving domestic relations, land, and other disputes in which equitable relief was sought: chancellors could order the performance of an act or issue injunctions and restraining orders to command an activity to cease. Chancellors also served as judges of the probate courts, in which capacity they heard cases involving adoptions, wills and estates, and related matters. Only in rare instances did chancellors employ a jury.11 At the time of amendment 80’s passage, 55 judges in the state wore both circuit judge and chancellor hats. Most (33) of these combined judgeships were the result of the shift of the juvenile justice system from the local to the state level. Because juvenile justice involves matters that are traditionally issues of law (e.g., juvenile delinquency) and other matters that are issues of equity (e.g., termination of parental rights), the combined judgeships were the solution to this quandary. The remaining combined judgeships were found in rural districts (21 altogether) and in a single judge who focused on mental health-related issues such as involuntary commitments to the state hospital. In the ﬁnal full calendar year of their separate operation (2000), there were just under two hundred thousand ﬁlings in the 110 generaljurisdiction courts.12 Amendment 80 made all of the general-jurisdiction judges “circuit judges” who could hear all kinds of cases. However, the transition has been complicated for a number of reasons. The supreme court issued an order to judges sitting in the circuits to establish a plan for divvying up responsibility for ﬁve types of cases (criminal, civil, probate, juvenile, and domestic relations) while avoiding divisions that were reminiscent of the old system. Naturally, judges deeply familiar with the rules and procedures of the areas in which they had heard cases for their whole career desired to hang on to such

[228], (7)

Lines: 309 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [228], (7)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

229

specialization. Moreover, certain courtrooms in the state where chancellors had traditionally worked are not built for jury trials. Thus, these judicial meetings turned testy and personal, especially in the seventeen-judge sixth judicial circuit in the Little Rock metropolitan area: “There are some hurt feelings that may not ever be ﬁxed,” said one judge as the group tried to develop a plan. Ultimately, three circuits could not come to agreement and submitted multiple plans to the supreme court, and ﬁve of the state’s circuits had their plans initially rejected by the court. Seeing the difﬁculties that some circuits faced in amendment 80’s implementation, the supreme court eventually delayed full implementation of the merger until July 1, 2003.13 Until 1979 individual justices of theArkansas supreme court had one of the heaviest workloads in America. Spurred by arguments that an intermediate appellate court would reduce the supreme court’s workload, save the justices’ attention for more consequential cases, allow judges more time to consider cases and write opinions, and make the appellate process speedier and more efﬁcient, a court of appeals was authorized by constitutional amendment in 1978 and began operation in mid-1979. In response to a growing caseload for the appeals court, its membership was doubled (to a dozen members) in the mid-1990s. According to one scholarly analysis, “Most of the beneﬁts which were projected by the court’s proponents have, in fact, resulted.”14 With this cursory review of the state’s courts as background, two points with respect to the judicial branch of government require emphasis. First, although Arkansas courts are in general outline comparable to those in other states, modern court reform movements touched them less until contemporary times. And, despite the dramatic changes caused by constitutional amendments, the state’s courts are destined to lag behind other states in modernization even after amendment 80’s full implementation. Second, though Arkansas’s numerous courts are often described as part of a state judicial system, this “system” remains characterized by considerable decentralization and autonomy even after amendment 80. Remarkable strides have, of course, been made since the days when a handful of self-trained or untrained judges together with a pack of equally dubious lawyers rode circuit under difﬁcult and often hazardous circumstances. Court was then held in whatever rude shelter was available, including barns or stables, or outdoors if weather permitted, and with whatever local bystanders who could be lured (sometimes with promises of free whiskey) into jury service. Though some judges still “ride circuit,” they do so with relative ease and in the certainty that courtroom facilities (albeit often inornate), a docket, and at least minimal supporting personnel await

[229], (8)

Lines: 315 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [229], (8)

230 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

them. And though many states, stimulated by the ideas of such organizations as the American Judicature Society, the American Bar Association and the National Center for State Courts, have extensively rationalized, modernized, and professionalized their state courts in recent decades, it is also true that Arkansas lagged almost every other state in following suit. Such at least is suggested by the following brief comparison of three contemporary concepts of a strong state judiciary with the reality of Arkansas’s existing, transitory system.15 The ﬁrst reform goal is to consolidate and simplify court structure. The idea is that the state courts should be streamlined into only a few basic types of courts: a supreme court, an intermediate court of appeals, one type of trial court of general jurisdiction, one or two types of trial courts of limited jurisdiction. This would eliminate overlapping jurisdiction, enhance the prestige of the court, and make the courts easier to understand, use, and supervise. With its bevy of different types of courts at both the general- and limited-jurisdiction levels before amendment 80, of course, Arkansas was the case study of an unreformed court structure. In 1982 Arkansas was ranked ﬁftieth of the ﬁfty states in terms of court consolidation and simpliﬁcation.16 A controversial 1990 supreme court ruling highlighted the problems with the dual general-jurisdiction system and provided for the momentum that eventually led to amendment 80. The court found that the state’s Domestic Abuse Act violated the constitution because it allowed victims of domestic violence to obtain restraining orders in chancery court. This unconstitutionally extended the chancellors’ jurisdiction into criminal matters. Ready to go at the time of the Domestic Abuse ruling was a reiteration of the 1970 and 1980 proposed constitutional language that had been developed into a constitutional amendment by the Arkansas Bar Association. Just weeks after the ruling, the Association’s House of Delegates endorsed the draft and efforts to get it placed on the ballot by the legislature began. For four consecutive sessions, those efforts failed despite its endorsement by Governors Tucker and Huckabee and the active lobbying of the Bar Association, primarily because the state Democratic Party vehemently opposed nonpartisan judicial elections, which were also part of the proposal. Eventually, the joint efforts of the Bar Association and the Judicial Council (the association of state judges) succeeded in getting the streamlining proposal placed on the ballot for the 2000 general election. Though voters showed widespread ignorance and indifference to the proposal, a late advertising blitz primarily funded by the Bar Association overcame passive opposition from the state Democratic Party (and its allies, organized labor and the aea) as well as from some

[230], (9)

Lines: 321 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [230], (9)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

231

prominent African Americans and the state Municipal League (which was concerned about the loss of local revenue from eliminated courts). The amendment was supported by 57.1 percent of voters. In terms of the courts of general jurisdiction, amendment 80 certainly moves signiﬁcantly in the direction of consolidation and simpliﬁcation. Indeed, as a result of amendment 80, Arkansas becomes one of twenty-seven states in which all ﬁve subject-area cases are heard in a single court. However, it will be crucial to gauge the supreme court’s ongoing commitment to a truly uniﬁed system, in which all judges hear a variety of cases. Even some bar supporters of amendment 80 in the state’s most active circuits envisioned continuing judicial specialization so as to ease their daily lives as attorneys. Pressure may grow on the high court to allow the kind of “splitting out” of cases that would make a single court of general jurisdiction only a nominal reality.17 The larger post–amendment 80 problem in terms of court consolidation and simpliﬁcation comes in limited-jurisdiction courts, where city courts will probably survive to accompany the district courts. As mentioned, the lawyers who serve as judges in these courts are important local political actors and will strongly oppose any legislative attempts to destroy the courts. An even stronger basis of opposition from city ofﬁcials in these small towns (all with populations under ﬁve thousand) is the fact that ﬁnes collected in these city courts, primarily for speeding tickets, are an important source of city revenue. Indeed, the state police found one town of 331 persons in northeastArkansas to be in violation of an anti–“speed trap” law by collecting $265,821 in one twelve-month period in the mid-1990s. In addition to the prospects of city courts surviving, the haphazard manner in which municipal courts were created by the General Assembly over time leads to signiﬁcant geographical jurisdictional confusion and conﬂicts. In some cases, it has disconnected taxpayers and voters from the courts that govern them. The supreme court, which will determine jurisdictional rules for the district courts, and, even more importantly, the legislature, which could simplify the system dramatically by eliminating the city courts and several municipal courts, will both have much to say about Arkansas’s realization of this ﬁrst reform goal before and after the district courts are fully consolidated in 2005.18 The second reform goal is centralized management and budgeting. The reform view is that state supreme courts, with the assistance of trained court administrators, should have sufﬁcient staff support, funds, and authority to scrutinize the work of lower courts; conduct research on their problems;

[231], (10)

Lines: 325 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [231], (10)

232 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

and provide information and advice to local judges—all to ensure one efﬁcient and uniform standard of justice. To avoid excessive entanglement with legislative favoritism, a judicial compensation commission should recommend salaries for all state judges, and the supreme court should be empowered to make a single budget for the entire judicial system. The logic here is that courts, dependent on a crazy quilt of state funding, local funding, and court ﬁnes and fees, must necessarily trafﬁc extensively in state and local politics to obtain sufﬁcient funds. And local funding means that the caliber of courts varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. As noted earlier, the legislature did ofﬁcially designate the supreme court chief justice as administrative director of the aoc, and the chief’s administrative staff now consistently compiles data on courts and caseloads. In a clearer statement on the issue than in the language it replaced, amendment 80 states that “The Supreme Court shall prescribe the rules of pleading, practice and procedure for all courts.” Until a December 1990 supreme court ruling that overturned several previous cases and gave the power completely to the court, the legislature had shared such rule making with the court. Amendment 80, therefore, is a reiteration of that ruling. The consolidation process has necessitated a ﬂurry of rules, and many to follow will be important in determining the outlines of the lower-court structure in the state. Centralized rule making represents only a partial step toward truly centralized management and budgeting, however.19 Because a number of bills proposing an independent judicial compensation commission have been defeated by the legislature, the district judges association, individual local judges, and legislators listening to other local ofﬁcials negotiate the appropriation for each salary with no formula to account for workload or experience. Moreover, the supreme court has no power to appoint lower-court personnel or to determine their budgets. And even the power to prescribe procedures is very tenuous, as the chief justice tacitly acknowledged in the following response to a concerned circuit clerk whose judge was ﬂouting procedural requirements: “Some of them, we may just have to let them die off.”20 The state has long paid all the expenses of the two appellate courts and the salaries of circuit and chancery judges and their court reporters. Nevertheless, counties have increasingly resented their ﬁnancial responsibility for funding all other aspects of the courts of general jurisdiction. This led ﬁftytwo of the counties to challenge, unsuccessfully, the constitutionality of the funding system and, in 1995, the legislature committed to funding gradually the court-related personnel for this level of the judicial branch. But even

[232], (11)

Lines: 331 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[232], (11)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

233

after the funding phase-in is complete, the counties will still be responsible for support staff and court infrastructure, barring additional action by the legislature. Moreover, despite the state’s role in creating them, the county shares with city government the cost of the district courts, excepting the judges’ salaries, through a set of locally negotiated funding arrangements. Finally, city governments fund every aspect of city courts. So, particularly at the level where most Arkansans interact with the judicial branch, tremendous disparity exists in the quality of that justice as a result of the effective lobbying of legislators and the property taxes available to cover the signiﬁcant costs of running courts.21 According to one 1998 analysis of state funding of courts, the percentage of the state budget committed to the judiciary was smaller in Arkansas than in all but four other states.And, despite the funding phase-in for some additional personnel, Arkansas will unquestionably remain in the bottom tier of states on this measure of reform. A more general measure of the centralization of the management and budgeting in 1985 ranked Arkansas thirty-ﬁrst, and little evidence suggests improvement in that area, even after amendment 80’s implementation.22 The third reform goal involves judicial education and qualiﬁcations. The central ideas here are that, at minimum, all judges should be lawyers; that extensive, ongoing, in-service training programs are necessary to keep judges and court personnel abreast of substantive, procedural, and administrative developments; and that judicial removal commissions should exist so complaints about inappropriate judicial conduct can be heard and unsatisfactory judges removed from the bench. With the exception of the quasi-judicial functions of county judges overseeing the county courts, all judges in Arkansas are now lawyers. This is, indeed, a break from the recent past when county judges oversaw a crucial area of the justice system, juvenile justice. The 1987 court ruling that declared this practice unconstitutional, therefore, was a highly signiﬁcant reform. After the ruling, however, one duty related to children did remain in the hands of county judges, if they so chose: the determination of paternity. These “judges” used a variety of techniques unconnected to modern science to ascertain a child’s father. Pulaski County Judge Arch Campbell’s infamous “ear test” based paternity rulings on the comparative shape of the ears of the child and the prospective father. Another county judge said in 1988, “The best test . . . is just to put the kid down and let him run to his daddy.” A 1988 constitutional amendment removed this judicial power from county judges as well, leaving Arkansas’s judiciary an attorneys-only club.23

[233], (12)

Lines: 337 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [233], (12)

234 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Although funding levels do lag behind other states, the Education Division of the aoc does provide orientation programs for new judges and continuing education opportunities for judges and other court personnel. In addition, most appellate and circuit judges have attended out-of-state seminars and workshops sponsored by national foundations, but such training is not required by the state. Still, the commitment to training is a sign of tangible progress. Paralleling the ethical reforms seen in other parts of state government since the late 1980s, Arkansas also has taken signiﬁcant steps forward in the area of judicial discipline. Until 1989, the state had no effective way to discipline or remove an aberrant judge. The impeachment process was costly, cumbersome, and highly unlikely (since the legislature is so rarely in session), and a Judicial Ethics Committee, established after some highly publicized episodes of judicial misconduct in 1976, did not ﬁle a single charge or complaint from its creation in 1977 to its dissolution in 1989. As the then chief justice noted, “You can have a judge who eats valium like popcorn and a delegation comes and asks me to do something about it and I can’t.”24 The indictment of two successive Little Rock municipal trafﬁc judges on criminal charges, in 1981 and 1985, together with felony charges in 1985 against a supreme court justice (who was later acquitted), stimulated renewed interest in judicial reforms. The supreme court lobbied for, the legislature proposed, and the electorate in 1988 ratiﬁed a constitutional amendment authorizing the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission (jddc). Composed of nine members (three judges appointed by the supreme court, three lawyers appointed by the attorney general, the president of the senate and the house Speaker, and three laypersons appointed by the governor), it began operating in 1989.25 Because of a surprising supreme court ruling that all commission actions (including admonitions and directives) must be “open to public knowledge,” the press and the public have had greater information than at any time previously about improper judicial conduct. Indeed, the newspapers of the state since 1989 have been ﬁlled with cases—ranging from a judge’s critique of a woman’s not wearing a bra in his courtroom to judicial shoplifting to various nepotism matters—heard and resolved by the jddc. In the calendar year 2000, just over two hundred complaints running the gamut of severity were ﬁled. On seven occasions, sanctions were issued against judges. In one case, Appellate Judge Judith Rogers submitted an early retirement so no further action would be taken in a case that involved a variety of abuses of her ofﬁce. Most extraordinarily, Judge Morris Thompson was removed from

[234], (13)

Lines: 345 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[234], (13)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

235

ofﬁce by the supreme court on the jddc’s recommendation for failing to pay federal income taxes, writing hot checks, driving with a ﬁctitious license plate, and practicing law after becoming a judge.26 All told, Arkansas has taken signiﬁcant steps in reforming its judiciary from its traditional bottom-of-the-barrel rankings in judicial professionalism. However, the extreme autonomy of the courts of limited jurisdiction and the part-time status of their judges limit the degree to which judicial professionalism can be dramatically enhanced in the state. Though the presence of a legitimate judicial disciplinary board helps, because limitedjurisdiction courts are not courts of record, district and city judges have extensive leeway in their courtrooms, restrained only by the judgment and mores of their attentive constituency and by the local government’s need for revenues. Justice, therefore, in the courts where most citizens have their only encounter with the judicial system, can range widely from the arbitrary and heavy-handed to the genial and lenient. On the heavy-handed side, when one novice lawyer attempted to invoke a law in his client’s behalf a local judge reminded him, “Young man, that may be the law of the state of Arkansas but it is not the law in my courtroom. Guilty.” On the lenient side, here is an account of a very “popular” judge in one small town: Judge K. visits with everyone and buys people coffee and cokes wherever he goes. Many times my friends and I may be eating and when we go to pay, Judge K. has already paid for our meal. He is very nice and really popular with younger people. People can come to him and get their tickets dismissed. I paid for a ticket that I got for tailgating. When my ticket came up in court, he told the secretary to dismiss it. She informed him that I had already paid the ticket. He saw my mother in town and gave her my money back.27

Judges in courts of general jurisdiction are somewhat constrained by their desire to avoid reversal of their ﬁndings on appeal, and circuit judges must work with jurors who are registered voters and whose impressions of the judge may circulate in the community. Still, only 1 percent of the decisions of general jurisdiction courts are appealed, and generally only the most aberrant judicial conduct will rouse a community to closer scrutiny of what is transpiring in their local courtroom.28 judicial selection In theory, concern about the conduct and caliber of Arkansas judges is unnecessary. Since all judgeships except city court judges are elective in Arkansas, they are constantly under the most powerful potential sanction of

[235], (14)

Lines: 353 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [235], (14)

236 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

all: the right of the people to select qualiﬁed jurists and to remove unsatisfactory judges from the bench when they seek reelection. The actual operation of the selection system, however, raises some serious questions about the effectiveness of elections as a device for ensuring popular accountability. Although Arkansas judges were originally appointed, ﬁrst by the legislature, later by the governor, by 1864 Arkansas had opted for popular election. This method was modiﬁed during the Reconstruction years but resoundingly reconﬁrmed in the 1874 constitution and sustained since. In a slight tempering of the Jacksonian spirit, elective terms for some judges are lengthier than those of most other elected ofﬁcials: eight years for supreme court and court of appeals justices; six years for circuit judges; four years for district judges. In many other states the trend in recent decades has been toward “merit selection,” usually gubernatorial appointment from a committee-recommended list followed by a “retention” election. However, that method was rejected in the drafting of amendment 80, and Arkansas has retained a totally elective judiciary. But the election process was altered by amendment 80. Rather than the partisan elections of the past (where judges had to obtain a party nomination before moving on to the general election), all judges now run in a nonpartisan election at the time of the party primaries. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote at that time, the top two ﬁnishers face off months later in the November general election. Arkansas, in fact, has the most elected state judges in the nation according to one analysis, that is, the highest percentage of judges who ﬁrst reach the bench through election rather than appointment. Although twenty-six states still elect most of their judges (eight in partisan, eighteen in nonpartisan elections), in many of these states political custom promotes the practice of judges resigning shortly before their terms expire. This enables the governor to appoint a successor, who then runs for reelection with all the advantages of incumbency. Indeed, around the country a majority of “elective” judges initially reached the bench through gubernatorial selection rather than through the “normal” process of election.29 What makes this ruse impossible in Arkansas (and only Louisiana has a similar prohibition) is a constitutional amendment that prohibits a judicial appointee from running for election for that ofﬁce to which he or she was appointed. Amendment 29, proposed by popular initiative and adopted by 52 percent of the voters in 1938, contains several provisions designed to prevent a variety of political abuses that had become commonplace. It was not aimed exclusively, or even primarily, at the judicial branch. Still, because it clearly prohibits any person appointed to the U.S. Senate or to any “elective

[236], (15)

Lines: 384 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[236], (15)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

237

state, district, circuit, county and township ofﬁce” from being eligible “to appointment or election to succeed himself,” it has given Arkansas the most “democratic” judiciary of any in the nation.30 The rationale for an elective judiciary is anchored in arguments that it is a more popular and participatory process than the allegedly more closed, secretive, and elitist appointive method. Since judges make decisions with profound consequences for citizens’well-being, it is asserted, citizens should be able to select—as they are universally deemed entitled to and capable of with respect to governors and legislators—judges who are sensitive to popular preferences and values. Furthermore, elections make it possible for citizens to hold judges accountable for the quality of their performance and their ﬁdelity to the public trust. The problem with these and similar arguments is that they presume a number of conditions that would in fact give the electorate a meaningful choice: a vigorous contest for ﬁrst election to the bench in which the qualiﬁcations, values, and views of all contestants were highly publicized; and an equally vigorous challenge when a judge sought reelection, so his or her performance could be evaluated. Whatever the abstract merits of the arguments for an elective judiciary (arguments that, parenthetically, do not acknowledge the traditional role of the judiciary in protecting unpopular minorities and controversial freedoms), the conditions that would in fact make such elections an instrument of popular choice and accountability are rarely operative in Arkansas. To begin with, though many open seats produce a genuine contest, many draw only one “contestant,” who is then “elected” by acclamation. Elections to the recently established court of appeals, for example, were held for the ﬁrst time in 1980. In only four of the six districts did more than one candidate ﬁle, and for the twenty years between its creation and the end of the century there were only ﬁve other primary or general-election challenges in elections for the court, despite its doubling in size. Similarly, responses to a survey of circuit and chancery judges in the mid-1980s indicated that nearly half (twenty-eight of ﬁfty-nine) were ﬁrst “elected” to their position without a contest. In 2002, seven of twenty-ﬁve open judgeships were “won” without a challenge.31 The chances of a contest are even more dramatically reduced when an incumbent judge seeks reelection. It is very uncommon for a sitting judge to draw an opponent, and the defeat of an incumbent judge is the rarest occurrence in Arkansas politics. Incumbent supreme court justices were defeated only three times in the twentieth century, all in highly unusual

[237], (16)

Lines: 390 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [237], (16)

238 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

circumstances. Successful challenges are even more infrequent at lower levels. From 1972 through 2000, fewer than ten general-jurisdiction judges lost their seats to challengers. The ﬁrst election cycle of the nonpartisan election era, 2002, both illustrates and reafﬁrms previous ﬁndings about the political safety of incumbent judges. Of the seventy-two sitting judges who ran for reelection, only six faced challenges, and all six won solid victories.32 This nearly routine reelection of most judges may well reﬂect popular satisfaction with incumbents, but it also reﬂects the hesitancy of practicing lawyers in challenging an incumbent judge. The chance of victory is slim, and the penalty can be severe for a lawyer who must continue practicing in the court of a judge he or she attempted to remove from the bench. Even supporting the losing candidate in a judicial contest is risky business for a lawyer. As one attorney recently noted, “I’ve heard horror stories about judges who win tacking their defeated opponent’s ads up on the wall, and those who signed it being on a ‘hit list’ [for unfavorable treatment].” As another lawyer noted, “If you strike at the king, you must strike to kill.”33 Because the electorate is so likely to support the incumbent against a challenger, judges seeking reelection always use Judge before their name on the ballot and, in the rare event of challenge, emphasize their incumbency in all advertisements: for example, “Circuit Judge Paul Jameson is a trial judge now. Keep a proven, working trial judge at work on the job. Let the work of the court proceed without interruption. Re-elect Judge Paul Jameson.” The insistent, almost frantic tone of this particular pitch was due to the fact that the challenger in this instance, having served as an appointed judge on the court of appeals, was also entitled to run with “Judge” before his name on the ballot, thus creating potential confusion for the electorate.34 Because polling research indicates that using Judge before a candidate’s name is worth an automatic 20 percent of the votes, any candidates who can legitimately attach this appellation do so and feature pictures of their robed selves in all advertising. It is certainly no accident that the single ofﬁce most frequently held by circuit and chancery judges before their election to the general-jurisdiction bench is that of municipal judge. Furthermore, over one-quarter of all elected district judges sitting in 2002 had received an appointment to a general-jurisdiction judgeship prior to their ﬁrst successful race for the bench (with many others receiving other judicial appointments). And it has been common for an appellate court judge to gain a position through appointment soon before an election, then run for an open seat on the same court in that election, thus skirting the prohibitions in amendment 29. (A2001 legislative action, however, means that only candidates who have

[238], (17)

Lines: 398 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[238], (17)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

239

been elected to a judgeship will be able to use the title on the ballot, although they will be able to tout the experience in their campaigns.) What this suggests is that even in Arkansas’s “purely elective” system, appointments are extensively parlayed into electoral success.35 The utility of elections as an instrument of popular inﬂuence on the judiciary, then, is at least somewhat stiﬂed by the frequency with which only one candidate seeks the ofﬁce, the infrequency with which incumbent judges are challenged, and the fact that many candidates, though not in fact incumbents, have appeared to be to the electorate by inserting Judge before their names on the ballot. Of course, where all candidates run as “Judge” (as in the two-man race for the open associate supreme court justiceship in 2000) or where none uses that label (the two-man race for an open associate supreme court justiceship two years earlier), the electorate must rely on other clues. What other factors enter into the judicial selection process, and do they enhance or further weaken the “popular accountability” rationale for an elective judiciary? Until 2002 all judicial contests in Arkansas were partisan. Thus, most Arkansas judges were ﬁrst elected with a Democratic Party label (and they will likely continue to be the majority of the state’s judges through the ﬁrst two decades of the twenty-ﬁrst century). Studies have demonstrated that there are in fact measurable policy differences between Democratic and Republican state judges and that those differences might logically be predicted by party afﬁliation (that is, Democratic judges are more likely to ﬁnd for the tenant in landlord-tenant cases, for the employee in employee injury cases, for the administrative agency in business regulation cases, and so on). For this reason, the party label might seem to have offered some useful guidance to the electorate in these judges’ initial elections. Such was not the case in Arkansas through the era of partisan judicial elections. Because of the party’s difﬁculty in ﬁelding candidates (“Most of the Republican lawyers are just starting their practices,” as the executive director of the gop said in the late 1990s) and because it was not the party’s priority, Republicanism had not trickled down the ballot to judicial elections by the time of amendment 80’s passage. In 2000, for instance, of twenty-one appellate and general jurisdiction judgeships in the ballot, Republicans were able to ﬁeld candidates in only ﬁve of the races. (Three of these were appellate court judges, ﬁrst appointed by Republican Governor Huckabee, who ran unsuccessfully against other “judges” for different appellate seats.) Indeed, through the last partisan election cycle (which also coincides with the century’s end, 2000), only six Republicans had sought a supreme court position

[239], (18)

Lines: 404 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [239], (18)

240 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

in the twentieth century. (The ﬁrst was the same Jim Johnson who had run six times previously for ofﬁce as a Democrat and once as a candidate of the White Citizens Council, in 1984). At the general-jurisdiction level, there were only twenty-nine general-election contests with Republican candidates (compared with sixty-eight Democratic primary contests) between 1990 and 2000. The vast majority of those gop candidacies came when new judgeships were created, and were feeble efforts. So, whatever clarifying utility the party label may have in a competitive two-party state, in Arkansas it was a fact that almost all viable judicial contests that took place were within the Democratic primary.36 Since it was clear that “Democrats” would be elected to judgeships whether elections were partisan or nonpartisan, why did the state Democratic Party ﬁght so ferociously in the legislature (even trumping their own governor, Jim Guy Tucker) against nonpartisan elections for judges? Though arguments about voters needing the information provided by party labels were used, these were undeniably window dressing for the real reason: dollars and cents. The dozens of Democratic judges who ﬁled (most simply to return to their existing jobs) each election cycle provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in ﬁling fees to the party. Though necessary to help offset the cost of primaries when they were run by parties, after 1995 this became money that could be used for party-building activities to the Democrats’ advantage and the state Republican Party’s disadvantage. Despite the majority party’s successful opposition in previous legislative sessions, nonpartisanship in judicial elections—long advocated by Arkansas’s judicial reformers, as shown by its inclusion in the rejected modern constitutions—was included in the draft of amendment 80 approved by the voters. In addition, the Code of Judicial Conduct was altered after the amendment’s passage to prohibit the use of party endorsements in a race. So, before the time when party label would mean much in these elections, this cue was removed from the ballot in Arkansas.37 Also absent from the state’s judicial campaigns as a cue for voters has been a clear picture of the assorted candidates’ political and social views and values, which would naturally inform their actions on the bench. That is because Canon 5a of the ofﬁcial Code of Judicial Conduct states that a candidate for judicial ofﬁce shall not “make pledges or promises of conduct in ofﬁce other than the faithful and impartial performance of the duties of the ofﬁce; or make statements that commit or appear to commit the candidates with respect to cases, controversies or issues that are likely to come before the court.” A broad 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling deeming such rules

[240], (19)

Lines: 410 ———

13.0pt P

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[240], (19)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

241

violations of candidates’ free-speech rights, however, means that Arkansas’s code will likely have to be modiﬁed dramatically. In past elections, the canon has been ignored. In 1984, for example, in two races for the supreme court the candidates who were trailing demanded that the front runners take stands on such issues as pornography, school consolidation, and capital punishment; challenged them to issue debates; and advertised their own issue positions. In neither instance, however, were the front runners goaded into discussing more than their qualiﬁcations for ofﬁce or their views on judicial reform. This canon undoubtedly has served as an important and valuable assurance of impartiality on the bench. As the majority opinion in the 2002 Supreme Court case noted, however, it is somewhat contradictory to the rationale for an elective judiciary. And, in his unsuccessful 2004 race for chief justice of the supreme court, court of appeals judge Wendell Griffen cited the 2002 ruling in articulating his positions on abortion and guns and in challenging his opponent to a debate so that, together, they might give voters a perspective on their competing philosophies. His opponent declined, citing the limitations imposed by the Code of Judicial Conduct. Though tradition will likely limit candidates’ statements on controversial issues in the short-term, over time Arkansas’s judicial campaigns will change in their rhetorical content.38 With party label never consequential and now absent and debates on issues deemed inappropriate, on what basis does the electorate choose between competing candidates? One hypothesis is that “name recognition is all, and the candidate with a short, comfortable-sounding name, easily remembered, has a decisive advantage.” Certainly, the historical rosters of supreme court justices display an exceptional number of names such as Smith, Brown, and Jones, and few names of more than two syllables. Robert A. Leﬂar, for example, remained convinced that the more familiar, American-sounding name of his 1942 opponent (R. W. Robins) was highly advantageous to the latter. The short-name theory has no explanatory value, however, when all candidates have equally succinct ones (for example, Hays or Brown; Purtle or Harmon; Newbern, Bentley, or Sanders).39 Perhaps more important than a short name is a familiar name, especially one with judicial connotations. The name-recognition value that comes from previous ofﬁceholding is clearly important for election to the general jurisdiction bench. Only 16 of 105 circuit judges in ofﬁce in 2002 for whom such information was available had never held previous public ofﬁce, while most had been a municipal or other judge, prosecuting attorney, deputy prosecutor, city attorney, state representative, or school-board member, and many had served in several positions.

[241], (20)

Lines: 417 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [241], (20)

242 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

A prominent name can often assure victory to a judgeship without opposition. When former congressman Ray Thornton (who represented both the Fourth and Second Congressional Districts at different times) decided to seek an associate justice spot in 1996, he was unopposed. One observer said, “We don’t know how good a judge Ray Thornton will be, but we do know he’s Ray Thornton.” And, although no relation to the man who ﬁrst appointed her to ofﬁce, the Clinton last name was clearly beneﬁcial to Judge Annabelle Clinton in her early races in the late 1980s. She has continued to prominently display it on the ballot and on campaign materials for successful races, including an unopposed elevation to the supreme court in 1998 after becoming Annabelle Clinton Imber. Interestingly, according to a survey of incumbent judges in 1985, over one-fourth had a close relative who had served on the bench. Chief Justice Jack Holt Jr., elected in 1984, followed both an uncle and a cousin to the supreme court bench. Family ties did not assist the race of Grifﬁn Smith Jr. (son of Chief Justice Grifﬁn Smith, who served from 1937 to 1955) against an incumbent justice in 1988, nor Eugene Harris’s attempt in 1980 to secure the chief justiceship that his father had held from 1957 to 1969. The unsuccessful Harris race challenges another generalization, that an eye-catching nickname has strong voter appeal. Eugene (“Kayo”) Harris was not a winner, nor was Charles A. (“Charlie”) Brown, W. H. (“Sonny”) Dillahunty in 1980, or Wilbur C. (“Dub”) Bentley in 1984. However, another “Dub” (W. H. Arnold) won the chief justiceship in 1996.40 The familiar phenomenon of “friends and neighbors” is obviously inﬂuential in judicial races. Candidates in statewide races will generally get the strongest support in their home counties or areas. Harris’s major strength came from his chancery district in 1980, for example, and John Harmon’s came from those counties where his father-in-law, a former state senator, had political inﬂuence. In the 1996 race for chief justice, winner “Dub” Arnold ran up huge margins around his southwest Arkansas home, including 87 percent in his home county. Albeit by smaller margins, his opponent found success in the counties around his Delta birthplace and his northwest Arkansas residence. Familiarity, however, can also breed displeasure: the Pulaski County prosecutor “Dub” Bentley got only 23 percent of the Pulaski County vote in his supreme court bid in 1984. Generally, interest-group endorsements are most inﬂuential in less visible races. For instance, though organized labor has had its difﬁculties in the modern electoral arena, labor-endorsed candidates for the supreme court have been much more successful than not in recent decades. At least one

[242], (21)

Lines: 424 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[242], (21)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

243

victory (John Purtle’s in 1978 over Otis Turner, who had the backing of the bar) has been largely attributed to labor’s active exertions. Labor’s role has been even more important in general-jurisdiction judicial races. Perhaps for this reason, organized labor has staunchly supported the elective method. Through 2002, however, other interest groups have not yet played one of the roles they have played in neighboring states: running independent advertising in judicial races (typically attack-oriented and focused on matters not usually allowed by judicial canons). However, it seems inevitable that such election techniques will soon enter the airwaves of Arkansas.41 At present, the most consequential organized interest is assumed to be the state’s lawyers. The most frequently employed newspaper advertisement features long lists of lawyers’ names or signatures endorsing the candidate, for example, “Over 100 Area Lawyers Support the Re-election of Charles Williams, Fayetteville Municipal Judge.” On the Sunday before an election, the statewide newspaper has page after page of ads such as that run by Jack Holt Jr., in 1984. It listed the names of nearly seven hundred lawyers and bore a simple message: “Those of us who are members of the legal community believe that there’s only one candidate who has the skills, determination, experience and temperament to be our Chief Justice.”42 As was the case in decades past, candidates for statewide ofﬁce begin their campaigns by attempting to secure commitments of support and activity from lawyers in each county, hoping they will spread the word to their clients and others with whom they have inﬂuence. Often they begin with their cadre of classmates from law school, a communication system enhanced by the fact that, until the Little Rock campus became a separate institution in 1975, Arkansas had only one law school. Of the present seven supreme court justices, only one attended an out-of-state law school. Nearly nine in ten of the general-jurisdiction judges have a law degree from either the Fayetteville (67.8 percent) or Little Rock (18.3 percent) schools as well. Furthermore, according to a mid-1980s survey, most (forty-three of ﬁfty-nine) indicated that they were very or moderately active in the state bar and especially (ﬁfty-two of ﬁfty-nine) active in local bar association activities prior to their elections.43 What has changed over the decades is the cost of seeking judicial ofﬁce. From $10,000 or $15,000 in a contested statewide race in the 1940s it has risen to at least $250,000 in the 1990s (the record was over $600,000 spent in a 1990 supreme court race). General-jurisdiction judges with contested elections increasingly reach the six-ﬁgure mark. (The most expensive are in Little Rock–based districts where television is now regularly used and

[243], (22)

Lines: 432 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [243], (22)

244 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

races tend to be signiﬁcantly more costly in general). Here, perhaps, is where support from the legal community is most consequential. With some exceptions and excepting the lawyer-candidates themselves who tend to fund large amounts of trial court races, the largest bulk of the money in judicial races comes from lawyers. Since large sums are necessary to run a competitive race, judicial candidates who cannot get ﬁnancial backing from the bar face something of a silent veto. Here also may be the most disturbing aspect of an elective judiciary. The sight during an election year of judicial candidates scurrying from one law ofﬁce to another in search of support and contributions inevitably diminishes the ideal image of a totally independent, unobligated, and uncompromised judiciary.44 Although the judicial canons state “A candidate shall not personally solicit or accept campaign contributions,” there is no secrecy about who has (and has not) contributed. Individual contributions must be reported and larger contributors are then identiﬁed in newspaper accounts. More important, judicial candidates quickly learn that their contributors want to give their check directly to the candidate, not to some intermediary, and even the most principled of candidates soon bends to this reality by accompanying a campaign aide who takes the check while the candidate shakes the contributor’s hand.45 If, as most judges and lawyers assume, the bar’s inﬂuence is the critical factor in judicial elections, another doubt has been raised about the extent to which judicial elections actually represent the voice of the people. This is an especially intriguing question since one of the major arguments against an appointive judiciary is that it simply replaces the politics of the electoral arena with the politics of the legal community. As a former circuit judge noted, “There is nothing more political than appointments. The only problem is that you’re not talking politics that involves the people any more. You’re talking politics between the governor and a law ﬁrm.”46 It should also be noted, however, that the actual inﬂuence of the legal community may be less than is commonly assumed. Judicial elections are held simultaneously with other contests, and usually 90 percent or more of those voting for the top of the ticket express their preferences in judicial contests as well. It is difﬁcult to imagine that any sizable proportion of the 304,009 Arkansans who voted in the 1996 Democratic primary for supreme court chief justice that selected the ultimate winner have their own lawyer, or have sought a lawyer’s guidance on the vote. In the most thorough test to date of bar inﬂuence in judicial elections, a survey of voters leaving the polls in a highly controversial election to the Texas supreme court found

[244], (23)

Lines: 438 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[244], (23)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

245

that only 7.6 percent of those who had voted had received information from an attorney. The survey also revealed that 85.8 percent of those leaving the polls could not remember the name of the judicial candidate for whom they had just voted! Though this test has not been replicated in Arkansas, one poll did indicate that less than 1 percent of Arkansas voters could recognize the names of their supreme court justices. One scholar of state judicial systems has noted, “As long as he remains largely invisible to the public, his chances of remaining in ofﬁce are excellent.” If this is true, Arkansas judges should be invincible. When Attorney General Steve Clark appeared before a circuit judge to enter a plea on his felony theft charges and request that ﬁles be sealed to protect against prejudicial publicity, the judge noted: “I guess the court could say that in all the years he’s been here, the fact that I’ve never had my picture taken before is evidence that this case has generated signiﬁcant publicity.”47 Perhaps because some doubt exists as to the decisive nature of bar endorsements and support, candidates for judicial ofﬁce use a wide variety of campaign devices—billboards; yard signs; appearances before civic groups; and newspaper, radio, and (increasingly) television advertisements—that contain an astonishing array of biographical information. This can range from the fact that they chopped cotton, coached Little League, or taught Sunday School to their membership in a Masonic Lodge, role organizing a volunteer ﬁre department, or marriage to a Tri Delt. One enterprising (and successful!) candidate for the supreme court chief justiceship ran an advertisement proclaiming his endorsement by twenty-seven ex-Razorback (University of Arkansas) football lettermen, complete with the rampaging razorback hog logo. Because of the importance of a name that will stick in voters’ minds long enough for them to cast their ballots, recent election cycles have included bevies of memorable (for good or ill) radio jingles.48 The effective clues to which a judicial electorate responds in Arkansas remain something of a mystery. What is known, however, is that in an elective judicial system, those who reach the bench must ordinarily have some political skills and some measure of name recognition in addition to whatever legal skills they may possess. In the most thorough analysis of the Arkansas supreme court to date, Cal Ledbetter Jr. concluded, “Political activity and inﬂuence rather than legal ability or success as a practitioner is the decisive factor in helping one to reach the Supreme Court.”49 This is not to suggest that appointive methods inevitably produce a more distinguished bench. In fact, some of the most exhaustive research on this subject has concluded that “neither the method of selection nor the

[245], (24)

Lines: 444 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [245], (24)

246 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

term of ofﬁce seems to correlate very highly or consistently with technical competence, honesty, wisdom and other non-ideological virtues.” Still, it is clear that, in Arkansas at least, the elective method has not yet produced a very “representative” judiciary. This is particularly problematic because of the judiciary’s role in protecting the rights of minorities. Through 2004, one woman and no African Americans have been elected to a seat on the supreme court. In contrast, the allegedly more “elitist” appointive method had placed three women and ﬁve African Americans (including future Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals’ appointee Lavenski Smith) on the supreme court to ﬁll vacancies.50 Women and African Americans remain underrepresented at the trial court level as well and, until the dissolution of the dual court system, they faced tremendous challenges in gaining judgeships focused on criminal matters. However, court rulings did open opportunities for some of them. First, the new juvenile judgeships created after the state supreme court declared the juvenile justice system unconstitutional provided open-seat judgeships in an arena where women lawyers were more likely to have professional experience and to be perceived by voters as having special competence. In 1990 alone eight women candidates statewide vied for the newly created juvenile judgeships. Women candidates continued to have success in winning these judgeships until they lost distinctiveness after amendment 80. More direct in its impact was a 1992 federal district court order (typically referred to as the Hunt decree) under the federal Voting Rights Act that required that judicial “subdistricts” be created within existing general-jurisdiction court districts. The African American voting age population of each subdistrict was at least 60 percent. All told, a dozen judgeships were covered by the decree, which immediately resulted in a sharp increase in the number of African American jurists in the state.51 Though critics of the elective system abound inside and outside of the legal community, changing the system in the near future seems unlikely. Merit appointment (at least at the appellate level) was widely discussed during the judicial reform process that culminated in amendment 80 but was ultimately rejected when the measure was drafted. It seems that nonpartisanship is the major step that will occur in the realm of judicial selection in Arkansas for this generation. One potential force that could renew discussion of the appointment system after amendment 80 is fully implemented is the probability that judicial elections will increase in cost and brutality as the twenty-ﬁrst century progresses. Two recent supreme court campaigns give some feel for what

[246], (25)

Lines: 450 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[246], (25)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

247

may well become the norm, at least at the statewide level. In the determinative 1990 Democratic primary for an open seat on the court, won by Bob Brown by just over one thousand votes over Judith Rogers, the ﬁrst woman elected to an Arkansas appellate court, Arkansans experienced the most expensive and, arguably, the most vicious contest in memory. Exceeding a half-million dollars in cost (which “drained” the lawyers who provided much of those funds), the campaign was marked by televised attacks and counterattacks about ethics, lying, sexism, absenteeism, facials and manicures, trips to the Soviet Union, and who had and had not seen the porn ﬁlm Deep Throat. Six years later, the chief justice race saw similar attack advertisements, this time focused on whether one candidate had made personal use of a Datsun sports car seized in a drug arrest when he was a prosecutor. It is possible that campaigns as vicious and as costly as those for the supreme court in 1990 and 1996 may indeed become the norm, and the demise of the judicial canons limiting the topics about which judicial candidates may communicate with voters may begin to make judicial races indistinct from other legislative and executive races. If so, then a new movement for merit-based appointments may rise up out of the Arkansas legal community. Amendment 80 gives the legislature the explicit power to send such a proposal to the people.52

[247], (26)

Lines: 456 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX

the future The Arkansas judicial branch presents a number of interesting paradoxes. In one respect, it is the most “democratic” judiciary in the nation. However, the conditions that would make judicial elections a meaningful statement of popular choice are absent more often than they are present. Although ranked very low in terms of judicial professionalism, there is little evidence of the extensive backlogs that have clogged the judicial process and made a mockery of justice in some states that have highly professionalized systems. In fact, the Arkansas supreme court is considered to be one of the most efﬁcient in the nation, with an average of only two weeks between a case’s argument and the handing down of a ruling, as of 2000.53 Finally, in its most consequential paradox, this shadowy and consistently moderate judicial system now regularly reorders the agendas of the more visible actors in the other two branches of state government as well as in the local governments throughout the state. It gives a point of entry for citizens consistently outgunned in the majoritarian branches of government. In May 2001 a Little Rock chancellor deemed the Arkansas state public school system unconstitutionally “inadequate” and “inequitable” (a case discussed

[247], (26)

248 The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

more fully in chapter 13). This prompted the creation of a special legislative commission on education reform and forced gubernatorial and legislative candidates to detail their views on education reform in an unprecedented manner. Similarly, in the midst of a budget crisis in the summer of 2002, another Little Rock judge declared unconstitutional a use tax that brought $6 million annually into the coffers of Pulaski County and its cities, forcing signiﬁcant midyear budget reallocations. Overturning the vote of the Little Rock city board, a third Little Rock judge overturned in June 2002 the plans to build the state’s largest shopping mall, to the glee of the residents living near the mall, antigrowth advocates, and the owners of a central city mall whose vitality was threatened by the proposed mall. Finally, in the largest judgment in Arkansas history, in June 2001 a Polk County jury awarded a $78.4 million verdict against a nursing home and its owners for mistreating a patient. The decision was celebrated by populists who see trial lawyers as partly ﬁlling the void of the failed labor movement in the South, and to corporate defenders it provided evidence on the need for tort reform in Arkansas, which they successfully employed in the 2003 legislative session. In all four cases, judges whose names and faces the vast majority of voters would not recognize (despite having placed them in ofﬁce) or a jury of voters had impacted the future public policy of the state and then quickly returned to their anonymity.54 Although the variety of constitutional amendments passed in the last two decades of the twentieth century did reform Arkansas’s judiciary dramatically (and much remains unknown about the depth of amendment 80’s impact), some close observers see the need for additional changes and improvements. They are concerned that the elective system discourages many potentially excellent judges from the bench because of their distaste for the money raising and occasional name calling that election contests entail. They are concerned that the dramatic increase in the number of general-jurisdiction judges in recent decades, though providing swifter justice for plaintiffs, has also produced some detrimental effects: namely, judges who are much more sensitive to the local politics of their one- or two-county constituency than a judge with six or seven counties in his district was compelled to be and a drastic shrinking of the pool of competent eligibles. Many are concerned with the continuing “autonomy” of district judges and their capacity to do mischief instead of justice at a level where most citizens have their only encounters with the judicial system. The increasing costs of judicial races have begun to attract the participation of political action committees. This could well lead to increased numbers of judges who assume ofﬁce under a heavy and potentially compromising burden of campaign debts.

[248], (27)

Lines: 466 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[248], (27)

The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

249

Legal proceedings are playing an even more central role in determining the outcomes of social conﬂicts, leading to a much larger, more costly, and more visible judicial branch. As a result, citizen demands for a more sensibly administered judiciary and a more selective recruitment process should increase as well. However, as indicated by the thirty-year battle for a streamlined judiciary, for professional judges who can handle sensitive matters related to juveniles, for nonpartisan elections, and for a legitimate judicial discipline process, judicial reform will be high on very few agendas.

[Last Page] [249], (28)

Lines: 472 to ———

413.84001 ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [249], (28)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter eleven

Arkansas in the Federal System: Cooperation and Conﬂict

[First Page [250], (1) In a small town where we choked on dust in the summer and bogged down in mud in the winter, where sewage ran down the ditches from overﬂowing outhouses . . . it was a caring Government in the 30’s that gave us loans and grants to pave our streets and build a waste treatment facility. . . . And when Betty and I returned to our little hometown to . . . raise our beautiful children, we raised them free of the fear of polio and other childhood diseases that had been conquered because of vaccines developed with Government grants. Senator Dale Bumpers, 1984 All we’re trying to do is get states’ rights back. . . . The power of the ferc to impose these kinds of burdens arbitrarily, capriciously, and without us having any input, is the power to destroy our respective states. Senator Dale Bumpers, 1986

If Arkansas government and politics operated in complete isolation, this chapter would be unnecessary. The consequences of absolute autonomy, however, would be much more momentous than the absence of a chapter. That very sizable number of Arkansas’s schools, highways, bridges, dams, courthouses, clinics, jails, levees, sewer systems, and parks constructed wholly or partially with federal funds would be nonexistent. The $1.2 billion Arkansas River navigation project, the largest civil works project undertaken by the U.S. Corps of Engineers for decades, would not exist, nor would Beaver Lake or Greers Ferry Lake, around which prosperous retirement and resort communities now ﬂourish. Without the federal government, those 511,080 Arkansans who are accustomed to receiving a monthly Social Security check would be severely disadvantaged, if not ruined, and the con-

Lines: 0 to ———

1.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [250], (1)

Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

251

sequences could be equally disastrous for farmers, military retirees, health workers, welfare recipients, college students, and others whose fortunes are wholly or partially dependent upon direct payments from the federal government.l The absence of sister states would also have a major impact on an autonomous Arkansas. Arkansas students who presently pursue dental studies in Tennessee and prepare to become veterinarians in Louisiana under reciprocity arrangements worked out by the Southern Regional Education Board would be forced into other callings. Of less material but nonetheless major consequence, without the colleges of states to the south and the east, the University of Arkansas Razorbacks would have no adversaries in the Southeastern Conference. The imagined consequences of an absolutely autonomous Arkansas, ranging from inconvenience to calamity, could be expanded, but the exercise would be purely hypothetical and preposterous. Arkansas is ﬁrmly enmeshed in a complex web of intergovernmental relationships, and this has been true from before it had even territorial status through decades of statehood. In Arkansas’s earliest years the national government provided all of the few roads and river improvements that were constructed, and early General Assemblies spent much of their time supplicating Congress for more. During the Civil War, of course, federal aid became federal arms. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, southern congressmen were often leading the efforts in securing federal aid for public purposes: road building, farm loans, boll weevil control, health programs, ﬂood control, agricultural extension services, and vocational education. The extensive and indispensable aid offered to Arkansas by the federal government during the Great Depression has already been noted, as well as the stimulating effect this assistance had in promoting the state’s own responsibility for welfare programs and the revenue to sustain them. Indeed, federal funds were the major source of ﬁnancing for Arkansas’s centennial celebration in 1936.2 Numerous additional federal aid programs were established in the 1960s, so that, according to one recent study, federal aid as a percentage of Arkansas’s total revenue ranged from 27 percent to 36 percent from 1966 to 1980. Ronald Reagan’s New Federalism focused on “devolving” decision making over and ﬁnancial responsibility for governmental programs back to the states. Though falling signiﬁcantly short of Reagan’s ideal, the concept of devolution has continued to be supported, at least rhetorically, by administrations since his. In the 2000 ﬁscal year, for example, the percentage of total revenue for Arkansas coming from federal funds was 25 percent. This was

[251], (2)

Lines: 61 to 6 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [251], (2)

252 Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

still signiﬁcant but markedly lower than in the years immediately following the Johnson administration’s expansion of the federal government’s role into unprecedented arenas.3 Another way of describing the salutary effects of federal spending in Arkansas is to note that for ﬁscal year 2002 the estimated amount of federal spending in Arkansas for each $1.00 in federal taxes paid by Arkansas residents was $1.54. Arkansas assumed only 0.64 percent of the total federal tax burden in 2000, but received 0.99 percent of total federal expenditures, with higher percentages in particular funding categories such as highways (1.2 percent) and Social Security and veterans’ beneﬁts (1.1 percent). In ﬁscal year 2002 the federal government spent $18.4 billion in Arkansas, making Arkansas twenty-ﬁrst among the ﬁfty states in per capita spending, with $6,779 spent per resident and—because of Arkansas’s relatively low federal tax contribution—tenth in the nation in balance of payments (the per capita difference between federal spending and taxes).4 In dollar terms, being part of the federal system has been and remains unarguably advantageous for Arkansas. Throughout Arkansas’s history, however, there has been and there remains a dark undercurrent of suspicion and hostility toward the national government that has occasionally erupted into angry conﬂict. Following the thesis of this book, some would argue that the fact that many (though certainly not all) of these federal programs disproportionately beneﬁt Arkansas citizens victimized by their own state government’s indifference is a key reason why those who have controlled the reins of state government resist national governmental action. Though this explanation may explain the behavior of the state’s political elites, it does not fully explain the very real ambivalence of rank-and-ﬁle Arkansans to the state’s participation in the federal system. Given the material beneﬁts that Arkansas’s place in a federal system produces, what accounts for the perceived political advantageousness of “ﬁghting the feds”? In an era when an Arkansan has been elected to the presidency, has this kind of political posturing lost its popularity or simply changed its character? Will Arkansas’s intergovernmental relationships become more or less problematic in the future? cooperative federalism In one of the ﬁrst and still ﬁnest examinations of cooperative federalism, Morton Grodzins used the sanitarian of Benton, in Saline County, Arkansas, to exemplify the fact that most functions of government had become shared, with federal-state-local collaboration the characteristic mode of action:

[252], (3)

Lines: 67 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [252], (3)

Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

253

Consider the health ofﬁcer, styled “sanitarian,” of a rural county in a border state. He embodies the whole idea of the marble cake of government. The sanitarian is appointed by the state under merit standards established by the federal government. His base salary comes jointly from state and federal funds, the county provides him with an ofﬁce and ofﬁce amenities and pays a portion of his expenses, and the largest city in the county also contributes to his salary and ofﬁce by virtue of his appointment as a city plumbing inspector. It is impossible from moment to moment to tell under which governmental hat the sanitarian operates. His work of inspecting the purity of food is earned out under federal standards; but he is enforcing state laws; when inspecting commodities that have not been in interstate commerce; and somewhat perversely, he also acts under state authority when inspecting milk coming into the county from producing areas across the state border. He is a federal ofﬁcer when impounding impure drugs shipped from a neighboring state; a federal-state ofﬁcer when distributing typhoid immunization serum; a state ofﬁcer when enforcing standards of industrial hygiene; a state local ofﬁcer when inspecting the city’s water supply; and (to complete the circle) a local ofﬁcer when insisting that the city butchers adopt more hygienic methods of handling their garbage. But he cannot and does not think of himself as acting in these separate capacities. All business in the county that concerns public health and sanitation he considers his business. Paid largely from federal funds, he does not ﬁnd it strange to attend meetings of the city council to give expert advice on matters ranging from rotten apples to rabies control. He is even deputized as a member of both the city and county police forces.5

Grodzins’s study, published in 1966, documented other extensive evidence of cooperative federalism in Benton. For example, the aluminum companies that provided the major source of employment were built under authority of the War Production Board and ﬁnanced by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Similarly, the city’s only high school was largely paid for by $506,000 of federal funds, and all the local schools participated in the school lunch and milk programs and received federal aid for vocational and agricultural education. The city’s dam and reservoir, used for both water supply and recreational purposes, were constructed with federal funds from the Community Facilities Program, utilizing data gathered by the Corps of Engineers. Finally, special censuses contracted for with the U.S. Census Bureau had gained Benton additional state income under a state-aid formula based on a city’s population, and the county welfare program that serviced Benton’s needy residents distributed U.S. Department of Agriculture surplus commodities to those deemed eligible by the State Welfare Department.

[253], (4)

Lines: 93 to 1 ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [253], (4)

254 Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Interviews conducted for Grodzins by Daniel J. Elazar with more than forty Benton ofﬁcials and civic leaders revealed a unanimous sentiment that federal ofﬁcers were “ﬁne, friendly and cooperative”; that federal rules were considered onerous; and that the federal-state-local relationship had been and would be a necessity for community development.6 Although many of the speciﬁc types and amounts of aid have changed over the decades, the essence of what Grodzins discovered and demonstrated in the “hard case” of one small town in one small county in Arkansas is still true today. No ofﬁcial is absolutely autonomous, and no government is an island. Extensive intergovernmental relationships have become commonplace. contemporary intergovernmentalism One way of illustrating the extent to which contemporary “Arkansas” politics is in fact intergovernmental politics is simply to note some of the major political stories featured by the press in the Huckabee era: • Early in his tenure, Governor Huckabee denied state payment for an abortion for a mentally impaired teenager who was impregnated as the result of an alleged rape. In justiﬁcation, he cited amendment 68 to the Arkansas constitution, which states that no public funds may be used for abortion except to save the life of the mother. The conﬂict between amendment 68’s language and the language of the federal Hyde Amendment requiring Medicaid payment for abortion in cases of rape sent Huckabee’s refusal to federal court. One possible result was the loss of the more than $1 billion in Medicaid funding streaming into the state. A compromise—in which a private fund was established to fund the Medicaid-covered abortions in cases of rape and incest—was eventually given the blessing of the federal court although abortion rights advocates continued to question the legitimacy and practicality of the plan. • Taking advantage of the opportunity created by the federal government’s passage of the state Children’s Health Insurance Program (chip) to provide health care to children not traditionally eligible for Medicaid (those at or below poverty), Huckabee worked with legislators and key children’s advocates to develop a program he named the arkids First program in the 1997 legislative session. Like all chip programs, arkids beneﬁts are less generous than general Medicaid and require a copayment. Arkansas was given approval by the federal government (which matches the state dollars three to one, as in Medicaid) to make enrollment available to children

[254], (5)

Lines: 105 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [254], (5)

Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

255

whose families’ incomes are up to twice the poverty level. The state began spending $500,000 a year on advertising for the program. This included tv spots that featured the governor and children beneﬁted by the program as well as appearances by Razorback football coach Houston Nutt to raise awareness of the program. Enrollments shot up to by ﬁfty-ﬁve thousand by 1999. Problems arose, however, when it became clear that half of the children enrolled in arkids were actually eligible for the more generous Medicaid program. Community groups came forward to contend that the Medicaid application process was considerably more onerous than that for arkids. Huckabee defended the arrangement, citing evidence that many eligible families were unwilling to ﬁle for Medicaid beneﬁts because of the social stigma attached to the program. In 2000, the Clinton administration’s Health Care Financing Administration (hcfa) refused to allow the setup to continue, saying that the federal government would no longer help provide arkids programs to general Medicaid-eligible children. Huckabee responded with a press conference at the Governor’s Mansion at which he tied a yellow ribbon around a bust of the president on the mansion grounds, saying it would stay until Clinton ordered hcfa to free the money. The members of Arkansas’s congressional delegation lined up with Huckabee or Clinton along party lines and added their own energy to the debate. After Clinton’s departure from the presidency, Huckabee began lobbying the former governor in charge of the Bush administration’s Department of Health and Human Services for an exemption to allow the arkids program to continue unencumbered. • In 2002 the Louisiana Public Service Commission ﬁled a proposal with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (ferc) to force Entergy (formerly Middle South Energy) to equalize operating costs across its mid-South system so as to the beneﬁt of Louisiana consumers. If ferc rules in the Louisiana psc’s favor,Arkansas Entergy (formerlyArkansas Power & Light) ratepayers could be forced to pick up over $200 million in new energy costs. The case reminded Arkansas electric users and public ofﬁcials of the Grand Gulf battles of the early 1980s, in which Arkansas ratepayers were made responsible for most of Arkansas Power and Light’s share of the $3.5 billion Grand Gulf nuclear power plant in Mississippi. Although Arkansas never requested and would not receive any power from Grand Gulf, ferc ruled in June 1985 that ap&l would have to pay for 36 percent of Middle South Energy’s 90 percent share of Grand Gulf. This allocation was bitterly protested by Arkansas ofﬁcials but upheld in federal court. Every major political ﬁgure in Arkansas angrily denounced the ferc, some were equally

[255], (6)

Lines: 130 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [255], (6)

256 Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

abusive of the federal judiciary, and all scrambled to distance themselves from and blame others for the resulting sharp rate increases, which enraged Arkansas customers. • Two Christmas 2000 ice storms wracked sixty-seven of the state’s seventyﬁve counties, downing seven million feet of electrical lines and damaging 40 percent of the state’s 18.3 million acres of timberland. All told, the damage exceeded $547 million, making it the most costly natural disaster in Arkansas history. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (fema), led by former Yell County judge James Lee Witt, designed a special matching grant so fema would cover 90 percent of the state’s cost in removing debris from the storm instead of the traditional 75 percent (with the remainder split between states and localities). When Huckabee attempted to shift half of the state’s cost to the counties, he and Witt began a public dispute with Witt. They stated that the special split was driven initially by Huckabee’s plea that the cities and counties lacked cleanup money. Huckabee’s spokesman responded, “[Witt] was director of the [state Ofﬁce of Emergency Services] here for four years. You’d think he’d know the formula.” In the end, fema relief money to the state and individuals totaled nearly $200 million.7 • Tension between Arkansas and Oklahoma over the quality of the water in several rivers that ﬂow from Arkansas to the west continued to bubble up in the years after a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed Fayetteville (and, ultimately, several other northwest Arkansas cities) to discharge waste into the Illinois River, a key tourist site in Oklahoma. In mid-1999, the ﬁrst ladies of Arkansas and Oklahoma— describing themselves as “buddies and girlfriends”—did a high-proﬁle eight-mile ﬂoat down the Illinois River to symbolize a focus on ﬁnding “friendly solutions” to challenges affecting the environments of both states. But Oklahoma set new phosphorous limits (in reaction to 2001 Environmental Protection Agency [epa] directives and decidedly lower than the probable limits to be set by Arkansas before the epa deadline in 2004) that covered four rivers ﬂowing from Arkansas into Oklahoma. This set off a new round of combat between public ofﬁcials and citizens of the two states ten years after the Supreme Court ruling.8 • Strongly prodded by 1998 congressional action, Arkansas altered its drunkdriving laws to lower the threshold for deeming a driver alcohol impaired. A 1999 legislative session lowered it from a blood-alcohol level of .10 to .08 after the proposal had failed in the session preceding the congressional action. If it had failed to do so it would have cost the state $30 million per year in federal highway funds. State political actors of all political stripes griped about the federal intrusion. The Democratic house Speaker said, “I resent the

[256], (7)

Lines: 132 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [256], (7)

Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

•

•

•

•

257

devil out of it. It’s just another case of the federal government telling us what to do, down to brushing our teeth.” Republican governor Huckabee agreed: “It’s another pre-emption of state rights. I will be supportive of lowering the blood-alcohol level . . . because it’s the right thing, not because money is being held ransom.”9 The state lost a $725,760 federal grant to help cover medicine costs for aids patients when a key deadline was missed by state Health Department ofﬁcials in 2001.After it was realized that the application was botched weeks of ﬁnger-pointing ensued, with Huckabee administration critics citing the episode as an example of his poorly managed administration. The state of Nebraska faced a 2002 federal lawsuit over its 1998 refusal to issue a license to a low-level nuclear waste facility so it could store the waste of Arkansas and the other four states of the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact. The demise of the compact left Arkansas without a site for the disposal of waste from medical research and other waste as required by federal law. Because Arkansas is the leading state in the per capita manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine, state ofﬁcials reached out to the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (dea) to ﬁght the drug in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The state sought status as a High Intensity Drug Trafﬁcking Area from the dea, which would bring additional federal dollars to the state to ﬁght meth, but such a designation was not granted even after Arkansan Asa Hutchinson became head of the dea in 2001. However, Hutchinson did hold a series of public events, including a dea summit, in the state to promote federal-state-local cooperation on the battle against the drug. The long legal odyssey of the Little Rock school district in the federal courts on desegregation issues continued into the twenty-ﬁrst century when the district returned to federal district court in 2002 to make its case for “unitary” status (and subsequent release from federal court oversight). Though the school district gained a major victory when the federal judge released it from oversight in most areas, one witness for those opposing a “unitary” declaration—an African American Central High alum about to enroll at Amherst College—described the two institutions that existed simultaneously within the walls of Central High: “Central College” where mostly white students take challenging courses, and “Central High” where mostly African American students take distinctly less rigorous courses. The case was now less likely than in the past to provoke verbal attacks on the federal judiciary and to supply effective grist for political campaigns, but the nearly half-century of discord had affected the metropolitan area in large

[257], (8)

Lines: 139 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [257], (8)

258 Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

and small ways. Tellingly, real estate advertisements in the central Arkansas area are coded “Conway Schools,” “Bryant Schools,” or “Benton Schools” to emphasize their relative stability (and, cynics would argue, their relative whiteness).10

Somewhat serendipitously, this brief review brings us back full circle to Benton, home of the Saline County sanitarian who became the personal embodiment, the scholarly folk hero, of cooperative federalism. Other than that coincidence, what does this list suggest about contemporary federalism? First, it underscores the fact that while one may still technically distinguish between the local, state, and national arenas of government, the ofﬁcials of all these governments operate continuously in the spheres of all the others. Under the U.S. Constitution, Arkansas’s two U.S. senators and four members of Congress are ofﬁcials of the national government, but they and their staffs spend most of their time “on matters speciﬁcally and directly involving the constituents back home.” Sustaining free world trade and reducing federal government spending may be ﬁne in principle, but the bottom line is what is best for the folks at home. Hence, Senators Lincoln and Hutchinson worked hard to prohibit ﬁsh imported from Vietnam from being labeled “catﬁsh,” and Lincoln and Congressman Berry introduced antidumping legislation to protect the northeast Arkansas steel industry. Hutchinson and Lincoln, while voting for mandating balanced federal budgets during their years in Washington, also exerted extraordinary efforts to strengthen subsidies for rice and cotton, to protect the Little Rock Air Force Base and the Pine Bluff Arsenal against closure, and to secure additional funding for air trafﬁc control equipment for the Little Rock airport, bathhouse renovations at Hot Springs, and expansion of a federal prison in Forrest City. As Senator David Pryor’s continually successful reelection theme—adopted by his son, Mark, when he began his 2002 candidacy—so succinctly stated: Arkansas Comes First.11 The governor is formally responsible only for the state’s management and well-being. However, to advance these goals, he and his staff must frequently telephone the White House, testify before Congress, negotiate with neighboring states, assist local governments in their search for federal grants, meet with the National Governors’ Association, even go abroad in search of expanded export markets and increased foreign investments in Arkansas. Technically, one gubernatorial staff member was designated as “Aide for Intergovernmental Relations” throughout the Clinton years (a stafﬁng arrangement that remains into the Huckabee administration), but as she herself noted during that period, “Everybody is involved in

[258], (9)

Lines: 147 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [258], (9)

Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

259

intergovernmental relations because it is rare to encounter something that is strictly a state problem.”12 Mayors and county judges are elected by local constituencies to hold local ofﬁces. However, contemporary Arkansas mayors, county judges, and other local ofﬁcials consult frequently with their congressmen about expediting federal grant requests and getting help from congressional staffers in dealing with federal “rules and regulations . . . about the size of a polo pony.” They also work with the governor’s ofﬁce on developing Community Development Block Grant proposals, lobby the state legislature for greater “turn-back” funds, and meet with their counterparts from other states at national meetings of city and county ofﬁcials. In Arkansas, as elsewhere in America, extensive intergovernmental contacts and collaboration have become the rule rather than the exception.13 Though jurisdictional squabbles inevitably arise from overlapping areas of responsibility, they are generally treated as practical and political issues rather than legal ones. Reagan’s New Federalism brought about extensive administrative and ﬁscal rearrangements that have continued as new federal programs have been created and existing programs have been altered. These rearrangements have produced very little dialogue on the ideological merits of the concept. Rather, state and local ofﬁcials practically accommodated themselves to new decision-making patterns and reduced aid, although complaints about so-called unfunded mandates (responsibilities imposed by the federal government that are not paid for by federal dollars) have become a mantra among these Arkansas actors as they go about their work. As one post–New Federalism analysis of intergovernmentalism concluded, “Pragmatism characterizes operations under the federal arrangement in the U.S. The approach is a problem-solving one without any special effort to work out solutions in accordance with any particular philosophic view of federal, state or local responsibilities.”14 Although practicality has substantially replaced legality or philosophy as a framework for federal arrangements, conﬂicts and tension remain. In fact, the review of Arkansas’s intergovernmental politics during the Huckabee era suggests a great deal more discord than harmony. How can this predominance of conﬂict be reconciled with the notion of cooperative, mutually beneﬁcial federalism? First, the discordant tone of many of the intergovernmental stories of the modern era may partially reﬂect the sheer volume and variety of programs that now involve numerous governments and ofﬁcials. Though intergovernmentalism has enormously expanded the resources, functions, and services

[259], (10)

Lines: 163 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [259], (10)

260 Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

of smaller and poorer governments, it has also multiplied the opportunities for misunderstandings, bureaucratic breakdowns, and jurisdictional rivalries. Hence, the increasing interdependence of federal, state, and local governments “creates higher tension levels in the political arena at the same time that shared administrative and program activities are on the rise.”15 A second important explanation for the combative emphasis in the stories is simply a reﬂection of what is deemed to constitute “news.” When the gears of intergovernmentalism mesh, there is no story; when the gears clash, usually unnoted programs and procedures become newsworthy; and when a state or local ofﬁcial shakes a ﬁst in the face of the federal government (or ties a yellow ribbon around the president’s neck), it becomes headlines. In Elazar’s interviews with county and city ofﬁcials, all of them described the various federal ofﬁcials with whom they dealt as “ﬁne, friendly and cooperative.” They were conducted in 1958, the year after federal troops had been sent to Little Rock Central High (twenty-four miles from Benton), the same year that Orval Faubus was riding public outrage against an intrusive federal presence into an unusual third term. Grodzins noted the irony: “At a time when federal troops were guarding the nearby Little Rock high school, the school superintendent of Benton chose not to speak at all about segregation and described in terms of high praise the entire range of federal services to the schools.”16 Though Faubus captured national and international attention, the everyday workings of federal-state-local cooperation were not newsworthy, and the same principle still prevails. For example, the governor’s ofﬁce routinely processes at least one hundred requests for extradition annually, with no publicity. In the mid-1980s Governor Clinton initially refused to extradite a nineteen-year-old Arkansas woman charged by New York with cocaine dealing because he deemed a ﬁfteen-year minimum jail sentence for a ﬁrstoffender excessive. The extradiction eventually occurred after New York submitted a request specifying a lighter sentence, but Clinton’s stand made headlines for weeks. Turning to the examples of intergovernmentalism noted earlier, thousands of federal grant applications are processed by state agencies annually, almost all in a rote manner. The botched application for aids medicine dollars became newsworthy, however. Thousands of Arkansans have medical procedures covered by Medicaid funds daily in privacy and without any questions raised about their propriety. But the abortion spending controversy made news because it represented federal/state conﬂict and a localized volley in the nation’s culture war. Mistakes, scandal, and conﬂict make headlines; routine success does not.

[260], (11)

Lines: 171 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[260], (11)

Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

261

A third explanation for the often contentious and emotional tone of Arkansas’s intergovernmental relations has long historical roots. With Arkansas’s early decision to be a slave state, it became part of the South.As John Shelton Reed has noted, the South was essentially “deﬁned in opposition to a powerful, external threat,” embodied in the national government. Sheldon Hackney has captured this defensiveness and sense of grievance as follows: “The South was created by the need to protect a peculiar institution from threats originating outside the region. Consequently, the Southern identity has been linked from the ﬁrst to a siege mentality . . . defending their region against attack from outside forces: abolitionists, the Union Army, carpetbaggers, Wall Street and Pittsburgh, civil rights agitators, the Federal Government, feminism, socialism, trade unionism, Darwinism, communism, atheism, daylight savings time, and other by-products of modernity.”17 Arkansas, as noted earlier, opted for the Confederate cause with considerable reluctance. Once in, however, the state was destined to experience equally with other southern states the cycle of destruction and defeat, military occupation and Reconstruction. Having constructed an entire political, economic, and social structure around the subordinate position of the black race, the national government’s escalating twentieth-century insistence on the primacy of human rights over states’ rights inevitably placed severe strains on the national-state relationship. The general sense of persecution and suspicion toward meddlesome and intrusive outsiders may have been exacerbated in Arkansas by its physical and social isolation, its cultural homogeneity, and its resentment against its perennially bottom rankings in all state-by-state measures of social and economic well-being. Two popular pieces of Arkansas folklore illustrate and support this analysis. One is a boast, commonly heard, told, and taught in earlier times, that Arkansas was the only state that could survive even if a fence were built around it to prevent anything from coming in or going out. This proverbial bit of “wisdom” may have “given Arkansas something to brag about when they desperately needed something to be proud of,” but it also reinforced the imagined virtues and viability of autonomy and self-sufﬁciency. Indeed, a 1999 statewide survey found that two-thirds of Arkansans rated their state a “better” place to live than other states, signiﬁcantly higher than comparative data available for other states (excepting Wisconsin).18 The second bit of folklore is Arkansas’s most famous contribution to American mythology, the tale of the Arkansas Traveler. This ﬁddle tune and dialogue, which brieﬂy became a popular New York skit, tells of a hapless traveler (in the original an elite Arkansan but transformed in retellings into

[261], (12)

Lines: 179 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [261], (12)

262 Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

an out-of-stater) who encounters an Arkansas backwoodsman squatter. The traveler’s requests for directions, food, and shelter are at ﬁrst responded to with incivility, seeming ignorance, and deliberate deception. After an increasingly infuriating exchange, the traveler offers to play the balance of a ﬁddle tune that the squatter has played throughout the dialogue. Enchanted with the traveler’s talent, the backwoodsman showers upon him all the hospitality his humble circumstances afford. The tale symbolizes the natural suspicion and defensiveness of Arkansans toward “outsiders” and also the warmth and welcome for those who patiently pierce this superﬁcial shell of hostility.19 The ambivalence toward the outside world suggested in both bits of folklore has been equally characteristic of Arkansas’s relations with the federal government. No state has been more swift to respond to the call for soldiers when the nation has been threatened. Due both to need as deﬁned by federal aid formulae and to its historically powerful congressional delegation (the state had representation on the Senate or House Appropriations Committees for the last six decades of the twentieth century), Arkansas has been one of the nation’s major beneﬁciaries of federal programs and projects. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed that the South was the nation’s number one economic problem, however, the response of Senator John Miller of Arkansas was that “what the South really needed from the federal government was a good letting alone.”20 Tony Freyer, in his study The Little Rock Crisis, points out some of the contradictory elements in southern attitudes toward the federal government: Where federal legislation brought economic beneﬁt, as with the creation of the social security system, the development of the Tennessee Valley Authority, or aid for education or highways, southerners enthusiastically supported national authority. But the use of federal power to enfranchise women or to strengthen organized labor engendered resistance among southerners based on solemn appeals to states’ rights. Reﬂecting this inconsistency, southern politicians could not escape a certain ambivalence: at times they appealed fervently to the Constitution as the touchstone of benign national strength, but on other occasions they attacked the evil of the federal octopus with all the resolution of demagogues.21

Some of Freyer’s speciﬁcs are not particularly appropriate for Arkansas. For example,Arkansas women were enfranchised in the all-important Democratic primary even before a national suffrage amendment was ratiﬁed. And the great public power experiment that became the Tennessee Valley

[262], (13)

Lines: 185 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[262], (13)

Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

263

Authority was deliberately deﬂected away from Arkansas by the opposition of U.S. Senator Joseph T. Robinson, who, “reﬂecting the wishes of his law ﬁrm’s main client, the Arkansas Power and Light Company, informed Roosevelt that the state was not interested in such a project.” The essence of Freyer’s observations, however—that Arkansas’s attitudes toward the federal government contain many contradictions—is historically accurate and still valid.22 Nothing better illustrates the ambivalence of contemporary intergovernmentalism than the Arkansas political career of Bill Clinton and its impact on his fellow Arkansans. In 1979 Clinton, who had moved in and was comfortable with larger worlds, prepared for his ﬁrst gubernatorial administration by consulting extensively with the Center for Policy Research and the Council of State Planning Agencies on the development of new policy initiatives. He recruited some of his top aides from other states; an Arkansas ofﬁce was established in Washington to pursue vigorously all possibilities of securing federal aid for the state; and seven of Clinton’s original twenty-six staff appointments were speciﬁcally given intergovernmental responsibilities. When major tornadoes struck the state in both 1979 and 1980, federal disasterassistance centers provided housing; long-term, low-interest loans; farm loss relief; income tax casualty advice; legal services; disaster unemployment compensation; and millions of dollars in loans and grants to individuals, businesses, and local governments. In 1980, in response to the devastating damage caused by heat and drought, the federal Health and Human Services Department, Community Services Administration, and Small Business Administration came to the rescue with hundreds of thousands of dollars for utility-bill assistance to the needy and disaster loans to the severely damaged poultry industry. Governor Clinton, even more than any of his predecessors, turned repeatedly to the federal government for ideas, action, and assistance and successfully obtained them.23 Also like many of his predecessors, however, Clinton encountered the iron ﬁst in the helping hand. In May 1980, the White House informed Clinton that the federal installation at Sebastian County’s Fort Chaffee had been selected as a resettlement site for some of the estimated 120,000 “Freedom Flotilla” Cuban refugees. Clinton’s initial response was restrained: “I know that everyone in this state sympathizes and identiﬁes with them in their desire for freedom. I will do all I can to fulﬁll whatever responsibilities the President imposes upon Arkansas to facilitate the refugees’ resettlement in this country.” However, the White House repeatedly ignored Clinton’s requests for sufﬁcient federal security forces to keep the rioting refugees

[263], (14)

Lines: 213 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [263], (14)

264 Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

within the fort, and repeatedly reneged on promises not to send additional refugees. As a result, and especially when Clinton had to mobilize the National Guard and state police to protect citizens from escapees, his cordiality turned to disgust and fury. The Carter administration, with whom Clinton had close political and personal ties, became an albatross around his neck. Orval Faubus’s deﬁance of the federal government ensured his reelection victory; Frank White’s televised charges that Clinton had failed to “stand up” to the president and to keep the Cubans out of Arkansas was an important element in Clinton’s 1980 defeat. Furthermore, in a repetition of charges used against Governor Francis Cherry in the 1950s and Governor Winthrop Rockefeller in the 1960s, Clinton’s employment of “outsiders” to head state agencies and serve on his staff became part of the critical charges used against him.24 When Clinton recaptured the governorship in 1982, his intergovernmentalism was initially much more restrained. He did not attempt to reestablish the Arkansas ofﬁce in Washington that Governor Frank White had abolished, only one of Clinton’s staff members was a nonnative and only one had formal intergovernmental responsibilities, and his relationships with both the federal government and with his fellow governors and the National Governors’Association (nga) were much less frequent and aggressive. The word among nga staffers was that Clinton had “gone native.”25 Beginning with his third administration, however, Clinton apparently felt sufﬁciently secure with his Arkansas constituency to assume again a number of extrastate responsibilities. By 1986 he accepted election as chairman of both the nga and the Education Commission of the States and increased his out-of-state travels and activities in the years leading up to his presidential bid. Furthermore, unlike some other politicians, who ranted and raved against the controversial federal court actions in the Little Rock schools’ desegregation case, Clinton did nothing to agitate the issue. (On the other hand, within hours of the Public Service Commission’s rate settlement decision in the Grand Gulf case, Clinton was airing radio commercials blaming this costly decision directly, and somewhat incorrectly, on federal judges.)26 Of course, Clinton’s historic decision to seek the presidency in 1991, announced on the grounds of the Old State House in Little Rock, attached him—and, by extension, his fellow Arkansans—to the rest of the nation in an unprecedented manner. The thousands of Arkansans who had developed genuine personal relationships with the Clintons became emotionally involved in the long-shot endeavor. Their emotional involvement grew as

[264], (15)

Lines: 217 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[264], (15)

Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

265

the criticisms of Bill and Hillary Clinton focused on their personal lives and business dealings, with many “react[ing] with the outraged intensity of a family rallying around an unjustly accused member,” as one of us wrote elsewhere. For rank-and-ﬁle Arkansans, as the campaign progressed, it became increasingly clear to the people of Arkansas that it was they themselves—their state, their lifestyle, their economic well-being, their educational attainments, their environment, indeed their intelligence in consistently reelecting Clinton—that was being questioned. Presumably, the citizens of any state would arise in patriotic defense against perceived slurs from “strangers,” but for Arkansans, the slights . . . reopened psychic wounds of long duration.

Clinton’s election-night victory celebration in the blocks around the Old State House and the old Arkansas Gazette building, which had been the national campaign’s headquarters, was particularly sweet for Arkansans who had heard President Bush describe their state in the ﬁnal presidential debate as “the lowest of the low.”27 The state’s attachment to the federal government intensiﬁed as hundreds of Arkansans—all with family members remaining behind in the state—left with the Clintons for Washington. All told, three Arkansans would hold cabinet-level positions, and dozens of others would enter positions that required Senate conﬁrmation. All Arkansans—no matter the intensity of their love or hatred for Clinton—watched one of their own sworn in as president in 1993 and proceed to take the reigns of that federal government about which Arkansans had always felt such ambivalence. With time, in the minds of many (if not most) Arkansans, this new level of attachment to the nation had more costs than beneﬁts. In the 1996 campaign, Arkansans’ intensity for Clinton’s reelection was muted by the blows that Arkansans and the state had taken during the ﬁrst Clinton term. These included the ongoing Whitewater investigation and the departure of Arkansans from Washington as a result of controversy (Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders) or legal sanction (Webster Hubbell). Those Arkansans who hoped that the state’s traditional backwater image would be transformed by the Clinton presidency instead saw it replaced by an image of cronyism and corruption. As one Little Rock businesswoman said in 1995: “I thought, ‘This is great. Finally, people will know we wear shoes.’ But my hopes were dashed. It really hurt.” And, as an Arkansas businessman put it: “Everywhere I go people ask me, ‘Just how corrupt is the Rose Law Firm? And I tell them it’s not, and you’re just spinning

[265], (16)

Lines: 223 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [265], (16)

266 Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

your wheels.” The intensiﬁcation of scandal in the second Clinton term brought additional embarrassment to many in the state as the Paula Jones sexual harassment case moved toward trial. It also brought personal angst to friends who had believed Clinton’s initial denials of the Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky affairs.28 Despite the Arkansans in visible positions within the Clinton administration, many back home in Arkansas continually complained during the eight years that the president had not done enough for the state in terms of federal projects. Particularly sharp was criticism of the administration’s failure to tackle the persistent poverty of the Arkansas Delta, which was so key to Clinton’s early political success. Despite three presidential trips to the Delta in a six-month period in the second term and some focused spending, the typical measures of quality of life showed little change in the region during the eight years. Conscious of these criticisms, the president dedicated a large segment of an address to the Arkansas legislature three days before departing the presidency in which he listed the federal beneﬁts that the state had seen on his watch, down to funding for “the Highway 52 bridge.” Undeniably, Bill Clinton’s career, even before he entered the national stage, makes clear that all the political dynamics within Arkansas are shaped by political forces from outside the state and that those links to the outside world are only becoming deeper. As Clinton said during his governorship, and as his presidency only reinforced, “The old notion that Arkansas was the only state that could produce all it needed to survive was probably never true, but it was never more untrue than it is today.”29 federalism in arkansas’s future What Bill Clinton’s intergovernmental odyssey suggests, and Senator Bumpers’s remarks quoted at this chapter’s beginning conﬁrm, is that for most Arkansans, and for their leaders, being part of a federal system is neither an unalloyed good nor an unmitigated evil. Through 175 years of statehood, Arkansas’s angriest clashes with the federal government have been produced by conﬂicting national and state views on racial equality. It is apparent from the ongoing (albeit less visible) emotionalism surrounding the interaction between race and public education that some of the old sensitivities remain. However, with the basic legal issues of racial equality resolved, or at least reduced to differing concepts of implementation, the most longstanding and inﬂammatory source of Arkansas’s state/federal conﬂicts has been lessened. Though we must always be particularly wary of public opinion polling on

[266], (17)

Lines: 250 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[266], (17)

Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

267

racial issues, it was telling that a near majority (48 percent) of Little Rock respondents to a survey on the fortieth anniversary of the Central High crisis said that public school integration had made Little Rock a better place to live. Twenty-nine percent said that it had made life worse; and, white respondents were not signiﬁcantly more pessimistic than the city as a whole.30 Though the federal government in general and federal judges in particular continue to provide convenient scapegoats for unpopular policy decisions, the federal government is not generally viewed as an adversary. In the fall of 2000, a statewide survey indicated that only a small percentage of Arkansans (9 percent) felt that one could “never” trust the government in Washington “to do what is right.”31 Other changes have crept into Arkansas’s external relations as well. The isolation and provincialism that bred suspicion and fear of outsiders have been dissipated by extensive communications from and contacts with the outside world. Providing tangible proof of that link to the rest of the nation was the construction of the Clinton Presidential Library in downtown Little Rock. It was expected to bring economic and cultural beneﬁts to the city and state (77 percent of Little Rock residents expected it to have a positive impact, according to a 2000 survey), mostly from dollars to be spent by nonArkansan tourists and visits by non-Arkansan scholars and political leaders. The most distinguished of those visitors to the Clinton Library are likely to be proudly presented with an “Arkansas Traveler” certiﬁcate from future Arkansas governors and secretaries of state.32 Though the arrival of large numbers of Latino residents has increased tensions in some Arkansas communities (an issue to be discussed in chapter 14), xenophobia has been largely replaced by curiosity. When Raymond Ho, a native of Hong Kong, arrived in Arkansas in the mid-1980s to head the state’s educational television network, aetn, he was often asked, by waitresses, ﬁlling station attendants, and others, if he was a “kung fu” instructor. Ho’s radical changes at aetn and his ﬂamboyant personality predictably produced some tempestuous relationships within the state education establishment as well as with some longtime legislators. One of the latter was heard gloating about “getting some Chink blood” at a legislative committee meeting where Ho was being grilled. On the other hand, the citizens of Arkansas responded to Ho’s innovations with massive increases in viewership and contributions.33 Some of the state’s politicians still speak in foreboding terms of the federal government: “A government big enough to give you things can take away everything you have”; “Our people have felt the burden of the federal government for too long”; “The federal government is our child

[267], (18)

Lines: 260 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [267], (18)

268 Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

but now they’ve got it where the federal government is supreme and we’re the children. . . . And it’s going to cause the destruction of this system.” The politicians making such pronouncements, however, were repeatedly rejected by voters in the latter years of the twentieth century. The more successful Arkansas politicians are those who occasionally and sometimes vehemently protest particular actions by the federal government but do not operate from a generalized grievance against it. For instance, the most ardent contemporary critic of the federal government who has had success in Arkansas, Democratic congressman Marion Berry, focuses his angry comments on those federal agencies that, from his perspective, threaten the rights of property owners, especially the agricultural entities at the heart of his district’s economy. “I am convinced . . . that the environmental community has so inﬁltrated . . . the U.S. government and particularly the agencies—like the usda, epa, fda, Department of Interior—and are putting in place regulations slowly but surely to basically control use of all of the land and water in this country,” Berry said in 2000. At the same time he was a lead co-sponsor of the federal Patients’ Bill of Rights, which sought to expand the federal government’s oversight of the nation’s health care industry.34 Indeed, Arkansas’s most successful politicians tacitly acknowledge both the importance and the political acceptability of strong intergovernmental relations by committing signiﬁcant energy to their respective national and regional associations. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Arkansans headed the nga, the National Conference of Lieutenant Governors, the National Association of Attorneys General, the National Association of State Treasurers, and the Council of State Governments. More recently, Governor Huckabee has chaired the Southern Governors Association and the Council of State Governments. Similarly, Secretary of State Sharon Priest oversaw the National Association of Secretaries of State as it put together a major election reform package in the aftermath of the chaotic 2000 election. Arkansas, and its politicians, are becoming more aware of and more comfortable with the world outside its borders. Similarly, Arkansas’s organized interests also have increasingly shifted their energy and resources from Little Rock to Washington as they work to alter public policies. Most naturally, this is truest for the mammoth national (and multinational) industries that are headquartered in the state. Though Arkansas is only a small part of the world in which they operate, it is a fundamentally important part—especially for companies like Tyson Foods, since so much of the poultry and swine it sells is raised and processed in

[268], (19)

Lines: 268 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[268], (19)

Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

269

the state, and J. B. Hunt Trucking, since its trucks spend so much time on the roads going to and from the northwest Arkansas base. The decisions made by legislative and executive actors have a much greater impact on the workings (and bottom lines) of these companies than any action by any Arkansas political entity. For instance, Tyson was deeply involved (and, ultimately successful) in limiting the expansion of federal labor ergonomics regulations to protect workers (such as those on the chicken-processing lines) against repetitive stress injuries.35 But this shift of energies to Washington is also true for interests whose operations are limited to Arkansas. Thus, the Arkansas Municipal League sponsors lobby days in Washington for its members to encourage Congress to allow municipalities to tax goods sold over the Internet. Planned Parenthood’s Little Rock governmental relations specialist sends out e-mail alerts to members asking them to call members of Congress to oppose a pro-life federal judge nominee. And the Arkansas Farm Bureau encourages its members to send letters of appreciation to members of the Arkansas delegation who fought successfully for a farm bill that strongly beneﬁts Arkansas crops. Like it or not, these interests realize that most any policy goals they accomplish in Little Rock can be superseded or dramatically affected by the actions of federal ofﬁcials.36 The sheer number and complexity of contemporary intergovernmental contacts guarantee occasional squabbles with the federal government and with other states. Arkansas citizens can still be “riled up” by rumors that Texas or Oklahoma is plotting to take their water away. The arrival of federal census takers still raises tensions among some (particularly in the northwest hills) who must be reassured by elected ofﬁcials that their household data will not be shared with other government agencies. And the cry of “Thank God for Mississippi” (which has historically saved Arkansas from absolute last place in various ﬁfty-state rankings) is still heard in the land. Because they are newsworthy, the controversial and combative aspects of intergovernmentalism will continue to be those most publicized, but the occasional states’ rights posturing is more ritual than reality. Several rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist have revitalized states’rights as a constitutional principle through the reemergence of the Tenth and Eleventh Amendment and new limitations placed on the Congress’s power to use its interstate commerce to regulate American life. These developments have rightfully gained much attention in recent years. Indeed, it is possible that the years ahead may see a fundamental shift in the relationship between the states and federal government as a result of Supreme

[269], (20)

Lines: 274 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [269], (20)

270 Arkansas in the Federal System

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Court action. But the practical impact of the Court’s actions on federal relations to date have been seen only at the margins in Arkansas. Reality continues to be the principles embodied in the sanitarian of Saline County: that most relationships in the federal system are cooperative, pragmatic, and broadly beneﬁcial.

[Last Page

[270], (21)

Lines: 280 ———

439.840

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[270], (21)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter twelve

Politics at the Grassroots: How Democratic? [First Page] [271], (1) For the ordinary citizen, what happens in Washington, or even the state Capitol . . . he doesn’t get to make much of a difference. But he can go to the city council, the members are his neighbors, he can talk on every issue. William J. Fleming, general counsel for Arkansas Municipal League, 1985 Every two years, on schedule, democracy demands a ﬁght. But precisely because of the nature of social relations in the small community, political conﬂict is threatening . . . the small community must ﬁnd other ways to satisfy the formal requirement of democracy. James D. Barber, The Lawmakers, 1965

Local politics is both more and less consequential in contemporary Arkansas than it was in the past. Counties were originally established as mere ﬁeld ofﬁces of the state government, convenient administrative outposts through which the state could ensure the enforcement of state laws, the conduct of state elections, the collection of state taxes, and the provision of such services as the state deemed necessary. Though counties still perform many of their functions, especially those related to courts, corrections, and law enforcement, under state mandate they have become much more than mere creatures of the state. They are also, indeed they are primarily, agents of the citizens in their own jurisdiction, providing whatever array of services (roads, hospitals, libraries, nursing homes, airports) that particular constituency desires and is willing to tax themselves to support. Unlike earlier times when all Arkansas counties were rural and sparsely populated, by the 2000s county populations ranged from more than 360,000

Lines: 0 to 63 ———

1.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [271], (1)

272

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics at the Grassroots

in Pulaski to less than 6,000 in Calhoun. The larger counties provide a richer menu of services, including everything from recreational facilities to battered-women’s shelters, while the small rural counties stick to the basics of road building, law enforcement, and recordkeeping. Because rural residents have no other local government, however, county government is more visible and important to them than it is to urban residents with their city streets and municipal police departments. In 1974, amendment 55 to the constitution gave “home rule” to Arkansas counties. That is, it enabled counties to “exercise local legislative authority not denied by the Constitution or by law.” The state legislature conferred even further discretion upon counties in 1981 by authorizing a local-option one-cent sales tax (later ratcheted up by subsequent legislative actions). As of 2002, seventy-three of the state’s counties had in place at least some sales tax. According to the most comprehensive study yet completed on the topic, Arkansas ranked sixth of the ﬁfty states in terms of county discretionary authority over ﬁnances, functions, personnel, and structure after the passage of amendment 55 and the granting of the local option sales tax.1 Arkansas cities were constitutionally conceived in much more negative and restrictive terms than were county governments: “The GeneralAssembly shall provide, by general laws, for the organization of cities (which may be classiﬁed) and incorporated towns, and restrict their power of taxation, assessment, borrowing money and contracting debts, so as to prevent the abuse of such power.” Cities have also now been given the local-option sales tax, but they have never been given full home rule limiting their ability to be proactive forces. In terms of the discretionary authority granted to municipalities, Arkansas ranked thirty-fourth of the ﬁfty states in the early 1980s study.2 Despite this seeming straitjacket, however, municipal governments have grown in both political prominence and governing power. In 1940 there were nearly 400 incorporated towns in cities in Arkansas, but only 9 contained ten thousand or more people, and those living within municipal boundaries made up only 32 percent of the population. By 2000 there were 499 incorporated towns and cities, 32 of them contained ten thousand or more people (including one that only came into being in 1985), and the municipal population of Arkansas was 61.5 percent of the state’s total population.3 As with counties, there is a very wide population range (from 33 to 183,133) and an equally broad spectrum of services, from the most rudimentary (police protection, streets and sanitation) to the most complex (public housing, museums and performing arts centers, diverse recreational

[272], (2)

Lines: 63 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [272], (2)

Politics at the Grassroots

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

273

facilities). One small sign of the changing times is that by 1998, the $330,000 monthly payroll for the city of Russellville (population 21,260 at the time) exceeded the total annual expenditures of the entire state of Arkansas in 1874. In terms, then, of powers and functions, expenditures and services, local governments play a much more material part in delivering a greater variety of services to Arkansas citizens than they ever did in the past. Nonetheless, the import of local governments and politics has diminished in some ways. First, the local bosses and their “machines,” which often meant the county judge and his courthouse crowd, have nearly disappeared. Candidates for statewide ofﬁce rely more on mass-media appeals than on local leaders to convey their message and mobilize their votes; a less patronage hungry and more educated electorate is less dependent on and therefore less manageable by the favors and guidance of county ofﬁcials; a more regularized election process has lessened the opportunities for either intimidation of the electorate or management of the outcome; and major reforms of county government have diminished and divided the power that was once concentrated in the ofﬁce of county judge. Although these reforms have been broadly beneﬁcial, they have cut deeply into the bargaining power that county ofﬁcials once had in dealing with governors and the legislature—namely, be good to my county and I’ll deliver you a nice vote. Legislators still try to cooperate with “their” county ofﬁcials, and candidates for statewide ofﬁce still make an obligatory campaign call at the courthouse. But the alpha and omega of political power no longer resides there except in a few of the smallest counties. TheArkansasAssociation of Counties and theArkansas Municipal League, which represent the generalized interests, respectively, of county and city governments, are among the more signiﬁcant lobbies at the state capitol. (They have been joined in recent sessions by a lobbyist for the city of Little Rock, a city that state law treats differently in a number of ways because of its size and that often ﬁnds itself out of step with the other predominantly rural members of the Municipal League.) Their most frequent programmatic pleas, however—a ﬁxed percentage of the state’s general revenue, more state “turn-back” funds for local governments, genuine home rule for cities— have been systematically denied or ignored. For years, tension has been particularly high over counties’failure to gain automatic state reimbursement for all state-mandated duties required of them. The most burdensome of these “unfunded” (or underfunded) mandates has been the requirement that counties house state prisoners whenever the state penitentiary system lacks

[273], (3)

Lines: 71 to 7 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [273], (3)

274

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics at the Grassroots

empty beds. Moreover, stronger interests have been particularly effective at quashing any enhancement of cities’ discretionary authority by arguing that independent power by municipalities would result in a “mishmash” of regulations around the state. Recent sessions have increasingly seen local governments forced to play defense against efforts to further limit their autonomy, such as a 1997 effort to take away local governments’ power to regulate the use and sale of tobacco products.4 The fact that local governments now spend much of their time and energy organizing assaults on the state treasury symbolizes the second major way in which local politics has lost some of its luster. In Arkansas, as elsewhere in America, local governments have become increasingly trapped in a severe ﬁnancial bind. It is the combined consequence of state restrictions on their taxing, spending, and borrowing powers; the effects of inﬂation on laborintensive budgets; increased citizen expectations of more and better services; and a traditional reliance on the ever-unpopular and highly inelastic property tax. The major “solution” has been a now-entrenched dependence upon intergovernmental transfers, that is, on funds collected by the national or state government but spent by counties, cities, and school districts. In 2001–2, 50.6 percent of everything spent by local governments in Arkansas consisted of taxes collected by either the national government (3.7 percent) or state government (46.9 percent) and transferred to local governments for expenditure. As of the early 2000s, in other words, local governments in Arkansas were actually not raising ﬁve in every ten dollars that they were spending.5 Much of this “dependency” reﬂects the increased reliance of local school districts on state funds. Despite counties and cities’ enhanced ability to tax sales within their borders they still received 14.6 percent and 17 percent of their income from intergovernmental transfers, respectively, in 1996–97. It remains difﬁcult for them to call the tune when someone else is paying a signiﬁcant portion of the piper’s fees (at a time when citizens are demanding an enhanced repertoire). By the 1970s many mayors reported that they spent most of their time searching for federal funds, a situation that the attorney for the Arkansas Municipal League described in 1976 as “shameful” because it “did not strengthen democracy.”6 Later that year, however, when Governor David Pryor proposed a dramatic restructuring of this dependency relationship, county and city ofﬁcials vehemently rejected the so-called Arkansas Plan. They apparently preferred stingy but secure state handouts to the much riskier prospects of an enhanced capacity for proposing taxes to (but not imposing taxes on) their own citizens. State and federal aids have empowered local governments to provide many

[274], (4)

Lines: 78 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [274], (4)

Politics at the Grassroots

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

275

services that would otherwise have been unthinkable, but with the deeper dependency on state and national governments local decision-making prerogatives have narrowed somewhat.7 A third reason for the diminished salience of local politics is that individuals as well as governments have become increasingly tied to state and national networks. The intense sense of community, that one’s life and fate are closely linked to that of the people and politics of a particular town or county, has been abated by Arkansans’ easier association with larger worlds. Roland Warren was one of the ﬁrst to note that the “increasing association of people on the basis of common occupational or other interests, rather than on the basis of locality alone (as among neighbors)” is one of the great changes of modern times. Technological changes that include allowing folks access to cable networks focused on their hobbies and interests, to instant communication with others around the country and world, and to “chat rooms” populated by individuals with their shared interests—all unimaginable when Warren wrote—have only made his words more insightful. These transformations that have “shrunk” the world have affected the people living in traditionally provincial locales, like Arkansas, more than any other Americans.8 Throughout Arkansas, especially in the smaller towns, there is still a powerful sense of place and of home, and “neighboring” is still a very common pastime. Even in the community columns in the state’s weekly newspapers, however, along with the news of who visited whom are frequent reports of trips to California and Canada, of phone calls from children in Formosa or Saudi Arabia, of shopping expeditions to Tulsa or Dallas, of elderly relatives being taken by helicopter to Little Rock or St. Louis for medical treatment. And many of the “local” meetings listed are those of local afﬁliates of a state or national organization: the Retired TeachersAssociation, the Farm Bureau, the Jaycees. Returning to Warren’s astute observations: True, the local ofﬁce of the state welfare department, the local post ofﬁce, the local unit of the multibranch bank, the local plant of the national manufacturing company, the local unit of the labor union, and the local branch of the grocery chain are all located within the community and are largely staffed by community people. But the continuation of their very existence in the community, the formulation of their policies, and the determination of their speciﬁc behavior is not as subject to local control as was the case in earlier decades.9

Despite some loss of community identiﬁcation and autonomy, however, there is undeniably something that can be clearly identiﬁed as local politics. The State Education Department may supply most of the funds and many

[275], (5)

Lines: 89 to 1 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [275], (5)

276

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics at the Grassroots

of the standards for local school districts, but it is locally elected homefolk who must answer to their neighbors for decisions that have the capacity to be highly divisive and controversial: whom to hire as school superintendent, whether there will be school dances, the drawing of attendance zones, drugtesting policies, and so on. As O. P. Williams and C. R. Adrian have accurately observed, local politics rarely results in “grinding hardships on any large number of citizens.” It does not “obviously affect the income of most people,” and in this sense it is peripheral; it “ﬂoats along the edges of the mainstream of domestic issues.” On the other hand, if the school bus is unsafe, if one’s children must board it by 5:30 a.m., if the trash goes uncollected, if land transactions are improperly recorded, if local water is inadequate or unsanitary, if the ﬁre department is incompetent—these problems immediately and intensely affect the safety, health, comfort, and convenience of citizenry.10 Since the decisions that result in these outcomes are made by locally elected ofﬁcials who must live with the consequences and experience the front-line wrath or regard of their neighbors, local politics should be the most thoroughly democratic kind of politics in contemporary Arkansas. Here, if anywhere, the people should in fact rule. In practice, however, local politics both does and does not fulﬁll the democratic ideal. the democratic nature of local politics In 2002, when the U.S. Census Bureau last counted, there were 1,588 local governments in Arkansas, that is, 1,588 entities that were governed by elected ofﬁcials and could levy taxes and incur bonded indebtedness. This sum included 75 county governments, 499 municipal governments, 310 school districts, and 704 special “improvement” districts, mostly for drainage and ﬂood control but also for housing and community development, water supply, soil and water conservation, and other single or multiple purposes. Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in special districts in the state; they have nearly doubled in number since 1967. The state was twelfth among the states in special-district creation in one recent ﬁfteen-year period, putting it in a league with states growing faster and diversifying more quickly than Arkansas. Perhaps most problematic is the rise of a number of democracychallenged residential community associations (rcas), particularly retirement communities, established as multiple-purpose improvement districts around the state. In terms of the sheer number of local governments,Arkansas ranks twenty-second of the ﬁfty states.11

[276], (6)

Lines: 118 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [276], (6)

Politics at the Grassroots

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

277

However, we shall conﬁne this analysis to general-purpose local governments, that is, to city and county governments. However, that still yields 574 local governments, each of them run by at least ﬁve and in some cases by more than twenty locally elected ofﬁcials. If one measure of democracy is an abundance of governing institutions and ofﬁcials, then Arkansas easily meets that standard. The number of county ofﬁcials elected biennially was sharply reduced from nearly 3,500 to a relatively stable 1,365 in 1974 as part of a radical restructuring of county government that has made the handling of county affairs much more visible and accountable. In the ﬁnest traditions of Jacksonian democracy and post-Reconstruction suspicion, the executive functions of county government were divided by the 1874 constitution among eight separately elected executive ofﬁcials: county judge, county clerk, sheriff, assessor, collector, treasurer, surveyor, and coroner. None of these was speciﬁcally designated as chief executive, but the county judge was clearly chief among equals. His responsibilities included both executive functions (county business manager, road administrator, purchasing agent) and minor judicial functions. Most important was the county judge’s responsibility of authorizing and approving the disbursement of appropriated county funds, most of which went for roads.12 Formally, the judge’s spending required the approval of the quorum court. This was a body composed of elected justices of the peace, who, meeting as a group, were charged to “sit with and assist the County judge in levying the county taxes and in making appropriations.” As a legislature, however, this institution’s powers were notoriously nonexistent. They met only once a year. Equally important, with one justice of the peace mandated for each 200 voters, the justices when assembled were literally strangled by their own size. Even the smallest quorum court had 28 members, most counties had 30 to 60, and Pulaski County’s 467-member quorum court may have been the world’s largest legislative body. Annually the court members would assemble, answer the roll, give their unanimous consent to the judge’s approximation of county expenditures for the coming year (which he frequently read aloud from a single sheet of paper), collect their ten-dollar fee, and retreat again to anonymity. Some justices, in between these annual exercises, used their semijudicial status to perform marriages, notarize documents, and collect trafﬁc ﬁnes, thereby earning some extra income. At no time, however, in any county, did any quorum court exercise any real restraint over any county judge. In effect, then, the county judge exercised not only executive and judicial powers but legislative powers as well.13

[277], (7)

Lines: 133 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [277], (7)

278

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics at the Grassroots

The county judge’s powers were not absolute: the other elected executives, especially those compensated by fees assessed through their ofﬁces rather than through appropriated county funds, certainly did not consider themselves to be subject to the judge’s administrative authority. Nonetheless, in terms of county projects, property, employees, and funds, the county judge became the closest thing to an uncrowned king that the American political system had to offer. With no real check on the hiring and ﬁring of county employees, with no internal checks on purchasing and contracts, it was inevitable that power would be abused. The most frequent abuses were kickbacks from road builders, questionable awards of contracts, and use of county employees and machinery for private purposes. This concentration and abuse of power was the main stimulus toward county reform in Arkansas, and a major impetus behind the constitutional revision effort in 1970. Not surprisingly, considering their statewide as well as local political power, the county judges and their allies managed to defeat a county reform constitutional amendment in 1968 and contributed signiﬁcantly to the defeat of the new constitution proposed in 1970.14 There was, however, one serious ﬂaw in the county judges’ freewheeling paradise: a constitutionally limited salary of no more than $5,000 per year. Most judges actually took home much more than that through the semilegal device of also being paid as county road commissioner, but it was the lure of larger lawful salaries that ﬁnally turned implacable opposition to county reform into ofﬁcial endorsement.15 Amendment 55, added to the constitution by a narrow 51.5 percent of the voters in 1974, removed the $5,000 constitutional salary limit on county ofﬁcials. In its place, it provided that the compensation of each county ofﬁcer would be ﬁxed by the quorum court within minimums and maximums set by the state legislature for population-categorized counties. Virtually all of the county judge’s executive and administrative powers remained intact. In fact, subsequent legislation clearly made the judge the county’s “chief executive ofﬁcer.” Simultaneously with some strengthening of the county judge’s formal powers, the amendment mandated a drastic reduction in the size, and a dramatic enlargement in the powers, of the previously superﬂuous quorum court. They were reduced by amendment 55 to nine, eleven, thirteen, or ﬁfteen members. As categorized by county population, this now means ninemember courts in thirty-seven of Arkansas’s seventy-ﬁve counties, eleven members in twenty-three counties, thirteen members in fourteen counties, and ﬁfteen only in Pulaski County. Further assuring their prominence and

[278], (8)

Lines: 139 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [278], (8)

Politics at the Grassroots

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

279

accountability, these justices are now elected from equitably apportioned single-member districts and must meet monthly. To their existing responsibilities of levying taxes and making appropriations, amendment 55 added the following: • to cooperate with any other political subdivision for public purposes; to create, consolidate, separate, revise, or abandon (with popular consent) any elective county ofﬁce; to ﬁx the salaries of county ofﬁcials within minimums and maximums established by state law; • to ﬁx the number and compensation of county employees; • to ﬁll vacancies in elective county ofﬁces; • to adopt ordinances necessary for the government of the county.

The amendment also enabled them to override the county judge’s veto with a three-ﬁfths vote. The clear intent of amendment 55 was a check-and-balance system, along the familiar national model. At least it offered the opportunity for a somewhat more active legislative body operating as a somewhat more vigorous check on a strengthened chief executive. In some of the smaller rural counties, reform has changed little; the county judge still dominates with the passive acquiescence of a smaller but behaviorally similar quorum court. In most counties, however, the judge has become more of a manager and less a political tyrant. Based on their experiences, over eight in ten justices of the peace noted that the county judge must “take the quorum court seriously,” according to a 1994 survey of “jp”s from across the state. Perhaps most important, the required public monthly reporting on the county’s ﬁnancial status has, for the ﬁrst time in more than a century, placed county ﬁnances in the public domain. The structural reforms have had profound political as well as governmental consequences. Before examining these, however, we should note the fundamentals of municipal structure in Arkansas.16 All but eight of Arkansas’s incorporated towns and cities use the traditional mayor-council form of government. Incorporated towns (those with populations of less than ﬁve hundred) elect a mayor and ﬁve aldermen, all of whom comprise the city council and are joined at meetings by an elected recorder-treasurer. Second-class cities (with populations of ﬁve hundred to twenty-ﬁve hundred, as well as incorporated towns who have voted to join the category) elect a mayor, a recorder or a recorder-treasurer, and two aldermen from each ward who together constitute the city council. First-class cities (those of twenty-ﬁve hundred or more people) also elect a mayor and aldermen (a clerk and/or a treasurer may be elected or appointed), but only

[279], (9)

Lines: 145 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [279], (9)

280

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics at the Grassroots

the aldermen serve on the council. In all these cities, the mayor presides over monthly (or bimonthly, in rare ﬁrst-class cities) council meetings, may vote in case of a tie, and has the veto power. Depending upon size, classiﬁcation, and local ordinance, a city attorney, treasurer, marshal, and collector may also be elected or appointed. Though more than 90 percent of mayor-council municipal elections are nonpartisan, cities may establish that candidates may seek municipal ofﬁce under a party label.17 First-class cities may also, by vote of the people, choose other structural arrangements: the city-manager form (now used by Arkadelphia, Hope, Hot Springs, Little Rock, and Texarkana) or the city-administrator form (now used by Barling, Fort Smith, and Siloam Springs). In both forms, nonpartisan elections determine a board of directors whose members serve with little or no pay and whose major responsibility is to hire and hold accountable a competent administrator to manage the city. In the city-manager form of government the seven to eleven directors usually run at large, though some cities may require that part of the board be residents of different wards. In the city-administrator form, four directors are elected by the wards in which they reside while three run at large. In the city-manager form, outside of the case of Little Rock, the board usually selects one of its own number to perform largely ceremonial functions as mayor; in the city-administrator form, a mayor is elected at large and has the veto power. Little Rock did alter its city government structure in 1993 to directly elect a mayor-at-large, although the mayor’s powers remain entirely informal in nature. In all cases, the hired manager or administrator supervises all administrative departments, their operations and employees.18 In theory, sharp distinctions separate the mayor-council form and the manager and administrator forms of government, distinctions that are hotly debated in scholarly circles and occasionally by citizens when referenda are underway to change the form of government. Proponents of the mayorcouncil form of government assert that it is less costly (no high-priced manager), more responsive and sensitive to public wishes (ward elections of aldermen, who provide their constituents with direct, personal access to city departments), and more reﬂective of popular values than if an outsider with no personal stake in a city’s growth or well-being were hired. Advocates of the manager and administrator systems argue to the contrary: that a trained administrator is more efﬁcient and more likely to save money; that “wardheeling” promotes favoritism and invites scandal; and that managers have as much or more of a professional stake in successful municipal operations as nativism could possible engender.

[280], (10)

Lines: 180 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[280], (10)

Politics at the Grassroots

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

281

In practice, however, most of the operational differences among municipal governments in Arkansas seem to be more a function of size than of structure. The differences between Little Rock (population, 183,133; 2,400 full and part-time city employees) and Rockport (population, 792; 6 employees) are not due to the fact that the former uses a version of the manager system and the latter does not. All of the larger cities in Arkansas employ some managerial assistance, whether that individual is a city manager or administrator or is an administrative or ﬁnancial aide to the mayor. And even in the supposedly apolitical, antiseptic managerial form, there is plenty of personal and political maneuvering over policies and personnel. There are other notable gaps between theory and reality. On paper, Arkansas mayors are classiﬁed as “weak” by standard public administration measures. Their executive power is fragmented by the existence of other separately elected executive ofﬁcials and further constrained by municipal civil service commissions and other mandated boards and commissions with lengthy, overlapping terms. In practice, however, depending upon the personal energy and proclivities of the incumbent, upon longevity in ofﬁce, and also upon local custom, mayors in Arkansas range from the dominating and dictatorial to the self-effacing and forceless. On paper, the commission form of government (under which a small group of elected coequals acts as legislative authority while simultaneously taking executive responsibility for a selected area of administration) no longer exists in Arkansas since its abandonment by Fort Smith and Eureka Springs. In practice, however, in many small Arkansas cities, one council member becomes in effect the “streets” person, another the “ﬁre and police department” man, another the one to deal with on “budgets.” Structural distinctions are important, but they are not as great in practice as formal organization charts might suggest.19 More important to an analysis of the “democratic” content of local politics in Arkansas are other nonstructural questions: How representative are local ofﬁcials of their populations generally, and are they equally accessible to all views and interests? How participatory and pluralistic is local politics? Are the contests for ofﬁce real rather than rigged, and is the number of candidates sufﬁcient to give voters a meaningful choice? What are the stakes in local elections, and do the campaigns illuminate or obscure the issues involved? In some respects local politics is extremely egalitarian. For anyone who has any desire for public service, thousands of local ofﬁces are at stake every two years, and with very few exceptions the qualiﬁcations for seeking those ofﬁces are absolutely minimal: to be a resident and a registered voter. One need not be trained in road building to be a county judge, in law enforcement

[281], (11)

Lines: 186 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [281], (11)

282

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics at the Grassroots

to be a sheriff, in public administration to be a mayor, or in medicine to be a coroner. So these positions can be and are ﬁlled by farmers and salesclerks, merchants and stay-at-home mothers, pharmacists and ﬂorists. That candidates often seek ofﬁce under such nicknames as Peewee and Bubba, Cotton and Junebug, nicely conveys the nonelitist nature of most local contests. Since county ofﬁces are partisan, becoming a candidate for county ofﬁce may necessitate winning a primary election. Still, most municipal and all school-board contests are nonpartisan, and one becomes a candidate simply by ﬁling a petition signed by as few as ten and never more than ﬁfty resident electors.20 Local politics is also decidedly democratic in its easy availability and frequent use of the initiative and referendum. Some local policy decisions can be enacted only after approval by local voters, for example, a school millage increase, a county or municipal sales tax, a local bond issue, a change in liquor laws, annexations, any abolishment or consolidation of county ofﬁces, or any change in form of city government. City and county legislative bodies (unlike the state legislature) may voluntarily submit issues to their citizens for resolution (as Texarkana did regarding a controversial city water ﬂuoridation plan in 2002). Moreover, citizens may invoke a protest referendum to overturn enacted city and county ordinances that they ﬁnd objectionable (as Fayetteville citizens successfully did in 1998 against the city’s decision to cover sexual orientation in the antidiscrimination policy for city employees). Because signature requirements on the petitions to initiate county and city ordinances are modest (generally 15 percent of those who voted for, respectively, county clerk or city clerk), it is relatively simple to force almost any issue into the electoral arena. (One signiﬁcant exception to this easy access to the ballot is the fact that an extraordinary 38 percent of county clerk voters’ signatures are necessary to force a vote on liberalizing a locale’s law on alcohol sales.) Indeed, in 1982, three county electorates considered, and two adopted, local initiatives “requesting the President to Propose a Mutual Veriﬁable Nuclear Weapons Freeze between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.” the undemocratic nature of local politics In all the respects just enumerated, local government and politics offer abundant opportunities for genuine grassroots democracy. In other respects, however, these “schoolrooms of democracy,” as de Tocqueville once described them, fall far short of the democratic ideal. To begin with, only a

[282], (12)

Lines: 192 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[282], (12)

Politics at the Grassroots

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

283

small fraction of local ofﬁces are ever contested. Since most county executive positions provide a livelihood, any open seat will usually attract more than one aspirant, and the county judge and sheriff are sufﬁciently visible that from one-third to one-half of these incumbents are likely to be challenged in any given year. Most other county executive ofﬁces are relatively safe for the incumbent, however, as are most quorum court positions. In 1998, for example, 741 quorum court positions could have been challenged in either the primary and the general election. Instead, only 311 were contested in either May or November, meaning 58 percent of those elected jp faced no opposition.21 In the immediate aftermath of the amendment 55 reforms (that is, in the 1976 elections), there was a vigorous race for almost every county elective ofﬁce. Justice-of-the-peace positions remain somewhat more contentious than they were in prereform days, when many positions went unﬁlled. A spirited race for the quorum court, however, or indeed for any county ofﬁce other than judge or sheriff, is exceptional. The vast majority of jps surveyed in 1994 reported that they felt no need to build a political organization of any sort.22 Municipal races are even less competitive than county elections, and often more closely resemble the determined draft of any willing volunteer than a genuine contest. Resignations from city ofﬁce are common, and since, unlike any other ofﬁce in Arkansas, appointees to municipal ofﬁce may run to succeed themselves, many mayors and aldermen reach ofﬁce through appointment, then stay in power as long as they choose to. Indeed, some very small towns simply dispense with the “nuisance” of holding elections at all. The town of Sherrill, for example, having found some folks willing to serve as city ofﬁcials in 1978, simply dispensed with municipal elections in 1980, 1982, and 1984. According to the city council’s appointed secretary, since the mayor and aldermen want to remain in their positions, “the town has not seen a need for elections.” The mayor added, “It’s not the way it’s supposed to go, but it’s the way we do it.” Even more recently, in Redﬁeld the 1990 deadline for ﬁling for ofﬁce slipped by all candidates—incumbents and prospective challengers—without anyone remembering to ﬁle. This necessitated write-in campaigns for the incumbents who had “ﬂat goofed up.”23 There are, of course, some notable exceptions to this general noncompetitiveness at the grassroots. In some of the larger cities, especially Little Rock, a seat on the city board confers enough prestige, publicity, and potential steppingstone value that most positions, even those occupied by incumbents, draw competition. All largest and quickly growing Arkansas cities also face

[283], (13)

Lines: 202 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [283], (13)

284

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics at the Grassroots

the issue of how growth should be handled, which establishes an inevitable battle with property rights proponents and developers on one side and “smart growth” proponents on the other. This ideological divide usually evidences itself through competitive elections after a major zoning vote or when “impact fees” (charges to developers for any new construction to offset the city’s costs of expansion) are on the council’s agenda. And even in the smallest towns, there is an occasional outburst of electoral engagements. Sometimes all or most municipal ofﬁceholders will be challenged by an angry public response to a highly unpopular and/or costly ofﬁcial action: a stiff increase in water rates, a ﬂagrant display of nepotism, some perceived extravagance or abuse of privilege. Most often, however, such races as occur at the local level are personality contests more than policy debates, which again raises questions about the accountability value of the election mechanism.24 According to many political scientists, recruitment practices are an excellent guide to the relative openness of a political system. If this is so, then local politics in Arkansas is much more egalitarian than exclusive, because only in a few cities and circumstances are nominations for ofﬁce highly structured. In Little Rock, the Good Government Committee, which was composed of prominent businesspeople, recruited and endorsed candidates for the city board of directors for several decades after the change to citymanager form in 1957. They had considerable success; the city’s chamber of commerce continues the recruitment in a more informal manner. In 1992, the progressive New Party launched a Little Rock operation that grew into a onethousand-citizen biracial organization made up mostly of environmentalists and low- and moderate-income individuals. Over the next several election cycles, it recruited and elected four members to the eleven-member City Board by focusing on “antisprawl” issues. An all-out attempt by the party to gain a majority on the board was stymied by a counter campaign led by business leaders in 2000, however, leaving its future effectiveness as a recruitment mechanism in doubt.25 In mid-sized cities, such as Fayetteville and Springdale, the chamber of commerce often acts as an informal recruiting mechanism, attempting to encourage the “responsible” sort to take their turn in ofﬁce when an incumbent signals an intent to step down. In every community, whatever exists by way of a power structure will mobilize and ﬁnd an acceptable candidate if it appears that the village idiot is about to become mayor by default. At the county level, a few of the more powerful county judges recruit quorum court candidates who will comply with the judge’s leadership.26 All county elections are partisan and, of course, almost all individuals

[284], (14)

Lines: 208 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[284], (14)

Politics at the Grassroots

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

285

who ran for these positions have traditionally been Democrats in Arkansas. The state Republican Party began voicing plans in the mid-1990s to use the justice-of-the-peace position to develop a farm team of candidates for higher-level state ofﬁces. However, the presence of term limits means that the positions that would likely be the next rung on the political ambition ladder after jp—state representative or senator—are also coming open so regularly that ambitious candidates can simply run for those ofﬁces initially. In a limited number of counties (not surprisingly, in northwest Arkansas and the suburbs of Little Rock) Republican recruiting has met with some success. Democrats have responded with enhanced recruiting as well in a few locales (most obviously in Pulaski County). Still, as late as 1998, for the 741 quorum courts’ seats in the state, there were only 127 races contested in general elections that involved Republican candidates (though in a few northwest Arkansas counties, Republicans were winning without contests themselves, and in certain Democratic-dominated counties alternatives were offered in the form of “independent” candidacies). When Republicans did come forward in these races, they were able to win a healthy number, just over 40 percent of the time.27 In light of these sporadic and limited recruitment efforts at the local level in Arkansas, in most city and county contests the candidates are pure self-starters who seek and hold ofﬁce, often at considerable expense in time and energy, out of a sense of civic interest and public service. With most of these positions offering little or no remuneration (the state has no set scale), such “volunteerism” is an absolutely indispensable element in Arkansas local politics. When asked for the single most important reason they decided to seek ofﬁce, most city council members speak in terms of “serving the community,” “returning something to my town,” “offering my knowledge and expertise,” “meeting the challenge of civic responsibility and volunteering.” Nearly nine in ten justices of the peace cited “serve the county” as a key reason they initially ran for their position in 1994.28 Nothing could be more patriotic and praiseworthy than these motives. However, this “volunteerism” also creates severe problems of political accountability. The infrequency of competitive contests and incumbent challenges, combined with the frequency of voluntary retirements, makes local ofﬁcials relatively immune from constituency pressure and control. As Joseph A. Schlesinger once wisely observed, “No more irresponsible government is imaginable than one of high-minded men unconcerned for their political futures.” Even more to the point are the words of W. B. Holiday when he announced his decision to resign the ofﬁce of mayor of Nashville,

[285], (15)

Lines: 214 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [285], (15)

286

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics at the Grassroots

Arkansas: “I guess you could say I’ve gotten tired of the fringe beneﬁts, and by fringe beneﬁts I mean the cussings I’ve gotten and the 24-hour-a-day complaints. I’m going to let someone else have it. Four years ago, I shut down a pretty successful grocery store so I could do this full time. There has to be something wrong with somebody who’d do that, don’t you think?” In such circumstances, it is hard to imagine the effectiveness of threats of electoral opposition and ouster.29 Another respect in which Arkansas politics falls short of the democratic ideal relates to the representativeness of local ofﬁcials. Theoretically, the minimal qualiﬁcations and self-starting, volunteer nature of local ofﬁces mean they are equally obtainable by all. In practice, however, a combination of structural, electoral, and attitudinal factors has erected major barriers to some potential public servants, especially for those ofﬁces that are seriously coveted and assumed to be consequential. It is true that local ofﬁces are much more obtainable than state ofﬁces by those with ordinary incomes and occupations, as well as by African Americans and women. As of 2002, Arkansas had the ﬁfth-highest number of African American mayors in the nation (thirty-seven), exceeding the number of African American mayors in several other states with larger African American populations. Approximately 15 percent of mayors were female. Most of the African American mayors have been elected by towns with majority minority populations, and most of the women now preside over relatively small communities (in 2002 only a handful of women governed cities larger than 1,000). However, some stunning exceptions to these rules have occurred in the contemporary era. There have been, for example, African American mayors in West Memphis (27,666 pop.), Arkadelphia (10,912 pop.), and DeQueen (5765 pop.) at times when the African American populations of those towns were 33 percent, 14 percent, and 8 percent, respectively. In 1984, moreover, a woman was elected mayor of Arkansas’s fourth-largest city, Pine Bluff, after a primary contest, a general election, and a runoff. And, as of 2002, a woman was mayor of Bentonville, home to Wal-Mart and one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the state. In 2003, women gained a majority of the Little Rock city board for the ﬁrst time. Women also serve on most and African Americans (290 in total) on many of Arkansas’s quorum courts and city councils.30 As in the legislature and courts, voting rights lawsuits—particularly after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1982—have provided major impetus for racial change in local government. They have achieved this by promoting the shift from at-large elections to ward or district elections that maximize the

[286], (16)

Lines: 218 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[286], (16)

Politics at the Grassroots

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

287

opportunity for African Americans to gain ofﬁce. The most dramatic results have been seen in several east Arkansas cases. Under West Helena’s at-large system, for instance, only three African Americans had been elected to the city council from 1917 to 1982 in a city with 40 percent black population. In the ward elections mandated by federal court order in 1983, a city council consisting of four African Americans and four whites was elected. In some cases—like the school boycott in Marianna in 2002 to protest the electoral process following school-board redistricting—extralegal activities have accompanied the lawsuits. However, change like that seen in West Helena has occurred in city and school-board representation since the mid1980s in cities throughout the state following successful or threatened litigation.31 The resultant representative democracy has not always been painless. Racial tensions have, in some cases, ﬁguratively or literally shut down city government. Most strikingly, in West Helena, a yearlong boycott of city council meetings by the four African American members in 1996–97 meant that a quorum would not be present to pass a budget and conduct the city business—a quorum on which those four would have been outvoted by the four white council members and the white mayor. Still, to whatever extent at-large elections and gerrymandered districts have artiﬁcially suppressed African American candidates, these obstacles are being systematically removed.32 In larger cities, ward elections can also promote a diversiﬁcation of local government beyond race or ethnicity. The city politics of Little Rock is illustrative. Under the managerial format adopted in 1957, members of the city board of directors have received no pay for their services, a discouraging fact for those with modest incomes. Also, whereas most cities that use the city-manager system have compromised the original at-large electoral system to ensure that four of the seven directors must reside in separate wards, Little Rock maintained its original at-large “purity.” Only those with the high visibility that comes from business prominence and/or costly campaigns are usually successful in citywide elections. Partially as a consequence, almost everyone elected to the board between 1957 and the adoption of a new system that combines seven wards with four at-large members was a white male from afﬂuent western Little Rock. In the new system, fully implemented in 1993, the poorer east, central, and southwest sections of the city are ensured representation on the board.33 This relative openness of opportunity compared to the past and to most parts of state government, however, should be put in perspective. Only a

[287], (17)

Lines: 224 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [287], (17)

288

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics at the Grassroots

handful of African Americans have been elected to any of the numerous executive ofﬁces in any of Arkansas’s seventy-ﬁve counties since Reconstruction (ﬁve held such positions as of 2002). Despite a Latino population that approached one-fourth of the population in some northwest Arkansas towns as of the early 2000s, no Latino candidates had yet ﬁled for ofﬁce in those communities. Though women frequently compete successfully for some of these county ofﬁces, especially the circuit and county clerkships, the more visible, vigorously contested and remunerative ofﬁces—that is, county judge and sheriff—have unofﬁcially but effectively been closed to female aspirants. With the exception of a woman who was elected (and reelected) sheriff of Saline County in her own right in the late 1990s, women have secured these positions only over their husband’s dead (or indicted) bodies, and usually temporarily. Furthermore, reforms that sharply reduced the number of justices of the peace, and thereby made these ofﬁces more prestigious and desirable, also reduced the number of “political marginals” holding them. African Americans and women were, respectively, an estimated 8.5 percent and 21.5 percent of prereform quorum courts but only 4.4 and 10.9 percent of the postreform quorum courts elected in 1992. Even in the state’s educational system, in which women comprised 78 percent of certiﬁed public school employees (most all of them classroom teachers) in 1999–2000, only 5.5 percent of the 311 school district superintendents were female. Lingering attitudes that the county judge is primarily a road builder, the sheriff primarily a posse leader, and the school superintendent primarily a disciplinarian—and that males are best suited for such macho tasks—are dying a very slow death in Arkansas.34 Moreover, another change in election laws has arguably mitigated against additional successful candidacies by members of traditional minority groups. In 1982, an African American man won the mayorship of West Memphis by gaining a plurality in a six-candidate ﬁeld. In the subsequent legislative session, over the vehement objections of the naacp, a law was enacted requiring that henceforth, in all county and mayor-council elections, a majority rather than a plurality is essential for election, secured if necessary by a runoff election two weeks after the general election. African Americans and women have been more successful in obtaining local than state ofﬁce, and their likelihood of both candidacy and election is increasing. Nevertheless, local governments still severely underrepresent some groups in proportion to their numbers in the population.35 There is one last respect in which local politics is considerably less democratic in practice than it could be: in terms of voter and citizen participa-

[288], (18)

Lines: 230 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[288], (18)

Politics at the Grassroots

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

289

tion. Attendance at regular city, county, and school-board meetings usually encompasses only the governing council, the local press, and individuals involved in a particular agenda item (who quickly depart when their business is resolved). A meeting held in Fayetteville in the mid-1980s is illustrative. In preparation for an election concerning a one-cent city sales tax to ﬁnance sewer improvements, the city board scheduled and widely publicized an informational session that produced precisely eleven attendants—seven board members, two reporters, the principal of the school where the meeting was held, and the principal’s wife. Nor are citizens much more likely to express themselves through phone calls or other forms of communication than they are to attend meetings. Though most local legislators receive ten to twenty calls each month from constituents, these are usually particularistic complaints or requests (ﬁx my street, don’t rezone my neighborhood, silence those barking dogs, please perform a marriage) rather than general policy views. Indeed, in Little Rock, only a slight majority of voters recognized the name of any member of the ten-member city board in a 2000 survey (56 and 54 percent, respectively, recognized two veteran at-large representatives). The other at-large member was recognized by 31 percent of his constituents, and no ward representative recorded anything but miniscule voter name recognition.36 There are signs of hope, though, in the area of civic participation in Arkansas local government. City ofﬁcials note that civic participation has been enhanced somewhat as a result of the conscious employment of new technology (cable access television, city web pages, and e-mail) by most larger (and many smaller) city governments in the state. Moreover, the latter years of the twentieth century and ﬁrst years of the twenty-ﬁrst saw bursts of genuine grassroots engagement by citizens in several Arkansas cities that gained local and statewide media coverage. Using e-mail networks with particular effectiveness, animal rights groups drew large crowds to a series of city meetings. This helped them gain city council approval of a tough animal-control ordinance in Conway in 2002 though they failed to bar city approval of horse-drawn carriages in downtown Little Rock in 2000. In North Little Rock in 1998, the city board had to move its meeting to the high school gymnasium to make room for the hundreds of pro-life opponents and lesser number of proponents of the siting of a Planned Parenthood prenatal clinic in a downtown neighborhood. The aldermen unanimously opposed the clinic. Fayetteville witnessed a monthslong pitched battle in 1999 after the mayor proposed that the city name itself a “city of character” and opponents noted the conservative religious

[289], (19)

Lines: 234 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [289], (19)

290

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics at the Grassroots

overtones of the move. A year later, the city witnessed over thirty arrests in connection with a month-long “sit-in” protest after the city council voted to allow the felling of eighty-one century-old trees near a nest of red-tailed hawks for the construction of a shopping center. It is crucial to recognize that these instances of engagement, though they have provided visible models for others who desire to impact public policy at the local level, have been decidedly exceptional and sporadic. In these, and other, situations, citizens became active during the weeks or months that the issue they cared about was on the agenda, but then once again turned their attention away from local government. For most Arkansans, despite the abundant opportunities for local activism, the only one that is exercised is the right to vote.37 Since most municipal elections are held simultaneously with the general election, voter turnout is comparable to turnout in state and national elections. There is, however, some drop-off in the electorate’s turnout from the top of the ballot to these races at the bottom. However, ofﬁces and issues are regularly decided by less than 10 percent of the potential electorate in special local elections, such as on bond issues and especially school elections, which have been held separately from all others on the second Tuesday in March. Since it is generally true that the more elite the electorate, the more likely it is to be what political scientists have termed “public-regarding,” concerned ofﬁcials view such a minuscule electorate as advantageous. Those few citizens with sufﬁcient civic concern to turn out in even the most undramatic local contests are also likely to favor generous school millage rates, community improvement bonds, and tax issues. (However, in some locales this trend is undermined by the presence of high-turnout retirees—who tend to be less supportive of tax increases for services—in disproportionate numbers.) City sales tax measures have been supported by Arkansas voters over 70 percent of the time. It is for this reason that Arkansas school ofﬁcials, fearing they might never pass a millage increase again, adamantly opposed all efforts to hold larger turnout elections simultaneously with school elections. In 1987 the legislature voted to join other southern states in a 1988 “Super Tuesday” regional presidential primary and coopted the traditional March school election date for this purpose. In doing so, it also obligingly moved school elections to the third Tuesday in September.38 Again, the defeat of Governor Pryor’s proposed Arkansas Plan, which would have sharply reduced state turn-back funds to cities and counties in return for greater local authority to propose taxes on the public, is illustrative. The most vocal opponents of this plan were city, county, and school ofﬁcials, all of whom preferred secure and stable, albeit limited, state funds to a theoretical freedom that might have left them incapacitated. As one analysis

[290], (20)

Lines: 238 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[290], (20)

Politics at the Grassroots

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

291

of the Arkansas Plan’s defeat concluded: “Despite the state’s proud motto of ‘Regnat Populus’—The People Rule—the legitimacy of governmental decisions has stemmed primarily from the popular acceptability of the leaders who make the decisions rather than from any public involvement in the decision-making process itself. The Arkansas Plan, therefore, not only proposed novel taxation efforts, but also an unfamiliar mode of decisionmaking requiring unconventional amounts of participation.” Polling data since the defeat of the plan suggests that local ofﬁcials accurately estimated the (un)willingness of the mass citizenry to tax itself.39 In summary, in some ways Arkansas’s local politics exudes egalitarianism: the sheer numbers of governments and elective ofﬁces, minimal ofﬁce requirements, easy availability of the initiative and referendum, and unstructured recruiting. On the other hand, just as many indications suggest democratic shortcomings: dependence on outside income, which limits local prerogatives; few genuine contests for ofﬁce; high rates of volunteerism; low percentages of members of traditionally underrepresented groups; and limited, sporadic participation by the citizenry. Perhaps the most important device through which local governments do respond to and reﬂect the wishes of the populace is the mere fact of local residency. Local ofﬁce seekers are usually longtime residents of a particular county or community who come to ofﬁce with a fairly sharp sense of local expectations about city and county services. A 1986 survey of local ofﬁcials in two towns conﬁrms this point. Springdale and Fayetteville are neighboring, indeed contiguous, communities in northwest Arkansas. Though the cities have diversiﬁed economically since the survey, Fayetteville’s economic activity still centers on the University of Arkansas, Springdale’s on the poultry and trucking industries. When Springdale aldermen were asked to rank what they thought their constituents wanted most from their local government, all ﬁve respondents gave highest ranking to “Keeping costs and taxes down; no waste, no frills.” In sharp contrast, only one of the six Fayetteville respondents gave this objective top ranking. The most popular choice for Fayetteville was “Providing an attractive and pleasant place to live,” followed closely by “Insuring everyone equal access to government; that everyone can be heard and treated fairly.”40 Since most local ofﬁces are strictly part-time positions, those who serve on city councils and quorum courts continue the commercial and other pursuits that provide their livelihood. They therefore continue to be exposed in their everyday dealings to the wishes, suspicions, objections, and concerns of their neighbors. Because businesspersons do not want to lose customers, professional people do not want to lose clients, and presumably nobody

[291], (21)

Lines: 244 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [291], (21)

292

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politics at the Grassroots

wishes to lose the friendship and regard of their neighbors, local ofﬁcials are responsive to the popular preferences that are articulated to them. It is a question far beyond the scope of this chapter whether there is sufﬁcient variation among local preferences in Arkansas to justify seventyﬁve separate county governments and nearly ﬁve hundred municipal governments, each with its own expensive array of buildings and facilities, employees and equipment, few of which even approach economic selfsufﬁciency. As the federal government reduces its assistance, however, and the state government struggles to meet statewide responsibilities, this is a question that even the staunchest advocates of grassroots governance may be forced to face in the future. State law gives local governments several tools to facilitate cooperative endeavors for the betterment of all their citizens (especially the Interlocal Cooperative Act of 1967), and examples of such collaboration exist (particularly through the joint planning commissions such as central Arkansas’s Metroplan and a number of water system mergers). However, regional approaches tend to be resisted by local ofﬁcials who fear the loss of control that inevitably accompanies them and sometimes by local residents who fear the loss of community identity.41 Even worse than the general absence of cooperation between local governments is increasing evidence of economic and physical competition between them, which raises additional questions about the appropriateness of their numerousness. Because city ofﬁcials want the credit that comes with new jobs, Arkansas cities increasingly bid against each another to be the site for a new or expanded business. For instance, Little Rock tried to lure away neighboring Conway’s largest downtown employer, a homegrown insurance company, as it prepared to build a new headquarters in early 2002. After weeks of offers and counteroffers from the two wooers, the company stayed in Conway because it received a variety of incentives, including property tax relief and a new city-paid parking garage. Even more brutal were the series of “deannexations” in fast-growing northwest Arkansas that occurred after Act 779’s passage in 1999. The act allowed residents of a city lacking certain public services (like water and sewer) to deannex and join an adjacent city with the service. Hundreds of acres were shifted as “municipal warfare” broke out in the area before the act was amended to lessen its impact in 2001. Thus, some skepticism should greet arguments that this multiplicity of governments is essential to maintaining the most democratic kind of government available to Arkansas citizens—especially when those citizens’ engagement in that democracy continues to be reactionary and sporadic.42

[Last Page

[292], (22)

Lines: 250 ———

10.8400

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[292], (22)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter thirteen

The Politics of State Services [First Page] [293], (1) When I was doing the report there was no question about the fact that Arkansas just jumped out as being a state that has made tremendous progress as far as education is concerned. C. Emily Feistritzer, quoted in Arkansas Democrat, November 12, 1985 Too many of our children are leaving school for a life of deprivation, burdening our culture with the corrosive effects of citizens who lack the education to contribute not only to their community’s welfare but who will be unable to live their own lives except, in many cases, on the outermost fringes of human existence. Judge Collins Kilgore, 2001

Earlier in this book we emphasized that for much of Arkansas’s history, politics, and government were often irrelevant, sometimes obstructionist, and rarely of material value to citizens’ well-being. The previous chapters have described some extensive changes from traditional to contemporary politics as well as many structural strengthenings of state government. Now it is time to ask, have better politics and better government resulted in better programs and services? A sweeping and superﬁcial response could clearly be yes. At the turn of the twentieth century, the state of Arkansas built no roads, provided almost no support to education, and maintained few public institutions other than a Neanderthal state prison and a substandard insane asylum. A century later, the state was collecting and spending well over three billion dollars annually on roads, schools, a host of health and welfare institutions, and many other services. Clearly, then, better politics has produced better policy; but what

Lines: 0 to 60 ———

7.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [293], (1)

294 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

may seem obvious becomes considerably less clear when additional factors are considered, as they must be. First, what if any is the evidence that political and governmental reforms have any causal connection to public policies? Many political scientists insist that public policy is the direct outcome of certain socioeconomic factors, and therefore that Arkansas’s increased spending and services are the automatic by-product of the state’s increased income, urbanization, and industrialization. Other political scientists insist that, to the contrary, though the state’s economic base clearly provides the resources and needs from which public policy is fashioned, factors such as voter turnout, electoral competition, interest-group strength, legislative professionalism, and gubernatorial leadership capacity have a powerful and independent mediating effect between the economic environment and public policy choices. Though this controversy cannot be resolved here, it must be acknowledged.1 Second, what in fact is “better” public policy? The health of a political system can be somewhat objectively measured by certain traditional standards of democracy: How honest and open and competitive are the elections? How attentive and informed and participatory are the citizens? How representative and responsive is the government? Measuring policy output (that is, how much does the government spend on which services) is also fairly straightforward. Assessing policy outcome (what are the ultimate results of these regulations and services on citizens’ lives) is much more complicated and value-laden. Few government programs are so universally beneﬁcial that one can say with certainty they are desirable, or that more is better. Furthermore, opinion data is insufﬁcient to provide proof that government actions are or are not satisfying citizen expectations and demands. Further complications arise when comparative considerations are factored in. Obviously, Arkansas government is a greater presence in the lives of its citizens than was once the case, but how does that measure up against the magniﬁed needs and resources of contemporary times? And how does Arkansas’s governmental effort compare with that of the other states, which have also become much more activist and interventionist regulators and service providers in recent decades? In the edition of one widely used textbook before Bill Clinton’s entrance onto the national stage, college students were introduced to the concept of comparative state politics by a series of highly unﬂattering distinctions drawn between the services afforded by Arkansas as compared with those of other states. Virginia Gray, herself reared in Arkansas, began by contrasting the higher education services of Arkansas and California:

[294], (2)

Lines: 60 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [294], (2)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

295

If you happen to grow up in the state of Arkansas, as I did, you could attend one of ten public four-year colleges or universities, all relatively undistinguished on academic or scholarly grounds. The average salary earned by Arkansas professors is near the bottom of professors’ salaries in public institutions in the United States. The amount of ﬁnancial aid Arkansas offers to the average needy student is even worse comparatively: it was $233 per student in 1980– 81. No state offers less than that. And the situation is not getting better.

This dismal scene is then contrasted with the abundance of higher educational institutions, many prestigious, in California, which have well-paid faculty and generous student-aid awards.2 After drawing equally sharp distinctions regarding the two states’ support of elementary and secondary education, Gray concludes on the pessimistic note that there is “no compelling reason to predict that Arkansas will begin an ascent up the educational ladder.”3 Thus were thousands of college students given their introduction to comparative state politics, and—before Bill Clinton was a household name—probably their ﬁrst impression of Arkansas. As will be discussed, some of speciﬁc policy rankings noted by Gray have changed in recent years. Central to this chapter, however, is the question whether the services Arkansas offers, albeit “clearly” more numerous and generous than previously, are “better” in terms of the state’s capacity and in comparison to what other states now provide. By most dollar measures of state output, Arkansas ranks, as it has always ranked, in the bottom tier of states, which is natural for a state with historically low income levels. More important than this absolute measure, however, is the question of whether the gap between Arkansas and other states is widening or narrowing. If the latter is true, then the supposition that better politics and government leads to better policies, though not proven, is certainly strengthened. Since state services are impossible without state revenue, Arkansas’s tax base is the best place to begin our analysis. resources and revenues In Arkansas’s ﬁrst year of operation as a state, the grand sum of revenues collected was $10,546. By 1850 state revenues had grown to $93,540 and by 1900 to $755,787. In all these years, indeed through the 1920s, the major (and always meager) source of state revenue was a property tax. There were other minor sources of state revenue: occupation and privilege taxes on such tradespeople as clock peddlers, billiard hall operators, and sewing-machine

[295], (3)

Lines: 78 to 1 ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [295], (3)

296 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

sales agents; a one-dollar poll tax on all adult males, reenacted in 1874 after a ten-year lapse; and an inheritance tax (added in 1901) and a franchise tax on corporations (added in 1907). Moreover, the state always collected fees for certain writs and ﬁlings and copies and publications.4 The general property tax, however, was the heart of the state’s taxation effort and the major source of local revenues as well. Property taxes were and are levied at a ﬁxed rate in terms of mills (or $0.001) per thousand dollars of the assessed value (which may not exceed 20 percent of the actual market value) of the property. The speciﬁc millage ceilings imposed by the 1874 constitution were quickly outgrown. A long series of constitutional amendments have established additional local purposes for which mills can be assessed, have increased some millage limits, and have abolished some ceilings entirely. Increasingly in the twentieth century, however, in Arkansas as elsewhere, the property tax came to be viewed as an appropriate source for local rather than state revenues. In 1922, property taxes accounted for almost three-fourths of the state’s revenue. By 1945, state property taxes were bringing in only 10 percent of state revenues; and in 1958 a constitutional amendment was adopted prohibiting any future state use of a property tax. The automobile created not only a new demand for roads but a new source of revenue. Prompted by threats that the federal government would terminate ﬁnancial aid for roads,Arkansas enacted a gasoline tax in 1921. Together with motor vehicle license fees, it generated over half of the state’s $22,135,000 income in 1930. Also in the 1920s and 1930s, Arkansas joined other states in turning to other sources of revenue: a severance tax in 1923; corporate and personal income taxes in 1929; a cigarette tax in 1929; a general sales tax in 1935; and taxes on liquor when it again became legal after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. Though the rates of most of these taxes have increased over the years, the basic tax structure now in place is the one that was adopted during this period before World War II. It is a much more productive and elastic system than was the property tax. By 1960 total state revenues were $278,621,000; by 1979 Arkansas had its ﬁrst billion-dollar year in state revenues; and in the 2003 ﬁscal year, the state spent $3.25 billion from its general fund. Consistent with the general pattern for decades, by the early 2000s income and sales taxes accounted for well over 90 percent of state general revenues. This largely explains why, in the inﬂationary 1960s and 1970s, state revenue increased so dramatically: 343 percent between 1966 and 1980. In this period of population growth, increased industrial and commercial activity, and inﬂation, the state’s reliance on taxes on personal income, consumption,

[296], (4)

Lines: 101 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [296], (4)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

297

and corporate earnings meant guaranteed growth. Furthermore, generous federal aid (accounting for an average 34 percent of Arkansas’s total income in this period) provided a vital supplement.5 In the last two decades of the twentieth century, the combination of slowed inﬂation, less consistent economic growth, and federal cutbacks meant that the relatively painless enlargement of the state revenue base was ending. Further, the tax structure itself was coming under increasing criticism from various quarters for its increasingly regressive nature. For instance, in a series of critical reports, entities such as the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation have called for overhaul of the state tax structure to enhance progressivity. In its most expansive recent report, reiterating the analysis of prior reports, the foundation emphasized in 2003 that lower-income people were contributing more to state revenues than were upper-income persons. It cited several reasons for this. First, Arkansas, unlike all but a handful of states, exempts neither food nor utilities payments from the sales tax. Second, the top income tax bracket—unaltered since 1929 except for a 1999 revision that now ties the top bracket minimum income to the rate of inﬂation—includes all incomes over $27,500 (as of 2002). This means that those earning $30,000 pay the same 7 percent rate as those earning $300,000. Finally, the “almost ridiculously” low severance tax on natural gas is only a fraction of that of neighboring states, and the corporate income tax is well below the national norm. Other voices defend the general structure of the Arkansas tax system and disputed these general charges of unfairness and regressivity.6 What can not be contested, however, is the peculiar and clearly regressive effect of constitutional amendment 19 on Arkansas’s revenue choices. This provision, approved by 80 percent of the electorate in 1934, during the debtridden depths of the Depression, prohibits any increase in any existing tax unless it is approved by the voters or by a three-fourths majority vote in the legislature. Because the individual and corporate income, beer, gasoline, cigarette, and severance taxes were all then in effect, it takes extraordinary legislative votes to increase them and only twenty-six votes in the house and nine in the senate to block such an increase. Because the general sales tax was not enacted until after amendment 19, however, it offers the path of least resistance. The contemporary effects of this constitutional restraint were clearly evident in the 1983 special legislative session on education ﬁnance and reform. A sales tax increase from three cents to four cents was enacted. Proposed increases in the corporate income and severance taxes had majority support but were defeated because of the extraordinary majority requirement. Similarly, Governor Dale Bumpers’s attempt in 1971 to make

[297], (5)

Lines: 107 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [297], (5)

298 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

the income tax even more progressive with a top bracket of 9 percent had a majority, but it failed by two votes of getting the necessary three-fourths vote in the senate. The defeated 1980 constitution would have required a two-thirds majority on all tax increases, and since then some reform groups have placed a priority on securing constitutional change to bring parity to the votes needed for legislative tax increases by separate amendment.7 These efforts have always failed, however. This is either because they have not attained enough petition signatures to make the ballot or, as in 1988, because of an overwhelming vote against them by the people. In that year, Governor Clinton headed up a drive for a proposed constitutional amendment that would have required 60 percent votes in each house for all tax increases (in addition, the amendment would have repealed the property tax on household goods and streamlined the car registration process). Though the proposal did gain the necessary number of signatures to make the ballot, some progressive allies of Clinton quietly criticized the governor’s lack of commitment to the endeavor throughout the campaign. They argued that he was sacriﬁcing tax reform for a fuller gubernatorial investment in an ethics reform initiative (which did pass easily). The strong, well-funded efforts of corporate interests to oppose the amendment, which would have made it easier to raise taxes on personal and corporate income, certainly provided a high hurdle to reform in 1988. However, undeniably, a fuller investment by the governor could have made the vote closer. As it was, the proposed amendment was demolished, gaining less than 38 percent of the vote. (Moreover, operating under the cloud of the 1988 defeat, a similar effort two years later failed to even obtain the necessary signatures for the ballot.)8 Some critics of Clinton’s years in Arkansas cite the fact that the state’s tax structure remained unreformed as a fundamental failing of his administration. Other analysts of the Clinton governorship contend that, though the sales tax increases that funded Clinton-advocated programs made the state’s tax structure even more regressive, it was ultimately the correct step. This is because sales taxes are the most palatable of taxes to voters and their increase did not bring about a tax revolt in the state, which would have undermined any efforts to modernize the state’s social service programs. Still, at the end of the day, this major structural source of tax inequity in Arkansas remains in place. The sales tax remains the sole legitimate option for new tax revenues in an increasingly partisan political environment.9 The battle over efforts to repeal the sales tax on groceries—a bane of the state tax structure for those most concerned about its regressivity—shows

[298], (6)

Lines: 111 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [298], (6)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

299

that sales tax revenues will grow in importance because of the rules of the game on taxes established by the state constitution. Sporadic efforts to exempt food from the tax failed in the last decades of the twentieth century. In the last legislative sessions of that century, however, the issue received more focused attention when Governor Huckabee proposed a rebate of a portion of the sales tax paid on food to state taxpayers in the 1997 session (which competed with various repeal plans in that session). An even stronger effort for outright repeal followed in the 1999 session. The 1999 plan, which would have offset the revenue loss with an increase in the sales tax on nonfood items, was defeated by a coalition of two powerful groups: farm and poultry interests (who feared an inevitable loss of their own beneﬁcial sales tax exemptions for animal feed if the human food tax was removed) and county and municipal governments, who were increasingly dependent on local sales tax revenues. With revenue-neutral food tax relief having failed, the proponents of reform went the petition route in 2002. They gained the necessary signatures to place on the fall ballot an Axe the Food Tax proposal, which lacked any provisions for recouping the lost revenues. Several progressive interests who had previously favored efforts to lessen the regressivity of the state’s tax structure became leaders in the battle against the amendment. Somewhat ironically, they joined with traditional opponents of food tax repeal in ﬁling a suit to have the expansive amendment struck from the ballot by the supreme court. When that failed, they waged a shockingly successful battle to defeat the provision at the ballot box. In short, the need by education, library, police, and social services interests for funds for necessary state services trumped their desire to promote progressivity in the state tax structure because they realized that it would be essentially impossible to gain the supermajorities needed to adequately offset the lost funds with other, more progressive taxes.10 Even without the removal of the sales tax on groceries, tax adequacy will remain a problem in Arkansas. Despite the spectacular revenue gains of recent decades, per capita state and local taxes in Arkansas remained among the lowest in the nation (a fact prominently displayed on the web sites of Arkansas retirement communities and industrial developers). In fact, despite the sales tax increase in recent years at the state and the local levels, in 2000 Arkansas’s state and local taxes per capita of $2,295 ranked forty-third of the ﬁfty states—only 71 percent of the U.S. average of $3,210. Even using the fairer measure of taxes per $1,000 of personal income, only fourteen states collected less than Arkansas’s $100 as of 1997.11 The now-abolished Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Rela-

[299], (7)

Lines: 117 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [299], (7)

300 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

tions (acir) provided an alternative—and for many analysts of state tax policy a better—yardstick for measuring the tax capacity of state-local ﬁscal systems than traditional absolute or per capita income measurements. This preferred measure, the Representative Tax System (rts), provides both absolute and relative measures of a state’s hypothetical ability to raise revenues, assuming every state applied identical tax rates to each of the twenty-six commonly used tax bases. The rts also measures tax effort, or a state’s actual tax productivity in relation to its tax capacity. According to a recent extension of acir’s work, based on 1996 state and local taxes, Arkansas’s tax capacity was 81, or 19 percent below the national average and higher than only two states. Moreover, its tax effort was 92, or 8 percent below the national average (twenty-ninth of the ﬁfty states). An examination of the data over three decades indicates a general consistency in the measures, with a gradual shift upward in the state’s tax effort. It also shows that Arkansans paid higher-than-average taxes on sales and use of goods, personal income, motor fuels and vehicle registration, and certain “sinful” pursuits (tobacco and alcohol). However, state taxes on estates, corporations, public utilities, and severance taxes were lower than average.12 A highlight of this and similar data is that whereas Arkansas’s state tax effort ranges from somewhat below to somewhat above average on most taxes, the “effort” on property taxes can hardly be described as an effort at all. Only about one-fourth of Arkansas’s combined state and local taxes are levied by local governments (cities, counties, school districts). Most of these are property taxes, which, in 1996, were only 51 percent of the nationalaverage property taxes, and reﬂected an effort that was only 49 percent of the national average. We will discuss shortly the deleterious effects of low property taxes on the public schools (to which 76 percent of property tax proceeds are now dedicated). What is noteworthy here is that no thread in Arkansas politics is longer or more persistent than the underuse, misuse, and outright abuse of the property tax.13 The property tax’s 1836 beginnings were clouded with understandable resentment that the “poor man with land not worth ﬁfty cents an acre would be required . . . to pay the same rate of tax per acre as did the rich inﬂuential owner of bottom lands worth one hundred dollars per acre.” Moreover, the very same criticism regarding more recent property tax revisions (that they were “mangled for the beneﬁt of big absentee landowners”) persists. The complaint in 1986 by the director of the State Education Department that “there are not enough cows on the tax books in the state of Arkansas to ﬁll up one good farm” is markedly similar to the complaint heard decades

[300], (8)

Lines: 121 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [300], (8)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

301

previously that there apparently “wasn’t a hog or sheep on a single farm in Phillips County.”14 Since the state’s origin, a stream of state agency studies, academic analyses, legislative investigations, court decisions, journalists’ exposés, citizens’ complaints, and foundation reports have produced the same conclusions: property taxes have been and are inequitably assessed, blatantly evaded, and incompetently administered. When the supreme court found the entire property tax system to be unconstitutional in 1979, the immediate consequence was a constitutional amendment (59) that voters resoundingly approved as the promised salvation against dramatic tax increases. Like all previous efforts at correcting property tax problems, however, it too has “turned failure to disaster.” Speciﬁcally, amendment 59 locked into the state constitution provisions through which farm- and forestlands are assessed not on their actual value but on the basis of a formula that limits their owners’ property taxes. Thus, in ﬁscal year 1999, the owners of 90 percent of the land in the state paid only 9 percent of the property taxes. The amendment stated that reassessments should take place regularly, but there were no funds to offset the counties’ costs for making that happen and little other impetus for most to do so. Only thirty or so counties reassessed regularly to keep taxes somewhat in synch with the rising property values.15 In the mid-1990s, as a consequence of new legislation, more counties did reassess, and taxpayers grew angry at the signiﬁcant increases in taxes, especially in the booming northwestern corner of the state. A property tax revolt bubbled up in that region that resulted in an initiated constitutional amendment making the ballot in 1998 that would have completely repealed the property tax, with no provisions for replacing the revenues. After the supreme court threw the amendment out just before that election, much legislative energy in the next session focused on developing a new amendment to reform property taxes and diminish the possibility of a successful abolition. Amendment 79, passed easily by the voters in 2000, created a stronger cap on yearly increases in property taxes and offered a $300 homestead exemption to homeowners. To offset the loss of revenue, the state sales tax was raised by three-eighths of a cent, making the state tax structure more regressive in the process. Though the tension surrounding the property tax subsided, at least temporarily, in the aftermath of amendment 79’s adoption the inherent problems with that tax as applied in Arkansas remain. And it cannot be otherwise so long as property taxes are assessed and collected by locally elected ofﬁcials who fear the political consequences of raising their constituents’ taxes and

[301], (9)

Lines: 125 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [301], (9)

302 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

so long as Arkansas citizens continue to feel (with astonishing incorrectness) that their property taxes are as high or higher than those in other states. In that climate, the state will continue to assume an ever-increasing share of the state-local tax burden. Just as interesting as Arkansans’ recent choices over revenue sources (through both legislative and direct democracy actions) and the way those choices differ from other states is an increasingly obvious missing revenue stream: revenue from a state lottery or casinos. The 1874 constitution included an absolute ban on state authorization of a lottery or any sale of lottery tickets. It remains unaltered and, through court interpretation, has been extended to bar any games of “chance.” The state does receive some gambling revenues from horse racing in Hot Springs and greyhound racing in West Memphis. Both involve elements of “skill,” according to court interpretations, although a constitutional amendment explicitly allowed the betting on horse races. Nevertheless, numerous attempts to amend the constitution to allow casinos and/or a lottery have failed. Because so many of Arkansas’s neighboring states have joined the wave of legalized and, in many cases, state-sponsored gambling—with the resultant infusion of revenue into state coffers—Arkansans’ resistance to gambling becomes more and more intriguing. In an excellent overview of the failed attempts to legalize gambling in Arkansas, John Lyman Mason and Michael Nelson chronicle the numerous casino and/or lottery constitutional amendments that were proposed within the legislature or through petition between 1964 and the end of the century. Four of the proposals actually made it to the ballot (and stayed there) until election day. All four—two casino amendments and two lottery-casino measures—were rejected by landslide margins. (The high vote was in 1964 on legalizing the open illegal casinos in Hot Springs; it gained just 40 percent of the vote.) Mason and Nelson note the deep ﬂaws in the numerous plans: proposed constitutional language that would have made private companies the sole operators of the legalized casinos, various “skunks”—including, in one case, forgers of signatures—working on behalf of the proposals, and legal irregularities that caused several proposals to be removed from the ballot before election day.16 Mason and Nelson make their case that the continual failure of gambling proposals in Arkansas can be explained by “[p]olitically ﬂawed proposals typically have been matched with politically ﬂawed advocates.” However, they likely underestimate the role of Arkansas’s traditionalistic political culture (with its resistance to any change in the social order) as an obstacle to

[302], (10)

Lines: 131 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[302], (10)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

303

legalized gambling. Advertising in previous campaigns has quickly tapped into Arkansans’ fear of social disorder (created by the vice that is assumed to accompany gambling) and deep concerns over the disruption of traditional families by gambling addictions. One ad from 1984, still quoted two decades later, showed a disheveled young father pleading, “Baby needs a new pair of shoes!,” as he bets—and loses—more of his family’s money. Such examples provide evidence that even the most carefully drafted and focus-group-tested amendment would still face a tough electoral battle in the ﬁrst years of the twenty-ﬁrst century. Mason and Nelson sensibly conclude that gambling amendments, with their implications for altering the state’s revenue structure, will inevitably continue to bubble up in Arkansas given the growing legitimacy of gambling as a revenue stream in other states and, in particular, given Arkansans continued travel to neighboring states to bet at casinos and purchase lottery tickets. Moreover, recent public opinion surveys show slight majority support for a lottery-only constitutional amendment in which the revenues from the lottery would be dedicated to state services, particularly education. Such an amendment (absent casino gambling, which is much more unpopular with voters) would likely be developed by legislators. As Mason and Nelson note, the limit of three amendments that the legislature may place before the voters every two years lessens the likelihood that such a limited, well-drafted proposal on gambling (sure to enrage thousands of any legislative sponsor’s constituents) will make the cut.17 Leaving aside the debate over the wisdom of state-sponsored gambling, this recognition that constitutional dictates limit the revenue options open to lawmakers in this area of public policy only underscores the fact that many such constitutional rules have created a tax and revenue system in Arkansas in which the options open to Arkansans today continue to be constrained by the decisions of past elites. Fortunately for taxpayers, the state’s budgetary process, that is, the process for estimating revenue and allocating expenditures, has been reformed, rationalized, and strengthened in recent decades. who gets what? Although the state government has operated with a balanced budget since 1934, when amendment 20, effectively prohibiting debt, was added to the constitution, until 1945 there was little formal budgeting. All state taxes were earmarked by law for more than ﬁfty separate state agencies or programs. As a result, as Bill Goodman notes, “no matter how much or how little

[303], (11)

Lines: 137 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [303], (11)

304 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

the General Assembly authorized an agency to spend, the money just kept rolling in and could not be diverted to other needs. In addition, because of the inadequate performance of some taxes and exceptionally high performance of others, certain programs received large increases while others received decreases irrespective of their ranking in the state’s priorities.”18 The Revenue Stabilization Law, proposed by Governor Ben Laney and adopted by the legislature in 1945, brought rationality to the process. Some revenues, called “special” revenues, are still dedicated for particular purposes. Gasoline taxes and motor vehicle registration and driver’s license fees, for example, are exclusively used for road construction and maintenance and other services for highway users. The broad-based taxes, however, such as income and sales, were redesignated as “general” revenues for which the governor and legislature could, for the ﬁrst time, determine spending priorities. The Revenue Stabilization Act also provided mechanisms to ensure spending reductions when revenues were less than estimated and to provide a steady cash ﬂow to state agencies despite uneven periods of revenue collections throughout the year. Arkansas has a biennial (two-year) budget, with a ﬁscal year beginning July 1 and ending June 30. The actual budgeting process, however, begins in the spring of even-numbered years, when state agencies submit their requests to the state Budget Ofﬁce. That ofﬁce compiles and analyzes the requests and presents them, together with revenue projections, to the governor. The governor then holds executive budget hearings and uses that information, together with Budget Ofﬁce data and recommendations, to formulate a proposed comprehensive state budget. This proposal is submitted to the sixty-eight members of the Legislative Council (lc) and Joint Budget Committee (jbc), sitting together, who hold their own budget hearings throughout the fall to discuss the impact of the executive branch’s recommendations and make their own. When the legislature convenes, the lc/jbc’s recommendations are carried forward by the forty-one-member jbc, which develops and introduces the ﬁnal appropriation bills. Since article 5 of the constitution requires a separate bill for each appropriation, hundreds of bills must be written by the jbc. And since the constitution requires a three-fourths vote on most appropriations, the same opportunities for minority maneuvering exist as with most tax increases. The precise dollar amounts in these bills are often highly controversial and prompt ﬁerce pressure and fervent bargaining. Because these negotiations tend to be private and conclusive, however, most budget bills pass the full

[304], (12)

Lines: 149 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[304], (12)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

305

chambers unanimously. Some of the most heated and clever bargaining goes into fashioning the biennial amendment to the Revenue Stabilization Act because it is this law that determines how much of an agency’s appropriation is placed in Category A (based on conservative revenue estimates, with a 99 percent chance of funding), in Category B (predicated on economic growth), and in Category C (predicated on spectacular growth and highly unlikely to be funded). Fortunately for serious students of Arkansas budgeting, the intricacies of this process have been elaborated elsewhere.19 Just as important as the mechanics of the process are its politics, specifically the relative inﬂuence of its many participants, and here there is disagreement. Until recent decades, Arkansas was one of the few states that did not place budgeting powers directly in the hands of the chief executive. Indeed, it was the only state that placed responsibility for ﬁscal planning in the hands of a legislative committee, that is, the Legislative Council. Informally, during the several administrations of Governor Orval Faubus, the legislature began inviting gubernatorial budget recommendations. By 1960 all agency requests were submitted to the governor before consideration by the Legislative Council, and a 1973 law explicitly gave the governor a role in budget formulation and recommendation. Even after the 1973 reform, authorship of the crucial Revenue Stabilization Act continued to switch from governor to legislature and back again. In the late 1980s there was budgeting by “inner sanctum” (so criticized by those left out of the picture), which included powerful legislators, the governor, and key executive branch ofﬁcials. The most accurate portrayal of the process during this period was one scholar’s classiﬁcation of it as an executive-legislative “hybrid.” As another analyst put it, “The Arkansas budgetary process consists of changing relationships between state agencies, the governor, and the legislature. The budgetary process can be deﬁned only temporally—it is subject to change with a turnover of the people occupying key roles in the system.”20 More recent analyses of the budget process in Arkansas emphasize the control that the executive branch increasingly has gained, a power only further cemented by the rise of term limits in the legislature. Much of this new inﬂuence of the executive branch is driven by the fact that the legislative staff have under a week to review budget proposals by the executive branch before hearings on them actually begin. Moreover, the budgetary pie that the legislature has to work with is determined by the economic forecasting of executive branch ofﬁcials.As a result, the lc and jbc members are increasingly forced to play a reactive role. Even more bizarrely, term limits means that a number of the sixty-eight legislators involved in the

[305], (13)

Lines: 157 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [305], (13)

306 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

budget process during the interim period may not even be members of the legislature when the resulting appropriations bills are actually voted upon. In all likelihood, executive-legislative information sharing during the runup to the actual executive presentation of their recommendations to the relevant committees will return when the governor and legislature are controlled by the same party (something that has not been true at any point in the termlimits era). As a result, the power of the legislature as a whole in the process will be enhanced. Moreover, it is vital not to underestimate the inﬂuence of the lc/jbc members who are willing to devote constant time and attention to budgetary minutiae. (What one close observer of the process noted of the past remains true even now: “Power belongs to those who are always there and who work hard enough to get the knowledge.”) Still, as long as term limits remain in effect, the legislative leaders on budgetary matters will ride in the backseat of a process steered by the governor. It is in this area that the executive-legislative dynamics of the term limits era, discussed fully in chapter 9, are most clearly exhibited.21 Certainly, Arkansas governors who possess equal formal powers have had very unequal inﬂuence. This is reﬂected in their own legislative skills as well as in the skills of their key lieutenants who are responsible for budget issues. Gubernatorial inﬂuence also ﬂuctuates with the economy. Periods of revenue growth permit much more gubernatorial decision making and policy activism. Timing can be a critical factor as well. In 1978 Bill Clinton, the legislature, and the state agencies were all so certain of Clinton’s November election victory that he took over the budget-formulation process after his May Democratic gubernatorial primary victory, hired professional management consultants to assist him, made budgetary decisions the focus of his transition, and managed to inject his priorities into the process. In 1980 Frank White’s general-election upset of Clinton meant that the Legislative Council’s fall hearings and decision-making process on what was presumably to be Clinton’s budget were already well under way. White had little opportunity to inﬂuence them, creating a constraining situation that Clinton in turn experienced after his rematch victory over White in 1982. The four-year gubernatorial term does reduce the level of uncertainty over who will actually head the executive branch during any particular session.22 In reaction to the odd dynamic created by a new governor entering the budget game after it was well underway, in 1981 the legislature enacted a law that permits nonincumbent governors-elect to recess the legislature for thirty days immediately after the inaugural. However, legislators informally made it clear in 1982 that this law was not intended for the use of nonneophytes like

[306], (14)

Lines: 161 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[306], (14)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

307

Clinton. In the term limits era, where the legislative body is typically ﬁlled with neophytes to the process, new calls have arisen for the implementation of an early session recess for a very different reason. The 2001 assessment of the effectiveness of the institution, conducted by the National Conference of State Legislatures, proposed this as a method for ensuring that lc/jbc members engaged in the budget process would actually be part of the session in which the appropriations bills are passed and would provide some head start for new legislators trying to gaining ﬂuency in the language of the complex budgeting process.23 Considering the centrality that political scientists, political participants, and political journalists alike accord to the budget as “the single most important policy statement that a state government makes from one year to the next,” it is equally important to note that the battles over state spending are fought only at the margins. A combination of numerous factors—such as earmarked taxes, the prohibition against deﬁcit spending, restricted federal funds, limited time and knowledge, and commitments to interest payments and retirement programs—massively reduce the amount of actual discretion left to decision makers.24 Furthermore, patterns of incrementalism mean that current expenditures will vary only slightly from past expenditures. As Sharkansky notes, decision makers “generally accept the legitimacy of established programs and agree to continue the previous level of expenditure. They limit their task by considering only the increments of change proposed for the new budget and by considering the narrow range of goals embodied in the departures from established activities.” Conscious attempts in recent years to get away from the automatic acceptance of the budgetary base as a given through Planning-Programming Budgeting (ppb) or Zero Base Budgeting (zbb), did little to displace traditional incremental-style budgeting. This outcome does not bode well for the latest attempt: a move toward Performance-Based Budgeting (pbb).25 Governor Dale Bumpers initiated a version of ppb called Management by Objective in 1972, and Governor David Pryor initiated a modiﬁed form of zbb called the Priority Budgeting System in 1976. According to T. R. Carr’s analysis in 1983, however, these prioritized budgeting systems had “a minimal impact on the outcome of the budgetary process.” Carr concluded that “spending levels for the functions of government are ﬁrmly entrenched in tradition” and that “increases in allocation levels by function are almost perfectly correlated to increases in state revenue.” His calculations presented highly persuasive evidence of persistent incrementalism.26

[307], (15)

Lines: 167 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [307], (15)

308 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

In the mid-1990s the Murphy Commission was created to study ways to enhance the efﬁciency of state government. Following on its recommendations the legislature adopted the Performance-Based Budgeting Act as Act 221 of the 2001 session of the General Assembly. pbb attempts to link the funding of governmental programs to their past performances and productivity. The Murphy Commission’s work was promoted most ardently by the executive branch (under both Governors Tucker and Huckabee). Moreover, the practice would give executive branch departments much greater autonomy over the manner in which their appropriations are spent. Nevertheless, pbb does have the potential to lessen the disadvantage in the budgeting arena faced by the less experienced legislature in the termlimit era because it focuses attention on the “big picture” of programmatic outcomes rather than on the minutiae of the individual line items that veteran legislators had learned through their work over the years. However, major problems occurred in the implementation of the new computer system that was intended to provide the data analysis necessary for pbb to take place. As a result, the program could not be begun, as scheduled, in the 2004–5 biennium. Thus, incrementalism is destined to maintain its ﬁrm grasp on budgeting in Arkansas for the foreseeable future.27 Though incrementalism has been the norm in the modern era in Arkansas, one segment of the state budget has shown signiﬁcant variance in recent decades. General revenues allocated to education (the Public School Fund, General Education, and Higher Education) went from 64.1 percent of the budget in fy 1978 to 71.8 percent of the budget in fy 1993. In the later years of that decade it then fell to 65.2 percent of the fy 2000 budget (importantly, most of the drop occurred in the area of Higher Education). Since the net general revenue available for distribution increased from $690.3 million in fy 1978 to $3.2 billion in fy 2000, it is clear that the absolute and, to a lesser extent, relative amount expended on public education increased markedly before leveling off. Considering Arkansas’s abysmal educational effort historically, does this trend offer evidence that “better” politics and government do indeed produce “better” policy?28 education: has there been real improvements? Any attempt to assess public policy “improvements” is highly hazardous and dangerously prone to subjectivity. Our mere choice of this particular policy area among many potential others, for example, might well be attributed to authorial bias, since we, as educators, may very well value education above other public goods and services.

[308], (16)

Lines: 175 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[308], (16)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

309

For four reasons, however, the state’s educational efforts seem to offer an excellent testing ground. First, although there is thorough disagreement over education policy, there does seem to be a general consensus that it is better to be educated than ignorant, and abundant evidence demonstrates close correlations between educational attainments on the one hand and higher income and occupational status, improved life chances and choices, on the other. The case for good public schools as a general value is especially compelling in a state like Arkansas, where almost the only educational opportunities available are state-supported ones: fewer than 6 percent of Arkansas’s elementary and secondary students attended private schools in the 1990s. Second, public education is one of the few policy areas where a wealth of statistics (including nonexpenditure data) has been compiled over the decades. Such data enables the kind of comparative analysis, both over time and among states, that is difﬁcult or impossible to ﬁnd on many other issues. Third, though federal dollars have provided important assistance to state schools and thus somewhat confounded a clear picture of the state’s own efforts, the federal inﬂuence has been much smaller in this area than in other major areas (health and welfare and highways) of state spending activity. Finally, because educational expenditures consume by far the greatest portion of contemporary state budgets, we are examining a central rather than peripheral facet of contemporary public policy.29 For all these reasons, then, a search for signs of signiﬁcant change or nonchange in Arkansas’s educational effort seems legitimate. For those who care about Arkansas and who value education, such a search is also mildly masochistic. In 1978 a special study on school ﬁnance was commissioned by the Arkansas legislature. In what came to be known, after its chief author, as the Alexander Report, the following observation was offered: “By almost any standard the Arkansas system of education must be regarded as inadequate. Children of the state are not being offered the same opportunity to develop their individual capacities as children in other states. Stated another way, from an educational standpoint the average child in Arkansas would be much better off attending the public schools of almost any other state in the country.”30 Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this stunning indictment is how precisely it parallels an expert study commissioned by the legislature more than ﬁfty years previously, in 1921: “For thousands upon thousands of children, Arkansas is providing absolutely no chance. To these children, to be born in Arkansas is a misfortune and an injustice from which they will never recover and upon which they will look back with bitterness when plunged,

[309], (17)

Lines: 189 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [309], (17)

310 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

in adult life, into competition with children born in other states which are today providing more liberally for their children.” The 1921 report included massive amounts of data, placing Arkansas at the very bottom or near bottom in terms of teacher pay, per pupil expenditures, length of school year, and percentage of those enrolled in actual attendance.31 Almost ﬁfty years before the 1921 survey—that is, in the 1870s—reports estimated that only 16,000 of a potential 195,714 students were actually enrolled in public schools, that circuit superintendents were giving more attention to politics than to public education, that county collectors were pocketing sparse school funds, and that the state’s inadequate supply of teachers was dwindling because of their payment in worthless scrip. Indeed, the sad saga goes back even to pre-statehood, when in 1833 the territorial governor John Pope urged educational improvements on the legislature since many families were avoiding Arkansas because of the lack of school facilities.32 For nearly all of Arkansas’s history, then, though educational leaders and a few elected ofﬁcials called for reform, occasionally with success, virtually every assessment of Arkansas’s educational effort against other states’ showed it either dead last or close to the bottom in every measurable aspect: enrollment, attendance, facilities, teacher pay and training, course requirements and offerings, and per pupil expenditures. As a 1926 campaign for higher school millage rates angrily and aptly noted, Arkansas was “the cellar champion of the public school league.”33 The reasons for being so persistently on the bottom rung stem from a conﬂuence of all the socioeconomic, political, historical, governmental, and attitudinal factors that are known to depress educational efforts. These combined with devastating impact in Arkansas. As Thomas Dye and others have demonstrated in their comparative state policy studies, the economic factor that correlates most closely with educational expenditures is wealth. Thus, Arkansas’s lack of wealth, as evidenced in its very low per capita and other income measures, provides one comprehensive explanation for stingy spending on education. Urbanization and industrialization also have positive correlations with per pupil expenditures, and Arkansas began as and long remained one of America’s most rural states with, until recently, a pervasively agrarian economy.34 The reasons for nonsupport of education differed somewhat between those in the lowlands and those in the hills. The afﬂuent Delta planters naturally opposed serious property taxes on their extensive holdings. They needed an uneducated and immobile “peasant” class to make their estates

[310], (18)

Lines: 195 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[310], (18)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

311

proﬁtable, and they could educate their own children by shipping them East, importing tutors, or establishing tuition-supported private academies. The subsistence farmers in the hills simply had no disposable income, nor could they visualize education providing any material beneﬁts in their simple way of life. Furthermore, planter and scratch farmer alike shared a common southern view that education was “private, personal, and optional” and not public responsibility.35 Rurality also meant isolation. Sparsely settled and widely scattered population clusters had neither the ways nor the means to support serious schooling, and nonexistent roads prohibited efﬁcient combination of resources. Arkansas’s isolation from the outside world effectively insulated it from the public school crusades that periodically swept much of the rest of the nation, and it insulated its people from the knowledge that their schools were markedly inferior. This “pluralistic ignorance” was perpetuated by the homogeneity that is also strongly associated with minimal education efforts.36 The question of whether any political leadership could have overcome so many constraining forces is problematic. What is certain is that few leaders even tried and that politics as usual inhibited more than it helped educational advances. Among the funds completely squandered during the Family’s long nineteenth-century reign were almost all of the proceeds from the federal land grants intended to provide a base for educational purposes. By 1850 every state except Arkansas had authorized the spending of tax monies for public schools. Isaac Murphy, the ﬁrst Reconstruction governor and himself a former schoolteacher, got the ﬁrst state tax for education adopted. However, under the subsequent Reconstruction regime, the public school system was so polluted by patronage and corruption that “free” schools acquired an even worse reputation than they had previously, when they were associated with pauperism. The Redeemers reenacted a modest state property tax, earmarked the poll tax for educational purposes, and committed the state through the 1874 constitution to “a suitable and efﬁcient system of free schools.” What was promised with words, however, was effectively prohibited by stringent millage, taxing, and spending restraints, as well as by the decision to place property tax assessments and collections in the hands of locally elected ofﬁcials. Membership on the local school board was sought as much to ﬁnd jobs for friends and relatives and escape the need to work on the roads as to advance the schools. Governor Jeff Davis (1901–7), the self-styled champion of the people, expressed his belief that Arkansas schools were “almost perfect” and needed

[311], (19)

Lines: 203 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [311], (19)

312 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

no more money. The racist sentiments deliberately inﬂamed by Davis and others had severe antieducational consequences as well, resulting in black schools that were deﬁnitely separate but never equal. The 1921 survey noted, for example, that the cost of instruction per child enrolled was $17.06 for each white child and $5.61 for each black child, and that nearly three-fourths of all black enrollment was in the ﬁrst four grades. In their 1930 study, Dawson and Little, after noting that “public education for the negro is receiving fairly liberal support and cooperation,” went on to report that only 70 percent of enumerated black schoolchildren were actually enrolled, that 61 percent of those were in the ﬁrst three grades and only 1.8 percent in high school, and that 77 percent of all black teachers had no college training whatsoever.37 The two-year gubernatorial term and four-year tradition meant that those few governors such as Thomas McRae (1921–25) who were passionately committed to educational uplift could not sustain the improvements they started. Proeducation governors were further stymied by malapportioned legislatures that were more sensitive to antitax and rural anticonsolidation elements than to proeducation forces. Were the people ahead of the politicians? Without historical opinion data, this is almost impossible to determine. It seems signiﬁcant, however, that in most localities voters quickly assessed themselves the maximum allowable millage rates for schools (and frequently went beyond these limits with “voluntary” taxes) and that many of the most important educational advances came from constitutional amendments and referenda initiated and/or ratiﬁed by the electorate. By the time amendment 11, raising school millage limits from twelve to eighteen, was adopted in 1926, for example, 83 percent of the school districts had already reached that limit. And according to the longtime state education director Arch Ford, the 1948 act that consolidated school districts with fewer than 350 students and effectively reduced the number of districts from 1,589 to 424 could only have been initiated by the people. “We never could have gotten the legislature to do it.”38 On the other hand, widespread popular attitudes that property taxes were unfair and excessive probably helped to keep them below levels adequate for school support. Much of the populace opposed and then simply ignored compulsory attendance laws. Perhaps most important, many studies demonstrate that states with more highly educated populations support stronger educational efforts. Thus, Arkansas was trapped at the bottom ranks by a vicious cycle of factors and attitudes, including an attitude that Arkansas schools were as good as they needed to be. In a state survey taken in 1978, the year of the Alexander Report, Arkansans rated their schools higher than

[312], (20)

Lines: 209 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[312], (20)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

313

did citizens in the nation generally. When asked where a possible state surplus should be spent, only 25 percent said on education, whereas 36 percent said on roads. If, as Robert Erikson has persuasively argued, “the states most likely to enact a given policy are the states where the public demand for the policy is strongest,” then at least through the late 1970s there was little reason to expect any dramatic improvement in educational policy in Arkansas.39 For a brief period in the early 1980s, however, Arkansas overcame the long weight of the past and jumped into the forefront of the American states on some measures of education policymaking. This thrust was made possible both by an improved economic environment and by a political system that translated these richer resources into particular public policies. As Jack M. Treadway has recently concluded with respect to the “economies versus politics” debate, “Policies cannot be pursued without resources, but neither do policies magically appear in the presence of resources. Environment matters, but so does politics.”40 Among the political factors that facilitated this translation process were the following: • a serendipitous series of judicial decisions; • an Arkansas electorate increasingly aware of its educational deﬁciencies and unhappy with unﬂattering comparisons to other states; • some political campaigns in which an issue, that is, better education, received at least as much attention as did personalities; • the coming to political power of an interest group, the Arkansas Education Association, which in the process of pursuing its own interests increased both the public’s and the politicians’ sensitivity to education issues; • the acceptance of some women (the group in society traditionally most committed to education as a public policy priority) in some roles as legitimate political leaders; • a legislature that, through the sustained and specialized attention that interim committees make possible, had developed an institutional memory of Arkansas’s educational inadequacies and an in-house corps of effective proeducation advocates; • a state press that rallied almost unanimously behind improved educational programs; and • a governor with the precise political skills and personal values to give these assorted elements leadership and focus.41

In fact, in a dramatic departure from the past, a number of national education studies in 1985 pointed to Arkansas as a leader instead of a laggard.

[313], (21)

Lines: 215 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [313], (21)

314 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

A report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching noted that “Arkansas, which ranked ﬁftieth in average teacher salary in 1982–83, increased its average salary for teachers by 12.6 percent the following year (the highest rate of change of all the states) and by an additional 11.8 percent the following year. Arkansas added teachers in both of the last two years which would tend to bring the average down since new teachers usually get less.” In a comparative analysis of state responses to the changes advocated in 1983 by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, Arkansas was ranked among the top eight states in both the number and breadth of reforms adopted. Arkansas was also ranked second among the states in the percentage by which it had increased funding for higher education (a 52 percent increase from 1983 to 1985) and eighth in the percentage increase from 1975 to 1985 (190 percent).42 Since incremental budgeting makes it highly unlikely that current expenditures will vary more than marginally from previous expenditures and comparative studies of state adoptions of policy innovations suggest equally strong historical traditions in nonexpenditure areas, this kind of sharp break with the past is relatively rare. Nevertheless, the fortuitous combination of long-term and short-term factors just listed did converge in Arkansas in that period. Arkansas’s rapid increase in income, urbanization, and industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s certainly created a stronger base of those economic development factors that are positively associated with proeducation public policies. Furthermore, the rapidly diminishing opportunities for an uneducated workforce were becoming increasingly apparent as the farm sector steadily shrank and plants closed as low-wage international competition made America’s low-skill manufacturing operations noncompetitive. There were still some employers with political clout who could quietly respond to spouses’ proeducation pleas, “Honey, I’ve got an investment in ignorance.” Their numbers were diminishing, however, and the economic establishment throughout the South had generally begun to perceive educational improvements as an industry-attracting and proﬁtable investment.43 Also by the 1980s, the Arkansas Education Association was no longer a relatively passive group of educators, often dominated by cost-conscious administrators and ofﬁcials. It had become a highly organized, well-staffed and -funded, and increasingly emphatic teacher interest group, ranked as one of the most powerful lobbies by the state legislature. Moreover, the ongoing vociferous criticism of Arkansas’s educational failings by the aea and others began to produce some attitudinal changes among the citizenry.44

[314], (22)

Lines: 258 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[314], (22)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

315

In sharp contrast to the 1978 survey previously cited, one 1982 survey found that 41 percent of the population was willing to be taxed more for better schools. Two other 1982 opinion studies found that Arkansans had become critical of their schools compared with those in the rest of the nation and had placed a high priority on improving them. A series of widely publicized blue-ribbon national reports warning against a “rising tide of mediocrity” in the schools apparently sharpened and deepened attitudinal changes already under way in Arkansas.45 The reports also reinforced the work of the Education Standards Committee, established by the 1983 legislature to develop new and more rigorous standards for accreditation. Chaired by the governor’s wife, Hillary Clinton, the Education Standards Committee created further consciousness raising through public hearings held in each of the seventy-ﬁve counties. It began developing a consensus on a longer school day and school year, increased high school graduation requirements and academic course offerings, put an end to “social” promotions, required more homework, and implemented smaller pupil/teacher ratios. The committee’s work acquired even greater visibility and urgency when the supreme court, on May 31, 1983, afﬁrmed a lower-court decision that had declared the state’s system of public school funding unconstitutional. In what would be the ﬁrst of three major school-funding decisions in a twenty-year period, in DuPree v. Alma School District, the supreme court struck down the state’s school-funding formula because it denied equal educational opportunity to children in poor school districts, violating both the constitutional guarantee of equal protection to all citizens.”46 In tougher economic times, in a different attitudinal environment, and under different leadership, the response might well have been to redistribute funds from the wealthier schools to the poorer schools, thus achieving greater equity at the price of mediocrity. However, the state was rapidly recovering from the 1981–82 recession, the public was beginning to demand improved schools, and Clinton was no longer as tax shy as he was after his 1980 defeat and 1982 reelection. A ripe opportunity had arisen to raise more revenues and advance education, and Clinton seized it. While his wife continued to shape and publicize the new school standards and secured their preliminary approval by the State Board of Education, Clinton began systematically building public and legislative support for the tax increases necessary to pay for them. Using the skills, staff, and methods (opinion surveys by professional pollsters, brochures prepared by public relations professionals, fund-raising, targeted mailings) Clinton had

[315], (23)

Lines: 266 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [315], (23)

316 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

acquired in his previous political campaigns, his “campaign for educational excellence” activated and intensiﬁed an already supportive public opinion climate. It effectively turned those opinions into demands (symbolized by omnipresent blue ribbons on supporters’ lapels) on the state legislature for better educational funding and standards.47 Based on research that showed the greatest impetus for educational improvements was their perceived connection to economic development, Clinton repeatedly portrayed educational funding as a smart investment in economic prosperity. He also appealed to state pride and chauvinism: “So many people in Arkansas have seemed to believe as long as I’ve been alive, that in some sort of strange way God meant us to drag up the rear of the nation’s economy forever.” Clinton’s research and his wife’s feedback from her public hearings also revealed intensely held opinions that all teachers did not deserve salary increases, in fact that some did not deserve to be in the classroom at all. Hence, Clinton made competency testing of the existing teacher corps a key part of his educational excellence program. The teacher-testing program, which may have been the keystone in coalescing public support for the program, earned Clinton the passionate enmity of the aea. Nevertheless, by the end of the longest special session in decades, the legislature had adopted a new school-funding formula and had increased the sales tax from three cents to four, the ﬁrst increase in twenty-six years (with much of the new revenue initially dedicated to education).48 Insofar as Clinton succeeded in making the 1984 elections a referendum on the education standards and tax increase, their popularity was broadly conﬁrmed. Even more tangibly, under pressure from the June 1987 deadline for meeting the new standards, voters in 85 percent of Arkansas’s school districts voted to increase their local school millage rates, and attempts to weaken the standards in the 1985 legislative session were narrowly defeated.49 Still, by 1986, there were ominous signs that Arkansas’s great leap forward was beginning to stumble. Per capita income, which had been growing faster than the national average for two decades, had below-average growth in 1985 and 1986 as the farm crisis deepened, depression hit the oil industry, and international competition in timber and manufacturing increased. As a result of slow economic growth and further federal budget cuts, state revenues were considerably below projections, necessitating a series of painful budget cuts. Additionally, for the ﬁrst time in ﬁfty years, land values in the state dropped and stayed down for much of 1986, with adverse effects on property tax collections. More important, amendment 59, which placed lids on both

[316], (24)

Lines: 274 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[316], (24)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

317

personal and real property taxes to minimize the tax-increasing effects of property reappraisal, was cutting sharply into local school revenues.50 Unsurprisingly, in the 1986 gubernatorial primary, every Democratic and Republican candidate except Clinton advocated delaying and/or diluting the new educational standards. The insistence by the Republican gubernatorial nominee Frank White that the standards should be delayed, and by Clinton that they should not, became a focus of the 1986 gubernatorial general election, making the race another referendum between the forces of tradition and of modernization. White accused Clinton of being committed to “forced rural school consolidation,” which would destroy the “lifeblood, spirit and identity” of Arkansas’s small communities. He warned that the school standards would necessitate a $200 million tax increase, charged Clinton with having “diverted” money to higher education, and promised that his wife would be a “full-time ﬁrst lady.” Clinton said that he would “go to his grave” defending the school standards, countered that it would cost closer to $60 million than $200 million to ﬁnish implementing them, pled that he was “guilty as sin” of having directed more money into the state’s colleges, and praised his wife’s work on educational reform. Clinton won a resounding 64 percent of the vote, at least partly reﬂecting the commitment of Arkansans to his vision of educational reform.51 Clinton spent a good amount of energy during the four-year term voters gave him in 1986 defending—rather than expanding upon—the school standards. In particular, in the 1987 legislative session the governor—vowing to ﬁght like U.S. Grant at the siege of Vicksburg—fended off a series of votes to delay their implementation. He was helped by a promise from the state Education Department to worried legislators that it would not force mass consolidation of districts unable to meet the standards, especially if state revenue commitments were not as expansive as expected. Still, at the end of that term, “the standards”—as they were commonly referred to—remained in place. Clinton’s reelection in 1990—after a campaign in which his education program was at the center of the debate—reafﬁrmed Arkansans’ basic commitment to the endeavor.52 Clinton’s ﬁnal legislative session as governor, in 1991, exhibited one ﬁnal ﬂurry of educational reform. In the late 1980s, attention had increasingly turned to the persistent low pay of Arkansas’s teachers, which ranked next to last nationally when the session began. In response, Clinton—having found common ground with the aea eight years after their sharp divergence over teacher testing—proposed a one-half-cent increase in the state sales tax to be dedicated to a new Educational Trust Fund. The bulk of the fund

[317], (25)

Lines: 280 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [317], (25)

318 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

was to be used to supplement school districts’ teacher pay raises, to the tune of an average $4,900 raise over the biennium. With the assistance of the aea (which outspent all other interests during the session), this plan (which became Act 10) and every other education proposal in the governor’s legislative package were passed. They included a requirement that all school districts offer kindergarten, enhancements in preschool opportunities for poor children, a scholarship program for low- and medium-income students, and heightened standards and enhanced accountability for schools and students. Even Clinton’s most persistent legislative critic termed the session “the most progressive session since 1971.”53 Undeniably, success at educational reform in his home state provided fodder for Clinton’s national ambitions. For example, statistics regarding education in Arkansas—generally noting rates of improvement rather than national rankings—became incantations in his 1992 presidential advertisements. However, even Clinton critics in his home state—cynical of his motives, noting that “a bit of trickery and a dose of demagoguery” were part of his sales job, and emphasizing that the governor had not achieved change by himself—conceded that improvements in the state’s educational had occurred on his watch. A more neutral observer, the author of the 1978 Alexander Report that had so harshly criticized the state’s educational system, said near the end of the Clinton governorship: A lot of Southern governors have done a lot of talking about education, but the rubber meets the road when you start paying for it. Despite coming from a very poor state, [Clinton] has done more than talk about it. . . . I can tell you that as of today, I would much rather have my children in school in Arkansas than in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. . . . It has surprised me that you have moved as quickly as you have.

Many analysts focused not so much on the statistical progress as on the cultural change related to education that Clinton instilled. As one Clinton observer put it near the end of his governorship, “[Clinton] just changed people’s values. Arkansans now believe in education.” Indeed, public opinion surveys since Clinton’s reforms began and for the decade after he left the governorship have consistently shown Arkansans’ greater willingness to increase taxes for education and consistently cited education as the state’s most pressing issue. Thus, those advocating “better” education in the state since 1992 have had a key advantage that Clinton lacked when he came to the governorship in 1978.54 Though Clinton and his successor Jim Guy Tucker had been political

[318], (26)

Lines: 286 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[318], (26)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

319

enemies, they shared a commitment to education as an engine for economic progress in the state. In his ﬁrst legislative session, Tucker was able to extend the reform effort as he successfully passed a plan to implement standards and increase funding for kindergarten through third grades. In that plan (and in his support for a proposal to require that students pass a state examination before graduating high school), Tucker did show a greater emphasis than Clinton on using assessments to exhibit accountability. Early in the Tucker administration, the state education board reafﬁrmed its commitment to the standards and mandated the lengthening of the school day in the state by thirty minutes. Tucker’s education record was bolstered by the payoffs from the ﬁnal set of Clinton reforms: soon after Tucker entered ofﬁce, teacher pay in the state was reported to have risen from last to forty-second in the nation.55 But Tucker’s attempts to build on the reforms of the Clinton era were thrown off track by two crises related to school funding. In contrast to Clinton, who used the 1983 DuPree ruling as an opportunity to promote reform, Tucker showed his political limitations compared to his predecessor by failing to develop a public and legislative movement for the wholesale overhaul of the administration of Arkansas’s schools. The ﬁrst funding crisis developed when, in early 1994, it came to light that the state education department had misallocated millions of state dollars over seven years by consciously misinterpreting the 1983 funding formula as allowing state money to continue to ﬂow to districts whose voters raised their own property taxes for schools.As written, the formula required an automatic reduction in state aid for those districts that had increased their millages. Oddly, this legislative language was in direct conﬂict with the intent of the legislators, who had hoped to promote local investment in heightening school standards. Thus, the education department had implemented the intent rather than the letter of the law. The uncovering of the misallocation meant that over one hundred districts would have their state funding cut signiﬁcantly in the middle of their academic years. Tucker called the legislature into special session to pass a quick ﬁx for the immediate problem and to establish a task force to develop a long-term correction of the funding formula.56 As that task force was at work, in November 1994 a Pulaski County chancellor ruled (in a case to become known as Lake View I) that the entire state distribution formula established in 1983 was unconstitutional because of school-funding inequities statewide that were actually larger in 1994 than at the time of the DuPree ruling. Despite the state’s commitment that funding in all districts would be above a yearly minimum level even if local

[319], (27)

Lines: 312 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [319], (27)

320 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

property tax revenues were unable to produce that funding, several factors continued to promote disparity. First, other state aid (for transportation and alternative education, for instance) was not based on need, thus allowing wealthier districts to receive additional state funding. Second, amendment 59 had frozen property taxes in several districts, making it impossible for some districts to increase revenues. Finally, dramatic differences in the value of property within districts (promoted by amendment 59’s undervaluing of farm- and forestland in rural districts) meant that some districts could provide well-funded educational experiences with little effort while others had no hope of achieving even the state minimal levels with heavy property taxes. For example, a single mill in the Newark district was equal to 32.2 mills in the delta Lake View district. The judge gave the state two years to correct the unconstitutional funding disparities.57 Tucker’s attention during the 1995 regular session, therefore, was disproportionately committed to solving the funding challenge. Like Clinton, the governor attempted to use the court’s mandate as an opportunity to overhaul the way education was delivered in the state. But he did so in a way that contrasted sharply with that of his consensus-building predecessor. Tucker also confronted an issue that Clinton had always neatly sidestepped and that represented Arkansas traditionalism in one of its purest forms: school consolidation. Tucker’s ﬁrst proposal emerged absent the months of study and public hearings that had preceded Clinton’s reform proposals and, indeed, absent much communication between the administration and other vital players in the education and lawmaking process. The proposal sought to bring about funding equity through the development of several dozen regional “superdistricts” that would make equalization of school funding easier. When a public outcry exposed the depth of resistance to the plan, Tucker—with only slightly more buy-in from lawmakers and school ofﬁcials than during the more dramatic consolidation plan—moved forward with a proposal for the regional taxing units absent wholesale district consolidation. Attempting to emphasize that this plan was not “consolidation,” Tucker noted that all other policy decisions would remain at the local district level. But the plan certainly raised the specter of an issue that no statewide politician had broached since the middle of the century.58 Small-town citizens see school activities, particularly athletic events, as providing social glue. As a result, any promotion of consolidation faces opposition that is unique in its depth and passion. Small-town residents point, with sadness, to what has occurred in communities that had been forced by economic realities to consolidate. As one small-school superintendent put it in 2002, “They lost their schools, and there’s nothing left.” Though

[320], (28)

Lines: 318 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[320], (28)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

321

some support for consolidation exists in the more urban areas of the state, contemporary polling indicates overwhelming opposition to widespread consolidation, particularly outside the Little Rock metropolitan area (and even in that part of the state, a plurality of voters—many of them with smalltown roots—are opposed). As a result, despite having the second smallest population (and the fewest people per square mile) of the southeastern states, as of the 1990s Arkansas had signiﬁcantly more local school districts than any of its neighbors (and more than double the number of all but two). While promoting reform, Bill Clinton had deftly avoided the consolidation issue, celebrating those small districts that had gone the extra mile to meet the standards. Some of the smallest districts did decide to merge with a neighboring district in the 1980s, but fewer than 10 percent of the state’s districts had done so, which left well over three hundred districts (and inevitable inefﬁciencies and funding disparities).59 The eventual 1995 compromise was well short of administrative consolidation: voters in all districts in the state were required to raise their school operation millage rates to at least 25 mills. (A subsequent constitutional amendment, passed by the voters as amendment 74 in 1996, was needed to implement the second stage of the plan: the automatic transfer of these revenues to the state coffers for redistribution.) If they failed to raise their millage rates to that level, district residents would face an income tax surcharge. Though the funding alterations created by the 1995 legislation and by amendment 74 did promote equity to some degree, it was inevitable that the state courts would revisit the issue. Tucker noted the failure to do more in the realm of education as the greatest failure of his governorship: “although we made terriﬁc changes in school funding formulas . . . I wish we could have done a great deal more.”60 Republican Mike Huckabee’s administration remained committed to the school standards established by its predecessors. Also, like Tucker, he focused on promoting the development of skills in students in the earliest grades. Unlike other governors from his party, Huckabee also reiterated his commitment to public education by resisting school-voucher programs. He did, however, strongly support expanding public school options, particularly through the development of charter schools. Partly driven by new federal requirements, Huckabee’s education program enhanced school accountability through student testing, a program that—in the early years—remained popular with the public, according to surveys. In the lead-up to federally mandated tests in grades 3 through 8, however, some did begin to criticize standardized assessment-driven education as “teaching to the test.”61 During the Huckabee era, the enhanced accountability for schools was

[321], (29)

Lines: 324 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [321], (29)

322 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

not matched by increases in the amount of the state budget dedicated to K-12 education, however. The Education Trust Fund had been intended to “supplement, not supplant” the Public School Fund. However, drops in the percentage of state revenues going to that fund (a trend that had begun in the Tucker era) indicated that supplanting was indeed occurring. Additional evidence was the fact that the Arkansas teacher salaries, which had risen to forty-second nationally immediately after Act 10’s passage, began to fall compared to other states during the Huckabee era.62 Huckabee made a $3,000 raise for all teachers in the next biennium his top priority in the 2001 legislative session. He succeeded in getting the appropriation to support the program (albeit with a cut to other education programs, most notably public libraries). The $3,000 raise was criticized by the aea as much too small to keep up with other states. Budget cuts that began soon after the completion of the session and continued through the next ﬁscal year then doomed the implementation of the raise. Those cuts claimed other educational victims as well. Early-childhood education programs and two state scholarship programs (the Clinton-era program for lower-income students that Huckabee had signiﬁcantly expanded and a Huckabee-developed program that successfully kept the highest-achieving high school students in the state for college) were dramatically reduced or completely eliminated as revenue projections plummeted in 2001 and 2002.63 After the passage of the new school-funding mechanism in the mid-1990s, the Arkansas supreme court ruled that the Lake View case should return to chancery court for a trial to determine whether the 1994 ruling was now being complied with. Weeks of testimony in Judge Collins Kilgore’s court in late 2000 and early 2001 led to a May 2001 ruling that stunned the state political establishment. Though the DuPree and Lake View I decisions deemed the state’s funding of schools unconstitutionally “inequitable” because of the variance in funding throughout the state, Kilgore went much further, ruling that the system was fundamentally “inadequate.” Noting the high college remediation rates for Arkansas’s high school graduates who went on to college, Kilgore wrote: “If our best are not being prepared for the rigors and trials of an ever increasingly complex world, what is happening to the least advantaged to whom we owe an equal or greater duty?” Though Kilgore’s order provided an opportunity for the elected branches of government to tackle the development of an equitable and adequate state educational system, testimony at trial suggested that the cost of such a system would be in the range of $450 to $900 million annually.64 During the year and a half after the Lake View II ruling, as the state

[322], (30)

Lines: 330 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[322], (30)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

323

awaited the supreme court’s review of its appeal, a dialogue on the issue of public education occurred. Unlike any that Arkansas had witnessed since the Clinton era, it engaged ofﬁceholders and candidates, the media, and experts and “blue-ribbon” commissions. In late 2002, a unanimous supreme court upheld the bulk of Kilgore’s ruling and gave the state just over one year to develop and implement a plan to create an “adequate” and “equitable” state school system. The court also voiced its frustrations with the elected branches of state government for their failures since the DuPree ruling, which included their failure to even carry out a study to deﬁne educational adequacy: “No longer can the State operate on a ‘hands off’basis regarding how state money is spent in local school districts and what the effect of that spending is. Nor can the State continue to leave adequacy and equality considerations regarding school expenditures solely to local decision-making.”65 Again, the state courts had placed public education on the public policy agenda for Arkansas. (In fact, in the concluding sentences of the 2002 ruling, it stated it would continue to act until a truly constitutional school-funding scheme was in place.) What remained unclear was whether the remainder of Arkansas’s government of the early twenty-ﬁrst century was prepared to turns words into action for fundamental educational reform.

[323], (31)

Lines: 336 to ———

0.0pt PgV

——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Eject

has better politics produced better policy? Arkansas’s educational system made tangible progress throughout the twentieth century. In 1900 the state spent $1,230,362 on elementary and secondary schools and nothing on higher education. In fy 2000, the state spent just over $2.3 billion on education, including over $500 million on colleges and universities. By that time, virtually all classroom teachers were college graduates (and 35.1 percent held master’s degrees), the schools had been ofﬁcially desegregated, and the number of separate school districts had been reduced from a staggering 4,903 in 1900 (and 5,112 in 1920) to a more manageable (though, as noted, comparatively voluminous) 310.66 Had there, however, been advances in Arkansas’s educational effort in relationship to its ﬁnancial resources? Had it improved in its standing relative to the educational effort of other states? Some statistical answers to those questions are offered in table 8. As Arkansas’s per capita income has increased, so have per pupil expenditures and teacher pay, which conﬁrms the correlation between state wealth and state educational effort. But, at the start of the twenty-ﬁrst century, Arkansas still remained very much in the bottom tier of states: forty-ninth in per capita income, forty-eighth in

[323], (31)

Length of school term (days per year) Arkansas 69 United States 132 Arkansas as percent of U.S. (52.3) Per pupil expenditures per ada Arkansas $6 United States 17 Arkansas as percent of U.S. (35.2) Average teacher salary Arkansas $160 United States 543 Arkansas as percent of U.S. (29.5) Per capita income Arkansas United States Arkansas as percent of U.S. Per pupil expenditures per ada as percent of per capita income Arkansas United States Arkansas as percent of U.S.

1900

$476 871 (55.0)

$20 54 (37.0)

124 162 (77.0)

1920

8.7% 13.5 (64.4)

$332 693 (47.9)

$584 1441 (40.5)

$29 94 (30.9)

159 175 (91.0)

1940

Table 8. Educational Effort in Arkansas and the Nation, 1900–2000

15.4% 21.2 (72.6)

$1341 2223 (60.3)

$3293 5415 (61.0)

$207 472 (43.9)

173 178 (97.2)

1960

$4945 8830 (56.0) $33,888 42,898 (79.0)

178# 179 (99.4) $2798 5885 (47.5) $23,878 33,084 (72.2) $14,509 19,584 (74.1)

19.3% 30.1 (64.1)

175 178 (98.3) $1193 2445 (48.8) $12,546 18,409 (68.2) $7099 9494 (74.7)

16.8% 25.7 (64.5)

continued

22.2% 29.8 (74.5)

$22,257 29,676 (75.0)

178 179 (99.4)

1990

1980

2000

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [324], (32)

Lines: 347

*

494.0pt

———

——— Normal Pa * PgEnds: Pa [324], (32)

1900 1920

176% 208 (84.6)

1940

246% 244 (100.8)

1960

1990

165% 169 (97.6)

1980

178% 194 (91.8)

152% 145 (104.8)

2000

Source: Length of school term, per pupil expenditures, and teacher pay ﬁgures from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract (Washington dc: Government Printing Ofﬁce, various years, and www.census.gov; U.S. Ofﬁce of Education, Biennial Survey of Education in the United States and Statistics of State School Systems (Washington dc: Government Printing Ofﬁce, various years); National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics (Washington, dc: Government Printing Ofﬁce, various years, and http://nces.ed.gov). Per capita income from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics, Colonial Times to 1957, Statistical Abstract, and Census of Population (Washington dc: Government Printing Ofﬁce, various years); and Commerce Clearinghouse report cited in U.S. News and World Report, 19 May 1986, 13.

Notes: ada = average daily attendance; # = 1992 data used for this measure; blank cells indicate data not measured.

Average teacher pay as percent of per capita income Arkansas United States Arkansas as percent of U.S.

Table 8. continued

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [325], (33)

Lines: 397 to

2.98pt PgV

———

——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Page [325], (33)

326 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

teacher pay, and forty-seventh in per pupil expenditures. However, the gaps between Arkansas and national norms, though growing a bit in the ﬁnal years of the last century, had been noticeably narrowed in modern times. On one measure, average teacher pay as a percentage of per capita income, Arkansas appeared to be making a slightly greater effort (152 percent) than was the nation generally (145 percent). The kinds of dramatic and highly unﬂattering distinctions traditionally drawn between Arkansas and other states are no longer so easy or accurate as they once were, and this is true with respect to a wide spectrum of public policies. A more modernized economy and a more productive tax base have brought Arkansas within closer range of the state services offered elsewhere. A more rational budget process has offered at least marginal opportunities for decision makers to establish and pursue spending priorities. The leadership capacities of the executive and legislative branches (though to a lesser degree because of term limits) have been strengthened. This has provided opportunities for policy innovations and advancements when economic circumstances are favorable and leaders so inclined. Closer communications with the world outside Arkansas have provided a more critical standard by which Arkansans can assess their own public services. And more competitive and issue-centered elections afford Arkansans more meaningful opportunities for rewarding and punishing their public servants. The educational reform movement under Bill Clinton serves as a clear example of this dynamic. It seems fair to conclude, then, that better politics can produce, and occasionally has produced, better public policy. But it must be recognized that—even with bursts of reform that Arkansas saw in the 1980s and early 1990s—it is difﬁcult for a traditionally disadvantaged state to sustain positive movement in comparative data. As Ira Sharkansky noted: “While the increment during any particular spending period may represent a relative rise or decline of a state’s spending position in relation to the nation-wide trends, that increment generally is not so large as to change the historical position of that state’s spending in relation to others.” Still, according to Sharkansky, “there is room in an incremental system for occasional major change.”67 Is Arkansas, in the early twenty-ﬁrst century, prodded by the judicial branch, prepared to make such a “major change” as to initiate another leap in the quality of the public education it offers its citizens? The events of the year and a half following the supreme court’s ruling Lake View II—during which a regular legislative session, months of contentious public debate on the issue of educational reform, a record sixty-one-day-long special session,

[326], (34)

Lines: 425 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[326], (34)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

327

and dramatic new court activity in the case—offer no clear answer to the question. First, it seems that the public may be more prepared to be led on the issue than ever before. Though opinions differ as to whether such funding should come from tax increases or a lottery, 2002 polling data indicates that a vast majority of Arkansans (71 percent) see public education in the state as underfunded. More speciﬁcally, another survey from 2003 showed that more than three in four Arkansans favored increasing teacher salaries, increasing preschool access, and improving school facilities.68 Moreover, the tipping of increased power to the executive branch that term limits achieved likely enhanced the possibility of dramatic policy change since it is likely to be an individual governor, elected statewide, who captures the public imagination on the issue as Clinton did. In his analysis of the 1983–84 reform movement, Dan Durning emphasized the centrality of the governor to the process: Bill Clinton was the central character in the story of education reform in Arkansas. He and his ofﬁce formulated the legislative reform package, sold it to the public, and led the ﬁght to get it through the state legislature. To carry out these tasks, Clinton drew heavily from both the formal and informal arsenals of power. Without both, his reform proposals—especially the tax increase—would not have become law.69

In the period in which the state made its initial response to Lake View II, Governor Mike Huckabee certainly showed Clinton’s determination on the issue of educational reform, but his political skills were not sufﬁcient to supercede the major obstacles to reform present in the political environment. Huckabee’s initial response to the Kilgore ruling focused not on the substance of the ruling but on the $9.3 million in legal fees awarded to the plaintiff’s attorneys (later reduced signiﬁcantly by the supreme court). But in the 2002 election, campaigning under the cloud of the supreme court’s ruling in Lake View II, both Huckabee and his opponent put forward education plans that had much in common (on early childhood education and on enhanced accountability in particular) and that proposed new state spending on education. Though the two plans varied in their speciﬁcity and economic feasibility, both departed from the plan laid out by the state-appointed Blue Ribbon Commission on Public Education (brcpe) in at least two respects: they lacked the expansiveness of its $700 million price tag and its movement away from the status quo (reﬂected in brcpe’s proposal for the development of high-quality “regional high schools”).70

[327], (35)

Lines: 442 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [327], (35)

328 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

The governor’s initial reaction to the supreme court afﬁrmation of the Lake View II ruling was similarly careful, failing to provide evidence of transformational leadership. The governor lamented the loss of local control that would inevitably result as the state becomes “the statewide school board for all 310 districts.” And he emphasized that citizens should be “mad” at the “right people,” that is, the court, if they were troubled by this power shift. But Huckabee himself did not dispute the ruling: “The fact is we’re going to do what we need to do to respond to the challenge.”71 And, indeed, in his state of the state address the next January, Huckabee did call for dramatic changes in the state’s educational system. He asked the legislators to take advantage of the court order to fundamentally alter an educational “system that for 100 years at least every single governor and legislator has said is broken.” Speciﬁcally, Huckabee called for the institution of a “rich” curriculum statewide, along the lines of that proposed by the brcpe, by dramatically streamlining the number of school districts. Excepting cases where smaller districts proved their ability to offer that rich curriculum, the state’s 310 districts would be consolidated into districts of at least 1500 students. The likely total number of districts after consolidation would have been just over 100 (although all elementary schools would remain open). Moreover, in a nationally unprecedented proposal, Huckabee made the case that the state should have hiring and ﬁring power over each of the districts’ school superintendents, underscoring the shift of control of education in Arkansas from the local level to the state. Recognizing the controversial, indeed radical, nature of his proposals, Huckabee argued, “we have to be willing . . . to sacriﬁce our political lives for the sake of our children’s future in order that we would fulﬁll our obligations that we swore under oath that we would fulﬁll.” Huckabee went so far as to advocate a dramatic cultural transformation in the state: “We can no longer justify, we no longer can even tolerate a school having 10 football coaches but no one to competently teach chemistry. We no longer can look the other way when a school has a nice gym but no computer lab.” Both rhetorically and programmatically, the Huckabee plan went further than either of his two predecessors as governor.72 Editorialists lauded the plan and the words with which Huckabee introduced it (one frequent Huckabee critic termed it “the very picture of leadership, and the best speech I’ve heard from an Arkansas governor”). However, the plan was, as expected, immediately attacked by rural interests with disproportionate power in the legislature. Huckabee’s pleas that the consolidation would enhance the efﬁciency of the educational system “so

[328], (36)

Lines: 472 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[328], (36)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

329

that a kid in a small community in Arkansas will have access to an art program, a music program, to chemistry and calculus, to study a foreign language of his choice” was roundly attacked by rural legislators (mostly Democrats) and interests who envisioned the loss of many of the intangible beneﬁts of small schools as a result of the dramatic change. In the weeks after the Huckabee speech, grassroots “save-our-school” organizations quickly developed in rural communities to coalesce the passion aroused by the consolidation proposal. In one rural Garland County district, second-graders wrote letters to the primary senate sponsor of the governor’s plan, including one from “Katie”: “I hope you know what you’re doing is mean. I hope you don’t tear down our school. Please make the write [sic] decision. Love, Katie C.” A furious Jim Argue Jr. charged that the seven-year-olds were “political pawns” of the adults in the community. Facing a cold shoulder from the legislature after the initial jousting over the plan, Huckabee quickly abandoned most of his plan to shift the hiring and ﬁring of superintendents to the state. He redrafted the legislation to emphasize the fact that small districts could gain the status of “special” district if they were clearly able to meet the challenging standards in the highest grades. Still, he reiterated the necessity of the state providing an “adequate, efﬁcient, suitable, equitable education for every single boy and girl in this state.”73 Tremendous energy was wasted on the education issue during the 2003 regular session of the legislature, distracting from other crucial business before the body. Indeed, that session ended without passage of a biennial budget, necessitating a special session in advance of the beginning of the ﬁscal year to prevent a government shutdown. Bitter rhetoric by the governor and legislators alike during the regular session made rockier later negotiations on the issue of school reform. Although one law passed during the session gave the state board of education enhanced power to abolish districts that were in ongoing ﬁscal straits, the only major action on the topic was the establishment of a special interim committee tasked with deﬁning the components of educational “adequacy.” Though that adequacy committee collected evidence from national consultants and other players, the back-and-forth between key legislators and Huckabee continued in the media. Huckabee’s commentary became increasingly personal (“I feel I’m pretty much a voice crying in the wilderness”) and combative. At one point in July, Huckabee suggested that the rural opposition to reform was driven by parents’ desire to maintain sports programs for their children because the parents use those young athletes to compensate for “inadequacies of their personal athletic performances.” During the year,

[329], (37)

Lines: 476 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [329], (37)

330 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Huckabee’s public approval numbers, a key political resource for chief executives, dropped precipitously, especially in the rural areas, which, as chapter 4 noted, had been the base of his political support. As one rural house leader said, “He scared rural and small-town Arkansas to death. What that served to do is solidify and entrench the opposition, and so we have got a war going in the state of Arkansas.” Though urban and suburban voters were considerably more sympathetic to consolidation, Huckabee was unable to successfully energize them to engage on the issue despite his warnings that their taxes would rise, with new funding for larger schools, if the system were not made more efﬁcient. As a result, public opinion polls showed that consistent majorities statewide were opposed to signiﬁcant consolidation.74 A price tag of $847 million a year over current educational spending in the state—for increased teachers salaries, smaller classes, expanded preschool programs, bonuses for teachers to take up residence in less desirable parts of the state, and an equitable funding formula—was calculated by the consultants working with the adequacy committee. The consultants’assumed no consolidation and a fairly static curriculum in their estimates of cost.75 Huckabee quickly rejected the recommendations as “meatloaf for the price of a rib eye,” and continued to demand both major consolidation for the sake of efﬁciency and expansion of advanced course options in that reduced number of high schools. At points in the fall Huckabee suggested that he might not call a special session to deal with the issue at all, and instead would take the issue directly to the voters through an initiative. Legislative opponents promised to take to the voters their own proposal, which would protect rural schools from elimination, if Huckabee tried to bypass the legislature.76 Importantly, Huckabee got little help from the interest groups that might have been forces in altering the political landscape in a pro-reform direction. As discussed in chapter 6, the Arkansas Education Association—the most natural interest group to partner with a governor in battling for educational advancement—is noticeably weaker than in the Clinton era. The aea allied with many in the legislature by immediately questioning Huckabee’s focus on student numbers rather than on the quality of the schools’ curriculum and performance in determining which schools would close. As the public debate moved along, the aea became just another of the various groups stating its views on the issue.77 Initially, there seemed to be considerable evidence that pro-business interests—increasingly aware that their vitality depends on a well-educated workforce—were eager to work for educational change. For instance, the

[330], (38)

Lines: 480 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[330], (38)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

331

state chamber of commerce ﬁled a brief in support of the plaintiffs in the Lake View II case. Soon after ending her service on the Blue Ribbon Commission, its co-chair accepted the chairmanship of the state chamber as it moved towards the legislative sessions that would tackle the issue. She described the supreme court announcement as a “wonderful day for the children of our state, for the future and potential economic growth.” Soon thereafter, the chamber of commerce joined other business and nonproﬁt groups in a coalition to sponsor a media campaign promoting educational investment and reform. The chamber was visibly supportive of Huckabee’s plan during the regular session.78 But the business community moved away from support for Huckabee and turned their almost total attention to dramatically enhancing school accountability as the year moved along. Most visibly, in the month leading up to the December special session, the publisher of the statewide newspaper donated dozens of full-page ads sponsored by a coalition of businesses. The ads promoted legislation to give schools letter grades based on test scores, to employ a testing plan that would gauge the progress of individual students as they moved from grade to grade, and to offer ﬁnancial rewards to schools that showed signiﬁcant gains. Though Huckabee generally agreed with the business community’s accountability program, he begged for the chamber’s support in the tougher battle as the special session approached. The president of the chamber responded: “We tried to pass the governor’s plan during the [regular] legislative session, and it alienated a bunch of legislators, and we’re not getting caught up in that trap again this time.”79 Though Huckabee’s efforts at transformational education reform received limited assistance from these interests, the opposition of other potent ruralfocused interests was at full force. First, the Farm Bureau Federation voiced the views of its rural constituency from the beginning of the battle. Soon after the lower court handed down the second Lake View decision, the federation passed a series of resolutions opposing major alterations in the funding or administration of Arkansas public schools. These resolutions advocated “amendments to the Constitution as a means of resolving the school funding crisis” rather than any intrusion into the autonomy of local districts so as to make policy and funding decisions.80 Even more visible and omnipresent as a force opposing Huckabee’s consolidation plan was the Arkansas Rural Education Association, that is, the small-school superintendents. In their public events and lobbying of individual legislators they argued that school districts should have the right to show that they could meet new school standards instead of being

[331], (39)

Lines: 488 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [331], (39)

332 The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

eliminated simply on the basis of their size. Small-school administrators roamed the halls and ﬁlled the galleries of the capitol as the legislators pondered the fate of the superintendents’ jobs. In capitol meetings, the rural superintendents’concerns were sympathetically received by most legislators in the house and many in the senate, including the most powerful members. In the clearest example, the house speaker’s wife, son, and daughter-in-law were all employed by a school district that would have been abolished by the governor’s plan.81 The rural interests activated a grassroots movement of rural citizens who expressed themselves by the thousands when Huckabee did call the assembly into session on December 8 despite the fact that no consensus on the issue had emerged (One sign carried by a student read “Huckabee hates me.” Another, referring to the agricultural economy of rural Arkansas, said, “We feed you. Please don’t close our schools.”) This gave the legislature just over three weeks to deal with the issue before the January 1 deadline laid out by the court in Lake View II. The absence of education and ﬁnance specialists in the post–term limits general assembly and the enmity that had grown between legislators and the governor resulted in no substantive action occurring through the Christmas holiday. At the ﬁnal hour, the legislature did approve a so-called stay-out-of-court plan that revised the school funding formula so the facts ruled on by the court in Lake View II would no longer be in place. It was believed that this would mean that an entirely new case would have to work its way to the court.82 All actors were startled when, days after the Lake View II case had been set to expire, the court said that the case was not dead. It said that there was reason to believe that the tweaking of the school formula was insufﬁcient to meet the equity and adequacy requirements of the 2002 ruling. This announcement that the court would hear arguments in the case jump-started the legislature. Though opposition to any consolidation based on school size remained fervent through a number of votes in each house, eventually a majority in each house supported a plan to consolidate districts with fewer than 350 students (57 districts). Tellingly, this was exactly the same pupil number employed in the last one-time statewide consolidation—in 1948. Calling the act “embarrassingly lame,” Huckabee allowed the measure to become law without his signature, as was the case with the tax increase of seven-eighths of a cent that was the primary revenue source for the program. In an ultimate irony, one of the districts eliminated would be the Lake View district that had instigated reform in the ﬁrst place.83 As the legislature completed its work, the supreme court reasserted that it

[332], (40)

Lines: 494 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[332], (40)

The Politics of State Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

333

was the ultimate determiner of whether Arkansas’s schools are “adequate” and “equitable.” In an unprecedented move, the court appointed special masters (two former justices) to guide the court in remedying the schools because of the state’s “noncompliance” with the 2002 ruling. Those masters issued a report that gave the legislature credit for the increase in funding for schools, for the wiser targeting of those dollars, and for prioritizing public education spending over all other components of the state budget, which meant that other budgets would be cut if the state education budget came up short. But, the report lacked deﬁnitiveness on the ultimate question of the constitutionality of the revised system, leaving it to the supreme court to examine that question again. The court’s power may be well placed considering that, according to public opinion data, a plurality of Arkansans trusted the court more than the other two branches of government on the school issue. In a sign of the utter breakdown in the “democratic” branches of state government, while the attorney general defended the legislature’s good-faith efforts to reform the schools before the court the governor brought in his own attorney to argue that more consolidation is necessary for the system to be constitutional.84 By a four-to-three vote in a mid-June ruling, however, the court stated that its oversight role in the Lake View case must end because of the principle of separation of powers. But the ruling did not change the ultimate reality: while it would be in future litigation without the now-consolidated Lake View district’s name attached to it, the Arkansas supreme court would play a central role in determining the outcome of the educational reform dispute. It represented yet another battle between the two prevailing forces in Arkansas’s politics and government: modernizers and traditionalists.

[Last Page] [333], (41)

Lines: 500 to ———

166.84001 ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [333], (41)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter fourteen

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

[First Page [334], (1) Arkansas history can best be viewed as a tug of war between two polar opposites, modernizers on one side and traditionalists on the other. Michael B. Dougan, 1994

Lines: 0 to ———

Show me a state that gives us William Fulbright, Wilbur Mills, Dale Bumpers and Tommy Robinson, and I’ll show you a state undergoing a severe identity crisis. Political satirist Mark Russell, 1986

Summarizing Arkansas politics is, as Abraham Lincoln once said of running a democracy, about as easy as shoveling ﬂeas. For every generalization, there are obvious exceptions. Every characterization must be qualiﬁed, and every label must be modiﬁed. The 1968 election in which Arkansas voters simultaneously selected George Wallace for president, J. W. Fulbright for senator, and Winthrop Rockefeller for governor is the most frequently cited anomaly, but there are countless others. How could a state that so routinely ratiﬁed Orval Faubus’s leadership through 1966, reject him in 1970 for Dale Bumpers, who bluntly told voters that segregation was morally wrong? Why would the same voters who enthusiastically embraced Ronald Reagan’s presidential candidacy in 1984 simultaneously reject all of the Arkansas candidates for whom he personally campaigned? Why during one recent decade did Arkansas voters repeatedly signal their desire for a new constitution but resoundingly reject the products of the constitutional conventions they had authorized? How could six in ten Arkansas voters cast their votes for a state constitutional amendment placing term limits on all Arkansas state ofﬁcers and members

7.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [334], (1)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

335

of Congress on the same day in 1992 on which the same percentage of voters sent Dale Bumpers to Washington for his fourth six-year term? Arkansas political scientists are frequently asked for explanations of these and other enigmas. But the question that these political scientists have faced most often in the modern era is the “Why?” that followed this statement by an envious liberal colleague from North Carolina—a state with a presumably more progressive tradition—in the mid-1980s: “Y’all are supposed to be the backward ones, but you’ve got Clinton and Bumpers and Pryor, and we’ve got Jesse Helms.” In reality, this question (and similar observations made by more conservative colleagues, albeit with exasperation rather than envy) consists of two distinct, yet related, questions that this book grappled with in detail in the ﬁrst edition. First, why has the small state of Arkansas consistently produced political leaders who have been nationally admired, to the point that they have been discussed as (and, in Clinton’s case, become) presidential possibilities? Second, if, as Michael Dougan has observed, “Arkansas history has been . . . a constant struggle between the forces of modernization and those of tradition,” why have the political forces of modernization so consistently beaten those of tradition since 1966? It is now vital to ask whether they remain legitimate questions in the early years of the twenty-ﬁrst century and, if so, whether the political events of the past decade and a half provide any additional insights into the answers to them.1 The provisional answer this book’s previous edition provided to the ﬁrst question suggested, correctly, that it would not be asked in the next political generation. In short, that exceptionally talented individuals had sought political ofﬁce in Arkansas should not be surprising because there were few other attractive outlets—no great industrial enterprises or ﬁnancial empires or intellectual undertakings—for those of unusual energy and intellect. It is no more mysterious that J. William Fulbright, returning from his Rhodes scholarship at Oxford, should have found politics more enticing than academia (or running the family’s lumberyard and bottling plant in Fayetteville) than that Bill Clinton should opt for the political arena thirty years later. It is not difﬁcult to imagine why Dale Bumpers, consistently named the best orator in the Senate, should have tired of exercising his talents before small-town juries.2 As Arkansas has—with marked hesitancy—joined the national social mainstream in general and attained leadership in certain economic niches, its best and brightest have found other nonpolitical venues in which to express their talents. Of course, there remain Arkansas politicians with undeniable political skills—some learned from the masters of the past—who have used

[335], (2)

Lines: 63 to 6 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [335], (2)

336

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

those gifts to great effect at the ballot box. The preceding chapters have cited clear examples of their success. But it is not sentimentalism for the recent past to conclude that these successful Arkansas politicians do not distinguish themselves as a group from the dozens of other governors, senators, and members of Congress in the way that the “Big Three” and their predecessors in Arkansas politics clearly did. Though the recent presence of distinctly talented politicians in Arkansas may be understandable, less apparent is why Arkansas voters should have acquiesced in those particular progressive individuals’ambitions since much more traditional, much less progressive choices were always available. Despite the numerous socioeconomic changes described in previous chapters, Arkansas is still one of the poorest, most rural, and most homogeneous states in the nation—creating a context ostensibly unripe for such progressivism. Although the economic gap between Arkansas and the rest of the nation had narrowed over the decades, at the end of the twentieth century Arkansas remained forty-ninth nationally in per capita income and eleventh in rurality. Although the rural farm population declined from 65 percent of the population in 1920 to under 2 percent in 2000, the rural nonfarm population constituted 45.6 percent of the 2000 population, a percentage well over twice that of the nation generally. As throughout its history, Arkansas remains overwhelmingly Protestant, speciﬁcally Baptist and Methodist. Although the increase in the Latino population has bumped up the number of Roman Catholics in Arkansas in recent years, the proportion of Catholics (7.6 percent of the population) is less than a ﬁfth of the national average. Similarly, the proportions of Jews (0.1 percent) and members of liberal Protestant churches are among the very smallest in the ﬁfty states. Moreover, despite the much discussed increase in the state’s Latino population, in terms of ethnic variety Arkansas has much smaller percentages of Latinos and Asian Americans than does America as a whole.3 The Latino population growth during the past decade has clearly been transformational for certain communities in the state. Mexican Americans’ presence in the counties of Arkansas’s northwest corner has altered both the social fabric and the political and public policy agendas of that politically vital region. One national study deemed Little Rock a “new Latino destination” because of its 200 percent increase in Latino population in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Increasingly the norm in those locales are Spanish-language media, church services in Spanish, and Spanish-speaking public sector employees to provide services for this population (placing additional strain on county, city, and school budgets).4

[336], (3)

Lines: 69 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [336], (3)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

337

Both political parties have attempted to reach out to this new population, as much as an investment in the future as for short-term gain. Governor Huckabee added the director of the state’s League of United Latin American Citizens (lulac) to his staff to assume a policy role focused on work with the Latino community. Huckabee has also emphasized his record number of Latino appointees. In the 2002 cycle, candidates for U.S. Senate and governor advertised in Spanish-language newspapers and, in at least one case, on Spanish-language radio. Since the ads focused on the social services that are a political focus for relatively new immigrants, Democrats seem advantaged in the battle for Latino votes. Still, it is crucial to recognize that as late as the 2002 election cycle, Latinos composed less than 1 percent of the state’s voters.5 Though the Latino population’s growth evolved from a small base, during the 1990s the state led the nation in Latino population growth rate (at 127 percent). A continued expansion in the size and geographical scope of the Latino population could eventually transform the state’s political culture. Indeed, a point may come when Rodney E. Hero’s vision of political culture—in which racial and ethnic diversity is seen as the key variable— may offer important insights into the politics and public policies of Arkansas. At present, however, the more standard notion of political culture, laid out by Daniel Elazar and discussed at length in chapter 2, remains the appropriate lens through which to view the politics of a state that remains the least diverse—culturally, ethnically, and socioeconomically—in the nation according to one recent analysis.6 In contrast to early in-migration patterns, when most all of those coming to Arkansas moved in from nearby southern states, those coming to Arkansas in recent years claim more diverse geographic origins (not only Mexico but particularly Midwestern states such as Illinois), representing a possible stimulus to progressivity. However, the areas experiencing the greatest in-migration have become the strongest centers of Republican, that is, conservative, voting strength. Furthermore, Donald Voth’s research suggests that, on at least some attitudinal measures, “migrants to the respective regions of the state are very similar to natives already living in the regions to which they have moved.” Based on his extensive analysis of these population movements, Voth has concluded that “Arkansas’ migration experience has been at least as much a source of continuity and stability as of change.”7 Despite this demographic stability, which would suggest persistent traditionalism, between 1966 and 1994 Arkansas held thirteen gubernatorial elections. In twelve of the thirteen, voters showed a clear preference for the progressive candidate. The single exception was Frank White’s victory over

[337], (4)

Lines: 81 to 8 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [337], (4)

338

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

Bill Clinton in 1980 (and an important qualiﬁcation would be 1970, when the progressive Bumpers beat progressive Rockefeller). How many states can claim such a record? As discussed at length in chapters 4 and 5, the departure of Bill Clinton to Washington, the retirements of the other “Big Two,” and the ascendance of Governor Mike Huckabee have marked sharp changes in the state’s partisan politics. Importantly, however, the new partisan competitiveness has not produced a clear rise in victories for unadulterated traditionalism in the state. Instead, almost all candidates elected to statewide ofﬁce in the post– “Big Three” era—Democrat and Republican alike—have run campaigns, and subsequently governed, more as modernizers than traditionalists. That said, the disconnect between the state’s cultural traditionalism and its political progressivism is not nearly as stark as it was a decade and a half ago. Assuredly, the “progressives,” holding positions of power almost uninterruptedly, regularly engaged in symbolic actions that showed their respect for and celebration of the state’s traditions. However, the Democrats who have succeeded statewide in this new environment are more substantively conservative than their immediate predecessors in party leadership roles. Dale Bumpers proudly defended his votes against amendment after amendment to the U.S. Constitution during his Senate tenure (even accusing one political opponent of walking around “with a pocketful of amendments” that would “pillage this precious document, our nation’s Bible”). However, his successor, Blanche Lincoln, immediately signed on as cosponsor of an amendment that allowed desecration of the American ﬂag to be outlawed. As president, Clinton celebrated his success in passing the Brady Act, which required background checks on handguns and promoted additional controls on weapons. In contrast, Mark Pryor emphasized his opposition to any intrusion into Second Amendment rights in his successful 2002 race for the Senate. Bumpers succeeded in passing legislation to have the Buffalo River protected as the ﬁrst national river, but Congressman Marion Berry has waged nonstop political war on the Environmental Protection Agency. However, on civil rights, on government’s fundamental role as a protective force for the economically disadvantaged, and on the government’s role in providing education, health care, and beneﬁts to the aged, more contemporary Arkansas Democrats remain in step with those whom they replaced. And such “moderate” Democrats remain advantaged in Arkansas. Polling by Pryor’s organization at the beginning of the 2002 campaign revealed that Arkansas voters would support “a moderate Democrat over a conservative Republican” by a seven-point margin.8

[338], (5)

Lines: 87 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [338], (5)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

339

Though Republicans were elected to the state’s governorship and lieutenant governorship in both 1998 and 2002 they were the only two Republicans elected statewide in those elections. More signiﬁcantly, these Arkansas Republicans are distinctly more progressive than their gop brethren throughout the South on issues related to taxes and the role of government and on matters such as legitimate outreach to the African American and Latino communities. Huckabee is fervently protective of gun rights and endorses most all elements of a “family values” agenda (for instance, opposition to abortion rights and to the expanded rights of gay men and lesbians). However, he has consistently promoted modernizer positions on a wide range of issues. How traditionalist is a governor who within several weeks in late 2002 and early 2003 speaks expansively on his belief in prisoner rehabilitation through “restorative justice,” proposes a signiﬁcant tax increase to protect social service programs, and historically advocates the elimination of nearly two-thirds of the state’s high schools through consolidation, comparing the utilitarian need to give up small-school “traditions, mascots, identities” to the “extraordinary pain and the incredible sacriﬁce” created when black schools were closed during the desegregation era so African American families could “taste the quality and opportunity”?9 Not very. The ﬁrst edition of this book analyzed three competing hypotheses as potential answers to the puzzle of Arkansas’s persistent progressivism: that it was the result of a peculiar twist on the state’s provincialism, that it was the accidental product of personality politics, and that it was an expression of Arkansas’s more inherent progressive impulses, which had been suppressed or diverted in the traditional political system. Because they have included alterations in some key variables, the political events of the past decade and a half provide additional insights into the relative explanatory value of each of these competing hypotheses as tools in the ﬂea shoveling in which students of Arkansas politics engage. provincialism, personalism, or true progressivity One possibility, though highly unﬂattering to the Arkansas electorate, is that in moving more slowly than most of the South toward its “natural” home in the bosom of conservative Republicanism, Arkansas has simply showed the same suspicion of novelty that has always characterized the state. Thus, just as Arkansas was slow in accepting other manifestations of modernity, like electricity and compulsory education, so the powerful tugs of both tradition and inertia have kept many actual Republicans in the Democratic camp

[339], (6)

Lines: 93 to 1 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [339], (6)

340

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

much longer than is ideologically appropriate. According to one political participant and observer, Arkansas’s rural voters remain predisposed toward voting Democratic “because tradition is important to rural people. They are looking for ways to stay with the Democratic party; they have to be run off.”10 The problem of redirecting these traditionalists is compounded by Arkansans’ longstanding resentment of outsiders. And most “outsiders” interested in changing Arkansans’ voting behavior in recent decades have been Republicans. During the 1980s, Arkansans may have been diametrically opposed philosophically to the voting stances of Pryor and Bumpers in the Senate, but when Henry Kissinger or Jerry Falwell or Republican cabinet members arrived to “enlighten” them, the reaction was to rally around the native against the interference of meddlesome “aliens.” Pryor turned the parade of visiting Republicans, including the president himself, who supported his 1984 opponent into a personal asset by calling attention to their numbers and insisting that Arkansas voters were informed and independent. They neither needed nor wanted outsiders trying to inﬂuence their vote. When Rev. Jerry Falwell charged in a 1985 address in Little Rock that Bumpers was “a little to the left of Ted Kennedy” but then “comes home and dupes the people,” newspapers and letter writers from left to right expressed outrage. One usually mild-mannered newspaper in northwest Arkansas editorialized to Falwell that “You have insulted the people of Arkansas by implying that we are ignorant and by presuming you can ‘educate’ us to achieve your own ends. We’ll make you a deal. You stay in Virginia and we’ll stay in Arkansas and keep our senator until we decide otherwise.”11 In the 1990s, while other white southerners were troubled both by Bill Clinton’s perceived liberalism on cultural issues and his sexual behavior, their Arkansas counterparts’ angst was partly counterbalanced by the sense that one of their own was being attacked unfairly by outsiders. In particular, signiﬁcant numbers of Arkansans reacted negatively to the lengthy Whitewater investigation, which uncovered Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. Before the sexual component of the investigation had become its focus, Arkansans sharply disapproved of independent counsel Kenneth Starr. Critics outnumbered defenders of Starr by 49 to 19 percent in one public poll in late 1996. By 1998, Democratic candidates for the open U.S. Senate seat were united in their criticism of Starr, with one unsuccessful candidate even focusing advertising on his opposition to the “political witch hunt.” “Kenneth Starr and company have wasted more than $45 million trashing Arkansans, and the spending continues,” the ad began. And, in

[340], (7)

Lines: 103 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [340], (7)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

341

2000, Republican congressman Jay Dickey’s votes to impeach the president who had come of age in his south Arkansas district were a clear factor in invigorating a Democratic base that cost Dickey reelection to a ﬁfth term.12 What this theory suggests is that Arkansas’s electoral progressivism is actually a curious by-product of its provincialism. This explanation implies not only enormous ignorance on the part of the electorate but a degree of isolation from national political debates and communications that would be astonishing in light of the television set that can be found in nearly every Arkansas home.13 Most important, it ignores the fact that this preference for progressive candidates was generally manifested by voters in the Democratic primaries, in which almost all voters participated. Such was decidedly the case in the gubernatorial primaries between 1970 and 1990. Moreover, provincialism and the related resistance to nationalization have also worked to the beneﬁt of more conservative candidates. Thus, in the hardfought 1978 Democratic runoff for the U.S. Senate, eventual winner David Pryor sharply questioned Congressman Jim Guy Tucker’s commitment to “those values we treasure in Arkansas”: “Almost three-quarters of the time, Jim Guy Tucker disagreed with his fellow Southerners and voted with Northern liberals in Congress. . . . New York has 39 congressmen, and Jim Guy Tucker voted with this delegation more often than he voted with his own.” And, in his 1996 campaign for U.S. Senate, Democrat Winston Bryant persistently attempted to use Republican Congressman Tim Hutchinson’s voting record to yoke him to Speaker Newt Gingrich as a slasher of popular programs like Medicare. This nationalization of the race failed badly, and Hutchinson gained the seat by winning 120,000 more votes in Arkansas than his party’s standard-bearer, Bob Dole.14 So, this hypothesis has salience in explaining some recent electoral results, more often than not those beneﬁting modernizer Democrats. And, as will be discussed in the next section, the 2002 U.S. Senate race represented a case study of this force at work. But the evidence is lacking that Arkansans’lingering preference for Democrats alone, stemming from their disconnectedness from the forces at work around them, explains the persistence of modernizers’ success inArkansas. Moreover, in each election cycle provincialism becomes a more fragile and unpredictable explainer of Arkansas’s political patterns. A second set of rationales for Arkansas’s “surprisingly” progressive political choices points to the profoundly personal nature of Arkansas politics. According to this hypothesis, Arkansas voters have not actually been voting for progress. They have been voting for Winthrop Rockefeller and Dale Bumpers and David Pryor and Bill Clinton and Blanche Lincoln, or at least

[341], (8)

Lines: 107 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [341], (8)

342

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

against their most prominent opponents, and accidentally got decades of progressivism in the bargain. This theory has appeal because perhaps the most distinctive feature of Arkansas politics is its strong personal, indeed familial, character. All political attentives in the state begin their day with the Arkansas DemocratGazette. By 8:00 a.m. the statewide telephone lines and anonymous political Listserves are buzzing over the possible political implications of a bankruptcy announcement or divorce proceeding or social event. Democratic and Republican state conventions are like family reunions where intimacy between the party’s leading lights and grassroots loyalists is easily established and sustained. And the staffs of the state’s constitutional ofﬁcers are peppered with members of their colleagues’ families.15 Most pertinently, though mass-media advertising absorbs the great bulk of contemporary campaign expenditures in major races, the new technology has not entirely displaced the need for or effectiveness of the personal touch. National political visitors to Arkansas have continually been amazed to ﬁnd how personalized the politics are, especially that everyone refers to U.S. senators and governors using ﬁrst names only. Moreover, “Dale,” “Blanche,” “Tim,” “Bill,” “Jim Guy,” and “Mike” have told these visitors, with some chagrin, that they in turn are expected to, and often do in fact, remember the names of thousands and thousands of their constituents, their occupations and ailments and children’s names. Political scientist Richard Fenno observed David Pryor in action on a return visit home from the Senate: To come off the road and sit with him for an hour in a Little Rock hotel lobby and eat an evening meal with him and some friends in a Little Rock steakhouse is to experience a steady ﬂow of exchanges with people . . . who stop by to say hello, introduce themselves, discuss a mutual friend, share a reminiscence, ask for an autograph, leave a problem, give advice, or tell a story. . . . It would not be correct to call them interruptions or intrusions, for the senator is as eager to make contact as they are.

In 1992, the defeats of long-time incumbent congressmen Bill Alexander and Beryl Anthony in Democratic primaries were driven by many factors (including their numerous overdrafts at the House Bank). Probably most fundamentally, however, they lost because they were perceived to have become “arrogant” and “aloof.”16 Major candidates may chafe at the time they must devote to command appearances at the Gillett Coon Supper and Mount Nebo Chicken Fry, the Warren Pink Tomato Festival and the Hope Watermelon Festival, the

[342], (9)

Lines: 115 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [342], (9)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

343

Springdale Rodeo Parade and the Bald Knob Strawberry Festival.17 Little of this may be cost-effective in the minds of modern campaign technocrats, but it is still an accepted, indeed essential, component of Arkansas politics into the twenty-ﬁrst century. Indeed, running for political ofﬁce in Arkansas in the television era is particularly challenging. This is because candidates are expected to continue making time-consuming personal appearances (and to make their festival and civic club appearances and high school commencement speeches with a gusto suggesting that there is nothing else they would rather be doing) when that time might be better spent raising funds. It is also because candidates are expected to exhibit the personal touch to which Arkansans have become accustomed through the “cool” medium of television.18 Continuing longstanding southern and Arkansas traditions, the “Big Three” of Arkansas politics—Bumpers, Pryor, and Clinton—were all superb storytellers. They rarely used a prepared address, quoted easily and effectively from Scripture, and could bring down the house with wry, selfdeprecating humor. They had very different oratorical styles: Clinton listed debating points against invisible opponents; Pryor chatted and charmed; Bumpers educated and preached. All, however, quickly established a strong rapport with the tens of thousands of Arkansans they encountered each year, thereby insulating themselves powerfully against challengers’ suggestions that they were “too intellectual” or “too liberal” or of dubious patriotism. As one analysis of the Arkansas election scene noted, “incumbents who establish a strong personal image usually manage to withstand even the most sophisticated and well-planned efforts to defeat them.”19 In a hilarious but highly illuminating piece on the 1984 U. S. Senate race, Paul Greenberg imagined an emissary from the Republican National Committee attempting to convince Dub and Earlene, proprietors of a south Arkansas general store, of the dangers of liberal-voting David Pryor. Their response? “Hey, does ol’ David look like a liberal to you? Does he talk like one? . . . Notice how he started his campaign and how this here Bethune started his? Bethune went up to Washington, D.C. to huddle with ol’ Reagan and that ‘air Republican National Committee. . . . Dave just went over to his mamma’s house in Camden, Lord rest her soul, and set down on the front porch in his overhauls and allowed as how he was ﬁxin’ to run again. That can’t be no liberal, it ain’t even hardly a politician.”20 In the post–Big Three era, the most progressive candidate to achieve success in Arkansas politics beyond the local level has been central Arkansas congressman Vic Snyder. Though iconoclastic, Snyder has become the

[343], (10)

Lines: 145 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [343], (10)

344

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

second-longest-serving congressman in the history of the district (behind Wilbur Mills), despite often casting—alone in the state’s congressional delegation—liberal votes on social, economic, and defense issues. (For instance, in late 2002 Snyder was one of only three southern white Democrats in the House to oppose the resolution giving President Bush authority to use force to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.) The Oregon native’s low-key demeanor, visible in his interactions with constituents at regular Saturday sessions at supermarkets throughout the politically mixed district, effectively protected him from a series of well-funded, hard-edged Republican attacks. One gop operative who had helped orchestrate those attacks on Snyder summed up the congressman’s defense against them as follows: “People vote for who they like. . . . [Snyder]’s a nice guy. How can you not like him?”21 The “progressivism through personalism” argument is more persuasive than the “progressivism through provincialism” argument. In predominantly one-party and therefore effectively partyless Arkansas, voters have long been accustomed to choosing (indeed traditionally were forced to) between competing individuals rather than issues and parties. What this explanation also clearly suggests, however, is that Arkansas’s progressivism has little rational basis and is living on borrowed time. And, indeed, in recent election cycles most Arkansas voters have shown a readiness to abandon their very superﬁcial attachment to progressivism as a Republican candidate has emerged who weds an attractive personality and an engaging speaking style to a culturally conservative philosophy. With his masterful imitations and groan-inducing jokes, Mike Huckabee has a distinctive communication style that—like the Big Three—connects him deeply with many of his fellow Arkansans. Huckabee also shows versatility in effectively communicating both through a variety of mass media and in person. As one longtime Clinton watcher puts it, “[Huckabee] is, like Bill Clinton, hard to dislike in a personal meeting.” In his party, Huckabee is truly exceptional, but his presence is evidence that “progressivism through personalism” could easily be ﬂipped by the emergence of more conservative candidates who have the ability to connect with Arkansans on a personal level. At present, however, as discussed in chapter 4, the Democratic Party has a healthier supply of candidates who meet Arkansas voters’ expectations for personable politicians.22 A third possibility ascribes much greater rationality and perception to the Arkansas electorate. This is the proposition that Arkansas voters have been electing progressive candidates because Arkansas voters themselves are progressive, or at least much less conservative than has generally been

[344], (11)

Lines: 151 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[344], (11)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

345

assumed. The views of some historians and political scientists to this effect were noted in chapter 5. Their assessment is shared by at least some contemporary Arkansas politicians. Bill Clinton, for example, has cautioned against any simple characterization of the Arkansas electorate as conservative. Certainly, they have been somewhat suspicious of government and have never welcomed excessive government meddling in their lives. However, Clinton also points to the fact that Arkansas was the most racially tolerant of the southern states and had strong populist strains that emphasized government’s obligation to protect individuals and families against unfair treatment by an economic elite.23 As noted in previous chapters, all of the nineteenth- and early-twentiethcentury populistic “thrusts from below” were diluted and ultimately demoralized by divide-and-conquer techniques. These methods so alienated poor whites from poor blacks that their mutuality of circumstance and need could never be fashioned into an effective political force. Furthermore, until very recent decades, voters were such a small part of the citizenry that the electorate that selected and sustained inactive and inattentive state political leaders was highly unrepresentative of the people generally. Congressman Brooks Hays, in his autobiography, despaired over the fact that in 1942 he was elected to represent 325,000 people though he received only 16,000 votes. In contrast, most of Arkansas’s contemporary ofﬁcials have been elected by much larger and therefore more representative electorates, in which low-to-moderate-income white and African American Arkansans were an important part of the victorious coalition.24 Some Arkansas analysts, like the late political scientist Jim Ranchino, place Arkansas’s acceptance of progressivism much later in time. According to Ranchino, the great middle class of voters had moved from a rather conservative, intolerant posture in 1960, toward a greater degree of tolerance and moderation in 1970. . . . Faced with the rapidly moving domestic and foreign events of the 1960s, and even faster-talking candidates, the voters sifted their way through the vocabulary of proposals and promises and consistently selected more moderate candidates than they had the decade before. . . . They became one of the most independent, ﬂexible and free electorates in the United States. . . . Their instincts became more signiﬁcant than their traditions and the results were remarkably free from the biases and fears of other years.25

Whether modern progressivism was the ﬁnal ﬂowering of a long tradition or a more recent development, it was clearly consequential that, in contrast

[345], (12)

Lines: 157 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [345], (12)

346

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

to many southern states, racial egalitarianism and economic activism were encouraged rather than discouraged by the state’s most widely read newspaper, the Arkansas Gazette. The “Oldest Newspaper West of the Mississippi” was, for decades, not just passionately (critics would say pathologically) Democratic, but ardently reformist and liberal. In the words of one longtime editorial writer, “the Gazette looked at itself as the guardian of the state’s morals or ethics.” This position nearly cost the paper its existence during the late 1950s, when the Gazette championed the moderate integrationists and steadily chastised Governor Faubus and his cohorts for escalating racist sentiments. David Pryor once noted, “The major difference between Arkansas and the rest of the South has been the Arkansas Gazette.” The Gazette was not uniformly successful in the causes and candidates it championed. Arkansans, however, were at least exposed to an articulate voice of liberalism, and those attempting to push the state in more progressive directions had at least one inﬂuential voice backing their efforts.26 That voice, however, is gone. In October 1991, a brutal twelve-year newspaper war between the Gazette and the traditionally conservative Arkansas Democrat ended in victory for the latter, renamed the Arkansas DemocratGazette. That paper’s editorial page has supported only Republican candidates in competitive statewide races. Moreover, in the eyes of many observers the paper serves as a case study of the recent scholarly work that has found a signiﬁcant relationship between editorial-page candidate preferences and the coverage of the candidates on the news pages. Those news pages have also shared the editorial page’s distinctive interest in celebrations of the Confederacy and have regularly repeated the historical ﬁction that Governor Faubus called out the National Guard to block the entrance of the Little Rock Nine in order to maintain the peace in Little Rock in 1957. They have also relegated news stories on any execution of an Arkansas prisoner—including those that gain national coverage—to its inside pages and have practiced a policy of reporting the names of those arrested for public indecency (usually for same-sex encounters) but not of men arrested for soliciting prostitutes. One historian of modern Arkansas sums up the ideological importance of the media transition: “If the Gazette suffered from liberal myopia, the DemocratGazette’s conservative rigor was only slightly diluted with a careful rationing of moderate columnists.” The paper’s reach across the state is even more impressive that that of the Gazette; its Sunday circulation easily surpasses that of all other Sunday papers in Arkansas combined. As the DemocratGazette provides an estimated 90 percent of the state news distributed to other news outlets by the Associated Press, the paper’s inﬂuence goes beyond its own pages.27

[346], (13)

Lines: 184 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[346], (13)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

347

The other daily newspapers in the state tend to share the editorial views of the Democrat-Gazette. For instance, in 2002, the editor of the Pine Bluff daily resigned after being pressured by the paper’s owners to endorse the Republican congressional candidate. And while Arkansas’s increasingly relevant television media tends to offer only limited coverage of state politics, in 2000 the highest-rated television news station, Little Rock’s abc afﬁliate katv, broke tradition and endorsed George W. Bush during a televised commentary in the campaign’s ﬁnal days. Over the objections and threatened legal actions of state Democrats, the station ran the video endorsement a number of times in the closing days of the race.28 Though the glue for progressive tendencies that the Gazette provided is gone (indeed, replaced by media with devotedly conservative ones), the likelihood is that Arkansans’ preference for progressive leaders in recent decades is neither fundamentally a peculiar twist on its provincialism nor the accidental product of personality politics. Rather, it is the expression of at least mildly progressive impulses that were suppressed or diverted in the traditional political system but have been able to ﬂourish in contemporary times. The 2002 elections offered some interesting tests of these various theories about the Arkansas electorate and of the relative strength of the “forces of modernization and those of tradition.” the 2002 elections and their meanings The two highest-proﬁle statewide elections of the 2002 cycle—those for governor and U.S. senator—had starkly different dynamics. For most of the period leading up to the ﬁling period for the governor’s ofﬁce it appeared that the gubernatorial contest would be only a perfunctory affair. However, it ended up being an intense contest with the closest general election margin in any governor’s race since the classic Clinton defeat in 1980. In contrast, there was never any doubt that the U.S. Senate race would be intense; but, after demolishing previous records for campaign spending in Arkansas, the nationally relevant race ended with a margin actually larger than that in the governor’s race. The commonality was that both winners—Republican incumbent governor Mike Huckabee and Democratic challenger Mark Pryor for the Senate—were candidates with attractive personalities (particularly in the increasingly relevant venue of television advertising) who elegantly mixed the symbolism and issue stances of modernizers and traditionalists in their campaigns. Arkansas’s Democratic Party spent most of 2001 and the ﬁrst months of 2002 searching for a candidate to oppose a Republican governor with a

[347], (14)

Lines: 191 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [347], (14)

348

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

public approval rating exceeding 70 percent. When prospect after prospect passed on the race, term-limited state treasurer Jimmie Lou Fisher—who had never faced an opponent in her seven elections to the ofﬁce—delayed her retirement to become the standard-bearer for her party by announcing her intent to run only weeks before the ﬁling period began. Although for a veteran ofﬁceholder her margin of victory over two token opponents in the Democratic primary was unimpressive (63.1 percent), she became the ﬁrst female nominee for governor in Arkansas by winning 176,126 votes.29 The incumbent governor won 85.4 percent of the vote in his own primary, but, reﬂecting the continued second-tier status of the state gop in primary participation, that equaled only 78,803 votes. Immediately after the successful primary win, while his general-election opponent remained relatively quiet, Huckabee encountered a summer ﬁlled with day after day of critical press (on state budget shortfalls, on cuts to a Medicaid program serving developmentally disabled children with extremely costly treatments, on ethics investigations, and, most persistently, on nearly 100 percent cost overruns on the state computer system originally touted by the governor). The reactions of Huckabee and his staff to the criticisms—both public and, in the case of the computer system failings, in presumably private e-mails—only made matters worse. Fisher showed a feistiness that surprised some observers as she opened their ﬁrst debate: “If Mike Huckabee were the ceo of any company, with his record he would be ﬁred.” Still, as the fall campaign began, despite evidence that the governor’s personal style was rubbing increasing numbers of Arkansans the wrong way, Huckabee maintained a comfortable lead in public opinion polls over an opponent with a familiar name, but an unfamiliar persona, to most Arkansans.30 Huckabee’s opening campaign advertisement showed a recognition of the traditional power of car tag issues in the heavily rural state. The governor attempted to turn the issue that had been calamitous for Bill Clinton in 1980 to his advantage by touting his reform of the system of car tag renewal, which allowed most motorists to avoid lines at the revenue ofﬁce. Speaking to the camera, the jovial Huckabee opened the ad, “I used to say that if any governor could make it easier to get a car tag renewed, he should be governor for life. I did . . . and all I’m asking for is four more years.” The issue also would be the focus of the closing advertising of the governor’s campaign, one featuring his daughter. In between, most Huckabee campaign communications were sharply more modernizer in focus, particularly those touting the popular arkids health care program, educational test improvement, and job growth.31 Fisher’s own early advertisements also focused on education and health

[348], (15)

Lines: 203 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[348], (15)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

349

care, particularly for the elderly, and criticized the Huckabee administration’s failings in both areas. The Fisher campaign became more aggressive in its advertising—and began to gain traction according to public polls—by striving for a more traditionalistic appeal, however. In the home stretch of the race, Fisher focused her advertising and public appearances on the issue of Huckabee’s use of executive clemency. Survivors and victims of convicts whose sentences the governor had lessened added their criticism of Huckabee’s decisions on television and radio and in press appearances. Filmed in front of jail bars, a tough-talking Fisher herself vowed never to shorten the prison term of a violent criminal.32 Despite the historic nature of Fisher’s candidacy, her gender was surprisingly not an overt issue in her race to be the state’s chief executive. One reason that traditionalist appeals based on gender had little chance of succeeding was the candidacy of Janet Huckabee for secretary of state, which was the ﬁrst time nationally that husband and wife ran for statewide ofﬁce in the same general election. The dual candidacies cemented many voters’ perceptions that the Huckabees had a disturbing, antipopulist desire for excessive power. The ﬁrst lady’s campaign was made even more disastrous by the coverage of her out-of-state travel, which featured state troopers in tow, the use of a state-owned airplane, and campaign-related travel in state suvs, as well as the inelegance of her reaction to criticism (“If it wasn’t for the grace of God, I’d have shot a few people already.”). The governor was deeply harmed by his wife’s candidacy; as one gop ofﬁcial said, “Janet Huckabee running for secretary of state was a brilliant idea for about four and a half minutes.”33 In contrast, the Democrats developed a slate of candidates—ranging in age from thirty-nine to seventy-six and including an African American male and Fisher—who mutually beneﬁted each other. The Democratic ticket, running under the name “Team Arkansas,” made numerous joint appearances beginning with a Fourth of July bus tour around the annual festivals of northeast Arkansas. In addition, instead of relying overwhelmingly on individual candidates’ campaigns, Arkansas Democrats instituted for the ﬁrst time an expansive ﬁeld operation (with seventy-ﬁve paid employees in a dozen outposts). Although the impetus for the operation was the highproﬁle U.S. Senate race, all Democrats beneﬁted from it. And, assisted on several occasions by former president Clinton, Fisher showed a surprising fund-raising ability that allowed her to remain competitive on the airwaves until the closing days of the race.34 About ten days before the election, polls indicated that the race was a statistical dead heat. Huckabee’s stratospheric approval ratings had fallen to

[349], (16)

Lines: 209 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [349], (16)

350

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

just below 50 percent, according to polls. However, an infusion of money (including funds transferred from the Republican Governors Association) led to record spending for a gubernatorial campaign: $2.7 million, which outpaced Fisher by just over $1 million. Much was used in a ﬁnal appeal to rural voters. This took the form of a humorous television ad showing an actress dressed like Fisher riding a four-wheel vehicle and “mudding” Huckabee yard signs and radio ads on Christian radio that criticizes Fisher’s initial lack of clarity in her views on civil unions for same-sex couples. In addition, Huckabee made a concerted outreach to African American voters, relying on the endorsement of a high-proﬁle Little Rock state senator and running unprecedented television advertisements targeted at African American viewers that compared the candidates’ records on African American appointments.35 The record spending in the governor’s race was petty compared to the U.S. Senate race, which obliterated all past records for spending on any campaign in the state. From early in the election cycle, the incumbent Hutchinson was seen as one of the most vulnerable incumbent senators. Hutchinson, following a much-publicized divorce and subsequent remarriage to a former staff member in 1999, initially leaned against running for reelection, knowing it would be a “brutal campaign” for himself and his new wife. Moreover, he had actively avoided returning to the state during the period when a reelection campaign should have been gearing up because he “didn’t want to go to the Third District”—home to the state’s largest concentration of Christian conservatives, his closest political friends. But, Hutchinson did run, only to face a primary challenger from the Christian Right and, in the general election, another “incumbent,” Mark Pryor, the state’s attorney general and son of the man who had held Hutchinson’s seat for eighteen years. By the end of the campaign, the spending of candidates, parties, and outside groups topped the $20 million mark. By November 5, over thirty interest groups from across the spectrum and across the country had joined the political parties in spending on the race. Moreover, the contributions to the candidates’ own $9.3 million in spending arose from national fund-raising operations. The national interest in the race funded the blizzard of campaign communications, an average of three mailings, ﬁve radio spots, and twelve television ads per voter in the last week of the campaign, according to panel data collected during the race. The consummate irony was that, despite this external attention, the campaign was driven by the old Arkansas political traits of personalism and provincialism.36 One personalistic element was, of course, the senator’s personal life.

[350], (17)

Lines: 215 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[350], (17)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

351

Though the senator’s primary opponent, state representative Jim Bob Duggar (best known for his family of thirteen children, with another on the way), said throughout the spring that he was “not going to talk about the senator’s divorce,” he, of course, did just that. Duggar’s candidacy also forced Hutchinson to focus on the conservative aspects of his voting record (and to spend over $1 million) to ensure a strong primary win. Despite this, Hutchinson lost one-third of the primary voters in Benton County, his home and the most Republican county in the state.37 Republicans tried to paint Mark Pryor as an illegitimate inheritor of the Pryor mantel. For instance, the state gop executive director claimed that “if his last name wasn’t Pryor, he’d be a busboy at Taco Bell.” Clearly, the Pryor campaign took advantage of David Pryor’s popularity in large and small ways throughout the race, but the attorney general brought a number of his own strengths to the contest. Crucial among these was an ideologically moderate record in a race against an opponent who had, through his early years in the senate, been rated as one of the body’s most conservative members. Of arguably equal importance was Pryor’s membership at Little Rock’s Fellowship Bible Church, the state’s largest nondenominational church. On perceived religiosity, Pryor had “one foot in there with us,” according to Hutchinson’s campaign manager. Probably his greatest skill was that the eminently likable Pryor, with “mannerisms that looked so much like his father,” performed amazingly well when talking directly to the television camera, a venue that has become the high-tech version of the state’s traditional retail politics. Because of the tremendous amount of negative advertising by parties and interest groups, both candidates were able to stay entirely positive in their own advertising, a distinct advantage for the personable Pryor. As Hutchinson’s campaign director put it, “Pryor just made himself likable. . . . We’re still a personality state, and Mark Pryor has a good personality.”38 The ﬁrst Pryor ad closed with him raising the plaque from his father’s Senate ofﬁce desk, saying, “Arkansas Comes First.” It was to be the mantra for the Pryor campaign. For instance, in late August, Pryor declined, quite publicly, an invitation to appear with Hutchinson on nbc’s Meet the Press. His spokesperson explained, “Going to Washington, D.C., to make an appearance on a national press show is just not part of our plan.” As the fall campaign began, the state Democratic Party began a series of ads that was the second punch in Pryor’s provincialistic strategy. All carried the tag line “Washington Has Changed Tim Hutchinson.” The issues focused on in the spots—education, prescription drugs, the minimum wage, and Social

[351], (18)

Lines: 219 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [351], (18)

352

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

Security—were also those highlighted by Pryor’s positive ads. A focus on Hutchinson’s “change” meant making the case that a “callous” Hutchinson, who had voted against such federal government activism, was “not one of us.” Of course, it did something more. Though the divorce was seen as “offlimits” for the Democrats, the attacks on Hutchinson’s “change” became a double entendre with an eye to the alteration in the senator’s personal life. These skillfully choreographed messages allowed Pryor to stay positive and parochial (“Arkansas Comes First”) while his allies echoed the parochial and poked subtly at the personal (“Washington Has Changed Tim Hutchinson”).39 The Republicans ran eighteen negative advertisements against Pryor, “[t]he most negative ads run anywhere in the country.” A signiﬁcant share of the state gop’s television attacks during the fall pointed to contradictions in Pryor’s record on hot-button social issues, including abortion and guns. Though the Pryor camp did not respond to several of the ads, they “did respond on guns. . . . We weren’t going to concede to the nra.” The Pryor campaign quickly went on the air with a hunting spot that expressly reiterated Pryor’s differentiation from national Democrats on the issue of gun rights. It was joined by four mailings to hunting and ﬁshing license holders from the state Democratic Party coupling Pryor’s respect for the Second Amendment with his own love of the sport. “A lot of what we did during the fall was reassure people we weren’t outside the mainstream of Arkansas values,” said Pryor’s strategist. The gop attacks actually provided the foil for that reassurance.40 Hutchinson and the Republicans attempted to take advantage of the popularity of a Republican president and national political tides. President George W. Bush and other administration ofﬁcials made numerous visits to the state on behalf of Hutchinson. The president appeared in ads with Hutchinson, and his recorded voice sounded on thousands of Arkansas answering machines. Hutchinson-allied interest groups also ran advertisements that focused on the importance of his election to the party’s gaining the majority in the U.S. Senate, attempting to link Pryor to Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Democratic leader Tom Daschle. Though Bush was undoubtedly as popular in Arkansas as in other states where he beneﬁted Republican Senate candidates, such attempted nationalization actually furthered the suggestion that Hutchinson and his allies cared more about Washington than Arkansas. On November 5, a total of 805,856 Arkansans cast their ballots. Turnout was less than in the 2000 presidential election, but in an increasingly common occurrence a higher percentage of Arkansas’s voting-age population (40.1) than of the nation’s generally (36.4) went to the polls. In what has

[352], (19)

Lines: 223 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[352], (19)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

353

also apparently become the new Arkansas tradition, voters overwhelmingly voiced a preference for “the forces of modernization” when it comes to expansive governmental programs blended with the “forces of tradition” when it comes to cultural issues. Fisher ran a strong campaign that assisted a near Democratic sweep of all other statewide and federal races (and stopped a trend in gop gains in the legislature, as both houses remained stable in membership despite reapportionment). However, Huckabee prevailed with 53.0 percent of the vote, his weakest performance in a general election. And Pryor regained his father’s Senate seat with 53.9 percent of the vote, impressive for any challenger but made even more so by the fact that it was the sole Democratic gain in that body in an election cycle generally hostile to the party. The two winners voiced support for expanded government health care (and, in Huckabee’s case, claimed he had already done so), enhanced educational opportunities and, in general, a faith in the ability of government to improve Arkansans’ lives. Despite their opponents’ attempts to raise questions about their commitment to cultural traditions, Pryor and Huckabee also campaigned with a clear awareness of the value of those traditions, talking about issues and attaching themselves to symbols with rural resonance. Thus, shades of the populism discussed in chapter 5—an ideological predisposition that does not ﬁt neatly on the conservative/liberal continuum—is the winning theme for successful Democrats and Republicans alike in the modern era.41 Arkansas voters also showed a populist streak by overwhelmingly rejecting two initiatives that had initially attracted strong public support according to opinion surveys. A constitutional amendment that would have eliminated the sales tax on all groceries and nonprescription drugs and an initiated act to elevate the state animal cruelty law from a misdemeanor to a felony had consistently failed in legislative sessions but reached the ballot through the petition process. With about ﬁve weeks to go, each had the support of approximately six in ten voters. Each, however, was met by strong campaigns in the closing weeks. A coalition of groups argued that if the Axe the Food Tax campaign succeeded, the loss of $500 million annually in state and local revenues would threaten social services (especially those provided through federal matching dollars in the Medicaid program), local public safety entities, and the state and local budgets generally. With their position endorsed by the state Game and Fish Commission, a coalition including the Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation, Arkansas Cattlemen’s Association, and the Poultry Federation emphasized the antihunting views of national groups (the Humane Society and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [peta]) that were funding and supporting the campaign for the animal cruelty

[353], (20)

Lines: 229 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [353], (20)

354

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

measure. They also emphasized the potential legal threats to sportsmen and animal producers created by the prospective statute. Thus, in the end, a “modernizer” campaign defeated the food tax repeal amendment, and a “traditionalist” campaign defeated the animal cruelty initiated act by markedly similar margins (61.5 percent voted against the former and 62.2 percent against the latter).42 The sharply regional nature of Arkansas voting patterns, outlined in chapter 4, was evident again in the 2002 contests. Map 9, illustrating those counties where Pryor and Huckabee gained majorities of the vote, clearly portrays the Republican tendencies in the Ozark counties and the Democratic tendencies in the Delta counties. The solidness of Republicanism in the northwest region is shown on the maps: Hutchinson winning the Ozark counties, and Huckabee running up even larger margins in them. Republican dominance was also indicated by the fact that, despite a energetic Democratic campaign in a late 2001 special election for the U.S. House seat from the region, the party failed to even ﬁeld a candidate in 2002. However, the Pryor campaign did not entirely concede the region, and spent considerable time and energy there. This strategy forced Hutchinson to spend many days late in the campaign shoring up his base and held down his margins as compared to 1996; Hutchinson’s 73 percent in his home county (Benton) in 1996 was reduced to 64 percent in 2002. Republican Huckabee’s outreach to the African American community, an effort shown on a smaller scale in his 1998 race, produced a similar dynamic in the governor’s race. But Fisher (and the rest of “Team Arkansas”) made effective use of Bill Clinton, a man with a “90 percent approval rating” among Arkansas African Americans, to maintain strong African American support. Though, as a key Pryor strategist put it, “among the undecided voters, he’s a net negative,” Clinton’s energizing force in the black community of his home state remains remarkable. One piece of evidence were the strong crowds that he drew to “Team Arkansas” rallies in the Delta on the closing Sunday of the campaign. As one Republican said, it is “amazing” to turn out one thousand folks in Forrest City “for anything.” An examination of precinct returns from heavily African American areas shows that Fisher retained overwhelming African American support. However, Huckabee’s visible campaign for a key component of the Democratic base—the most full-scale effort by an Arkansas Republican for the African American vote since Governor Rockefeller—did pay off, providing breathing room in his surprisingly close contest with Fisher.43 Though the best estimate is that, in the end, Huckabee won about two in ten

[354], (21)

Lines: 231 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[354], (21)

in nkl

Stone

Van Buren

Johnson

d

e ep

Poinsett

uf f dr

ast

W oo

S eb

n

Saline

Lee ro e

m

Prairie

on

tg o

Lonoke

M

Pulaski

on

St. Francis

Perry

Scott ery

Cross

de

Yell

Garland

Phillips

Hot Spring

Sevier

Mississippi

Craighead

ce

en

White Faulkner

M

en

itt

Conway

Logan

Polk

nd

so

In

Cleburne

Pope

Fra

Lawrence

n

Searcy

Cr

ia n

Crawford

Newton

Greene

Sharp

Izard Madison

Washington

Clay

Randolph

Fulton

Baxter Marion

ck

Boone

Ja

Carroll

Benton

rd wa Ho

Grant

Arkansas

Jefferson

[355], (22)

Pike Clark Dallas

Cleveland Lincoln Desha

Little River Hempstead Nevada Ouachita

tte

Union

in

Van Buren

nkl

Johnson

Fra

Pope

d In

Cleburne

uf f dr W oo

S eb

tg o

n

on

Lonoke

Prairie

Saline

e ro on M

Pulaski ry me

Cross St. Francis

Perry

Garland

Lee

Phillips

Hot Spring

Sevier

Poinsett

de

Yell Scott

M

Mississippi

Craighead

ce

en

White Faulkner

Polk

en

n

ep

d en

itt

Conway

Logan

ast

Stone

so

Searcy

Lawrence

Cr

ian

Crawford

Newton

Greene

Sharp

Grant

Jefferson

Arkansas

Pike Clark Dallas

Cleveland Lincoln Desha

Little River Hempstead Nevada Ouachita

Huckabee

Bradley

tte fay e

La

Miller

Drew

Calhoun

Columbia

Union

———

2.08908pt ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX

Clay

Randolph

Fulton

Baxter Marion

ck

Boone

Hutchinson

Chicot

Ashley

Izard Madison

Washington

Pryor

Ja

fay e

Carroll

Benton

Lines: 246 to

Drew

Calhoun Bradley

Columbia

La

Miller

rd wa Ho

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Ashley

Chicot

Map 9. Counties Won by Candidates in the U.S. Senate and Governor’s Races in Arkansas, 2002

Fisher

[355], (22)

356

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

Arkansas African American voters in 2002, he at least doubled the African American vote gained by Hutchinson. The Hutchinson campaign “had vans running and the whole caboodle,” and, in the words of one Democratic Party ofﬁcial, Republican money was “ﬂowing like water” in the Delta counties. According to postelection surveys, however, Hutchinson received the votes of fewer than one in ten black Arkansans. The national Republican Party and groups allied with it did communicate expansively on African American radio in 2002, however. Critics contended that these advertisements were more focused on suppressing African American turnout than on converting the Republican candidates. For example, one hard-edged ad run on African American radio stations by the Kansas City-based group Council for Better Government focused on abortion: “Each year the abortion mills diminish the human capital of our community by another 400,000 souls. The Democrat Party supports these liberal abortion laws that are decimating our people.”44 Also evident in 2002 were the voting patterns for the Little Rock metropolitan area, discussed in chapter 4, with urban Pulaski County voting strongly Democratic and the suburban counties around it voting Republican. Both Huckabee and Hutchinson swept the suburbs, the latter by problematically small margins. Their opponents ran up margins in Pulaski County, with Pryor gaining nearly 60 percent of the county’s vote and Fisher winning just under 55 percent. The personalistic, progressive congressman from the metropolitan area, Vic Snyder, was returned to Washington without being challenged in the general election. What about the Rural Swing counties? As shown in map 9, both Democrat Pryor and Republican Huckabee’s mixture of traditionalism on cultural issues and moderate progressivism on issues related to the role of government worked quite well in Arkansas’s most populist counties. Showing that their “druthers” remain Democratic when an acceptable Democrat is offered to them, the Rural Swing counties came close to giving Pryor a sweep. He won twenty-three of the twenty-six (and lost two of the remaining three by seven and sixteen votes, respectively). Pryor effectively reassured these voters that he was “one of them” on guns, religiosity, and other cultural matters, and he was duly rewarded at the polls. Despite the doubts raised about Huckabee’s record on criminal justice and his family’s desire for political power and the perks accompanying it, a slight majority of the Rural Swing counties “swung” to the Huckabee who had shown sensitivity to the lifestyles of “real Arkansans” living away from Little Rock. Though Fisher won twelve of the twenty-six, it is important to note that four of the counties the Democrat won were her home county and three abutting counties in northeastArkansas. Half

[356], (23)

Lines: 246 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[356], (23)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

357

of the twenty-two counties that both Pryor and Huckabee won were Rural Swing counties, showing the pivotal role of these counties in the state’s electoral outcomes. The previous characterization of voters in these counties as “Populists” is broadly conﬁrmed by their treatment of the two most contentious initiatives on the 2002 ballot. The proposed animal cruelty initiative (and the perceived threat to hunting that came with it) was defeated more soundly in every one of these twenty-six counties than in the state generally. The proposed end to the food tax (and the perceived loss of governmental programs that came with it) failed more overwhelmingly in all but four of the twenty-six than in the state as a whole. It now seems clear that those candidates who gain consistent statewide success in Arkansas for the foreseeable future will be those who are legitimately committed to using the state or federal government to improve the lots of society’s less fortunate and who, simultaneously, legitimately embrace the state’s cultural traditions. On one of the most crucial issues in any political campaign—the expansiveness of governmental services—these modern Arkansas success stories look much like the successful politicians of the thirty-year period that began in 1966. But these politicians are also more at ease in embracing the other component of populism, preservation of cultural norms, than were Winthrop Rockefeller and his Democratic successors. Therefore, since prominent Arkansas political leaders will, much like a kaleidoscope, appear markedly “conservative” or “progressive” depending on the issue at hand, students of Arkansas politics will no longer be asked why their most prominent elected ofﬁcials are such consistent modernizers but why they appear so politically schizophrenic. In addition to an essential populism, Arkansas politicians who show persistent electoral success will, as has long been the case, link themselves to their fellow Arkansans with engaging personal styles. Increasingly, such personalistic appeal will primarily occur—as with Mark Pryor in 2002— through “talking head” television advertisements. Although personalistic politics are nonideological and nonpartisan, the Democratic Party remains more likely to produce candidates who have the traits that are so crucial in the Arkansas political environment. In addition, in recent congressional elections, Arkansas Democrats have developed a winning strategy that relies on an element of provincialism in the voters. For example, in announcing her reelection desires for the U.S. Senate in early 2003, Senator Blanche Lincoln stated, “Let the outside interest groups conduct their ratings and cast me in any light they chose. I will still be an Arkansas Democrat ﬁrst and foremost.”

[357], (24)

Lines: 250 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [357], (24)

358

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

As noted earlier, as Arkansas becomes more fully integrated into the rest of nation, it is clear that the clock will run out on this strategy sooner rather than later. Still, all told, because the Arkansas Democratic Party is more likely to ﬁeld populist, personalistic candidates than is the gop, Arkansas will distinguish itself from its southern neighbors by disproportionately electing individuals who label themselves Democrats in the early decades of the twenty-ﬁrst century.45 Where does this leave the state’s Republican Party? As we suggested in chapter 5, and as many political scientists predict, actuarial odds and immigration alone give the southern Republican Party a bright future. Republican candidates will have much greater potential electability as those with the most powerful devotion to the Democratic Party continue to die and are replaced by generations who have not been raised on tales of the Civil War or the New Deal and as Arkansas continues to attract retirees and those seeking work in its rapidly expanding central and northwestern metropolitan areas.. In the language of Alan Ehrenhalt, the Arkansas electorate increasingly includes “customers” who are willing to vote for “products” with the Republican label. The challenge for theArkansas Republican Party, however, is to consistently develop a crop of those “products” who are personalistic and not as ardently antigovernment as contemporary southern Republican activists. Both traits—shown, to date, only in Mike Huckabee—are essential for statewide success in Arkansas.46 The Arkansas Republican Party has become a legitimate, institutionalized presence in state politics that will continue to beneﬁt from long-range demographics and reap the electoral rewards when a Democratic candidate meanders too far left on cultural issues or cannot connect with Arkansans on personal terms. In the near future, however, the Democrats in most areas and for most ofﬁces will continue to have the advantage in terms of quantity and quality of candidates, voter identiﬁcation and familiarity, the traditions of the past, and the populist preferences of the present. the past and the present On December 4, 1837, during debate over a bill authorizing the use of wolf scalps to pay county taxes, the Speaker of the house of the ﬁrst General Assembly descended from his chair and stabbed the Randolph County representative to death with a bowie knife. Frustrated by those who tend to deny or romanticize the state’s violent past, including that infamous 1837 incident, Bob Lancaster has suggested that a display of the artifacts that

[358], (25)

Lines: 256 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[358], (25)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

359

had actually shaped the state’s past would have to include not only the axe, plow, and biscuit pan, but also “manacles, a noose, dueling pistols, a Klan sheet, a spittoon, a well-thumped Bible, a bottle of Peruna, a forged poll-tax receipt, a cypress-knee lamp, a discarded automobile mufﬂer, and a football.” Perhaps so. It is true, however, that physical violence has become a rare rather than a routine part of Arkansas’s political process (and that journalists, scholars, and community leaders have begun to grapple with the most extreme instances of past racial violence). This is only one of many visible and generally praiseworthy ways in which contemporary politics differs from the traditional pattern.47 The ﬁrst General Assembly, for example, was a thoroughly male and totally white institution; the eighty-fourth included ﬁfteen African Americans and twenty-two women. Those numbers are still highly disproportionate to the numbers of women and African Americans in the population generally. Still, by the ﬁrst years of the twenty-ﬁrst century, almost all of the traditional white male inner sanctums had been penetrated. Most of the women who served in the 2003 legislature, and in other elective ofﬁces throughout the state, had gotten there on their own rather than over their husband’s dead bodies. Also by 2003, a woman was the most powerful ﬁgure in the state’s congressional delegation and women ran a handful of state agencies, had managed gubernatorial campaigns, served as executive director of the Democratic Party, acted as legislative ﬂoor leaders, and chaired the State Highway Commission. Finally, through Jimmie Lou Fisher’s near success in 2002, women were destined to be serious candidates for governor in the future.48 African Americans have made much slower progress than women in obtaining elective ofﬁce beyond the local level. Still, a state that began the twentieth century by electing a governor (Jeff Davis) who promised subhuman treatment of black prison inmates entered the next century with an African American chairman of the state parole board. Though African Americans were still much more likely than whites to be in those prisons, to be unemployed, and to live in poverty, the utility rates of all Arkansans were being determined by a Public Service Commission that had an African American man as one of its three members and the state pollution control agency was headed by another African American. African American and white teachers, whose professional associations had not merged until 1966, by 1985 were together in one association headed by the ﬁrst black woman to be the chief executive of a state afﬁliate of the National Education Association. By the 2003 legislative session, two of Arkansas’s African

[359], (26)

Lines: 268 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [359], (26)

360

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

American female legislators had been, respectively, a president of the state aea and an organizer of the rival state American Federation of Teachers chapter.49 During the early days of the Little Rock Crisis of 1957, the Little Rock police force had been unable (and, in the eyes of many, unwilling) to guarantee the protection of the nine African American students against the white mobs surrounding the school. In 2000, an African American man was given the duty of heading that police force (and, just under three years later, another thirty-six-year-old African American man was hired as manager of the entire city government). Given the fanatical devotion of fans of the University of Arkansas Razorbacks, the university’s history as the last Southwest Conference school to give a scholarship to an African American football player, and former coach Lou Holtz’s wry observation that inArkansas a Razorback coach is like a state park, the most amazing development of all was perhaps the 1985 selection of Nolan Richardson to coach the Razorback basketball team—the ﬁrst African American coach of a college revenue-producing sport in the South. Richardson’s tenure included racially charged public conﬂict (culminating in a race discrimination lawsuit against the university after his ﬁring in 2002) along with the unprecedented highs (three Final Four visits and a 1994 national championship). Signiﬁcantly, however, minimal comment surrounded Richardson’s replacement by another African American man, Stan Heath. Indeed, Richardson and his primary nemesis in his feud with the university, longtime athletic director Frank Broyles, had almost identical favorable/unfavorable ratings in a statewide survey several months after the ﬁring. Both women and African Americans were still progressing toward rather than fully enjoying political, legal, and social equality. Nevertheless, the state’s ofﬁcial nickname, “Land of Opportunity,” had become much less of a travesty by the time it was abandoned in 1995 for the less idealistic “The Natural State” than when it was ofﬁcially adopted in 1953.50 As many of the preceding chapters have documented and explained, Arkansas politics has undergone a series of sharp and sweeping changes in the past four decades. Until recently, the hallmarks of traditional Arkansas politics were a nonparticipatory public; a corrupted and unrepresentative electoral process; absolute domination by one political party; issueless campaigns; the deliberate subordination of the black race and the systematic exclusion of women; an unresponsive, often self-serving, and frequently ineffective governing elite; and a reactionary thrust to public policy. By the early twenty-ﬁrst century, voter registration and participation in Arkansas

[360], (27)

Lines: 272 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[360], (27)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

361

occasionally exceeded national norms, elections were honest tests of a much larger and more representative electorate, general-election contests in major races were much more than routine ratiﬁcations of primary results, and voters were offered differences of issue as well as personality. Moreover, African Americans and women were legitimate political participants slowly expanding their spheres of inﬂuence, public ofﬁcials were generally willing to let the sun shine in on their work and to show respect for legitimate ethics rules, and more action-oriented ofﬁcials were using strengthened governing institutions to address some of Arkansas’s long neglected problems. In answer to one of the questions raised at this book’s outset, these are not just changes of symbol and style but fundamental changes in structure and substance. ContemporaryArkansas politics continues to contain some potent legacies from the past, however. Former congressman Tommy Robinson, in his ﬂamboyant, combative speech; publicity-seeking antics; self-styled championship of the common man; and warring posture toward the media that made him (in his unsuccessful 2002 comeback he attacked national pollster John Zogby’s “Arab polling ﬁrm” for accurate results that showed him trailing badly) was uncannily reminiscent of the governor and senator Jeff Davis. In a cleverly timed 2002 media ﬂurry Huckabee took credit for a sudden release of funds for improved nursing-home standards, which until that point he had blocked. In doing so, he seemed suspiciously like a high-tech update of the traditional Arkansas ploy of mailing out welfare checks on election eve. Candidates now build their coalitions and campaign chests through powerful interest groups rather than powerful local machines, a method that may place even more programmatic indebtedness upon contemporary candidates than did the patronage obligations of old. Furthermore, in a major diminution of political opportunity, the path to elective ofﬁce has become so expensive that Arkansas has probably seen the last of the days when a total unknown, such as Dale Bumpers in 1970, could win a Democratic gubernatorial primary with expenditures of $100,000.51 On the other hand, it is no longer possible for one interest or individual to dry up all available campaign funds. Witt Stephens was able to do so on Senator Fulbright’s behalf in the 1950s, but in the Clinton era the Stephens brothers found they could not. The negative nature of several recent Arkansas campaigns was a regrettable relapse to the “buckets of bile” spilled in traditional campaigns. Some comfort may be taken in the knowledge that negative campaigns have lost more often than they have succeeded in recent times, less comfort in the knowledge that character assassination is no

[361], (28)

Lines: 278 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [361], (28)

362

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

longer conﬁned to campaign trails in the South. Indeed, one native Arkansas political scientist insists that the big political story in recent years is the “Southernization” of American politics, in which imagery, ﬂamboyance, and the meaninglessness of party labels is becoming the norm everywhere.52 Perhaps most disturbing to observers of contemporary Arkansas politics were the numerous signs that Arkansas was increasingly becoming a twoeconomy state. In the metropolitan areas, there was boom. By 2000 per capita income in Pulaski County was almost exactly at the national average, and personal income in northwestern Arkansas’s Fayetteville-SpringdaleRogers-Bentonville metropolitan area had ranked for two decades among the very fastest-growing nationally in terms of percentage increase. There was bust, however, in much of eastern and southern Arkansas, as well as in rural areas throughout the state where the economy has been dependent on rowcrop agriculture and low-wage, low-skill manufacturing operations. Overall, Arkansas per capita income, which had climbed to 77.6 percent of the national average as early as 1978, had hit a wall, rising to only 78.3 percent of the national average by 2000. Because of the state’s tax structure (described in chapter 13) any chances of advancing state services—especially the educational system, which is the “chicken” to economic development’s “egg”—were severely threatened by the inelasticity of the state’s income pool. The series of monthly state revenue shortfalls in the early years of the twenty-ﬁrst century were proof of this reality. To the extent that Arkansas’s political progress had been made possible by its relative economic vitality, ominous signs suggested that the days ahead would be challenging and that Arkansans’ still fragile faith in state and local government would be tested.53 Another legacy of the past that represents a barrier to Arkansas’s continued consequential advancement are the limits on the professionalism of certain portions of the state government. Worse still, the introduction of strict term limits into the state legislature has stiﬂed the evolution of that institution. Thus, the lack of governmental professionalism provides another obstacle to state government’s ability to grapple successfully with the most complicated public policy matters facing contemporary Arkansas. Probably the most persistent and damning indictment of traditional southern and Arkansas politics is that it was simply a diversionary sideshow, with no particular relevance to solving state problems. As Thomas D. Clark accurately noted, “For a vast majority of southerners playing at politics, it has been not necessarily the democratic process in action so much as a thoroughly delightful sport.” Claude Fulks, writing speciﬁcally of Arkansas, despaired in 1926 that “no issues of pith and moment ever divide the State

[362], (29)

Lines: 282 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[362], (29)

Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

363

into hostile camps. Its people frequently get het [sic] up, but it is invariably over something evanescent and inconsequential. Their interest in politics is never more than a sporting interest.” Robert A. Leﬂar, who participated in Arkansas’s traditional brand of politics, emphatically agreed: “Politics mattered only on election day.” Bill Clinton would later say that as late as his ﬁrst race for the governorship in 1978 the campaign was “a little bit like running for class president.”54 Undeniably, political ﬁghts over sports—whether state universities will face each other on the playing ﬁelds, how many games the Razorbacks will play in Little Rock, whether high school students with grade point averages below 2.0 will be denied the opportunity to participate in athletics, whether the number of ducks killed daily by hunters will be limited— consume an exceptional proportion of public and legislative energies at the state and local levels. (One observer of the state’s politics and sports has gone so far as to term Arkansas “a tailgate party masquerading as a state.”) But though Arkansans remain understandably skeptical that change will consistently occur as a result of governmental actions, the sentiment that Clinton expressed midway through his Arkansas career is generally shared by politicians and public alike: “We live in a state which has too long viewed politics as sport rather than a pathway to tomorrow.” Another observer, while mourning the lost “smarmy vitality” of some of the state’s most outrageous past political rascals, also acknowledged that “The new breed of politicians may not be any more altruistic than the old, but they have discovered that, for the time being anyway, the best way to stay in power is to do a good job. . . . The sad truth is that good government isn’t as interesting as bad government.”55 Arkansans, who have always preferred strong individuals in politics, have increasingly come to accept the value of energetic leaders and an active government as well. Undeniably, elements of entertainment and diversion still remain in Arkansas politics and government, but for the people, and for the politicians the people can now hold accountable, there is much less sport and much more substance. The vehicle that is representative democracy in Arkansas is better prepared to carry the state forward than at any point in its history. It remains an open question, however, whether that movement will be perceptible to Arkansans; in an increasingly complex and fast-changing world, travel in a low gear is often mistaken for standing still.

[Last Page] [363], (30)

Lines: 288 to ———

36.84001p ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [363], (30)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

chapter fifteen

For the Future: Suggested Sources

[First Page [364], (1) The effacing hand of time . . . cooperating with indifference and neglect, have sadly depleted the original sources of information from which this paper must be prepared. Jesse Turner, “The Constitution of 1836,” 1911

Lines: 0 to ———

7.5pt Pg At this writing, almost every aspect of Arkansas government and politics awaits our discipline’s attention. Diane Kincaid Blair, “The Study and Teaching of Arkansas Politics,” 1980

Arkansas politics is no longer what it was, but it is not yet certain what it will be. Change, of course, is characteristic of all political systems, providing students of politics with both their greatest incentives and their gravest inhibitions. Even the most careful descriptions and insights can quickly become obsolete or inaccurate as the subject of study alters. This truism applies with particular force when the subject is Arkansas, both because the political process is still in transition and because the serious study of Arkansas politics remains in its formative stages. Until recent decadesArkansas had one of the least studied political systems in America. Furthermore, the task of locating useful information about its government and politics was monumentally frustrating. There was no true state library; there was no authoritative bibliographic control of state publications; and there had been little systematic analysis of Arkansas’s political institutions and behavior by political scientists. Fortunately, dramatic improvement on all fronts has occurred in the recent past. The rise of new electronic resources has further eased the challenges for students of Arkansas politics. In 1979 the Arkansas Library Commission moved into a spacious new building on the capitol grounds in Little Rock and under Act 489 of the

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [364], (1)

For the Future

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

365

Arkansas legislature was reconstituted as the Arkansas State Library. Even more important from a research standpoint, section 8 of that act provided that the Arkansas State Library “shall become the ofﬁcial depository for State and local documents” and “shall create and maintain a State and Local Government Publications Clearinghouse.” All agencies of the state and its subdivisions are required by this act to furnish copies of each of their publications to the state library, which catalogues and houses them and establishes depository arrangements with local libraries (city, county, regional, college). Between 1980 and 1994 Arkansas Documents was published quarterly; a cumulative index for that period is available on microﬁche. Now the primary search tool is, of course, the library’s on-line catalogue, which can be accessed through the library’s Web site (www.asl.lib.ar.us; all Web addresses reported in this overview are as of mid-2004). Though not all agencies consistently send all publications to the clearinghouse, the researcher who once had to stumble in several different directions will ﬁnd that the search for ofﬁcial state publications has been enormously simpliﬁed. In addition, the lending policy for the library’s expansive Arkansas collection, including the state documents, is quite generous. Another light in the darkness is the activity of the Arkansas Political Science Association. Established in 1973, its annual meetings have stimulated the preparation of several papers on Arkansas government, politics, and public policy. Some of those papers have appeared as articles in the various incarnations of the association’s journal: Arkansas Political Science Journal (1980–87), Midsouth Political Science Journal (1988–1992), and The Midsouth Political Science Review (which began annual publication in 1997). Information about the journal, the annual meeting of the association, and the association generally, is available on the association’s Web site (www.idesigns-inc.com/ArkPSA/index.htm). The establishment of the University of Arkansas Press in 1980 has provided additional incentives and outlets for scholars and writers dealing with Arkansas subjects. Other, smaller presses have also made contributions to the growing cluster of books about the practice and analysis of Arkansas politics. Of course, the single greatest boon to those doing original research on Arkansas government is the ofﬁcial state Web site (www.accessarkansas.org). It provides twenty-four-hour access to all branches of the state government as well as all the agencies within the executive branch. In addition to many of the ofﬁcial documents available at the state library, the sites falling under the umbrella of www.accessarkansas.org post numerous other research jewels. The researcher may still have to do some imaginative detective work

[365], (2)

Lines: 67 to 7 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [365], (2)

366

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

For the Future

and suffer the dread fear that a major source has been overlooked because nobody except its author knows that it exists. However, studying Arkansas politics and government is much less daunting now than it was in the recent past. Furthermore, although Arkansas documents remain occasionally inaccessible, government and political organization ofﬁcials and employees are usually quite accessible and cooperative. A call or electronic message to a state agency requesting materials ordinarily produces them. If not, state legislators are glad to request desired documents for their constituents, and their requests are speedily satisﬁed. What follows is a selective guide to major reference materials on Arkansas government and politics. general reference works Almanacs, Directories, Atlases The single most comprehensive compilation of information on Arkansas government and politics is the Historical Report of the Secretary of State (Little Rock: Secretary of State). Published every ten years, the 1998 edition was more streamlined than previous versions (especially the data-ﬁlled three-volume 1978 edition). Nevertheless, it included historical rosters of elected executive ofﬁcials, judges, general assemblies, and county ofﬁcials; biographies of incumbent statewide ofﬁcials; and summary election returns for presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial elections since the state’s admission. Since the Historical Report is published decennially, the best current guides to who’s who in Arkansas are the following publications (print and on-line): Guide to Arkansas Elected Ofﬁcials (Little Rock: Secretary of State) lists names, addresses, and phone numbers of federal, state, and county executive, judicial, and legislative ofﬁcials. It is also posted on the secretary of state’s Web site. Arkansas African American Directory of Elected Ofﬁcials (Little Rock: Secretary of State) lists names, addresses, and phone numbers of African American ofﬁcials at all levels of government in the state. This directory is also posted on the secretary of state’s Web site. Arkansas Election: Candidate Proﬁles for the Primary Election (Little Rock: Arkansas Legislative Digest, Inc.) is published biennially and gives exceptionally detailed biographical information about candidates (and, by extension, ofﬁceholders) based on surveys.

[366], (3)

Lines: 75 t ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [366], (3)

For the Future

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

367

Web sites of the executive branch ofﬁcials as well as each house of the General Assembly list biographical information and contact information for each elected state ofﬁcial. A number of interest groups also publish print versions of legislative directories for each session of the General Assembly. Arkansas Judicial Directory (Little Rock: Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts) lists all judges and court personnel in the state. It is posted on the Web site of the state judiciary (www.courts.state.ar.us). Directory of Arkansas Municipal Ofﬁcials (North Little Rock: Arkansas Municipal League) lists all city ofﬁcials in the state and includes contact information. Monthly updates to the directory are posted on the Municipal League’s Web site (www.arml.org). Arkansas State Directory (North Little Rock: Heritage Publishing) lists major departments, their functions, personnel, and phone numbers. It was last published in 1992.

Another valuable comprehensive reference is Government in Arkansas, 1993 (Little Rock: League of Women Voters of Arkansas). It provides a carefully researched overview of government institutions and their functions at state, county, and municipal levels. It also reviews major constitutional provisions and important state laws regarding elections and political parties. An update of this handbook, now in its sixth edition and increasingly dated, is scheduled to be published in the near future. Much more comprehensive, Henry M. Alexander’s Government in Arkansas (Little Rock: Pioneer Press, 1963) was once the bible of Arkansas government but is now seriously dated. Richard M. Smith’s The Atlas of Arkansas (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1989) describes (with numerous maps and charts as well as narration) important physical, social, and economic characteristics of the state. Its contents include land, water, and forest regions; mineral and agricultural resources; population and employment patterns; health, education, transportation, and ﬁnancial data. In addition, the Web site of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Institute for Economic Advancement includes geographical data on Arkansas’s counties and municipalities (www.aiea.ualr.edu). The State Data Center, housed at the Institute, also makes available downloadable state and county maps on the Institute’s Web site. Bibliographies and Listings Researchers on Arkansas government and politics might well begin with the hundreds of books, articles, dissertations, and other materials referenced in

[367], (4)

Lines: 103 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [367], (4)

368

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

For the Future

this book’s chapter notes. It is noteworthy how many of the scholarly materials we cite have been produced since the publication of the ﬁrst edition of this book. Though we have retained much in this edition, researchers should also consult the ﬁrst edition’s text and notes for additional examples and citations from the recent past. The following describes other bibliographies, and the ways in which they supplement the sources cited in this volume: Joan Ahrens and Joan Roberts, “Arkansas Reference Sources,” Arkansas Libraries 34 (June 1977): 2–12, and Elizabeth C. McKee, “Arkansas Reference Sources,” Arkansas Libraries 45 (December 1988) and 46 (March 1989), 6–10. Organized by subject, including bibliographies and indexes, literature and folklore, government and law, U.S. government documents, business and economics, social conditions, labor, history and biography, education, agriculture and environment, maps and atlases. Although now dated, these bibliographies remain useful. Each essay in The Governors of Arkansas, edited by Timothy P. Donovan, Willard B. Gatewood, and Jeannie M. Whayne (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1995), second edition, includes an extensive bibliographic essay on that gubernatorial era. Dougan, Michael B., Tom W. Dillard, and Timothy G. Nutt, Arkansas History: An Annotated Bibliography (Greenwood ct: Greenwood Press, 1995) contains references to 2,970 publications on Arkansas, including articles dealing with Arkansas politics and government from a historical perspective. Norman L. Hodges Jr., Thirty Years on Arkansas Government 1945–1975: A Bibliographic Essay on the Political Science Literature on Arkansas State Government and Politics (North Little Rock: Heritage Press, 1976). An exhaustive and excellent ﬁfty-six-page survey of both original and secondary sources, including references toArkansas in general political science literature. Hodges evaluates as well as lists, and is limited only by the paucity of worthwhile materials in the time covered. McKee, Elizabeth C., and Andrea Cantrell, Arkansas Periodical Index, 1981–1985 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Libraries, 1990). This printed volume included about ﬁfty-ﬁve hundred citations from Arkansas journals and magazines. Since that date, the index has been expanded to include about twenty-four thousand citations. Unfortunately, at this date, this database is accessible only by students and faculty who have user privileges at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s Mullins Library. The introduction to Richard P. Wang and Michael B. Dougan’s reader of articles on the state’s politics, Arkansas Politics: A Reader (Fayetteville: M &

[368], (5)

Lines: 130 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [368], (5)

For the Future

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

369

M Press, 1997), also serves as an overview of the history of the study of the state’s political development.

Finally, the winter edition of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly annually includes a bibliography of the works in Arkansas history, “broadly deﬁned,” that were published during the preceding year. This list always includes a signiﬁcant number of political journalism and political science entries. state documents, by source Legislature The Arkansas General Assembly remains woefully underdocumented, although the Internet has improved information for the most recent sessions. No verbatim transcript of legislative proceedings is maintained, committee meetings are not transcribed, nor are committee reports published. One copy of each issue of the Legislative Journal (dating from 1836) is kept in the secretary of state’s ofﬁce in the capitol basement, where those interested may peruse its brief synopsis of daily events. Before the 1997 session, the state’s newspapers did print roll-call votes on highly controversial issues. Other than that, however, one must consult the original Journal. Starting with the 1997 session, however, it is possible to examine on the General Assembly Web site (www.arkleg.state.ar.us) all roll-call votes on bills and resolutions as well as the full text of those proposals and those that eventually became statutes. For previous sessions, the Acts of Arkansas—which contain all laws enacted and is well indexed—was printed after each regular session of the legislature. Another resource that was more relevant in the days before the Arkansas Code became available on-line is Arkansas Statutes Annotated (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, ﬁrst published in 1947). It was the only reliable guide as to whether a law was still in effect. The up-to-date code, as well as the state constitution as amended, are both available at www.accessarkansas.org. Access to the workings of the legislature, of course, promises to become wider, although the limitations in staff size, particularly on committees, will remain a problem for researchers. The most essential guide to the legislature is the semiofﬁcial Arkansas Legislative Digest (Little Rock: Legislative Reports), published daily when the legislature is in session (for a charge). An on-line version is available at (www.ardigest.com). A loose-leaf publication, thoroughly indexed by bill number, subject, and author, it summarizes daily actions, lists new introduc-

[369], (6)

Lines: 152 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [369], (6)

370

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

For the Future

tions with a descriptive digest, and prints verbatim those bills ﬁnally enacted. The print version also includes rosters, seniority rankings, biographical data, committee assignments, and seating arrangements. Aside from the descriptive materials available on the Web sites of the General Assembly, house, and senate, the only noteworthy publications of the legislature itself are the research reports prepared for individual state legislators by the Legislative Council staff. A Listing of Research Reports, Informational Memos, and Staff Reports (Little Rock: Arkansas Bureau of Legislative Research) was periodically updated between 1949 and 1975. The collection of these documents is available at the state library. Although many of these topics are of dubious interest to the general researcher (for example, beaver control, mandatory motorcycle helmets, mosquito abatement), the topics also include general governmental issues (for example, campaign ﬁnance laws, grand juries, removal of judges, constitutional revision methods). Also available on the General Assembly Web site are some special commission reports as well as interim study proposals and budget data for more recent sessions. Finally, legislative audit reports are available on the Web site of the Division of Legislative Audit (www.legaudit.state.ar.us). Though not an ofﬁcial legislative publication, Call the Roll, by Representative Jerry E. Hinshaw (Little Rock: Department of Arkansas Heritage and Rose Publishing, 1986), is an excellent history of the ﬁrst 150 years of the Arkansas legislature. It includes a good bibliography and some valuable appendixes: number of bills ﬁled and enacted since 1950; proposed amendments to the constitution and their disposition; and an alphabetical roster of all who served in the General Assembly from 1836 to 1985. Executive The secretary of state is the ofﬁcial custodian of the state’s legal records and also publishes many of the most important state documents. Secretary of State Sharon Priest’s two terms in ofﬁce coincided with the Internet’s expansion into the public realm. Fortunately for students of the state’s politics, Priest was committed to increasing access to state documents via that medium. In addition to the decennial Historical Report and the directories noted earlier, a number of other essential publications are regularly updated by the secretary of state’s ofﬁce: Arkansas Register, published monthly since August 1977. This welcome

[370], (7)

Lines: 177 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [370], (7)

For the Future

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

371

publication contains all new rules, regulations, and orders issued by most of the state’s departments, agencies, and commissions; all opinions of the attorney general in their entirety; gubernatorial appointments, proclamations, and executive orders; and a calendar of upcoming ofﬁcial events. The Register, backdated to 2000, is available online at www.sosweb.state.ar.us/admin rules ar register.html. Elections 101: An Overview of the Election Process in Arkansas was a regularly updated, user-friendly overview of the key players in Arkansas’s election process with an explanation of their responsibilities published through 2002. Much of that information is now included in a biennial Candidate Information Booklet published by the secretary of state’s ofﬁce. More information about registering to vote as well as other information for prospective voters is also found on the elections division section of the secretary of state’s Web site. Though now somewhat dated, Sherry Walker’s Arkansas Election Laws: A Comparative Study (Little Rock: League of Women Voters of Arkansas, 1988) is also a strong piece on this general issue. Additional information about elections and ethics data made available by the secretary of state’s ofﬁce is reported later in this overview.

The governor’s ofﬁce Web site and the sites of the other constitutional ofﬁcers, all accessible through www.accessarkansas.org, offers an increasing range of content, including texts of speeches, press releases, staff data, and other information about the workings and initiatives of the ofﬁce. For example, the Web page of the Arkansas lieutenant governor includes biographical information on all former lieutenant governors. All of the major state departments and agencies make regular reports to the governor, which are generally posted along with large amounts of other information on the ofﬁces’ operations on their Web sites, again accessible through www.accessarkansas.org. Particularly important are the reports and data included on the sites of the Department of Finance and Administration (www.state.ar/dfa) and the Department of Education (www.arkedu.state. ar.us). In addition, many of the more consequential boards and commissions have active Web sites that post information about their history, membership, and ongoing activities. Judiciary The state’s judicial branch has also taken good advantage of the opportunities presented by electronic media, providing considerably more access to the state court system than in the recent past.

[371], (8)

Lines: 200 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [371], (8)

372

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

For the Future

The most notable hard-copy publications of the judicial branch are the following: Judicial Department, Annual Report. Published since 1964, it describes jurisdictions of minor courts and duties of court ofﬁcials and also includes statistics, maps, and graphs relevant to court administration. Much of the information available in the annual report is also kept current on the state judiciary Web site (www.courts.state.ar.us). Statistical Supplement to the Annual Report of the Judiciary. This lengthy report includes the numbers behind the aggregate statistics reported in the Annual Report. Friends of the Court, a bimonthly newsletter published by the Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts, provides updates on the workings and personnel of the state courts. Suspended in early 2003 because of web access to court opinions (available at courts.state.ar.us), Arkansas Advance Reports, published at irregular intervals, contained the decisions of the Arkansas supreme court. Decisions of both the supreme court and court of appeals back to 1994 are available (and searchable) on the judiciary Web site, along with the dockets for the courts.

Administrative rules and orders of the supreme court, which are particularly pertinent during Arkansas’s transition to the new state court system as a result of amendment 80, are also posted on the Web site.

[372], (9)

Lines: 225 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [372], (9)

secondary source materials Newspapers, Journals, Newsletters The state’s oldest newspaper, the Arkansas Gazette, published from 1819 to October 1991. Microﬁlm copies of virtually all issues exist in major libraries. Fortunately for researchers, most years of the Gazette are indexed, and the quality of the Arkansas Gazette Index (Russellville: Arkansas Tech University Library) steadily improved over the years. Microﬁlm copies of the state’s other major newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat, are available from October 1878 to June 1892, and from January 1898 to 1991. Since these two newspapers frequently espoused different political philosophies, it is always wise to check both papers’ coverage of any political event. In 1991, the Democrat became the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The paper is not indexed, but it is possible to search the paper’s archives on its Web site (www.ardemgaz.com). Also providing daily statewide coverage is the Arkansas News Bureau (formerly the Donrey News Bureau), which, as

For the Future

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

373

of 2003, partners with eight dailies around the state. Its archives are also searchable from the bureau’s Web site (www.arkansasnews.com). College and public libraries often have back issues of their local and regional newspapers, many of which are of excellent quality. For example, Brenda Blagg of Springdale’s Morning News of Northwest Arkansas has paid faithful attention to local government over the years, providing scores of articles and columns analyzing the intricacies of substate operations. Useful in this respect is Robert A. Meriwether, compiler, A Chronicle of Arkansas Newspapers Published since 1922 and of the Arkansas Press Association, 1930–1972 (Little Rock: Arkansas Press Association, 1974). Of course, many of these local papers now have Web versions of their papers, which include some degree of access to their archives. Three Little Rock independent newspapers are also important to note. Excellent political pieces frequently appear in the weekly Arkansas Times. Before the Gazette closed a monthly magazine, the Times (www.arktimes.com), became a home to many veterans from the Gazette.. Another Little Rock weekly that died in the early 1990s, Spectrum, showcased talented writers on Arkansas politics and government. Many of the Spectrum’s strongest pieces are catalogued in A Spectrum Reader (Little Rock: August House Publishers, Inc., 1991). A weekly business journal, Arkansas Business, published since 1984, regularly has news and analyses on business and the relationship between politics and a variety of business sectors. Its archives are searchable at the Arkansas Business Web site, www.arkansasbusiness.com. Furthermore, Arkansas has been blessed with some world-class cartoonists whose periodic collections are ﬁlled with political insight. See, for example, George Fisher’s Old Guard Rest Home (1984), All Around the Farkleberry Bush (1967), Fisher’s Gallery (1974), and Fisher’s Annual Report (1980), all published by Rose Publishing Company in Little Rock, as well as The Best of Fisher (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1993). See also Jon Kennedy’s Look Back and Laugh (Little Rock: Pioneer Press, 1978) and Vic Harville’s Rounding Up the Usual Suspects (Upland, CA: Dragonﬂyer Press, 2002). Several of the state’s major interest groups publish monthly or periodic newsletters, which often have interesting political information. Examples include the Arkansas Educator, the Arkansas Lawyer, and City and Town, the monthly publication of the Arkansas Municipal League. The Municipal League also regularly publishes a Handbook for Arkansas Municipal Ofﬁcials (the most recent edition was in 2002). This lengthy publication contains all statutes affecting municipal government, many court decisions

[373], (10)

Lines: 264 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [373], (10)

374

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

For the Future

interpreting those statutes, and additional information on municipal law, elections, and practices. Finally, the Arkansas Historical Quarterly frequently contains articles on past political events. Published quarterly since 1942 by the Arkansas Historical Association, its index is an excellent reference. Research Bureaus and Foundations The Institute for Economic Advancement (iea) is the research arm of the College of Business at ualr. It conducts a broad range of research and advisory programs for both the public and private sectors. It also publishes regular reports on Arkansas’s population and economy, some of which are described in the next section, Statistical Information, as well as special studies for local governments and industrial clients. Though more recent analyses are reported on the iea’s Web site (www.aiea.ualr.edu), Reports and Publications (Little Rock: Research and Public Service Unit, ualr) is a good guide to some valuable data from past iea reports. The Center for Business and Economic Research (cber) at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville (uaf) has two major objectives: to develop and report measures of state and regional business economic activity and to facilitate faculty and student research and publication in business and economics. Its publication, the Arkansas Business and Economic Review, has been published quarterly since 1968 and often contains useful socioeconomic data. Many of the most recent publications are available on the cber Web site (cber.uark.edu). The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation has periodically published studies of important public issues in Arkansas, for example, Building a Better Arkansas Tax System: Evaluating the Options (1997) and Educating Arkansas: Public School Funding in the 1990s (1997) (Little Rock: Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation). Even more regularly,ArkansasAdvocates for Children & Families, founded in 1977, publishes data-ﬁlled reports on a variety of issues related to the well-being of children (e.g., education, juvenile justice, and health care). Most publications are available via the group’s Web site (www.aradvocates.org). In 2004, the Ofﬁce of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas began publishing a regular newsletter, available on line at http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/Newsletters.htm, that includes data and analysis on education issues in the state. The Arkansas Policy Foundation (www.reformarkansas.org), a think tank focused on promoting governmental efﬁciency and economic growth, also regularly releases reports on a variety of governmental reform and tax issues.

[374], (11)

Lines: 272 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[374], (11)

For the Future

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

375

Historical Societies and Special Collections About the time of the Arkansas sesquicentennial in 1986, a ﬂurry of good materials and texts on Arkansas history began to be published that have dramatically enhanced our understanding of Arkansas’s past. Many of these were cited in the early chapters of this work. In addition to the Dougan, Dillard, and Nutt bibliography noted in the General Reference Works section, the following books and their bibliographies are invaluable: Michael B. Dougan’s Arkansas Odyssey: The Saga of Arkansas from Prehistoric Times to the Present (Little Rock: Rose Publishing Company, 1993); Arkansas: A Narrative History (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2002), edited by Jeannie M. Whayne, Thomas A. DeBlack, George Sabo III, and Morris S. Arnold; and the books in the University of Arkansas Press’s Histories of Arkansas series—S. Charles Bolton’s Arkansas 1800–1860, Remote and Restless (1998), Thomas A. DeBlack’s With Fire and Sword, Arkansas 1861– 1874 (2003), Carl Moneyhon’s Arkansas and the New South, 1874–1929 (1997), and Ben F. Johnson’s Arkansas in Modern America, 1930–1999 (2000). Even before the sesquicentennial, the establishment of the Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies at uaf) and the Center of Arkansas Studies at ualr had begun to stimulate scholarly attention on Arkansas’s past through special studies, exhibits, symposia, lecture series, and occasional publications. More recently, the Richard C. Butler Center for Arkansas Studies based at the Main Library in the Central Arkansas Library System in downtown Little Rock, has energized the study of and public conversations about Arkansas history and culture. The Center offers an ongoing series of symposia on topics related to Arkansas studies, maintains a Web site (www.cals.lib.ar.us/butlercenter) that presents a number of outstanding resources for teachers of Arkansas history, and, in 2003, launched a multiyear project to develop an encyclopedia of Arkansas. Finally, in addition to the Arkansas Historical Association’s Arkansas Historical Quarterly, many counties have well-established historical societies, some of which issue a regular publication. The Arkansas History Commission has a fairly large collection for public use, including some of the papers of former governors. Announced in 2003, the new Alliance for the Study of Arkansas History and Politics will be located near the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum and will house Bill Clinton’s gubernatorial papers as well as the gubernatorial papers of Governors Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers, Frank White, and Jim Guy Tucker. The Alliance—a joint venture between the Central Arkansas

[375], (12)

Lines: 296 to ———

6.5pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [375], (12)

376

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

For the Future

Library System (cals) and ualr—will also bring together materials previously housed at cals’ Butler Center for Arkansas Studies and the ualr Archives. For instance, it will include the historical collection of J. N. Heiskell (who was editor of the Arkansas Gazette for more than seventy years) and an extensive political broadside collection containing speeches, posters, campaign documents, and paraphernalia from 1890 to the present. Special Collections at the uaf Library include the papers of Governors Orval Faubus, Sid McMath, Charles Brough, George Donaghey, Thomas McRae, and Jeff Davis; Governor/Senators Joseph T. Robinson and David Pryor; Senators Thaddeus and Hattie Caraway, and J. William Fulbright; and Congressmen Oren Harris, Brooks Hays, John Paul Hammerschmidt, Asa Hutchinson, Ed Bethune, and Beryl Anthony. Congressman Wilbur D. Mills’s papers are at Hendrix College in Conway. Harding University houses the congressional and senatorial papers of Tim Hutchinson. Senator John L. McClellan’s papers are at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia (where Governor Mike Huckabee and Congressmen Jay Dickey and Mike Ross have committed their papers as well). And Governor Ben Laney’s are archived at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. Abington Library at the Arkansas State University-Beebe campus houses a collection of original cartoons of George Fisher. The published memoirs of many of those key actors in Arkansas politics should also be noted. Brooks Hays’s Politics Is My Parish: An Autobiography (Louisiana State University Press, 1981), J. William Fulbright’s The Price of Empire (with Seth P. Tillman, New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), Sid McMath’s Promises Kept: A Memoir (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2003), Orval Faubus’s Down from the Hills (Conway: River Road Press, 1980) and Down from the Hills, Two (Little Rock: Democrat Printing & Lithographing Company, 1985), and Dale Bumpers’s The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town (New York: Random House, 2003) give insight into the key events in the state’s political history. Another personal account of a swath of Arkansas political history comes from a key campaign reporter from the Faubus through Clinton era, John Robert Starr’s Yellow Dogs and Dark Horses (Little Rock: August House, 1987). A variety of ﬁrst-person perspectives on the most thoroughly analyzed of modern Arkansas historical events, the Little Rock Central High Crisis, also are insightful aboutArkansas politics and society more generally. uaf Special Collections also maintains the Arkansas Archives of Public Communication, which included printed campaign materials from the 1880s to present and hundreds of audio- and videotape cassettes of individual

[376], (13)

Lines: 304 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[376], (13)

For the Future

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

377

interviews, documentaries, and campaign commercials. In 1999, the David Pryor’s donation of unexpended campaign funds to uaf established the Arkansas Center for Oral and Visual History, which will capture the remembrances of many who have insights into the shaping of Arkansas (including its politics). For example, the transcript of an interview with the late Diane D. Blair, in which she discusses her participation in and study of Arkansas politics, is part of that collection. The largest portion of the collection is a series of interviews with individuals who were part of the Arkansas Gazette’s history; approximately forty interviews have been completed for that project. The uaf’s Arkansas Archives of Political Communication is particularly strong in Clinton-related offerings. Numerous published works, of course, which include descriptions and analyses of Clinton’s Arkansas years, have been published or are destined for publication. Of course, the autobiographies of Bill Clinton (My Life, New York: Knopf, 2004) and Hillary Clinton (Living History, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003) also include signiﬁcant sections on their experiences in Arkansas politics. Moreover, it is worthwhile to note several published primary sources on the Clinton years in Arkansas: a set of selected pre-presidential speeches by Bill Clinton published in Preface to the Presidency (Stephen A. Smith, editor, Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1996) and Arkansans’ memories of Bill and Hillary Clinton at the time of the ﬁrst presidential election, The Clintons of Arkansas (Ernest Dumas, editor, Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1993). statistical information First published in 1986, the biennial Arkansas Statistical Abstract (Little Rock: State Data Center, Institute for Economic Advancement, ualr) is a priceless research tool. Patterned after the Statistical Abstract of the United States, it regularly contains over seven hundred pages of data on population and vital statistics; government expenditures and employment; income and wealth; elections; labor force, employment, and earnings; and other statistics essential for the serious study of Arkansas politics. Economic and Fiscal In addition to the Statistical Abstract, the researchers at ualr’s iea publish the Arkansas Personal Income Handbook, which annually presents the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates of total and per capita personal

[377], (14)

Lines: 308 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [377], (14)

378

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

For the Future

income by county as well as the sources of personal income by type and major industry. It is posted on the iea Web site. The uaf’s Center for Business and Economic Research also publishes a number of helpful ﬁscal data reports, which are included in the center’s database. These include the quarterly, Arkansas Quick Stats, which gives employment, income, and business development data by county. The Department of Finance and Administration is another excellent source of ﬁscal and economic data. The Budget Ofﬁce of dfa produces numerous budget documents on a regular basis, including reports on state revenue and state employees, appropriations enacted by the previous General Assembly, and summaries of executive recommendations and legislative authorizations by agency. These are all accessible at www.state.ar.us/dfa/budget/index.html. Arkansas Fiscal Notes, published monthly and available on the Web site just given, includes general revenue receipts, a comparison with forecast results, and the implications for appropriations. Changes in tax laws and procedures are noted quarterly in the State Revenue Tax Quarterly, which is published by dfa’s revenue division. Finally, the Department of Economic Development chronicles the activities of the state’s employers. It regularly issues reports on trends in employment and productivity, such as information on the Arkansas gross state product (the value of all goods and services produced in Arkansas by industrial, government, and service sectors).

[378], (15)

Lines: 328 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[378], (15) Demographic The State Data Center at ualr is the ofﬁcial custodian of all U.S. Bureau of the Census data for Arkansas, which must be made available to the public. Much of the information essential for political scientists is now compiled in the Arkansas Statistical Abstract. A considerable amount of information is available on the Data Center’s Web site (www.aiea.ualr.edu/csdc/default. html). Between decennial censuses, the center issues population projections by county and city, including projections by sex, race, and age. In addition, some relatively recent publications contain extensive data on speciﬁc subgroups: Children’s Research Center, Children and Child Care Issues in Arkansas, 2001 (Little Rock: Children’s Research Center, iea, 2002); Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families, The Next Generation: Arkansas Kids Count Data Book (Little Rock: Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families, 2001); Institute for Women’s Policy Research, The Status of Women in Arkansas (Washington dc: Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2000).

For the Future

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

379

Finally, the demographic data that is pertinent to the decennial reapportionment of the legislature and redrawing of district lines is also available. The census information the Board of Apportionment used speciﬁcally for the 2000 reapportionment is available on the Board’s Web site: www.state.ar.us/arkdistrict/index.html. The state legislative and congressional district maps are available on the Web site of the elections division of the secretary of state. Voting Return Information Voting returns are ofﬁcially maintained by the secretary of state and can be inspected in that ofﬁce in the capitol or in libraries where microﬁlm copies exist. Election results for major ofﬁces go back to 1836. Detailed voting returns for statewide ofﬁces go back to 1924 and for state legislative positions to the early 1940s. Totals are tabulated both by county and precinct. The county totals are on printed sheets (which can be photocopied and mailed to researchers upon request), but precinct returns are in large books, which must be hand copied for elections before 1992. From 1976 until 1994 the secretary of state published primary and general-election returns, by county, for all statewide races and ballot issues, as well as outcomes in all district and state legislative races, in the biennial Arkansas Elections (1976–1982) and Arkansas Election Results (1984–1994) (Little Rock: Secretary of State). From 1992 on, the voting data is accessible on the Web site of the elections division of the secretary of state’s ofﬁce, www.sosweb.state.ar.us/elections.html. Regularly updated, a History of Initiatives and Referenda 1938–2002, posted on the site shows the voting returns for each constitutional amendment, initiative, and referenda. In addition, the elections division’s Petition Guide for Sponsors & Canvassers, also posted on their Web site, provides a thorough overview of Arkansas’s initiative and referendum process. Similarly, the site also posts detailed information for prospective candidates for ofﬁce in Arkansas (also posted on the site) on the procedures for ﬁling and running for ofﬁce in the state. Voting returns for county and city ofﬁces are kept by the county and city clerks. Since 1993, the secretary of state’s election division has also published, and placed on the Web, The Voters’ Choice, a document that is focused on voter registration and turnout. The publication includes historical data on

[379], (16)

Lines: 351 to ———

13.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [379], (16)

380

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

For the Future

turnout at the county and state levels. If the years covered by the following publications are relevant to your research, also see: Insights. Published by the Institute of Politics in Arkansas from 1972 to 1976; representative titles include “Voter Participation in Arkansas” (March 1973) and “The General Election: On the Decline?” (January 1974). Arkansas Votes 1972 and Arkansas Votes 1974. Also by the institute. Includes election data on every race above the county level for these years. Jim Ranchino, Faubus to Bumpers, Arkansas Votes, 1960–1970 (Arkadelphia: Action Research, 1972). Major elections plus analysis.

Political Parties Both of the state’s political parties maintain Web sites and publish irregular newsletters. The Republican Party of Arkansas’s site is www.arkansasgop. org; the Democratic Party of Arkansas’s site is www.arkdems.org. Each party site also includes links to party auxiliary organizations and those few county organizations that have a web presence. In addition, though now somewhat dated, the list of resources included in Diane D. Blair and W. Jay Barth’s “Arkansas,” in State Party Proﬁles: A 50-State Guide to Development, Organization, and Resources (Washington dc: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1996), remains a good starting point for scholars researching the two state party organizations. Campaign Contribution Information and Ethics Filings State (and federal) laws on campaign contributions and conﬂicts of interest also provide sources of interesting information: campaign contribution and expenditure reports and code-of-ethics ﬁlings. Since 1976, all candidates for statewide and district ofﬁce have ﬁled reports with the secretary of state on campaign contributions. Initially, reports were only required on those contributions of more than $250; later revisions now require that contributions of $50 or more be itemized. These reports contain the name and occupation of the donor and the amount given. Similarly, candidates must now ﬁle itemized expenditure reports denoting expenditures greater than $50. Now archived to 1996, these reports are searchable on the secretary of state’s Web site. Though the reports are easy to access, the obvious incompleteness of the ﬁlings for several candidates for lower-level ofﬁces lessens their reliability. Candidates for local ofﬁce ﬁle their reports with

[380], (17)

Lines: 370 ———

6.5pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[380], (17)

For the Future

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

381

the county clerk. Political parties in the state must ﬁle annual contribution reports citing the name and occupations of donors who contribute more than $250 in a year. Since 1972, all public ofﬁcials and candidates for public ofﬁce have had to disclose any possible conﬂicts of interest (e.g., businesses in which they have a ﬁnancial interest or ﬁrms from which they received $1,500 or more). The 1990 ethics initiated act and later reforms have expanded reporting requirements about the ﬁnances of governmental ofﬁcials to include the sources of all income, gifts received, and any sale of goods or services to the state. These reports are ﬁled with the secretary of state, county clerk, or city clerk according to the ofﬁce held or sought. For the most recent years, these reports (as well as copies of the regulations and reporting forms) are also available on the secretary of state’s Web site. Finally, lobbyists and political action committees (pacs) must register and provide quarterly reporting of their activities. These documents are also available in a searchable database on the Web site. A considerable amount of other information pertinent to political and governmental ethics is available through the Arkansas Ethics Commission (www.arkansasethics.com). The ethics rules handed down by the commission as well as the ethics-related opinions of the commission and the attorney general are available on the commission’s site. Public Opinion Surveys Most public opinion surveys in Arkansas are conducted by candidates who, understandably, are reluctant to share the results of these very expensive investments. Particularly during election years and at times of other major public policy debates state newspapers will commission and report the ﬁndings from public opinion polls. These poll ﬁndings, typically presented only in the aggregate, are archived in the newspapers discussed earlier. However, in late 1999, the Department of Political Science at uaf established “The Arkansas Poll,” a statewide poll conducted each fall, that provides a wealth of information on Arkansans’ views of ofﬁceholders, politics, and policy issues. This rich reservoir of attitudinal data, now sponsored by the Diane Divers Blair Center for the Study of Southern Politics and Society, is accessible at plsc.uark.edu/arkpoll. Finally, as the references cited throughout this book should make obvious, there is much to be learned from what the political scientist Richard

[381], (18)

Lines: 406 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [381], (18)

382

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

For the Future

Fenno once described as “soaking and poking,” that is, attending candidate rallies and party conventions; spending time in the capitol hallways when the legislature is in session; participating in campaigns; serving on study commissions; and listening to coffee-shop conversation. Though the limits to formal, systematic study of Arkansas’s political system present formidable research obstacles, the informality of Arkansas politics presents endless opportunities for observation and understanding.

[Last Page

[382], (19)

Lines: 425 ———

413.840

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[382], (19)

Notes [First Page] [383], (1) preface 1. Governor Roane quoted in Clara B. Kerman, “The Birth of Public Schools,” in Arkansas: Colony and State, ed. Leland Duvall (Little Rock: Rose Publishing, 1973), 108; Governor Davis quoted in David M. Tucker, Arkansas: A People and Their Reputation (Memphis tn: Memphis State University Press, 1985), 63. 2. G. W. Featherstonaugh, Excursion through the Slave States (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1844), 95. 3. Governor Faubus speaking on Face the Nation, 31 August 1958. 1. the past in the present 1. The event received extensive coverage in “In Little Rock, a Plea to Close Racial Divide,” New York Times, 26 September 1997; and “Clinton: Progress But Also Perils,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 September 1997. 2. The Central High episode is one of the most thoroughly discussed events in recent Arkansas history. An extensive account is Tony Freyer, The Little Rock Crisis: A Constitutional Interpretation (Westport ct: Greenwood Press, 1984). David Wallace, “Orval Eugene Faubus,” in The Governors of Arkansas, 2nd ed., ed. Timothy P. Donovan, Willard B. Gatewood Jr., and Jeannie M. Whayne (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1995), provides an excellent bibliography, pp. 329– 31. For Faubus’s version, see Orval E. Faubus, Down from the Hills (Little Rock: Pioneer Press, 1980), chaps. 11–24. For a much more objective account see Roy Reed, Faubus (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997), 159–263, and several articles and interviews in the 19 September 1997 Arkansas Times. The Little Rock Crisis is placed in the broader historical context of African American activism in the city and state in John A. Kirk, Redeﬁning the Color Line: Black

Lines: 0 to 57 ———

12.606pt P ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [383], (1)

384

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Notes to Pages 2–5

Activism in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1940–1970 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002). Little Rock public schools were closed for the 1958 school year, and not a single new industry located in Little Rock from then until 1961 (Arkansas Democrat, 10 January 1982). Several analysts of modern southern politics attribute the militant segregationism of other southern governors to Faubus’s example. See Jack Bass and Walter DeVries, The Transformation of Southern Politics (New York: New American Library, 1977), 90; Monroe Lee Billington, The Political South in the Twentieth Century (New York: Scribner, 1975), 122; Earl Black, Southern Governors and Civil Rights (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), 99, 299. Bishop Turner quoted in The Freeman (Indianapolis), 5 January 1989; Mifﬂin W. Gibbs, Shadow and Light, An Autobiography (New York: Arno Press, 1968), 126, 131, 136–39. For Little Rock’s moderate racial climate, see also Freyer, Little Rock Crisis, 20–22. naacp director quoted in Robert A. Leﬂar, The First 100 Years, Centennial History of the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Foundation, 1972), 279. Leﬂar (pp. 275–88) provides details of the nonviolent integration of black students at the university. That some Arkansas blacks voted prior to the 1960s is noted by Boyce A. Drummond, “Arkansas Politics: A Study of a One-Party System” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1957), 76; and V. O. Key Jr., Southern Politics (New York: Random House, 1949), 639. Michael Rowett and Michael R. Wickline, “In Busy Day, Legislature Passes Bill to Create Daisy Bates Holiday,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 February 2001; Mark Minton, “Governor Signs Bill for Bates Holiday,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 22 February 2001; “Others Who Have Lain in State at Capitol,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 May 2003. It is assumed that Clinton received over 95 percent of the black vote in 1982; clearly, these ninety thousand or so voters were a key part of his seventy-eightthousand-vote margin. See John Brummett, “Clinton’s Appeal to Blacks Rests on Record, Skill,” Arkansas Gazette, 6 December 1982. Especially since Van Dalsem’s senator, Guy (“Mutt”) Jones, led the successful opposition to era ratiﬁcation, there is reason to doubt his genuine conversion to feminism. For a thorough analysis of these events, see Robert Thompson, “Barefoot and Pregnant: The Education of Paul Van Dalsem,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 57 (1998): 377–404. Hereafter cited as ahq. Governor Pope quoted in Lonnie J. White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier: Arkansas Territory, 1819–1836 (Memphis tn: Memphis State University Press, 1964), 158. Governor McMath’s caravan described in Jim Lester, A Man for Arkansas (Little Rock: Rose Publishing, 1976), 142–43.

[384], (2)

Lines: 57 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE [384], (2)

Notes to Pages 6–10 385 10. Donovan, Gatewood, and Whayne, Governors of Arkansas, 22–23, 99–100. Governor Brough quoted in C. Fred Williams, S. Charles Bolton, Carl H. Moneyhon, and Leroy T. Williams, eds., A Documentary History of Arkansas (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1984), 191–92. 11. For the politics surrounding the antievolution referendum, see Calvin R. Ledbetter Jr., “The Antievolution Law: Church and State in Arkansas,” ahq 38 (1979): 299–327. 12. Washburn quoted in Boyd W. Johnson, The Arkansas Frontier (n.p.: Perdue Printing, 1957), 9; Mencken quoted in Arkansas Democrat, 3 August 1921. 13. Attitudes on Arkansas (Little Rock: University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Center for Urban and Governmental Affairs, 1982), 2; “Research to Determine Strategy for Business Marketing for the State of Arkansas,” prepared for the State of Arkansas by Yankelovich, Skelly and White, Inc., 1984; Bob Stover, “Newspaper Proves Point of State Ad,” Arkansas Gazette, 1 June 1985; Diane D. Blair, “Arkansas: Ground Zero in the Presidential Race,” in The 1992 Presidential Election in the South, ed. Robert P. Steed, Laurence W. Moreland, and Tod A. Baker (Westport ct: Praeger, 1994), 109. The December 2002 labeling of Alabama as “Arkansas” on a map on the front page of the business section of the Washington Post (Jonathan Weisman, “A House-Poor Formula?,” 13 December 2002) leads one to question whether the Clinton presidency had any permanent impact on enhancing Americans’ geographical knowledge of the state. 14. The most thorough account of the Family’s operations is Donald A. Stokes, “Public Affairs in Arkansas, 1836–50” (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1966). For additional details and equally harsh assessments see S. Charles Bolton, Arkansas, 1800–1860: Remote and Restless (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1998), 23–47; A. L. Bramlett and David Y. Thomas, “Part I: 1541–1865,” in Arkansas and Its People, ed. David Y. Thomas (New York: American Historical Society, 1930), 84–112; Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, 12–22; Elsie M. Lewis, “Economic Conditions in Ante-Bellum Arkansas,” ahq 6 (1947): 256–74; and Tucker, Arkansas, 19–26. 15. Stokes, “Public Affairs,” 448. 16. On the centrality of slavery to the statehood movement, see Calvin R. Ledbetter Jr., “The Constitution of 1836: A New Perspective,” ahq 41 (1982): 215– 52; White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier, chap. 1; Waddy W. Moore, “Territorial Arkansas, 1819–1836,” in Historical Report of the Secretary of State, Arkansas, vol. 3 (Little Rock: Arkansas Secretary of State, 1978), 40– 57. Tucker, Arkansas, 20–21, suggests that the planters’ desire for a state bank was the most powerful incentive. On the issueless nature of elections, see Harold Truman Smith, “Arkansas Politics, 1850–1861” (master’s thesis, Memphis State

[385], (3)

Lines: 79 to 1 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [385], (3)

386

17. 18.

19.

20.

21.

22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

27.

Notes to Pages 10–13

University, 1964); and Gene W. Boyett, “The Whigs of Arkansas, 1836–1856” (PhD diss., Louisiana State University, 1972). Ballou’s Pictorial, April 7, 1855. Michael B. Dougan, “Harris Flanagin,” in Governors of Arkansas, 38. In Confederate Arkansas, Dougan notes, “Though Arkansas was remote from the centers of war, the destruction, the ruin, and the hatreds were, if anything, greater than in Tennessee or Virginia” (126). See George H. Thompson, Arkansas and Reconstruction (Port Washington ny: Kennikat Press, 1976); essays on Reconstruction governors in Governors of Arkansas, 41–63; Thomas S. Staples and David Y. Thomas, “Part II—1865– 1930,” in Arkansas and Its People, 135–64; and Dougan, Arkansas Odyssey, 235–65. The most extensive accounts of the Redeemers are Joe Segraves, “Arkansas Politics, 1874–1918” (PhD diss., University of Kentucky, 1974); Garland E. Bayliss, “Public Affairs in Arkansas, 1874–1896” (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1972); Carl Moneyhon, Arkansas and the New South, 1874–1929 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997); and Waddy W. Moore, ed., Arkansas in the Gilded Age, 1874–1900 (Little Rock: Rose Publishing, 1976). James C. Fouse and Ray Granade, “Arkansas, 1874–1900,” in Historical Report of the Secretary of State, vol. 3, 140; C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951), 51. Harry S. Ashmore, Arkansas: A History (New York: Norton, 1978), 124–36. Quoted in Williams et al., Documentary History, 131–32. For descriptions and analyses of the various agrarian organizations, see Moore, Arkansas in the Gilded Age, 3–74; Moneyhon, Arkansas and the New South, pp. 77–93; Dougan, Arkansas Odyssey, 299–329. Essays on “Development of an Educational System,” in Arkansas: Colony and State, 105–46. Staples and Thomas, “Part II,” 247; Jerome C. Rose, “Cedar Grove Historic Cemetery: A Study in Black American Bio-History” (lecture given in Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies Series, Fayetteville,Arkansas, 6 December 1984); William Orestus Pemrose, “Political Ideas in Arkansas, 1880–1907” (master’s thesis, University of Arkansas, 1945), 72–74. On women’s contributions, see Diane D. Blair, “Good Works by Arkansas Women, in Sentinels of History: Reﬂections on Arkansas Properties in the National Register of Historic Places (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000), 93–96; and Frances Mitchell Ross, “The New Woman as Club Woman and Social Activist,” ahq (1991): 317– 51. RaymondArsenault, The Wild Ass of the Ozarks (Philadelphia: Temple University

[386], (4)

Lines: 101 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [386], (4)

Notes to Pages 13–16 387 Press, 1984), 245. Arsenault’s is the most extensive account of Arkansas’s most colorful and controversial governor. For other details and assessments, see John Gould Fletcher, Arkansas (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947), 287–314; Calvin R. Ledbetter Jr., “Jeff Davis and the Politics of Combat,” ahq 33 (1974): 16–37; Richard L. Niswonger, “A Study in Southern Demagoguery: Jeff Davis of Arkansas,” ahq 39 (1980): 114–24; and Tucker, Arkansas, 55–66. 28. Arkansas: Colony and State, 38; Richard L. Niswonger, “Arkansas Democratic Politics” (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1974) 16–17, 374; Donald Holley, “Arkansas in the Great Depression,” Historical Report of the Secretary of State, vol. 3, 168. 29. On Donaghey’s accomplishments, see Calvin R. Ledbetter Jr., Carpenter from Conway: George W. Donaghey as Governor of Arkansas 1909–1913 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1993). Similarly, for a concise overview of the “overlooked” McRae administration, see Calvin R. Ledbetter Jr., “Thomas C. McRae: National Forests, Education, Highways, and Brickhouse v. Hill,” ahq 59 (2000): 1–29. On general improvements in the Progressive period, see Moneyhon, Arkansas and the New South; and Richard Niswonger, Arkansas Democratic Politics, 1896–1920 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1990). 30. On roads, see Foy Lisenby, “Arkansas, 1900–1930,” in Historical Report of the Secretary of State, vol. 3, 150–51; and John L. Ferguson and J. H. Atkinson, Historic Arkansas (Little Rock: Arkansas History Commission, 1966), 342–43. On the politics surrounding the state debt crisis, see Ben F. Johnson III, Arkansas in Modern America: 1930–1999 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000), 14–15. 31. Johnson, Arkansas in Modern America, 16–17; Bob Lancaster, “The Top 100,” Arkansas Times, 13 August 1999); Holley, “Arkansas in the Great Depression,” 157–74; Stephen F. Strausberg, “The Effectiveness of the New Deal in Arkansas,” in The Depression in the Southwest, ed. Donald W. Whisenhunt (New York: Kennikat Press, 1980), 102–16. What became the Tennessee Valley Authority (tva) might have been located in Arkansas but for the opposition of Sen. Joseph T. Robinson, according to Ashmore, Arkansas, 145, 176. 32. Key, Southern Politics, 185. 33. Lester, A Man for Arkansas; Patsy Hawthorn Ramsey, “A Place at the Table: Hot Springs and the gi Revolt,” ahq 59 (2000): 407–28; Bob Douglas, “Heeding Harry’s Advice,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9 September 1998. 34. For an interesting account of Socialist Party activities in Arkansas and Sam

[387], (5)

Lines: 128 to ———

12.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [387], (5)

388

Notes to Pages 16–21

Faubus’s role in them, see G. Gregory Kiser, “The Socialist Party in Arkansas, 1900–1912,” ahq 40 (1981): 119–53. Orval Faubus, quoted in Northwest Arkansas Times, 13 October 1983. Faubus’s upbringing and values are explored at length in Reed, Faubus. 35. Thomas R. Dye, Politics in States and Communities, 5th ed. (Englewood Cliffs nj: Prentice-Hall, 1985), 45–46. Until the U.S. Supreme Court ordered their reapportionment on the basis of “one man, one vote” in 1962, most state legislatures badly underweighted their urban, service-demanding areas and overweighted their rural areas, where political passivity was more acceptable. For an extensive discussion and bibliography, see Timothy O’Rourke, The Impact of Reapportionment (New Brunswick nj: Transaction, 1980). We discuss Arkansas’s malapportionment in chap. 9 of this book. 36. On the natural disasters of the late 1920s and early 1930s, see Johnson, Arkansas in Modern America, 9–12; Dougan, Arkansas Odyssey, 411–12, 416–17, and 453–54; Russell Bearden, “Jefferson County’s Worst Disaster: The Flood of 1927,” ahq 43: 324–38; Frederick Simpich, “The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927,” National Geographic 52: 243–89. 37. The best description of Arkansas’s agrarian, “colonial” economy is the essays in Arkansas: Colony and State, pp. 1–104. Also see the essays in Arkansas and Its People, pp. 381–419. We discuss the debate between those political scientists who think economic development factors determine politics and those who argue otherwise extensively in chap. 13.

[388], (6)

Lines: 152 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [388], (6)

2. some socioeconomic, cultural, and political explanations 1. For details on colonial Arkansas, see Morris S. Arnold, Colonial Arkansas: 1686– 1804 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1991). 2. Josiah Shinn, Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1967), 29, 58; Rev. H. Cowles Atwater, 1857, reprinted in Margaret Ross, “Chronicles of Arkansas,” no. 195, n. 299, Special Collections, Mullins Library, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Dr. Charles Daubery, 1837, in Ross, “Chronicles,” n. 195; Featherstonaugh, Excursion through the Slave States, 92; Frederick Gerstaecker, 1838, quoted in Johnson, Arkansas Frontier, 130; C. L. Edson, “Arkansas: A Native Proletariat,” Nation, 2 May 1933, 515. A more realistic account is Bolton, Arkansas, 1800–1860. 3. Walter Moffatt, “Out West in Arkansas,” ahq 17 (1958): 33–44. For more contemporary treatments of this era in Arkansas history, see Jeannie M. Whayne, “The Turbulent Path to Statehood: Arkansas Territory, 1803–1836”; and Thomas A. DeBlack, “‘The Rights and Rank to Which We Are Entitled’: Arkansas

Notes to Pages 21–23 389

4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9.

in the Early Statehood Period,” in Arkansas: A Narrative History, ed. Jeannie M. Whayne, Thomas A. DeBlack, George Sabo III, and Morris S. Arnold (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2002). In addition, see the excellent bibliography developed by the editors of that volume. Robert Walz, “Migration into Arkansas, 1834–1880” (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1958), 7. Bramlett and Thomas, “Part I, 1541–1865,” 75. Walz, “Migration,” 55–58, 127–49. Walz, “Migration,” 246. See also Mala Daggett, ed., Victorian Arkansans (Little Rock: Arkansas Commemorative Commission, 1981), 7, who says the English were most numerous; Jonathan James Wolfe, “Background of German Immigration,” ahq 25 (1966): 378–84; and Wilbur Zelinsky, The Cultural Geography of the United States (Englewood Cliffs nj: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 122–23. However, four of Arkansas’s nineteenth-century governors were descendants of a colony established by Germans in Virginia in 1714, according to Harry W. Readnour, “William M. Fishback,” in Governors of Arkansas, 95. Shannon Klug Craig, “Arkansas and Foreign Immigration, 1890–1915” (master’s thesis, University of Arkansas, 1979). For Arkansas’s hostility toward immigrants see Craig, “Arkansas and Foreign Immigration”; and especially Willard B. Gatewood, “Strangers and the Southern Eden: The South and Immigration, 1900– 1920,” in Ethnic Minorities in Gulf Coast Society (Proceedings of the Gulf Coast History and Humanities Conference, Pensacola, Florida, 1979). Religious afﬁliations are from Ferguson and Atkinson, Historic Arkansas, 205. W. J. Cash, The Mind of the South (New York: Random House, 1941), 98, 140. For the relationship between social homogeneity and slow political development, see Cash, Mind of the South, 96–102; and especially John L. Sullivan, “Political Correlates of Social, Economic, and Religious Diversity in the American States,” Journal of Politics 35 (1973): 70–84. Sullivan ranks Arkansas forty-ninth of the ﬁfty states in terms of population diversity. An update of Sullivan’s measure moves the state to last place: see David R. Morgan and Laura Ann Wilson, “Diversity in the American States: Updating the Sullivan Index,” Journal of Federalism 20 (1990): 71–81. Rodney E. Hero is another scholar who emphasizes the role of social diversity in shaping the politics of a state. It should be noted that, according to his rankings of both the minority diversity and the white ethnic diversity of states, Arkansas is middle of the pack. See Rodney E. Hero, Faces of Inequality: Social Diversity in American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 11–15. Using similar themes but the measures associated with modernization theory (attitudes toward science, education, industrial development, income equality,

[389], (7)

Lines: 180 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [389], (7)

390

10.

11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

Notes to Pages 23–27

government activism), Arkansas historian Michael Dougan has presented the state’s history in terms of an ongoing struggle between modernizers and traditionalists, in which the latter are generally ascendant. Though slavery was overwhelmingly a Delta lowland practice and there were only small percentages of slaves and slaveholders in the Arkansas upcountry, Gary Battershell has shown the importance of slavery in shaping the social structure, even in the upcountry, in, “The Socioeconomic Role of Slavery in the Arkansas Upcountry,” ahq 58 (1999): 45–60. Orville W. Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas (Durham nc: Duke University Press, 1958); Walz, “Migration,” 214; Ralph A. Wooster, “Notes on the Membership of the Thirteenth General Assembly of Arkansas,” ahq 17 (1958): 45– 55; Stephen Houser, “The Arkansas Legislature” (University of Arkansas, 1983, typescript); Gene W. Boyett, “The Whigs of Arkansas” (PhD diss., Louisiana State University, 1972), 113–14. Thompson, Arkansas and Reconstruction, 25–28; Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, 35–67. For the “economic threshold” argument see Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man (Garden City ny: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1959), 27–63. Arkansas’s post–Civil War ﬁnancial status in Ashmore, Arkansas, 97. Arsenault, Wild Ass of the Ozarks, 11–15, 97–109. Ferguson and Atkinson, Historic Arkansas, 41–42; Arkansas Gazette, 5 February 1820; Ferguson and Atkinson, Historic Arkansas, 43. Brian G. Walton, “How Many Voted in Arkansas Elections before the Civil War?” ahq 39 (1980): 66–75; Shinn, Pioneers and Makers, 103. For colorful details on nineteenth-century Arkansas elections, see White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier; Boyett, “The Whigs of Arkansas.” For deliberate escalation by the press of political rivalries, see Ashmore, Arkansas, 45–47; and Fred W. Allsopp, “The Press of the State,” in Arkansas and Its People, 563–64. Elazar, American Federalism, 84–126. It is crucial to note that Rodney E. Hero recently has put forward a strong and thought-provoking critique of the Elazar political subculture model in Faces of Inequality. Hero argues that seeing a state’s racial-ethnic diversity as driving its political environment is more insightful than Elazar’s framework because categorizations based on social diversity “are clearer, are more precise, and better incorporate change” (p. 10). In Hero’s categorizations, Arkansas remains socially “bifurcated,” a structure that leads to many expectations about political outcomes that are in synch with Elazar’s traditionalistic political culture. Therefore, this study employs the Elazar framework while remaining aware of its weaknesses. Moreover, in chap. 14, we return to the potential merits of Hero’s analytical framework in gaining a fuller

[390], (8)

Lines: 202 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [390], (8)

Notes to Pages 28–31 391

19.

20. 21.

22. 23. 24.

25.

26.

understanding of Arkansas’s noticeable (and ongoing) demographic changes in the contemporary era. Elazar, American Federalism, 99–102. It should also be noted that those who have studied the issue of “social capital” in the United States have noted the relationship between the traditionalistic political culture and low levels of social capital (evidenced by civic engagement, norms of social trust, and voluntary associations). Locales that have higher levels of social capital are more likely to be more thoroughly democratic, procedurally and in public policy outcomes. In Tom W. Rice and Alexander F. Sumberg (“Civic Culture and Government Performance in the American States,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 27 [1997], 99–114), Arkansas is ranked thirty-ninth in “civic culture” (i.e., social capital) among the states. Rice and Sumberg, “Civic Culture and Government Performance,” 96–97. Roy Reed, “Updating Mitch,AHillbilly’s Letter to His Great-Grandpa,” Arkansas Times, July 1984, 79; Faubus, quoted in Joe Schratz, “ALittleAdvice from the Old Pro,” Arkansas Democrat Magazine, 27 January 1985; Charles Morrow Wilson, The Bodacious Ozarks (New York: Hastings House, 1959) 6; family saying from Mrs. Bessie Blair of Snowball, Arkansas. Shirley Abbott, Womenfolks (New Haven and New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1983) 59. Abbott, Womenfolks, 30. For an analysis of the development of the agricultural economic structure of post– Civil War Arkansas, the persistent dire straits of farmers in that economy, and the eventual agrarian uprising and the backlash against it, see Moneyhon, Arkansas and the New South. In addition, for the rise of sharecropping and tenancy, see Woodward, Origins of the New South, 175–204; and Segraves, “Arkansas Politics,” 147–97. For agrarian and populist organizations in that latter part of the nineteenth century, see essays in Moore, Arkansas in the Gilded Age, 3–74; and Ashmore, Arkansas, 124–36. Both Segraves, “Arkansas Politics,” 197; and Arsenault, Wild Ass of the Ozarks, 35, suggest that an honest count might have produced a Norwood victory. For the most thorough analysis of biracial Republican/Populist coalition politics at the local level in Arkansas, the bizarre case of the 1888 congressional election and its murderous outcome, and the long-term ramiﬁcations of the political violence and disfranchisement, see Kenneth C. Barnes, Who Killed John Clayton? Political Violence and the Emergence of the New South, 1861–1893 (Durham nc: Duke University Press, 1998). Segraves, “Arkansas Politics”; Moneyhon, Arkansas and the New South; and Niswonger, Arkansas Democratic Politics, 1896–1920, provide detailed discus-

[391], (9)

Lines: 226 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [391], (9)

392

27.

28.

29. 30.

Notes to Pages 32–37

sions of the progressive strain in late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Arkansas politics. Roy Reed notes the persistence of this phenomenon in the more contemporary era in “Clinton Country,” New York Times, 6 September 1992. For the lengthy struggle over adoption of amendment 7 and its highly confused implementation, see David Y. Thomas, “Popular Government,” in Arkansas and Its People, 317–32; and Ledbetter, “Thomas C. McRae.” Election outrages of 1888 in Segraves, “Arkansas Politics,” 183–88. Details of the 1891 act are in John W. Graves, “Negro Disfranchisement in Arkansas,” ahq 26 (1967): 199–225. J. Morgan Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restrictions and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880–1910 (New Haven ct: Yale University Press, 1974), argues that illiterate whites were the disfranchisement target as well. Tucker, Arkansas, 46–47, provides evidence of white resumption of power through violence. For a more recent analysis of the disfranchisement process inArkansas, see Michael Perman, Struggle for Mastery: Disfranchisement in the South, 1888–1908 (Chapel Hill nc: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 59–67. Harry S. Ashmore, An Epitaph for Dixie (New York: Norton, 1957), 52; editorial, Arkansas Gazette, 22 July 1892. For blacks’ token position within the state Republican Party they helped establish, see James Harris Fain, “Political Disfranchisement of the Negro in Arkansas” (master’s thesis, University of Arkansas, 1961), and especially Tom Dillard, “To the Back of the Elephant: Racial Conﬂict in the Arkansas Republican Party,” ahq 33 (1974): 3–15. Dillard, “To the Back of the Elephant,” 8. John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980).

3. traditional politics and its transformation 1. There is some doubt whether the Smith-Robinson presidential ticket actually carried Arkansas in 1928. According to Joe N. Martin, then chairman of the Craighead County Democratic Committee, “The word went out from Joe [Sen. Joseph T. Robinson] that he didn’t care how we got the votes but he was damned if he was going to be embarrassed in his own state” (interview with Diane Blair, Jonesboro, Arkansas, 26 June 1978). 2. For early-nineteenth-century Arkansas voter turnout, see Walton, “How Many Voted?” For the early decades of the twentieth century, see Key, Southern Politics, 490–528; and Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” 60–73. 3. Key, Southern Politics, 183, 187. There was a powerful rivalry from the mid1930s through the mid-1940s between Homer Adkins’s “federal” faction and Carl Bailey’s “state” faction, but it was based more on personal rivalries and patronage conﬂicts than on issues, according to Key (pp. 187–89).

[392], (10)

Lines: 248 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[392], (10)

Notes to Pages 37–40 393 4. Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” 231. 5. Milton Mackaye quoted in Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” 134; former governor quoted by Key, Southern Politics, 186; Tom Dearmore quoted by Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” 145. 6. Cash, Mind of the South, 133. 7. Estimated campaign costs in Joseph Utley, Record Books, 1923–43, Special Collections, University of Arkansas at Little Rock Library; Key, Southern Politics, 465–66; Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” 146–48. 8. Key, Southern Politics, 195; the federal judge Henry Woods also served as Sidney McMath’s campaign manager (interview with Diane Blair, 3 January 1977). Also on local bosses, see Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” chap. 8; Bob Lancaster’s proﬁles of Conway County’s sheriff, Marlin Hawkins, in Arkansas Gazette, 19 September 1972 and 20 September 1972; and Hawkins’s own account of his control of Conway County politics, Marlin Hawkins with Dr. C. Fred Williams, How I Stole Elections: The Autobiography of Sheriff Marlin Hawkins (Morrilton ar: Marlin Hawkins, 1991). Finally, Stephen A. Smith writes of his experience in going to gain the support of the Madison County machine in his ﬁrst legislative race as a twenty-year-old in the early 1970s in “People, Power and Realpoliticks in the Provinces,” American Communication Journal 2 (2000) [online journal: http//:acjournal.org/holdings/vol2/Iss1/curtain.html]. 9. Author interviews (Diane Blair) with Robert A. Leﬂar, 27 August 1985; James B. Blair, 10 June 1984; Brooks Hays, 10 July 1978. For details of the 1933 contest, see Donald Holley, “Arkansas in the Great Depression,” Historical Report of the Secretary of State, Arkansas, vol. 3 (Little Rock: Arkansas Secretary of State, 1978), 171–72. When the Futrell machine switched from Sam Rorex to David Terry, one politician complained, “I’ve been stealing votes from Brooks all night and giving them to Sam, and now I’ve got to take them from Sam and give them to Dave.” See Brooks Hays, Politics Is My Parish (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 112–14. 10. All of these practices have been experienced, observed, or conﬁrmed by Diane D. Blair through her interviews with practicing politicians. East Arkansas practices were described in interview with Bill Penix, Jonesboro, Arkansas, June 23, 1978. See also Key, Southern Politics, 458–60; Freyer, Little Rock Crisis, 88; Lester, A Man for Arkansas, 254. 11. See note 10. Nancy Hamm, “Traditions of Newton County Politics” (University of Arkansas, 1972, typescript); Lisa Skillman, “Analysis of Crittenden County” (University of Arkansas, 1979, typescript); Richard E. Yates, “Arkansas: Independent and Unpredictable,” in The Changing Politics of the South, ed. William C. Havard (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972), 243–45; Stephen A. Smith, “People, Power, and Realpoliticks in the Provinces,” on

[393], (11)

Lines: 278 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [393], (11)

394

12. 13.

14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

Notes to Pages 40–43

Madison County; and Roy B. Shaver, “Politics in Sharp County” (University of Arkansas, 1954, typescript). Shaver reports that in the county deemed “the worst in the state” by some observers, “Former campaign workers report that $5 will often buy the votes of an entire family.” Richard Niswonger contends that “no county equalled Phillips County’s notoriety for vote manipulation” (Arkansas Democratic Politics, 204). Formally, Democrats had majority status on the county election commissions in all seventy-ﬁve counties because someone from the party was governor. When Winthrop Rockefeller gained the governorship in 1966, the Arkansas state supreme court ruled that the majority party in each of the counties would be ascertained by the party that held the majority of the seven constitutional ofﬁces. To 2004, that party had remained the Democratic Party. On this history, see David Robinson, “Republicans Like Their Chances,” Southwest Times Record, 26 May 2002. Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” 169; Key, Southern Politics, 443, 184. When Diane Blair was ﬁrst elected to the Democratic State Committee in 1972, she reports being as bafﬂed by the absence of any election-winning mechanisms as other committee members were bafﬂed by her concern. Alexander Heard, A Two-Party South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952), 96–97. Jeannette Rockefeller, quoted in John Ward, The Arkansas Rockefeller (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), 16; Thomas G. Kielhorn, “Party Development and Partisan Change: An Analysis of Changing Patterns of Mass Support for the Parties in Arkansas” (PhD diss., University of Illinois, 1973), 12. For other details on pre-Rockefeller Arkansas Republicanism, see Tom Dillard, “To the Back of the Elephant: Racial Conﬂict in the Arkansas Republican Party,” ahq 33 (1974) 3–15; Key, Southern Politics, 296–97; Cathy Kunzinger Urwin, Agenda for Reform: Winthrop Rockefeller as Governor of Arkansas (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1991), 31–34; Patrick F. O’Connor, “Political Party Organization in Pulaski County, Arkansas: The Democratic and Republican County Committees” (master’s thesis, University of Arkansas, 1967), 175–79. Key, Southern Politics, 307. For a thorough discussion of the economics-versus-politics debate, see chap. 13 of this book. For contemporary analyses of the events in Elaine and the subsequent political and legal activities related to them, see Grif Stockley, Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Race Massacres of 1919 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2001); Jeannie M. Whayne, “Low Villains and Wickedness in High Places: Race and Class in the Elaine Riots,” ahq 58 (1999): 285–313; and Richard

[394], (12)

Lines: 297 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[394], (12)

Notes to Pages 44–46 395

19. 20.

21. 22.

C. Cortner, A Mob Intent on Death: The naacp and the Arkansas Riot Cases (Middletown ct: Wesleyan University Press, 1988). For recent analyses of other racial violence in the ﬁrst half of the twentieth century in the state, see Brian Greer, “The Last Lynching,” Arkansas Times, 4 August 2000; Jacqueline Froelich and David Zimmerman, “Total Eclipse: The Destruction of the African American Community at Harrison, Arkansas, in 1905 and 1909,” ahq 58 (1999): 131–59; Vincent Vinikas, “Specters in the Past: The Saint Charles, Arkansas, Lynching of 1904 and the Limits of Historical Inquiry,” Journal of Southern History 65 (1999): 535–64; and Moneyhon, Arkansas and the New South, 142–43. On violence related to the rise of the Southern Tenant Farm Union (stfu) in eastern Arkansas in the 1930s, see Jeannie M. Whayne, A New Plantation South: Land, Labor, and Federal Favor in Twentieth-Century Arkansas (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996), 206–208. James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 44. For Senator Fulbright’s role in the drafting of the 1956 “Southern Manifesto” arguing that the Brown decision should be reversed see Brent J. Aucoin, “The Southern Manifesto and Southern Opposition to Desegregation,” ahq 55 (1996): 173–93. Also, on Fulbright and his civil rights votes in the Senate at the time of his 1995 death, see John Brummett, “Fulbright and Civil Rights Issue,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (14 February 1995). Drummond, Arkansas Politics, 233; Arsenault, Wild Ass of the Ozarks, 16. In one week’s time, Senators Long and Caraway traveled two thousand miles, visited thirty-one counties, made thirty-nine speeches, and personally addressed more than two hundred thousand people, many of whom as adults recall Senator Long’s speech as the most consciousness-raising political experience of their lives. See David Malone, Hattie and Huey: An Arkansas Tour (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1989); Herman B. Deutsch, “Hattie and Huey,” Saturday Evening Post, 15 October 1932, 6–7, 88–90, 92; and Stuart Towns, “A Louisiana Medicine Show: The Kingﬁsh Elects an Arkansas Senator,” ahq 25 (1966): 117–27. For the tactics of returning World War II veterans who challenged entrenched political machines in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana, see Lester, A Man for Arkansas, 8–35; and Patsy Hawthorn Ramsey, “A Place at the Table: Hot Springs and the gi Revolt,” ahq 59 (2000): 407–28; and Sidney S. McMath, Promises Kept: A Memoir (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2003), 167–79. It is important to note that, in addition to the well-known gi revolt in Hot Springs that produced McMath, other communities in the state, especially West Memphis, saw the impact of the returning troops in cleaning up the politics of their communities (Bob McCord, at meeting of the Little Rock Political Animals Club, 11 March 2004). On Faubus and the Little Rock Crisis, see Reed, Faubus.

[395], (13)

Lines: 321 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [395], (13)

396

Notes to Pages 46–47

23. On the distinctive contributions of Rockefeller to recent Arkansas political dynamics, see Urwin, Agenda for Reform, particularly chap. 8; Neal R. Peirce and Jerry Hagstrom, The Book of America: Inside 50 States Today (New York: Norton, 1983), 487; Stephen Steed, “Rockefeller’s Legacy Still Lives,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 17 November 1996; David Robinson, “Arkansas’ Republican Roots Date to Rockefeller,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 24 February 2002; Brenda Blagg, “1966—Watershed Year for Arkansas gop,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 24 February 2002; Rod D. Martin, “Winthrop Rockefeller and the Enfranchisement of Arkansas Blacks, 1964–1966” (University of Arkansas, typescript, 1990); Ernest Dumas, “Rockefeller: Champion of Change,” ualr Magazine, fall 2003, 12–19; and Ernest Dumas, “Rockefeller: The Reform Years,” ualr Magazine, fall 2003, 26–33. David Pryor quoted by Roy Reed, “Rockefeller Led State Out of Dark Days of Politics,” Arkansas Gazette, 13 July 1983. The most extensive and comprehensive accounts of recent Arkansas political history are Bass and DeVries, Transformation of Southern Politics, 87–106; Dan Darning, “Arkansas: 1954 to Present,” Historical Report of the Secretary of State, vol. 3 (Little Rock: Arkansas Secretary of State, 1978), 186–202; Neil R. Peirce, The Deep South States of America (New York: Norton, 1972), 123–61; John Robert Starr, Yellow Dogs and Dark Horses (Little Rock AR: August House, 1987); Yates, “Arkansas: Independent and Unpredictable,” 233–93; Alexander P. Lamis, The Two-Party South, 2nd expanded ed. (New York: 1990), 120–30; Diane D. Blair, “The Big Three of Late Twentieth-Century Arkansas Politics: Dale Bumpers, Bill Clinton, and David Pryor,” ahq 54 (1995): 53–79; Gary D. Wekkin, “Arkansas: Electoral Competition in the 1990s,” in The New Politics of the Old South: An Introduction to Southern Politics, ed. Charles S. Bullock III and Mark J. Rozell (Boulder co: Rowman & Littleﬁeld Publishers, 1998), 185–203; Barth, Blair, and Dumas, “Arkansas: Characters, Crises, and Change,” 165–92. 24. See Donald Holley, “Arkansas in the Great Depression”; and Stephen F. Strausberg, “The Effectiveness of the New Deal in Arkansas,” in The Depression in the Southwest, ed. Donald F. Whisenhunt (New York: Kennikat Press, 1980), 102–16; Dougan, Arkansas Odyssey, 453–54. 25. State senator Robert Harvey in an address to the Arkansas Political Science Association, Arkadelphia, Arkansas, 25 February 1983. 26. George Brown Tindall, The Emergence of the New South, 1913–1945 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967), ix. For the impact of World War II on Arkansas, see Johnson, Arkansas in Modern America, chap. 2; Dougan, Arkansas Odyssey, 458–67; S. Charles Bolton, “Turning Point: World War II and the Economic Development of Arkansas,” ahq 56 (2002): 123–51; Boyce Drummond, “Arkansas, 1910–1954,” in Historical Report of the Sec-

[396], (14)

Lines: 337 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[396], (14)

Notes to Pages 47–56 397

27.

28.

29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34.

35.

36.

retary of State, Arkansas, vol. 3 (Little Rock: Arkansas Secretary of State, 1978), 175–77; and C. Calvin Smith, War and Wartime Changes (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1986). Arkansas: Colony and State, 10–27, 47–88. See also Johnson, Arkansas in Modern America; Dougan, Arkansas Odyssey; Ashmore, Arkansas, 162–73; and Paul Williams, “The Rise and Fall of the Great Plantations,” Arkansas Times, July 1983, 86–93. Data on 2000 employment, residence, income, and poverty from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population, 2000, available from www.census.gov, unless otherwise indicated. Portions of this job data from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Arkansas County Business Patterns 2000, available from www.census.gov. The U.S. Senate actions that exempted Arkansas from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are found in the Congressional Record, 30 April 1965. Governor Adkins quoted in Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” 83. For details on the positions on racial issues of Rockefeller and Johnson, see Black, Southern Governors, 269–71. Records of black and white poll tax purchases were maintained by the state auditor, but since the adoption in 1965 of permanent voting registration black registration ﬁgures must be estimated. These estimates come from Donald R. Matthews and James W. Prothro, “Negro Voter Registration in the South,” in Change in the Contemporary South, ed. Allan P. Sindler (Durham nc: Duke University Press, 1963), 119–49; Havard, Changing Politics, 20; Black, Southern Governors, 105; and Research Department, Voter Education Project, Atlanta, Georgia, 6 October 1984. For Daniel Elazar’s characterizations, see chap. 2 of this book. As of 1994, fewer than one-third of Arkansas counties still used the traditional paper ballot according to Jay Barth, “Paper Ballots, Computers, and Everything Else in Between: The Impact of Voting Devices on Ballot Roll-off,” Midsouth Political Science Review 1 (1997): 1–12. For 1974 county government reforms, see chap. 12 of this book. Arkansas’s ﬁrst radio station was wok, Pine Bluff, 1921; its ﬁrst television station was krtv, Little Rock, 1953. Radio jingle quoted in Arkansas Gazette, 15 June 1984. For an examination of the 1970 gubernatorial campaign, see Randy Sanders, Mighty Peculiar Campaigns: The New South Gubernatorial Campaigns of 1970 and the Changing Politics of Race (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), 37–76. Wright quoted in Arkansas Democrat and Arkansas Gazette, 5 May 1983; Clinton quotation from interview with Diane Blair, 30 June 1986.

[397], (15)

Lines: 351 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [397], (15)

398

Notes to Pages 57–62

37. Ofﬁce of the Press Secretary, The White House, “Remarks by the President to the Delta Community,” 10 December 1999. 38. Both authors have been regular recipients of such pre-election communications. 39. David Pryor quoted in Arkansas Democrat, 11 November 1984, and Arkansas Gazette, 4 April 1985. The notion of the new politics being superimposed upon the old is elaborated upon in Harold F. Bass and Andrew Westmoreland, “Parties and Campaigns in Contemporary Arkansas Politics,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 5 (winter 1984): 49–54. 40. For the concept of “pluralistic ignorance,” coined by Floyd H. Allport in 1924, see Hubert J. O’Gorman, “Pluralistic Ignorance and White Estimates of White Support for Racial Segregation,” Public Opinion Quarterly 39 (1975) 313–30. 41. On the Freedom of Information Act, see Brenda Blagg and Dennis A. Byrd, “Unlocking the Public’s Business” and “Attorney General: Acceptable Compliance Rate Is 100 Percent,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 10 October 1999. See Peg Anderson, Government in Arkansas (Little Rock: League of Women Voters of Arkansas, 1993) on Arkansas’s ethics legislation. On the 2000 election, see Michael Rowett, “Huckabee: State Like a ‘Banana Republic’,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7 November 2000. Election process snafus in Pulaski County are reviewed in Austin Gelder, “Foul-Ups Produce ‘a Mess’ at Polls,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 22 May 2002; and Austin Gelder, “Mismatched Vote Tallies Linked to Tech Error,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 June 2002. 4. contemporary political patterns 1. Five works present additional analysis of recent presidential elections in Arkansas. On the 1984 election, see Diane D. Blair, “Arkansas,” in The 1984 Presidential Election in the South, ed. Robert P. Steed, Laurence W. Moreland, and Tod A. Baker (New York: Praeger, 1986), 182–207; on 1988, see Blair, “Arkansas: Reluctant Republicans in Razorback Land,” in The 1988 Presidential Election in the South: Continuity Amidst Change in Southern Party Politics, ed. Laurence W. Moreland, Robert P. Steed, and Tod A. Baker (New York: Praeger, 1991), 143–64; on 1992, see Blair, “Arkansas: Ground Zero,” 103–18; on 1996, see Jay Barth, “Arkansas: The Last Hurrah for a Native Son,” in The 1996 Presidential Election in the South: Southern Party Systems in the 1990s, ed. Laurence W. Moreland and Robert P. Steed (Westport ct: Praeger, 1997), 131–46; and, on 2000, see Jay Barth, Janine Parry, and Todd Shields, “Arkansas: Nonstop Action in PostClinton Arkansas” in The 2000 Presidential Election in the South, ed. Robert P. Steed and Laurence W. Moreland (Westport ct: Praeger, 2002), 133–48. 2. Although the postcensus drawing of new district lines has created shifts in the exact counties included in each district, the relationship between region of

[398], (16)

Lines: 383 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[398], (16)

Notes to Pages 64–67 399

3.

4. 5.

6. 7. 8.

9.

10.

the state and number of the district has remained consistent in recent decades. Moreover, through the 2000 redistricting, Arkansas remains exceptional in not having to “break” county lines in the drawing of congressional district boundaries. Kielhorn, “Party Development,” 16, 77. For how and why Governor McMath held Arkansas ﬁrm against the 1948 Dixiecrat revolt, see Lester, A Man for Arkansas, 92–127. In 1960, rumors that presidential nominee John F. Kennedy might name Senator Fulbright his secretary of state were somewhat inﬂuential in keeping Arkansas in the Democratic fold. Though Orval Faubus refused any joint billboards with Lyndon Johnson in 1964, he remained overtly loyal, as did Marion Crank to Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Author (Diane Blair) interview with Bill Clinton, 1987. For further exposition on the role of these three individuals in the state’s politics, see Blair, “The Big Three of Late Twentieth Century Politics,” ahq 54: 53–79. For a description of the distinctive political styles of the three, see the interviews cited in Barth, Blair, and Dumas, “Arkansas: Characters, Crises, and Change.” On Pryor’s home style, see Richard J. Fenno Jr., Senators on the Campaign Trail (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 281–82. On Clinton’s political style in the state in his early races, see Kevin Freking, “Experts: Hard to Top Clinton on Vote Trail,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 November 2000. John Brummett, “Establishment Void,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 May 1995. The state Republican Party did manage to have the last individual removed from the ballot after considerable angst and litigation. “Peripheral” is used by Earl Black and Merle Black, The Vital South (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). The “Rim” distinction is used by Lamis, The Two-Party South; and Louis M. Seagull, Southern Republicanism (New York: Wiley, 1975). Barry M. Brown, “Presidential Voting Behavior in the ArkansasMississippi Delta” (University of Arkansas, 1978, typescript). On the relationship between African American population and white political behavior, see any number of sources including: Black and Black, The Vital South, especially chap. 6; Thomas B. Edsall and Mary Edsall, Chain Reaction (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), especially chaps. 7 and 9; James Glaser, Race, Campaign Politics, and Realignment in the South (New Haven ct: Yale University Press, 1998). For discussions of the mathematical realities of a contemporary southern politics where African Americans show such loyalty to Democrats, see Black and Black, Politics and Society in the South; and Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicanism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 28–32. “The most frequently advanced explanation for Rockefeller’s decision to leave the social circles of New York concerns his highly publicized and very expensive

[399], (17)

Lines: 407 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [399], (17)

400

11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

16.

Notes to Pages 67–69

divorce from Bobo Sears Rockefeller, a divorce that reportedly cost Rockefeller six million dollars and much anguish. Rockefeller came to Arkansas to settle at the urging of a close wartime friend” (Kielhorn, “Party Development,” 61). See also Ward, Arkansas Rockefeller, 1–3. For industrial development ﬁgures, see “The Transformation of Arkansas,” Time, 2 December 1966, 24–28. An excellent overview of Winthrop Rockefeller’s time as Arkansas’s governor, including his successes and failures, is found in Urwin, Agenda for Reform. Rockefeller’s “acceptance strategy” campaign is described by Kielhorn, “Party Development,” 76–84. Rockefeller estimated he invested more than $10 million in Republican Party development activities, according to Bass and DeVries, Transformation of Southern Politics, 89. Rockefeller’s black voter registration efforts and details of the 1966 campaign in Jim Ranchino, Faubus to Bumpers: Arkansas Votes, 1960–70 (Arkadelphia ar: Action Research, 1972), 41–45, 50; Seagull, Southern Republicanism, 130– 31; Ward, Arkansas Rockefeller, 21–67; and Yates, “Arkansas: Independent and Unpredictable,” 278–83. For percentages of black support of Rockefeller, see Kielhorn, “Party Development,” 103; and Bass and DeVries, Transformation of Southern Politics, 100. According Kielhorn, “Fully 50% of those voters supporting Rockefeller were not only identiﬁed as Democrats but, under further analysis, proved to be very loyal Democrats” (p. 272). For a particularly insightful analysis of the work of reformers within the Democratic Party that led to Bumpers’s 1970 nomination, see John Brummett, “The Decline of Politics,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10 May 1998. On the 1970 race between Rockefeller and Bumpers, see Sanders, Mighty Peculiar Elections, 37–76. Johnson, Arkansas in Modern America, 166. Kielhorn, “Party Development,” 76–84; for a particularly good account of the 1980 Clinton defeat, see David Maraniss, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 384–89. The other two governors denied their second two-year term were Thomas Terral (1925–27) and Francis Cherry (1953–55). Donald R. Matthews and James W. Prothro, “The Concept of Party Image and the Importance for the Southern Electorate,” in The Electoral Process, ed. M. Kent Jennings and L. Harmon Ziegler (Englewood Cliffs nj: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 166. In 1972, Republicans ran for lieutenant governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. Between then and 1990, the only general election contests for constitutional executives were for lieutenant governor in 1974, 1980, 1984, and 1990; for attorney general in 1984, 1986, and 1990; and for land commissioner and secretary of state in 1990.

[400], (18)

Lines: 429 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[400], (18)

Notes to Pages 70–74 401 17. For Rockefeller polling that shows the growing acceptance of a two-party system during the 1960s, see Billy B. Hathorn, “Friendly Rivalry: Winthrop Rockefeller Challenges Orval Faubus in 1964,” ahq 53 (1994): 461–73, 466. 18. C. Vann Woodward quoted in Arkansas Times, April 1985, 12; Ranchino, Faubus to Bumpers, 64. 19. For ticket-splitting, see Arkansas Votes, 1972 (Conway ar: Institute of Politics, Hendrix College, 1973), 4, 6–7; Diane D. Blair and Robert L. Savage, “The 1980 Elections at the State Level, Arkansas,” Comparative State Politics Newsletter 2 (1981): 12–13. 20. In 1980 the Republican Senate candidate got 81 percent and the successful Republican gubernatorial candidate got 108 percent of the presidential vote. In 1984 the Republican Senate and gubernatorial candidates polled 69 percent and 60 percent, respectively, of the presidential vote. For loosely correlated Republican vote in the 1960s, see Seagull, Southern Republicanism, 116; and Lamis, Two-Party South, 235. For much more closely correlated Republican votes in the 1980s and 1990s, see Blair, “Arkansas: Reluctant Republicans in Razorback Land,” 157–59; and Wekkin, “Arkansas: Electoral Competition,” 197–99. 21. Yates, “Arkansas: Independent and Unpredictable,” 233–93; Lamis, Two-Party South, 120–30; former state gop executive director Richard Bearden quoted in Blair and Barth, “Arkansas,” 26. 22. Dick Morris, “gop Wins One in Arkansas,” Campaigns and Elections (November 1993), 46. 23. Additional examples are drawn from Asa Hutchinson, classroom lecture, University of Arkansas, 16 November 1994; Asa Hutchinson, “Reform’s Next Step,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 June 1995; Elizabeth Caldwell, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7 December 1993; Andy Gottlieb, “Machine Image Worked for Huckabee,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 July 1993; Julie Stewart, “Jones Attacks Democratic Machine in Campaign for Secretary of State,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 3 February 1994; Seth Blomeley, “Photos Put in Elevator Rile gop,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6 September 2001. On the Huckabees and their (much criticized statements) on elections in the state, see Michael Rowett, “Huckabee: State Like a ‘Banana Republic’,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 7 November 2000; and Michael R. Wickline, “First Lady Offers Plan on Voting,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 24 May 2002. 24. Bob Lancaster, “Arkansas’s ‘Political Machine’,” Arkansas Times, 29 March 1996; Gary D. Wekkin, “Whitewater, Arkansas Politics, and Election ‘96,” Comparative State Politics 17 (1996): 28–34. 25. For an overview of the most serious of the charges, see Rachel O’Neal and Elizabeth Caldwell, “Wilson, 9 Others Accused of Corruption,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 28 April 1999.

[401], (19)

Lines: 458 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [401], (19)

402

Notes to Pages 74–77

26. On the implications of the Big Three’s departure, see Barth, Blair, and Dumas, “Arkansas: Characters, Crises, and Change,” 181–92. On the Pryor 2002 campaign, see Michael Rowett, “Dad Prominent in Pryor’s Senate Campaign Ad,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 2 April 2002. 27. On this point, see Barth, Blair, and Dumas, “Arkansas: Characters, Crises, and Change,” 191; for speciﬁc examples, see Kevin Freking, “Slater, Witt to Enter D.C. Private Sector,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 30 March 2001. 28. Rachel O’Neal, “Tucker Ousted,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 July 1996; John Haman and Max Brantley, “Tucker Flips, Flops,” Arkansas Times, 19 July 1996. 29. Max Brantley, “A Failed Coup, Arkansas Style,” Arkansas Times, 19 July 1996; Huckabee job approval ratings available on U.S. Ofﬁcials’ Job Approval Ratings (jars) Web site, http://www.unc.edu/ beyle/jars.html; Black and Black, Rise of Southern Republicanism, 219, 222–24; Rob Moritz, “Priest Says She Will Not Run for Governor,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, http://www.nwwaon line.net/www.nwaonline.net/273301523611798.bsp (accessed 2 October 2001); David Sanders, “Clark Won’t Enter Governor’s Race,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, http://www.nwaonline.net/www.nwaonline.net/2732855212590 25.bsp (accessed 10 October 2001); Ernest Dumas, “Democrats Enlist a Candidate,” Arkansas Times, 29 March 2002. 30. Ernie Dumas, “Words and Deeds,” Arkansas Times, 9 March 2001; John Brummett, “Huckabee as Reagan and Clinton,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 26 June 2001; John Brummett, “The Hyperbolic Huckabee,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 3 June 2000; Ernie Dumas, “Mixed Messages in Governor’s tv Appeals,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 23 April 2000. 31. Seth Blomeley, “Huckabee Grows in Ofﬁce,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 15 July 2001; “The Showman,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 30 November 2001; Rachel O’Neal, “Huckabee at Home on the Air,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 13 September 1996. 32. On Reagan’s use of racial code, see Black and Black, Rise of Southern Republicanism, 215–19; Mike Huckabee for U.S. Senate radio advertisement; Jay Meisel, “At Boys State, Cheer Goes Up for the Girls,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7 June 1996; interview on kuar Radio, Little Rock, 13 June 2002. 33. Emmett George, “Dickey Left to Fight Shadows in Race,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 3 November 1996; Michael Rowett, “Political Parties Defend Filing Fees for Candidates,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 3 April 2000. 34. The state constitutional amendment also imposed term limits on Arkansas’s representatives in the U.S. Senate and House. These were declared in violation of the U.S. Constitution in Thornton v. Term Limits, Inc. (1995).

[402], (20)

Lines: 482 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[402], (20)

Notes to Pages 78–83 403 35. John Brummett, “‘Bud the Stud’Turns Comedian,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10 October 1996; Michael Haddigan, “A Race Turns Nasty,” Arkansas Times, 1 November 1996; Black and Black, Rise of Southern Republicanism, 291. 36. John Brummett, “The Hutchinson-Huckabee Hug,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 19 September 1995; Barth, Blair, and Dumas, “Arkansas: Characters, Crises, and Change,” 191–92; Jay Barth, “Arkansas: More Signs of Momentum for Republicanism in Post-Clinton Arkansas,” American Review of Politics 24 (2003): 111–26. 37. Key, Southern Politics, 187; Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” 25; Numan V. Bartley and Hugh D. Graham, Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 50. 38. For regional voting tendencies in Democratic gubernatorial primaries in the 1950s and 1960s, see Bartley and Graham, Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction, 54–57; and Yates, “Arkansas: Independent and Unpredictable,” 255, 259. Faubus’s changing support base from the highlands to the lowlands is described and analyzed in Thomas F. Pettigrew and Ernest Q. Campbell, “Faubus and Segregation: An Analysis of Arkansas Voting,” Public Opinion Quarterly 24 (1960): 436–47. Robert L. Savage and Richard J. Gallagher, “Politicocultural Regions in a Southern State: An Empirical Typology of Arkansas Counties,” Publius 7 (1977): 91–105. For a test of the Savage and Gallagher hypothesis, see Fred M. Shelley and J. Clark Archer, “Political Habit, Political Culture, and the Electoral Mosaic of a Border Region,” Geographical Perspectives 54 (1984): 7–20. Shelley and Archer argue that Arkansas, in contrast with neighboring Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, remains distinctively southern in its political behavior. 39. Robert L. Savage and Diane D. Blair, “Regionalism and Public Opinion in Arkansas: An Exploratory Survey,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 5 (1984): 59–85; Janine A. Parry and William D. Schreckhise, “Political Culture, Political Attitudes, and Aggregated Demographic Affects: Regionalism and Political Ideology in Arkansas,” Midsouth Political Science Review 5 (2001): 61–75. 40. Parry and Schreckhise, “Political Culture.” 41. Data from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population, 1980 (Washington dc: Government Printing Ofﬁce, 1982, 1983); and Donald E. Voth, “Impact of Migration on Arkansas” (lecture given in Arkansas and Regional Studies Lecture Series, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 15 March 1984). 42. For a discussion of the development of retirement communities in the region, see Brooks Blevins, Hill Folks: A History of Arkansas Ozarkers and Their Image (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 193–200; author’s analysis of 2001 Arkansas poll data. For an interesting analysis of the partisan

[403], (21)

Lines: 506 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [403], (21)

404

43.

44.

45. 46.

47.

48.

Notes to Pages 84–87

implications of interstate migration generally, see James G. Gimpel and Jason E. Schuknecht, “Interstate Migration and Electoral Politics,” Journal of Politics 63: 207–31. An economic bias inherent in the process of in-migration—namely, that upscale voters are more able to ﬁnd moving economically feasible—favors Republicans in the United States as a whole. For a discussion of the economic development in northwest Arkansas, especially the rise of the megacorporations, see Blevins, Hill Folks, 210–18. See also Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, “Hot Towns,” Time Online Edition (http://www.time.com/time/ covers/1101031124/bhotspots.html), posted 16 November 2003. The inﬂuence of a large number of military retirees was suggested by the state representative Buddy Blair, quoted in John Hug, “The Rise of the Republican Party in Sebastian County” (University of Arkansas, 1981, typescript). For a full discussion of the phenomenon that is now occurring in northwest Arkansas, see Black and Black, Politics and Society in the South. On the growth of northwest Arkansas, especially Benton County, see Tracie Dungan, “722,327 Residents in nw Arkansas Expected by 2025,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4 July 2003. Bill Simmons, “Voter Registration Appears to Be Near 100 Pct. in 2 Counties,” Arkansas Gazette, 8 February 1986. Hubert B. Stroud and Gerald T. Hanson, Arkansas Geography (Little Rock: Rose Publishing, 1976), 27–32. For an interesting description of geographic, economic, and political distinctions between the eastern and southern lowlands in the nineteenth century, see Thompson, Arkansas and Reconstruction, 9–19. For more recent manifestations of the Delta’s economic and social tribulations, see Wesley Brown, “Arkansas Labor Statistics Paint Ugly Picture of Delta Life,” Arkansas News, 18 July 2003; and Stephen Deere, “Adult Literacy 40% in Some Delta Areas,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 August 2003. Voter registration ﬁgures from Research Department, Voter Education Project, Atlanta, 6 October 1984. For a chart of the mathematics of politics in a racially divided electoral South, see table 1.2 of Black and Black, Rise of Southern Republicanism, 30. On this point, see also the discussion in chapter 5 of David Lublin, The Republican South: Democratization and Partisan Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). For the critical nature of the black vote in selected elections, see Billington, Political South, 146; Ranchino, Faubus to Bumpers, 45, 49–50; Ernest Dumas, “Black Vote Is the Key to Clinton’s Victory,” Arkansas Gazette, 11 November 1982; John Brummett, “Clinton’s Appeal to Blacks Rests on Record, Skill,” Arkansas Gazette, 6 December 1982; “Close Call in Arkansas Primary,” Congressional Quarterly, 31 May 1986. Billington, Political South, 77; Kielhorn, “Party Development,” 103; Bass and DeVries, Transformation of Southern Politics, 100; Bill Simmons, “A gop

[404], (22)

Lines: 526 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[404], (22)

Notes to Page 88 405

49.

50.

51. 52.

Dilemma: ‘Black = Democrat’,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10 June 2001. On Rockefeller’s declining support among black voters in his third term, see Cathy K. Urwin, “Noblesse Oblige and Practical Politics: Winthrop Rockefeller and the Civil Rights Movement,” ahq, 54, 50–51. Bumpers strengthened his acceptance in the African American community by refusing requests from white leaders of Lee County to shut down a federally ﬁnanced medical clinic in Marianna. On the younger Rockefeller’s work in the African American political community, see Joe Stumpe, “Rockefeller Woos Vote of Blacks,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 30 September 1996. Author (Jay Barth) interview with John Yates, 13 September 1996; Bill Reiter, “Black Hall of Fame Welcomes Clinton,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 October 2002. Though a problematic analysis in a number of respects, for a discussion of the development of Clinton’s relationship with the African American community and its impact on voting in his gubernatorial elections, see Hanes Walton Jr., Reelection: William Jefferson Clinton as a Native-Son Presidential Candidate (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 145–64. For African American disgruntlement with Democrats, see “Richardson Steps Up Attack on Clinton,” Arkansas Gazette, 11 May 1983; “Richardson Says White May Have Done More,” Arkansas Gazette, 28 August 1983; “Jackson’s Wife Neglected,” Arkansas Gazette, 16 February 1984; James Merriweather, “Black Leaders Not Hostile to Clinton,” Arkansas Gazette, 30 October 1990; Deborah Mathis, “Dearly Beloved Won’t Fall for Sweet Talk,” Arkansas Gazette, 31 October 1990; Lynette Clemetson, “Younger Blacks Tell Democrats to Take Notice,” New York Times, 10 August 2003. For Republican wooing efforts, see “Black Involvement Sought by gop,” Arkansas Gazette, 26 January 1981; “Republican Recruiter Conﬁdent,” Arkansas Gazette, 22 June 1983; “gop Can Draw Minority Vote,” Arkansas Gazette, 5 August 1984. “Black gop Leaders Vow to Weaken Blind Loyalty,” Arkansas Gazette, 2 December 1984. On this ﬁnal point, see several interviews included in Barth, Blair, and Dumas, “Arkansas: Characters, Crises, and Change.” This information is from the authors’ activist friends and personal experience. Also, see Bass and DeVries, Transformation of Southern Politics, 101–103; “Report Shows Robinson Paid McIntosh,” Arkansas Democrat, 21 July 1984; “Payments to Activists Reported,” Arkansas Gazette, 22 July 1984. Bitter conﬂict arose between the Pryor and Clinton campaigns in 1984 regarding appropriate payments to “knockers and haulers.” For more contemporary accounts, see Noel Oman, “Democrat Cash Primed ’92 Black Vote,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 December 1993; Elizabeth McFarland, “Lincoln Pays Two to Court Black Vote in East Arkansas,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 8 May 1998; Elizabeth McFarland,

[405], (23)

Lines: 544 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [405], (23)

406

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

Notes to Pages 90–94

“Experts: Black Clergy Not Paid for Advocacy,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 31 August 1998. Arthur English and John J. Carroll, “Political Activists in a Southern County: Some Implications for the Future” (paper presented at the 1980 Symposium on Southern Politics, The Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina, March 1980), 5. For predictions of southern urban Republicanism, see Bernard Cosman, Five States for Goldwater (University: University of Alabama Press, 1966); and Donald S. Strong, Urban Republicanism in the South (University: Bureau of Public Administration, University of Alabama, 1960). Correlation coefﬁcients between the percentages of county urban population and 1984 Republican vote were: Republican Presidential vote -.0650; Republican Senate vote -.3007; Republican gubernatorial -.3006. The precincts of Pleasant Valley, Seventh-Day Adventist Academy, and Second Presbyterian in Pulaski County are among many urbanafﬂuent areas that voted Republican in the 1984 national election but voted Democratic for governor. Tracie Dungan, “Exodus Concerns Pulaski,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1 October 1995; Rodney Bowers, “Saline County Sees Upswing of Candidates from gop,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 27 April 2002; Phillip Reese, “Census: Suburbs Grow, But LR Stale,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 July 2003. These Rural Swing counties bear some similarity to Pettigrew and Campbell’s Border counties, “Faubus and Segregation,” 436–47. Their 1960 analysis was based on primary elections, however, and is less applicable in recent, more partisan decades. Reagan increased his vote 15 percent or more in sixteen of the twenty-six Rural Swing counties from 1980 to 1984. Kielhorn, “Party Development,” 232–34, found that 70 percent of Wallace supporters who were interviewed were extremely “loyal” Democrats who usually voted a straight ticket and had never voted Republican for governor. For the revised themes and style of the Clinton “restoration,” see Diane D. Blair, “Two Transitions in Arkansas, 1978 and 1982,” in Gubernatorial Transitions, ed. Thad L. Beyle (Durham nc: Duke University Press, 1985), 92–122; and Robert L. Savage and Diane D. Blair, “Constructing and Reconstructing the Image of Statecraft: The Rhetorical Challenges of Bill Clinton’s Two Gubernatorial Transitions,” in Political Communication Yearbook 1984, ed. Keith R. Sanders, Lynda L. Kaid, and Dan Nimmo (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), 242–61. Doug Smith, “Huckabee Wants Covenant Marriage,” Arkansas Times, 26 January 2001; David Firestone, “Governor’s Mansion Is a Triple-Wide,” New York Times, 19 July 2000; Michael Rowett, “ ‘Queen of the Triple-Wide’ Rolls Out the Red Carpet,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 24 August 2000.

[406], (24)

Lines: 559 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[406], (24)

Notes to Pages 95–99 407 5. dealigned voters and disadvantaged political parties 1. See especially Philip E. Converse, “On the Possibility of Major Political Realignment in the South,” in Elections and the Political Order, ed. Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes (New York: Wiley, 1966), 212–42; Bruce A. Campbell, “Patterns of Change in the Partisan Loyalties of Native Southerners: 1952–1972,” Journal of Politics 39 (1977): 730–61; Harold W. Stanley, “Southern Partisan Changes: Dealignment, Realignment, or Both?” Journal of Politics 50 (February 1988): 64–88. 2. Paul A. Beck and Paul Lopatto, “The End of Southern Distinctiveness,” in Contemporary Southern Political Attitudes and Behavior, ed. Laurence W. Moreland, Ted A. Baker, and Robert P. Steed (New York: Praeger, 1982), 160–82; Kielhorn, “Party Development,” 111–12. 3. Arkansas senatorial polls conducted throughout 1984 for Sen. David Pryor and graciously shared with Diane Blair; Bill Peterson, “To Southern White Youth, Reagan Heads the Class,” Washington Post, 23 May 1986. According to a survey of students conducted by Michael Reynolds (University of Arkansas, 1984, typescript), 80 percent of the sorority women but only 59 percent of the nonGreeks supported Reagan. For reporting and analyses of the 1996 and 2000 exit poll results see Barth, “Arkansas: The Last Hurrah for a Native Son,” 139– 42; and Barth, Parry, and Shields, “Arkansas: Non-Stop Action in Post-Clinton Arkansas,” 142–46. For party identiﬁcation data, see the 1999–2002 annual reports of the Arkansas Poll, the University of Arkansas. (Data on party activists from the 2001 Southern Grassroots Party Activists survey is discussed later in this chapter.) 4. For the “scorecards” given by major interest and ideological groups to the congressional delegation, see the biennial publication by Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, Almanac of American Politics (Washington dc: National Journal). See also Ernest Dumas, “Democrats: Their Style Is Changing,” Arkansas Gazette, 30 May 1982; and Black and Black, The Rise of Southern Republicanism, 82–83. 5. Richard Earl Grifﬁn, Arkansas Gazette, 29 October 1982; “What Robinson Said,” Arkansas Democrat, 29 July 1989. 6. Key, Southern Politics, 280; Jay Barth, “The Impact of Election Timing of Republican Trickle-Down in the South,” in Southern Parties and Elections: Studies in Regional Political Change, ed. Robert Steed, Laurence Moreland, and Tod Baker (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997). 7. William D. Schreckhise, JanineA. Parry, and Todd G. Shields, “Rising Republican in Arkansas’s Electorate? A Characterization of Arkansans’ Political Attitudes and Participation Rates” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, Little Rock, Arkansas, February 2000).

[407], (25)

Lines: 584 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [407], (25)

408

Notes to Pages 100–104

8. Author’s (Jay Barth) interviews with Clinton campaign manager Gloria Cabe, 16 September 1996, and with Republican political director Richard Bearden, 20 August 1996. 9. For additional examples and analysis, see Blair, “Arkansas” (1984), 182–207. 10. Survey results from the Southern Grassroots Party Activists survey, discussed more fully later in this chapter; Wekkin, “Arkansas: Electoral Competition,” 197–99. 11. Dewey Grantham, The Democratic South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1963); William C. Havard, “The South, A Shifting Perspective,” in Changing Politics, 3–36; V. O. Key Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York: Knopf, 1967), 101–105. For contemporary ﬁndings of southern “liberalism,” at least on economic issues, see chapters by Jerry Perkins, by Robert Botsch, and by Earl W. Hawkey, in Contemporary Southern Political Attitudes and Behavior; and Michael L. Mezey, “The Minds of the South,” in Religion and Politics in the South, ed. Tod A. Baker, Robert P. Steed, and Laurence W. Moreland (New York: Praeger, 1983), 5–26. 12. William S. Maddox and Stuart A. Lilie, Beyond Liberal and Conservative: Reassessing the Political Spectrum (Washington dc: Cato Institute, 1984). 13. Maddox and Lilie, Beyond Liberal and Conservative, 68, 87, 96. In their “Ideological Orientations and State Issue Responses: Are They Related?” (paper presented at annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Atlanta, October 1982), Robert L. Savage and Diane D. Blair used this fourfold typology in categorizing results from a survey conducted by the University of Arkansas Household Research Panel. Respondents, however, were somewhat wealthier and considerably better educated than Arkansans generally. For the more recent analysis, see William D. Schreckhise, Janine A. Parry, and Todd G. Shields, “Rising Republicanism in the Arkansas Electorate? A Characterization of Arkansans’ Political Attitudes and Participation Rates,” Midsouth Political Science Review (2001) 5: 5–19. 14. Table 1 in Paul Brace, Kellie Sims-Butler, Kevin Arceneaux, and Martin Johnson, “Public Opinion in theAmerican States: New Perspectives Using National Survey Data,” American Journal of Political Science 46 (2002): 173–89. 15. John Brummett, “Mike Huckabee’s Good Side,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 8 June 2000; Mike Huckabee, speech delivered at the University of Arkansas, 14 February 1996. 16. Sarah McCally Morehouse, State Politics, Parties, and Policy (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981), 71. 17. In both 1983 and 1985, bills requiring voters to register their party afﬁliations were defeated in the state legislature. On two previous occasions when party

[408], (26)

Lines: 601 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[408], (26)

Notes to Pages 105–109 409

18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25.

26.

27.

registration bills passed, they were vetoed, by Governor Faubus in 1959 and by Governor Rockefeller in 1969. In the latter instance, the legislature overrode the veto, but the law was defeated by voters in a protest referendum. Amy Schlesing, “Lone gop Candidate Makes Race of Election,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 14 April 2002. Wekkin, “Arkansas: Electoral Competition,” 195. On the elevated participation rates among Arkansas Republicans, see Schreckhise, Parry, and Shields, “Rising Republicanism in Arkansas’s Electorate?” Seagull, Southern Republicanism, 131; Key, Southern Politics, 277. For Arkansas political party operations from 1932 to 1956, see Drummond, “Arkansas Politics.” For 1960–66, see O’Connor, “Political Party Organization in Pulaski County.” Bass and DeVries, Transformation of Southern Politics, 40. English and Carroll, “Political Activists in a Southern County,” 15. For Democratic ﬁnancial problems see James Scudder, “Democratic Leaders Call for Unity, Fund-raising,” Arkansas Gazette, 16 June 1985. For Republican ﬁnancial and leadership problems see Meredith Oakley, “Chairman of State gop Resigns,” Arkansas Democrat, 19 November 1985; John Brummett, “Small Ineffectual Arkansas gop Locks Itself into a Protracted Mess,” Arkansas Gazette, 3 June 1986. Quotation from David Maraniss, “Arkansas Republican Party Is the Region’s Poor Relation,” Washington Post, 20 May 1986. Harold F. Bass and Andrew Westmoreland, “Parties and Campaigns in Contemporary Arkansas Politics,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 5 (1984): 54. For an overview of the recent history of the two state party organizations, see Blair and Barth, “Arkansas”; Michael Rowett, “Senator’s Letter Alleges Democrat ‘Secret Ofﬁce’,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 8 May 2002. Noel Oman, “Governor’s Race Another ‘If’ in Hardin’s Political Career,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 30August 1993; Mike Huckabee, class lecture, University ofArkansas, 12April 1995; John Brummett, “A‘Very Republican’River Project,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 July 1995. Though these candidates’organizations sometimes overlap with each other and with the county party, in other counties they are the basis of party factionalism. Not surprising, given the occasionally public rifts between the gop’s Huckabee and Hutchinson factions in the past several years, is the recent ﬁnding of a survey of local party activists that divisions between supporters of different party leaders are one of the greatest sources of factionalism in the state Republican Party. Over 60 percent of Republican activists said that a “great deal” or “fair amount” of disagreement within the party resulted from those divisions. On soft money in the 1996 race, see Wekkin, “Arkansas: Electoral Competition,”

[409], (27)

Lines: 626 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [409], (27)

410

Notes to Pages 109–110

190. See Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar, Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate (New York: Free Press, 1995). On soft money’s role in Arkansas in 2000, see Barth, Parry, and Shields, “Arkansas”; and Harold F. Bass, Kathryn A. Kirkpatrick, and Amber E. Wilson, “The 2000 Arkansas Fourth District Race,” in Election Advocacy: Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2000 Congressional Elections, ed. David B. Magleby (www.byu.edu/outsidemoney/2000general/contents.htm), 2001), 121–32. On the 2002 transfers, see Michael Rowett, “State Parties Disclose ‘02 Soft Money; Doubles Figure of ’00,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 17 January 2003. Also, see Michael Rowett, “Arkansas Laws on Soft Money Leave Loopholes, Analysts Say,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 May 2002; Michael Rowett, “Study Warns That Flaws in Party Reports Threaten New Soft Money Reforms,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1 July 2002; and Michael Rowett, “Arkansas Ethics Panel Wants Parties to Detail Contribution Spending,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 November 2002. 28. Author’s (Jay Barth) interview with former state gop executive director Richard Bearden, 19 June 1995. 29. Blair and Barth, “Arkansas,” 25–26, 28. 30. Andrew M. Appleton and Daniel S. Ward, “Understanding Organizational Innovation and Party-Building,” in The Changing Role of Contemporary American Parties, ed. Daniel Shea and John Green (Lanham md: Rowman and Littleﬁeld, 1994); author’s (Jay Barth) interview with former gop Executive Director Richard Bearden, 19 June 1995. Survey responses from the 2001 Southern Grassroots Party Activists survey. Appleton and Ward do emphasize the state gop’s missed opportunities in Andrew M. Appleton and Daniel S. Ward, “Party Organizational Response to Electoral Change: Texas and Arkansas,” American Review of Politics 15 (1994): 191–212. On the 2003 gop funding crisis and fallout, see Michael Rowett, “State gop to Get Audit, Leaders to Get Choice,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 October 2003; Doug Thompson, “State gop Chairman to Announce Decision Today,” Arkansas News Bureau, 22 October 2003; Doug Thompson, “Chairman Resigns, Staff Let Go at State gop,” Arkansas News Bureau, 23 October 2003; Michael Rowett, “State gop Chairman Quits; 4 on Staff Fired,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 23 October 2003; Doug Thompson, “gop Spokesman Can’t Explain Payments to Rackley,” Arkansas News Bureau, 26 October 2003; Doug Thompson, “Ex-Finance Director Reimburses Party, Sources Say,” Arkansas News Bureau, 31 October 2003; Michael Rowett, “State gop Ofﬁcials Deny Red Ink Noted in Email,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 8 November 2003; Laura Kellams, “District gop Asks State Leaders to Quit,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 November

[410], (28)

Lines: 653 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[410], (28)

Notes to Page 111 411 2003; Michael Rowett, “Acting gop Chairman DeLay Stepping Aside,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 November 2003; Doug Thompson, “DeLay Resigns While More Resignations Sought,” Arkansas News Bureau, 23 November 2003; Doug Thompson, “Ofﬁcial Outlines State gop Problems,” Arkansas News Bureau, 25 November 2003; Laura Kellams and Michael Rowett, “State gop Chief Empties Inquiry Panel,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 25 November 2003; Laura Kellams and Michael Rowett, “New Acting State gop Leader Out After 2 Days; DeLay Returns to Job,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 27 November 2003; John Brummett, “Republicans’ Petty Woes,” Arkansas News Bureau, 2 December 2003; Michael Rowett, “State gop’s Books Full of Red Ink,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 3 December 2003; Doug Thompson, “Former gop Interim Chairman Documents Problems,” Arkansas News Bureau, 3 December 2003; Michael Rowett and Laura Kellams, “gop Ranks TakenAback by Debt’s Scope,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4 December 2003; Michael Rowett, “Rockefeller Envisioned as State gop’s ATM,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4 December 2003; Max Brantley, “Show Me the Money,” Arkansas Times, 5 December 2003; Michael Rowett, “gop Mess Includes Payments to Workers,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 December 2003. The major exceptions to this hands-off attitude for the Democratic Party came (a) in 1990 when party chair-executive director Betsey Wright, arguably the most powerful party chair in Arkansas history, did personally recruit state legislative candidates and provided crucial support in a generally successful year for the party’s legislative candidates and (b) in 2002 when Democratic chair Ron Oliver became deeply engaged in recruiting the party’s gubernatorial candidate. On the 1990 activities, see David F. Kern, “Democrats’ $59,572 Ranked 2nd in Gifts to Lawmakers’ Races,” Arkansas Democrat, 12 September 1991; Democratic State Chair Betsey Wright, Activity Report to State Committee, 28 September 1991. On 2002, see David Sanders, “Clark Won’t Enter Governor’s Race.” 31. On this issue, see James L. Gibson, Cornelius P. Potter, John F. Bibby, and Robert J. Huckshorn, “Whither the Local Parties?,” American Journal of Political Science 29 (1985): 152, 154–55. The authors ranked Arkansas Democrats fortyfourth andArkansas Republicans fortieth in terms of local organizational strength. Noel Oman, “House Speaker Says Democrats Need Waking Up,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 18 June 1995. 32. For full overviews of Southern Grassroots Party Activists results for Arkansas, including comparisons across party and across the decade, see Diane D. Blair, “Arkansas: Emerging Party Organizations,” in Southern State Party Organizations and Activists, ed. Charles D. Hadley and Louis Bowman (Westport ct: Praeger, 1995); and Barth, “Arkansas: More Signs of Momentum.”

[411], (29)

Lines: 670 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [411], (29)

412

Notes to Pages 112–119

33. In general, it takes a local feud or strong personal or organizational rivalry to produce competition for local party positions, as happened in Mississippi County in 1982 when a record 118 persons ﬁled for eighty county committee positions. One of the few contests in decades in Washington County occurred in 1968 when an irate woman whose vacuum cleaner would not work ﬁled against the incumbent committeeman, a vacuum cleaner repairman. When he ﬁxed the machine, she withdrew her candidacy. 34. These incentives were adapted from Frank J. Sorauf, Party Politics in America, 3rd ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), 86–96. 35. For the argument that many Arkansas businesspeople were in the recent past “Democrats of Expedience,” fearing loss of contracts and other transactions if they openly avow their Republican sympathies, see Deb Hilliard, “The Elephant Has Awakened,” Arkansas Magazine (Arkansas Democrat), 14 October 1984, 8–11. 36. The fact that Dale Bumpers had no previous partisan involvement is often cited to explain his original electoral success. For the much greater frequency with which party activism and electoral careers are combined in the Arkansas Republican Party, see Bass and Westmoreland, “Parties and Campaigns,” 41–49. 37. On the Christian Right’s inﬂuence in the party, see Kimberly H. Conger, “Christian Right Inﬂuence in State Republican Parties: New Evidence,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 2001. 38. Gun control survey data from the Arkansas Poll, University of Arkansas, fall 1999, http://plsc.uark.edu/arkpoll/falll99/policy/GUN3.HTM. 39. For the increasing importance of “purposive” incentives, see Sorauf, Party Politics, 96; and Lewis Bowman, Dennis Ipolito, and William Ronaldson, “Incentives for the Maintenance of Grassroots Political Activism,” Midwest Journal of Political Science 13 (1969): 126–39. 40. On the battle over the era in Arkansas, see Janine A. Parry, “What Women Wanted: The Arkansas Governors’ Commissions on the Status of Women and the era,” ahq (2000) 59: 265–98. 6. the influence of interest groups 1. The examples are drawn from publicly reported or personally observed events except for the contributions by the Arkansas Motor Carriers Association, which were described by its former president to Mark Vowell and reported in his “Arkansas Interest Group Politics, Focusing on the amca and arkpac” (University of Arkansas, 1984, typescript). 2. Noel E. Oman, “Access Is the Name of the Game for State’s Lobbyists,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 December 1996; TeleTruth 1996 campaign

[412], (30)

Lines: 680 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[412], (30)

Notes to Pages 120–123 413

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

mailing; Noel E. Oman, “pacs Carry Cash Clout But Not Always the Votes,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 28 February 1999; Doug Smith, “High Voltage,” Arkansas Times, 12 March 1999; Arkansas Democrat-Gazette advertisement for Senate Bill 791, 7 April 1999; Ernest Dumas, “Prize-Winning Journalism,” Arkansas Times, 7 May 1999. On campaign ﬁnance laws in the state, see Anderson, Government in Arkansas, 102–3. The Court of Appeals ruling also declared unconstitutional a provision in the 1990 act that limited contributions to pacs to $200 annually. It did uphold a $50 annual individual state income tax deduction for contributions made to state campaigns. On the ruling, see Linda Friedlieb, “Judges Kill Donor Limits in State Law,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 June 1998. For an example of just how irresponsible a candidate must be before a campaign ﬁnance violation is turned over to local prosecutors, see the case of a perpetual violator in Rachel O’Neal, “273 Lobbyists Neglect to File Proper Forms, Ethics Panel Reports,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4 September 1997. “Keeping Track,” Arkansas Times, 19 December 1997; Noel Oman, “gop Video Shows 1-Party Rule Gone Too Far, Nelson Says,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 October 1994; Donald E. Whistler and Charles DeWitt Dunn, “Professional and Amateur Lobbyists in the Arkansas General Assembly,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 8 (1987): 29–40; Michael Rowett, “Special Shells Send Message,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 25 July 2000; “Top Democrat Listed as Donor by Republicans,” Arkansas Gazette, 24 April 1982; Elizabeth Caldwell, “Huckabee Allies on Both Sides of Smoking Ban Issue,” Donrey News, 5 November 2001; Rachel O’Neal, “Nursing Homes Toss $74,000 into Coffers of Tucker Campaign,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 8 January 1994. Other campaign ﬁnance data from the databases of the Arkansas secretary of state and the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Lobbyists and their clients listed in Doug Thompson, “Local Ties Vital, Say Lobbyists,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 17 December 2000; David Smith, “Horne Heads Lobbyists,” Arkansas Business, 26 April 1993. Clarence Thornborough, of Arkansas-Louisiana Gas, quoted in “ArkLa, ap&l Assistants Oppose All Lobbying Laws,” Arkansas Gazette, 20 October 1977; Rep. Albert (“Tom”) Collier quoted in “Bill to Add Requirements on Lobbyists Dies in Panel,” Arkansas Gazette, 1 March 1983. On Clinton’s role in the passage of the two initiated acts, see Diane D. Blair, “William Jefferson Clinton,” in Governors of Arkansas, 269–70; and Anthony Moser, “BornAgain,” The Spectrum, 17 February–1 March 1988. On the elements of the ethics legislation, see Anderson, Government in Arkansas, 6–7; on Huckabee’s ongoing difﬁculties with the commission, see Seth Blomeley, “Huckabee Files Suit in Dispute over Gifts,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6 April 2002.

[413], (31)

Lines: 713 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [413], (31)

414

Notes to Pages 123–127

9. Seth Blomeley, “Chicago Meals Now Looking Reportable, Ethics Chief Says,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 September 2000; Jennifer Liberto, “State Beats Most in Laws on Disclosure,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 February 1999; James Jefferson, “Ethics Chief Leaves under Familiar Circumstances,” Northwest Arkansas Times, 9 February 2000; John Brummett, “Hurry Up and Be Unethical,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 2 December 1999. The difﬁculties created for the commission by the imprecise language of the act were noted by former Ethics Commission Executive Director Bob Brooks in an interview with one of the authors, 19 January 2000. 10. Elizabeth Caldwell, “Ethics Rule Limits Gifts to Public Ofﬁcials,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 19 February 2000; Rob Moritz, “Osborne Largess Just Friendship, Huckabee Says,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9 February 2000; Michael Rowett, “Session Deemed ‘Defensive’ on Ethics Matters,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 22 April 2001. 11. Rachel O’Neal, “273 Lobbyists Neglect to File Proper Forms, Ethics Panel Reports,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4 September 1997; Max Brantley, “Best Little Whorehouse in Arkansas,” Arkansas Times, 25 August 2000; Michael Rowett, “State’s Laws for Lobbyists Flunk Review,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 15 May 2003. 12. On executive branch penetration generally, see Grant McConnell, Private Power and American Democracy (New York: Knopf, 1967); and Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism (New York: Norton, 1969). Arkansas data and quotation from “Arkansas State Regulation vs. the Public Interest” (Little Rock: Arkansas Consumer Research, 1981); and Arkansas Democrat, 18 July 1981. 13. For an excellent overview of this example, see Theo Francis, “Foundation Keeps Secret of Donors Aiding State,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 January 2000. 14. See Clive S. Thomas and Ronald J. Hrebenar, “Interest Groups in the States,” in Politics in the American States, 8th ed., ed. Virginia Gray and Russell L. Hanson (Washington dc: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2004), 121–22. 15. For a discussion of the debate surrounding the relationship between party strength and interest-group strength in a state, see Thomas and Hrebenar, “Interest Groups in the States,” 107–9. 16. See Peirce and Hagstrom, The Book of America, 127; Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” 192, 197, 338. 17. Key, Southern Politics, 477; Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” 179–86. For examples of the enormous inﬂuence Of ap&l (including the efforts of Sen. Joseph T. Robinson, whose law ﬁrm represented ap&l, to keep tva out of Arkansas), see Lester, A Man for Arkansas, 84, 170–87, 205, 209, 244; Ashmore, Arkansas, 145, 175–76; Bass and DeVries, Transformation of Southern Politics, 93; and

[414], (32)

Lines: 727 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[414], (32)

Notes to Pages 127–129 415

18.

19. 20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

Richard D. Roblee and Mark Schlesinger, “The Changing Inﬂuence of ap&l in Arkansas Politics” (University of Arkansas, 1979, typescript). For the inﬂuence of ArkLa, see Bill Terry, “Witt Stephens vs. Shefﬁeld Nelson,” Arkansas Times, July 1980, 55–68; “Stephens Brothers Work for Fun, Proﬁt,” Arkansas Democrat, 29 May 1983 (reprinted from Wall Street Journal); David R. Palmer, “Country Boy Style Helped to Build Stephens Business,” Arkansas Gazette, 3 April 1983; and “Goodbye Mr. Witt,” Arkansas Times, February 1992, 53, 90. See Virginia Gray and David Lowery, The Population Ecology of Interest Representation: Lobbying Communities in the American States (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 212. Ziegler, “Interest Groups in the States,” 121. Van Driesum, “Lobbying in a One-Party Environment”; Rep. Lloyd George quoted in “Soft Sell Is Secret of Lobbyists’ Success,” Northwest Arkansas Times, 11 March 1981; Meredith Oakley, “New Breed of Lobbyist Is in Charge Today,” Arkansas Democrat, 6 September 1987. Elizabeth Caldwell, “Former Lawmakers Now Lobbyists Looking In,” Donrey News Bureau, 1 January 2001; Rachel O’Neal, “Entergy Hires State Senator as Lobbyist,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1 February 2000; Doug Thompson, “State Senator to Head Poultry Federation,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 18 August 2000; Doug Thompson, “Local Ties Vital, Say Lobbyists,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 17 December 2000; John Brummett, “Old Speakers of the House Club,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 January 1999. On this point, see Alan Greenblatt, “Crash Course,” Governing, November 2001, 54–58; and Elizabeth Caldwell, “Legislator Turned Lobbyist Returns to Lawmaking,” Arkansas News Bureau, 5 January 2003. The gubernatorial practice, and its demise, of ﬁring all state employees is discussed in Diane D. Kincaid, “Gubernatorial Appointments and Legislative Inﬂuence” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, Eureka Springs, Arkansas, February 1977). Information about Arkansas Insurance Department from its 2001 annual report, posted on the department’s Web site (www.accessarkansas.org/insurance/annualreport/annualreport. html). Turnover of psc employees in Robert L. Brown, “The psc and You,” Arkansas Times, February 1982, 82. Variables associated with more “integrated” (i.e., postindustrial) state economies include percentages of employed persons who are professionals, who are college graduates, and who work in ﬁnance and insurance, in addition to measures of literacy, income, and media circulation. See Morehouse, State Politics, Parties, and Policy, 64–66, for an explanation of this measure and Arkansas’s low ranking.

[415], (33)

Lines: 748 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [415], (33)

416

Notes to Pages 129–132

25. On interest associations’exit from the scene at high rates in Arkansas, see Virginia Gray and David Lowery, “The Demography of Interest Organization Communities: Institutions, Associations, and Membership Groups,” American Politics Quarterly 23 (1995): 3–32. For additional examples of transitory interests, see English and Carroll, “Arkansas: The Politics of Inequality,” 192–93. 26. English and Carroll, “Arkansas: The Politics of Inequality,” additional data compiled by The Center for Public Integrity, www.publicintegrity.org (downloaded 3 May 2002) and The National Institute on Money in State Politics (downloaded 25 June 2002). 27. Lobbyists ranked in Elizabeth McFarland, “Lobbyists Have Tough SessionAhead of Them,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 January 1999; and Doug Thompson, “Local Ties Vital, Say Lobbyists,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 17 December 2000. 28. Drummond, “Arkansas Politics,” 185. 29. James Jefferson, “Labor Leader Sees Friend in Huckabee,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 3 June 1997; Doug Smith, “Huckabee Stiffs Labor Again,” Arkansas Times, 22 December 2000; Doug Thompson, “Governor Ignores aﬂ-cio in Filling Commission Post,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 17 December 2000; Phillip Reese, “Arkansas’Unions Shrinking,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 17 March 2003. Poll results reported in John Brummett, “Clinton Holds Rating in State Poll,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 28 January 1996. 30. A 1979 mail survey returned by ninety-three legislators ranked the ﬁve most “successful” lobbying groups, in descending order, as Roads, Education, Banking, Cities and Counties, Industry. The results of the 1985 survey of legislators and lobbyists included in English and Carroll, “The Politics of Inequality,” 197–205. On rancor within the aea, see Cynthia Howell, “aea Schism Opens Crack for New Teachers Union,” Arkansas Gazette, 5 September 1989. On Huckabee and the aea, see Rod D. Martin, “Arkansas Edition: The Governor Shows His Mettle,” The Vanguard, 17 April 1998; and Seth Blomeley, “Teacher Union Endorses Fisher,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 3 July 2002. 31. W. Brock Thompson, “‘ACrime Unﬁt to Be Named’:Arkansas and Sodomy,” ahq 61 (2002): 255–71; Traci Shurley, “Justices Strike down Sodomy Law,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7 July 2002; Meredith Oakley, “State-Sanctioned Prejudice Law Must Be Killed,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 27 April 2002; Kevin Freking, “Lani Guinier Helped Shape New State Law,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 8 June 1993; Cynthia Howell, “Lake View Continues Long Fight over Schools,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 2 October 2000; Elizabeth McFarland, “State Chamber Seeks $50,000 for Suit over Campaign Contribution Limits,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 8 January 1998.

[416], (34)

Lines: 764 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[416], (34)

Notes to Pages 132–136 417

32.

33.

34. 35.

On a related point, the ﬁling of amici curiae briefs by interest groups—quite common in some other states—is extraordinarily rare in the Arkansas appellate process. Indeed, the most thorough study of this practice found that zero amici briefs were ﬁled in the 1995 session of the state’s highest court. For this data, see Paul Brace and Melinda Gann Hall, “Comparing Courts Using the American States,” Judicature 83 (2000): 25–266. However, in a more typical session of the Arkansas supreme court some amicus briefs are ﬁled in major cases. For instance, a number of such briefs were ﬁled in the sodomy and school-funding cases discussed here. E. E. Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983), 35; English and Carroll, “Arkansas: The Politics of Inequality,” 206. For an excellent case study of this point (the passage of the bill legalizing midwifery inArkansas), seeArthur English and John J. Carroll, “Outsiders and the Amateur Legislature: A Case Study of Legislative Politics,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 6 (1985): 22–34. For spending in the 1994 gubernatorial race, see chap. 3 of this book. Successful candidates for lieutenant governor in 1996 and attorney general in 1998 each spent more than $850,000, according to campaign expenditure records maintained by the secretary of state (and opponents’ spending meant that each race topped $1.2 million in total expenditures). Costs of 1970s legislative races are cited from one author’s (Diane Blair) own experience. Costs of current legislative elections were determined from the ﬁnal campaign expenditure reports in the 2000 election, maintained by the secretary of state, for successful candidates who have a primary and/or general election challenger. Numerous problems exist with these records because of the obvious incompleteness of ﬁlings from several candidates. On this general point, see Ernest Dumas, “Legislature Dances to Corporate Tune,” Arkansas Gazette, March 15, 1987. Seth Blomeley, “$1.5 Billion in Sales Tax Exemptions Warranted, Citizens Committee Finds,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 April 2000; David Smith, “Big Business Passing State By,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 April 2002; Doug Thompson, “Panel Heavy on Industry Takes Lumps on Herbicide,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6 July 1999; Rex Nelson, “Workers’ Comp Petition Drive No Easy Option for aﬂ-cio,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 31 March 1993; Michael Whiteley, “Workers’ Compensation Rates Drop for Six Years since Law Change,” Arkansas Business, 11–17 September 2000.

7. the constitution: provisions and politics 1. Ralph C. Barnhart, “A New Constitution for Arkansas?” in Readings in Arkansas Government, ed. Walter Nunn (Little Rock: Rose Publishing, 1973), 5. For

[417], (35)

Lines: 785 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [417], (35)

418

2.

3. 4. 5.

6.

Notes to Pages 137–140

additional surveys of Arkansas’s ﬁve constitutions see Robert A. Leﬂar, “A Survey of Arkansas’ Constitutions,” in Arkansas: Colony and State, 188–98; and Walter Nunn, “Arkansas’ Constitutional Experience,” in Constitutional Revision in Arkansas: 1979–80, ed. Robert Johnston (Little Rock: University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 1980). Most importantly, for a concise history of each of the constitutions and a provision-by-provision analysis of the present constitution (up through amendment 73), see Kay Collett Goss, The Arkansas State Constitution: A Reference Guide (Westport ct: Greenwood Press, 1993). Goss also includes a bibliographic essay on each of the major sections of the document. Composition of the constitutional convention in 1868 in Ashmore, Arkansas, 92. For a more detailed discussion of the politics surrounding that constitution and its ratiﬁcation, see Dougan, Arkansas Odyssey, 242–46. Walter Nunn, “The Negativism of the 1874 Constitution,” in Readings in Arkansas Government, 21–25. For some brief but interesting comparisons with other state constitutions, see Dye, Politics in States and Communities, 29–34. One long-term legislative observer recently described the informal process by which the General Assembly selects its proposals: “By tradition, each chamber gets one of its semiﬁnalists into the ﬁnal threesome, and the third ﬁnalist is often an amalgam or hybrid or some of the remaining semiﬁnalists that are lumptogetherable” (Bob Lancaster, “Amendments Primp for Approval,” Arkansas Gazette, 26 February 1991). For initiated amendments, sponsors must get the attorney general’s approval of their proposed ballot title, and the secretary of state passes upon the number and validity of signatures. For an excellent summary of the mechanics of the initiative and referendum, see Anderson, Government in Arkansas, 21–24. For the proposed amendments and action thereon through the mid-1980s, see Jerry E. Hinshaw, Call the Roll: The First One Hundred Fifty Years of the Arkansas Legislature (Little Rock: Rose Publishing, 1986), 175–79. For data on more recent amendments, see the secretary of state’s Web site (www.sosweb.state.ar.us). Until 1925 the Arkansas supreme court held that approval required a majority of all those voting in that election, an interpretation that invalidated ﬁve constitutional amendments. The court also ruled for years that the limit of three constitutional amendment proposals applied to those submitted by the initiative as well as those submitted by the legislature. See Rod Farmer, “Direct Democracy in Arkansas, 1910–1918,” ahq 40 (1981): 99–118; and David Y. Thomas, “Popular Government,” in Arkansas and Its People, 317–32. The other ﬁve states with a relatively easy constitutional amendment process are Arizona, Missouri,

[418], (36)

Lines: 801 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[418], (36)

Notes to Pages 141–146 419

7.

8.

9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Oregon, according to Robert W. Meriwether, “The Amending Process,” in Readings in Arkansas Government, 55. V. O. Key Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York: Knopf, 1967), 101–105. On the 1910 campaign and Bryan’s role in it, see Calvin R. Ledbetter Jr., “Adoption of Initiative and Referendum in Arkansas: The Roles of George W. Donaghey and William Jennings Bryan,” ahq 51 (1992): 199–223. Farmers Union ofﬁcial quoted in Farmer, “Direct Democracy,” 104–5. The three studies are Farmer, “Direct Democracy”; Thomas, “Popular Government”; and Walter Nunn, “Voting Behavior on Statewide Ballot Issues, 1964– 1976” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, Hot Springs, Arkansas, February 1976). Nunn, “Voting Behavior,” 36–37. See especially Robert A. Johnston, ed., Constitutional Revision in Arkansas: 1979–80; Calvin R. Ledbetter Jr., George E. Dyer, Robert E. Johnston, Wayne R. Swanson, and Walter H. Nunn, Politics in Arkansas: The Constitutional Experience (Little Rock: Academic Press of Arkansas, 1972); Robert W. Meriwether, “The ProposedArkansas Constitution Of 1970,” in Readings in Arkansas Government, 26–48; Walter Nunn and Kay G. Collett, Political Paradox: Constitutional Revision in Arkansas (New York: National Municipal League, 1973); Arthur English and John J. Carroll, “Constitutional Reform in Arkansas: The 1979– 1980 Convention,” National Civic Review 71 (May 1982): 240–50, 267; Calvin R. Ledbetter Jr., “The Proposed Arkansas Constitution of 1980,” ahq 60 (2001): 53–74. For a complete list of group endorsements and campaign mottos, see Nunn and Collett, Political Paradox, 133–34, 150–51. Survey by Robert Johnston, cited by Nunn and Collett, Political Paradox, 174. For the adverse impact of a general-election vote, see Nunn and Collett, Political Paradox, p. 177; Ledbetter et al., Politics in Arkansas, 191; Meriwether, “The Proposed Arkansas Constitution of 1970,” 48; and Ledbetter, “The Proposed Arkansas Constitution of 1980,” 73. The 1976 call for a convention did not specify the time for popular submission. Governor Pryor pushed for a special election, but the legislature resisted. The compromise result was to submit the timing question to the voters in the 1978 general election. With little information or interest, voters opted for the 1980 general election rather than a 1979 special election. On the defeat of the 1991 convention bill, see Max Brantley, “Constitutional Convention Call on Its Last Legs,” Arkansas Gazette, 19 March 1991; and John Brummett, “The Case for Doing Away with Arkansas’ House,” Arkansas Democrat, 2 April 1991. Many documents related to the work of Arkansans for

[419], (37)

Lines: 824 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [419], (37)

420

14. 15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

20. 21.

Notes to Pages 147–153

the 21st Century are in the ﬁles of the authors; Diane Blair was a member of the group’s organizing committee. Russell Ray, “Avoiding Hot Issues Priority, Tucker Says,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 7 November 1995. Rachel O’Neal, “2nd Proposal Outlines Path to New Constitution,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4 March 1995; Rachel O’Neal, “Raising a Ruckus Not Part of Constitutional Changes,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 18 June 1995. On opposition (active and passive) to the plan, see Anita French, “Republicans Taking Stand against Constitutional Revision,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 28 November 1995; Noel Oman, “Conservative Groups Join Forces to Oppose Revised Constitution,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 31 October 1995; Sandra Cox, “40 Gather at Capitol to Protest Election,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 11 December 1995; Steve Barnes, “Odds of Constitutional Change,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 15 October 1995; Robert S. McCord, “Aginners Defeat Constitution,” Arkansas Times, 22 December 1995; James Jefferson, “Common Cause Urges Non-Voting Lawmaker-Delegates,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 6 October 1995; Noel Oman, “Business Stays Cool to Charter,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 15 October 1995. Gary D. Wekkin and Donald E. Whistler, “History, Political Culture, and Constitutional Reform in Arkansas,” Midsouth Political Science Journal 5 (2001): 21–38. Legislator quoted in Doug Smith, “Tucker’s Convention Moves Ahead,” Arkansas Times, 27 October 1995. For the most thorough analyses of the 1970 defeat, see Ledbetter et al., Politics in Arkansas, 182–227; Meriwether, “The Proposed Arkansas Constitution of 1970”; and Nunn and Collett, Political Paradox, 170–77. The best summary analyses of the 1980 defeat are English and Carroll, “Constitutional Reform in Arkansas”; and Ledbetter, “The Proposed Arkansas Constitution of 1980.” The polling results reported in Wekkin and Whistler, “History, Political Culture, and Constitutional Reform,” show contemporary Arkansans’ ongoing support for the large number of statewide executive ofﬁcers. Indeed, only 17 percent of respondents favored eliminating the position of Commissioner of State Lands. On the case of the manipulated clock, see “Gavels Signal End of the Assembly,” Arkansas Gazette, 30 March 1985. Three popularly initiated amendments (permitting voting machines, establishing a voter registration system, and permitting community colleges) were, however, adopted during this period. For a list of these twenty-seven key recommendations, see Nunn and Collett, Political Paradox, 29–31. On the eventual adoption of many of Governor Brough’s constitutional reforms, see Nunn and Collett, Political Paradox, 8.

[420], (38)

Lines: 838 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[420], (38)

Notes to Pages 153–160 421 22. On the 1985 legislative situation that produced one amendment, see Brenda Blagg, “Only One Survived the System,” Springdale News, 16 April 1985. 23. David S. Broder, Democracy Derailed: Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money (New York: Harcourt Brace, 2000). 24. The two most recent submissions of the four-year term proposal were within the 1970 and 1980 proposed constitutions. The last separate submission was in 1954. For an interesting account of the electoral battle over one “morality” amendment, the 1986 campaigns for and against the Unborn Child Amendment, see chapter 1 of William Saleton, Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 9–30. 25. Meriwether, “The Proposed Arkansas Constitution of 1970,” 48.

1.

2.

3.

4. 5. 6.

8. the power and politics of the executive branch For the expansion of gubernatorial power as a result of the four-year term, see Calvin Ledbetter Jr., “Arkansas and the Four-Year Term: Its History and Impact,” Arkansas Lawyer, October 1985, 148–52. One of the most recent and thorough comparative gubernatorial power studies is Thad Beyle, “Governors,” in Politics in the American States, 8th ed., 205–18. This 2002 update places Arkansas’s governorship in its traditional, low place. For changes between 1960 and 2002 (or, more accurately, the lack thereof in Arkansas), see Thad Beyle, “Institutional Powers of the Southern Governorships, 1960–2002,” South Now (June 2002): 7–8. On the modern perquisites of the governorship that do signiﬁcantly enhance the modest salary, see Ernest Dumas, “The Royal Huckabees,” Arkansas Times, 23 August 2002. Harris polls quoted in Larry Sabato, Goodbye to Good-time Charlie: The American Governorship Transformed, 2d ed. (Washington dc: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1983), 9. Quizzes and their analysis in possession of the authors. For general outlines and discussions of contemporary gubernatorial roles, see Beyle, “Governors,” 203–13; Dye, Politics in States and Communities, 178–80. Governor Clinton’s analysis was articulated in a guest lecture to students in Diane Blair’s classroom, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 5 April 1981. For a less systematic but very illuminating discussion of responsibilities by another contemporary governor, see “David Pryor: State Employee,” Grapevine, October 1976. For extensive analyses of Arkansas gubernatorial transitions, see Blair, “Two Transitions”; and Savage and Blair, “Constructing and Reconstructing,” Steve Barnes, “Whats and Whys of Legislature???Then?,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 2 March 1997. Robert Johnston and Dan Durning, “The Arkansas Governor’s Role in the Policy Process, 1965–79,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 2 (1981). According to

[421], (39)

Lines: 872 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [421], (39)

422

7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

Notes to Pages 160–164

analyses in the Arkansas Gazette, 15 May 1983 and 7 April 1985, respectively, 83 percent and 90 percent of Clinton’s proposals were enacted in the 1983 and 1985 legislative sessions. His success rates in the 1989 and 1991 sessions were 80 percent and 95 percent, respectively, according to David F. Kern, “Governor Bats .950 in Session,” Arkansas Democrat, 7 April 1991. Tucker’s success rate provided by Margaret Ferguson; Huckabee’s success rates reported in David A. Lieb, “Huckabee Nearly Gets Full Agenda Through Legislature,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 11 April 1999; Michael R. Wickline, “Huckabee: Session Went My Way,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 22April 2001; and Michael Rowett, “Huckabee Success Rate Dwindles in ‘03,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 April 2003. On the juvenile crime session, see Jay Barth, “Arkansas’ Juvenile Crime Special Session: An Election Season Success with Forewarnings for Arkansas Politics,” Comparative State Politics 15 (1994): 19–27. The Arkansas governor’s choice of Speaker was usually honored until a backlash against Governor McMath’s choice in 1953 resulted in adoption of the “pledge” system. In this arrangement, representatives select their Speaker for the following session at the preceding session, before the gubernatorial election is even held. The president pro tempore of the senate is similarly selected by advance pledges. Committee chairmanships are determined by seniority. Elizabeth Caldwell, Kevin Freking, and Rachel O’Neal, “8 Vetoes Die in Override Blitz,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 18 April 1997; Rachel O’Neal, “Huckabee: Democrats No Pen Pals,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 April 1997. Data on vetoes were compiled from Henry M. Alexander, Government in Arkansas (Little Rock: Pioneer Press, 1963), 49; and Johnston and Durning, “The Arkansas Governor’s Role,” 25–27. The two overrides with gubernatorial “consent” include Governor Pryor’s wish to avoid a court challenge to the item veto in 1975 and Governor Clinton’s feeble attempts to ﬁght override of the 1985 gasoline tax increase. Elizabeth Caldwell and Kevin Freking, “Governor Calls It an ‘Assault on the Treasury’,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 3 April 1997. Huckabee quoted in Rachel O’Neal, “Huckabee: Party Ties Won’t Put Him in Bind,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 12 November 1996; Huckabee chief of staff Brenda Turner’s e-mail quoted in Seth Blomeley, “‘Woman Behind Curtain’ Revealed Through E-Mail,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 June 2002. For excellent details on how the governor’s legislative aides operate, see “The Governor’s Men in the Legislature,” Arkansas Democrat, 1 May 1983. On the limitations of gubernatorial aides in the deal-making process, see Meredith Oakley, “Clinton May Be Fighting a Losing Battle,” Arkansas Democrat, 14April

[422], (40)

Lines: 904 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[422], (40)

Notes to Pages 165–168 423

14. 15.

16.

17.

18. 19. 20.

21.

1987. The Clinton-Hogue exchange is from John Obrecht and John Brummett, “Clinton Does Hard Lobbying for Measure,” Arkansas Gazette, 13 February 1985. Also see Scott Van Laningham and Bob Wells, “Clinton Lobbies Intensely,” Arkansas Gazette, 19 March 1987. For a detailed discussion of the changing “coins of exchange” in the gubernatorial-legislative relationship, see Diane D. Kincaid, “Gubernatorial Appointments and Legislative Inﬂuence,” Public Administration Quarterly (winter 1984): 429–40. For a critique of Tucker’s legislative style, see Art English, “The Political Style of Jim Guy Tucker,” Comparative State Politics 18, no. 2 (1997): 18–28. On Huckabee’s typical detachment, see Barnes, “Whats and Whys of Legislature”; and Dennis Byrd, “A Stronger Governor . . . Again,” Donrey News, 12 March 2001. Senator Dale Bumpers, interview with Diane Blair, 30 December 1976. Charles Press and Kenneth VerBurg, State and Community Governments in the Federal System (New York: Wiley, 1979), 308. Governor Faubus’s methods are described in his address to the Arkansas Political Science Association, Russellville, Arkansas, 23 February 1985. On the 1997 competing ads, see Brenda Blagg, “Democrats May Have Hurt Their Case,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 17 April 1997. On the Clinton and Huckabee education campaigns, see Max Brantley, “Next Scam?,” Arkansas Times, 28 June 2002. Governor Huckabee quoted in John Brummett, “Huckabee Wants to Be Mr. Mandate,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 12 January 1999; Sen. Dale Bumpers, interview with Diane Blair, 30 December 1976. “In Arkansas, a New Twist on Use of Initiatives,” Governing, November 1988, 72. Amendment 6, adopted in 1913 and effective in 1926, established the lieutenant governorship and eliminated the word supreme. The importance of ﬁscal management, supervisory control, and appointment and removal is discussed by Daniel R. Grant and H. C. Nixon, State and Local Government in America, 4th ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1982), 263–73. For the 1971 reorganization plan and its consequences, see Ernest Dumas, “Executive Reorganization Reverses 97 Years of Traditions,” in Readings in Arkansas Government, 140–44. On the 2003 Huckabee proposal and its demise, see Dennis A. Byrd, “Executive Branch Restructuring Plans Cyclical, Professor Says,” Arkansas News Bureau, 15 January 2003; Rob Moritz, “‘Hostile’Amendment to Government Reorganization Bill Passed,” Arkansas News Bureau, 12 April 2003; and Michael R. Wickline, “Amendment Passes to Gut Huckabee Bill,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 12 April 2003. For relative rankings of the governor’s administrative authority, see Thad Beyle, “The Governor’s Power of

[423], (41)

Lines: 923 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [423], (41)

424

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

Notes to Pages 169–172

Organization,” State Government 55 (1982): 79–87. On a scale of 6 to 26 possible management points, the national average was 14.76.Arkansas’s governorship had 11. On the changing status of the lieutenant governor in the state, see Art English, “Good-bye to Part Time Louie: New Roles in the Ofﬁce of Arkansas Lieutenant Governor,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, Jonesboro, Arkansas, 2002. For the functions of these six elected executive ofﬁcials, see Anderson, Government in Arkansas, 28–30. On the examples of conﬂicts between governors and attorneys general, see Ron Fournier, “Clark, Clinton Waging ‘Turf War’ on Measure Creating ‘Drug Czar’,” Arkansas Democrat, 9 February 1989; Brenda Blagg, “Governor, ag Disagree on Gun Checks,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 30 July 1997; Seth Blomeley, “Arkansas Plagued by Budget Problems,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9 June 2002. Beebe’s 2003 agenda outlined in Michael R. Wickline, “Beebe’s Bills Focus on Lending, Rx Lawsuits,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 24 March 2003; and Michael R. Wickline, “Attorney General Touts Success for Most of Legislative Package,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 April 2003. Sen. Jerry Bookout quoted in Arkansas Democrat, 9 January 1985. On the Highway Commission’s inﬂuence (and afﬂuence), see Michael Haddigan, “Money Troubles? What Money Troubles?,” Arkansas Times, 15 February 2002. Gov. David Pryor, interview with Diane Blair, 3 January 1977. For an excellent example of gubernatorial–state board discord, see Susan Roth, “Board Fires Educator, Outrages Governor,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 14 January 1997. The infrequent use of the cabinet as a governing device was conﬁrmed by Betsey Wright, Governor Clinton’s chief of staff, in an interview with Diane Blair, 11 July 1985. Also see Brenda Tirey, “It’s Hard to Tell How Cabinet System Is Faring,” Arkansas Gazette, 1 January 1984. On this issue, see “Patronage Jobs in State Uncommon,” Arkansas Gazette, 22 June 1990. On state merit systems generally, see Sabato, Goodbye to Goodtime Charlie, 66–69. On Arkansas’s ﬁrst attempt at a merit system, which was proposed by a governor who spent 90 percent of his time on patronage, see Donald Holley, “Carl E. Bailey: The Merit System and Arkansas Politics,” ahq 45 (1986): 291–320. Though no comprehensive merit system now exists, most state employees are hired under the Uniform Classiﬁcation and Compensation Act of 1969 as amended. Administered by the Ofﬁce of Personnel Management, there are now such merit-system features as uniform job titles and pay plans between departments, state policies for holiday and sick leave, and a uniform grievance procedure.

[424], (42)

Lines: 939 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[424], (42)

Notes to Pages 172–178 425

28.

29. 30.

31. 32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court also issued a series of rulings during this era that emphasized that any ﬁring of rank-and-ﬁle employees for partisan reasons violates those individuals’ constitutional rights. Diane D. Blair, “GubernatorialAppointment Power: Too Much of a Good Thing?” State Government 55 (1982): 91. On Republican difﬁculties in ﬁlling positions on boards and commissions, see Doug Thompson, “U.S. Senator’s Wife Solicits gop Women for State Boards,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 13 April 1999. Ledbetter, “Arkansas and the Four-Year Term,” 151–52. Results of 1948 study in Grant and Nixon, State and Local Government, 274. Extracted from Daniel R. Grant, “The Role of the Governor of Arkansas in Administration” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1948). Rachel O’Neal and Ray Pierce, “Huckabee Shutting Down Youth Lockup,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 June 1998. On the constitutional emergency powers, see Cal Ledbetter Jr., “The Ofﬁce of Governor in Arkansas History,” ahq 37 (1978): 44–73. On Governor Clinton’s experiences with crisis situations, see Phyllis Finton Johnston, Bill Clinton’s Public Policy for Arkansas: 1979–1980 (Little Rock: August House, 1983), 70– 91. Leslie W. Dunbar, “The Changing Mind of the South: The Exposed Nerve,” Journal of Politics 25 (1964): 20. On the continued prevalence of “Chamber of Commerce” governors in the South, see chap. 10 of Richard K. Scher, Politics in the New South, 2nd ed. (Armonk ny: M.E. Sharpe, 1997). Governor Clinton, classroom lecture, University of Arkansas, 5 April 1981, and speech to Arkansas aﬂ-cio, Arkansas Gazette, 4 June 1985. Also see Tyler Tucker, “Clinton Hopes Travels Will Counter Failure to Promote Arkansas,” Arkansas Democrat, 30 September 1987; and “Spin City,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 November 1996. For the small percentage of “no-growth” advocates, see Robert L. Savage and Diane D. Blair, “Regionalism and Political Opinion in Arkansas: An Exploratory Survey,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 5 (1984): 64, 76. An example of the legislature’s unquestioning support of such efforts is the seventy-ﬁfth General Assembly’s approval intact and with little debate of Governor Clinton’s complicated seventeen-bill economic development package. Examples collected from numerous newspaper stories. The number of proclamations cited by the secretary of state in Pam Strickland, “Governor’s Proclamations Keep Constituents Smiling,” Arkansas Democrat, 26 December 1985. Thad L. Beyle and Lynn R. Muchmore, “The Governor and the Public,” in Being Governor: The View from the Ofﬁce, ed. Beyle and Muchmore (Durham nc: Duke University Press, Duke Press Policy Studies, 1983), 54–55.

[425], (43)

Lines: 960 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [425], (43)

426

Notes to Pages 178–186

37. Cal Ledbetter Jr., “Jeff Davis and the Politics of Combat,” ahq 33 (1974): 23. On the increased use of modern campaign technologies in governance, see Larry Sabato, “Gubernatorial Politics and the New Campaign Technology,” State Government (summer 1980): 148–52. 38. Quotation from Jim Powell, “The Stage Is Cleared for the Next Political Drama,” Arkansas Gazette, 24 March 1985. 39. On the reelection problems of governors who are responsible for tax increases, see Sabato, Goodbye to Good-time Charlie, 105–10. 40. Governor Brough quoted in Ralph C. Barnhart, “A New Constitution for Arkansas?” in Readings in Arkansas Government, 6; Daniel Grant, “The Role of the Arkansas Governor,” n.p. 41. Governor Pryor quoted in Center for Policy Research, Reﬂections on Being Governor (Washington dc: National Governor’s Association, 1981), 169. 42. Governor Clinton, classroom lecture, University of Arkansas, 5 April 1981. See also Meredith Oakley, “Economic Plan Rides New Clinton Style,” Arkansas Democrat, 3 March 1985. 43. Biographical data on Arkansas governors compiled from essays in Donovan, Gatewood, and Whayne, Governors of Arkansas. 44. Data on other governors’ career paths included in Thad L. Beyle, “Governors,” in Politics in the American States, 5th ed., ed. Virginia Gray, Herbert Jacob, and Robert B. Albritton (Glenview il: Scott, Foresman, 1990), 206. Sabato, Goodbye to Good-time Charlie, 20–44. 45. Speaking at a governors’ reunion in North Little Rock, 1 December 1986, Sidney McMath recalled that in 1948, $10,000 was one of the handsomest annual salaries in the state. Quotation from Joseph Utley, Record Books, 1923–1943, 7 December 1923, 31. The contemporary ﬁgure is based on Governor Huckabee’s 1998 expenditures in his race for a full term. 46. Speaker Unruh quoted in Alan Rosenthal, Legislative Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 20. 47. Research of Cal Ledbetter and C. Fred Williams reported in Bob Lancaster, “The Great One,” Arkansas Times, 28 August 1998. 9. the power and politics of the legislative branch 1. See Walter Moffatt, “Out West in Arkansas, 1819–40,” ahq 17 (1958): 33–44; Donald A. Stokes, “Public Affairs in Arkansas, 1836–50” (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1966); Joe Segraves, “Arkansas Politics, 1874–1918” (PhD diss., University of Kentucky, 1973); William Orestus Penrose, “Political Ideas in Arkansas, 1880–1907” (master’s thesis, University of Arkansas, 1945); Thomas, Arkansas and Its People; and Ashmore, Arkansas. In Call the Roll,

[426], (44)

Lines: 980 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[426], (44)

Notes to Pages 187–191 427

2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

9. 10.

Rep. Jerry E. Hinshaw attempts to paint a more positive portrait of the General Assembly but still provides more evidence of legislative failure than accomplishment. See Meredith Oakley, “Old-timers Recall Colorful Legislatures Past,” Arkansas Democrat, 10 February 1985; Phyllis Rice, “Wheels of Power Turn Smoother Now,” Northwest Arkansas Times, 14 April 1985; Harry Lee Williams, Forty Years behind the Scenes in Arkansas Politics (Little Rock: Parkin Printing and Stationery, 1949), 83–101; and Johnson, Arkansas in Modern America, 99. The Sometime Governments (Kansas City mo: The Citizens’ Conference on State Legislatures, 1973), 31; Key, Southern Politics, 308. For details on apportionment before and after federal court orders, see Donald T. Wells, “The Arkansas Legislature,” in Power in American State Legislatures, ed. Alex B. Lacy Jr. (New Orleans: Tulane University, 1967). The reform recommendations are contained in Center for State Legislative Research and Service, Strengthening the Arkansas Legislature (New Brunswick nj: Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, 1972). Art English, “Work-Styles in a Part-Time Legislature: A Preliminary Look at the Arkansas Experience,” presented at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, Jonesboro, Arkansas, 1992. On the reduction of socializing in the legislature, see Bill Simmons, “Party Animals Pooping Out,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 February 1997; and “All Work, No Play,” Arkansas Times, 19 February 1999. Quotation on the self-perception of legislators as amateurs from Jay Barth’s conversation with legislative staffer, July 2002. Information on nativity calculated from The Directory of the Arkansas Legislature, published biennially by Southwestern Bell Company, Little Rock. The data on age is included in “The Arkansas Legislature: A 20 Year Retrospective” (Little Rock ar: Paschall and Associates, 2001). Also see Donna E. Hudspeth, “Partyin-Ofﬁce and Party Organization: The Arkansas Legislature and the Democratic Party” (paper presented at annual meeting of Arkansas Political Science Association, Arkadelphia, Arkansas, February 1978). It is now possible to serve ten years in the state senate, despite the term limits amendment. By tradition, after the election following each legislative redistricting, senate members would draw for seventeen four-year and eighteen two-year terms. Those who now draw two-year terms can serve two full four-year terms plus the shortened term. [stopped here] Information on legislators’ religious afﬁliations collected in n.8. For a history of African American membership in the modern Arkansas legisla-

[427], (45)

Lines: 1013 to ———

13.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [427], (45)

428

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

Notes to Pages 191–193

ture, see Janine A. Parry and Will Miller, “African Americans in the Arkansas General Assembly: 1972–1999” (University of Arkansas, 2002, typescript). John M. Carey, Richard G. Niemi, and Lynda W. Powell, “The Effects of Term Limits on State Legislatures,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 23 (1998): 275– 300. For a more focused analysis of the impact on representation for women and minorities in term limit states, see Susan J. Carroll and Krista Jenkins, “Increasing Diversity or More of the Same? Term Limits and the Representation on Women, Minorities and Minority Women in State Legislatures” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 2001). Education data derived from pertinent editions of Arkansas Election: Candidate Proﬁles for the Primary Election, published biennially by Arkansas Legislative Digest, Inc. Other data from “The Arkansas Legislature: A 20 Year Retrospective”; Arthur English and John J. Carroll, Citizen’s Manual to the Arkansas General Assembly (Little Rock: Institute of Politics and Government, 1983), 15–16; and, Wells, “The Arkansas Legislature,” 11. Legislators receive a $95 daily allowance plus mileage when in session. They receive the same per diem and mileage when attending committee meetings or when on other ofﬁcial business during the interim, and they can itemize legislative-related expenses up to $9,600 per year. They also receive life and health insurance beneﬁts and, after ten years of service, retirement beneﬁts. In addition, during the session dozens of legislative spouses were traditionally employed in temporary positions although that number has dropped somewhat in the term limits era. James D. Barber, The Lawmakers (New Haven ct: Yale University Press, 1965), 217–33; Alan Rosenthal, Legislative Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 57–60; Lillian C. Woo, “Today’s Legislators: Who They Are and Why They Run,” State Legislatures (April 1994): 28–33. Arkansas was one of the sixteen states included in Woo’s legislative survey. English and Carroll, Citizen’s Manual, 19; Donald E. Whistler and Charles DeWitt Dunn, “Institutional Representation as Institutional Accountability in the Arkansas General Assembly,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 4 (1983): 50–52. For a discussion of the gop efforts, see Blair and Barth, “Arkansas,” 25; for the success of orvis (Optimal Republican Voting Strength) in other southern states, see William E. Cassie, “More May Not Always Be Better: Republican Recruiting Strategies in Southern Legislative Elections,” American Review of Politics 15 (1994): 141–55; and Charles S. Bullock III and David J. Shafer, “Party Targeting and Electoral Success,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 22 (1997):

[428], (46)

Lines: 103 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[428], (46)

Notes to Pages 194–200 429

17. 18. 19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

573–84. For the 1996 data on contested seats, see Peverill Squire, “Uncontested Seats in State Legislative Contests,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 25 (2000): 131–46. Lobbyists’ survey data reported in Moncrief and Thompson, “On the Outside Looking In,” 407. Party activists’ survey data reported in Barth, “Arkansas: More Signs of Momentum.” Rosenthal, Legislative Life, 50, 54–55; Hudspeth, “Party-in-Ofﬁce,” 4; English and Carroll, Citizen’s Manual, 18; Whistler and Dunn, “Institutional Representation,” 43–44. See also Diane Kincaid Blair and Ann R. Henry, “The Family Factor in State Legislative Turnover,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 6 (1981): 55–68; Rosenthal, Legislative Life, 135–37. Shane Broadway, “Gradual Transformation under Term Limits,” Spectrum: The Journal of State Government (fall 2001): 23; Elizabeth Caldwell, “Only True Senate Novice Ready for Business,” Arkansas News Bureau, 3 December 2002. Moncrief and Thompson, “On the Outside Looking In,” 405; state budget analyst Bill Goodman quoted in Seth Blomeley, “Term Limits Cripple System, Some Say,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 14 April 2002. Michael R. Wickline, “Judiciary Panel Falls to 1 Lawyer in Ranks,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 January 2003. Broadway quoted in Seth Blomeley, “Term Limits Cripple System.” On legislators’ inability to follow procedure, see survey results in National Council of State Legislatures, An Assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly, 8; on the orientation efforts, see James Jefferson, “Learning Curve for State Legislators,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 1 February 1999. Parliamentary Manual of the Senate, Permanent Rules of the House. The discharge possibility noted in step 4 of the legislative process is extraordinarily rare. It did happen in 2003, however, when a highly controversial nursing home tort reform measure was extracted from committee by a majority of the body (Michael Rowett and Michael R. Wickline, “Senate Yanks Bill on Nursing Home Suits from Panel,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10 April 2003). On the general issue of the mammoth number of bills passed in Arkansas, see English and Carroll, Citizen’s Manual, 49; Robert McCord, “Why Arkansas Legislators Love to Legislate,” Arkansas Gazette, 24 February 1985; Rosenthal, Legislative Life, 256–60; Wells, “The Arkansas Legislature,” 31. Data for the most recent sessions drawn from relevant editions of Book of the States. On legislative efﬁciency in legislatures that have high turnover rates (including term-limited ones), see Peverill Squire, “Membership Turnover and the Efﬁcient Processing of Legislation,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 23 (1998): 23–32.

[429], (47)

Lines: 1055 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [429], (47)

430

25.

26.

27. 28.

29.

30.

31.

Notes to Pages 201–203

Squire emphasizes that “quantity” does not necessarily correlate with “quality” of legislation. Frank Triplett, “The Trivial State of the States,” Time, 29 May 1978, 102. On the frequency and legal status of local acts, see Henry Alexander, Government in Arkansas (Little Rock: Pioneer Press, 1963), 99–100. Legislator quoted in Steve Barnes, “Lawmakers Give Up Prerogatives,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 2 April 1995. The data on appropriations legislation is drawn from the National Conference of State Legislature’s March 2001 report, An Assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly, 47. All data on bill introductions as well as survey responses from legislators can be found in An Assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly, 24–26. These ﬁndings are also supported by survey data reported in Art English, “Term Limits in Arkansas: Opportunities and Consequences,” Spectrum: The Journal of State Government (fall 2003): 30–33. English and Carroll, Citizen’s Manual, 51; authors’ observations of many legislative sessions. On the 1977 debacle, see Diane D. Blair, “David H. Pryor,” in Governors of Arkansas, 258–59; for the damage control necessitated by the 1985 regular session, see John Brummett, “Special Session to Start Monday,” Arkansas Gazette, 16 June 1985; and “Special Session Begins,” Arkansas Gazette, 18 June 1985. On passage of the scientiﬁc creationism law see Brenda Tirey, “The Power in the Senate,” Arkansas Gazette, 15 March 1981; and “Legislators Pass Creation Bill,” Arkansas Gazette, 18 March 1981. Bradley D. Jesson, classroom lecture, University of Arkansas, 15 November 1981. For some recent examples of “do-nothing” bills, see “Court Reporter Bill to Cost Counties,” Arkansas Gazette, 19 April 1981; John R. Stan, “Pension for Pals Recalls Darker Days,” Arkansas Democrat, 23 August 1981; and discussion of hb 68 in “House Approves Bill for State Employees to Retire in 30 Years,” Arkansas Gazette, 23 January 1985. Data obtained from Bureau of Legislative Research; John Brummett, “Tax Exemptions Are Studied by Legislators,” Arkansas Gazette, 19 March 1982; Meredith Oakley, “Revenue-Hungry State Losing Millions to Exemptions,” Arkansas Democrat, 23 March 1982; Vicki F. Tynan, Responsible Choices in Taxation (Little Rock: Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation), 3. Figures for 2001 calculated from Arkansas General Assembly Web site, http://ark leg.state.ar.us/2001/data/ACSB&R.asp?. It should also be noted that in theArkansas legislature, when a member does not vote it does generally have the same effect as a negative vote. Nevertheless, it is never clear whether members’ lack of participation in a roll call is a passive statement of opposition, a calculated “walk”

[430], (48)

Lines: 107 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[430], (48)

Notes to Pages 203–207 431

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

that becomes a way of satisfying interests opposed to the measure without casting a vote out of synch with their own views, or a literal absence from the ﬂoor. Patrick O’Connor, “Voting Structure in a One-Party Legislature: The Arkansas House of Representatives Over Five Sessions” (PhD diss., Indiana University, 1973); personal remembrance of Diane Blair; Elizabeth Caldwell, “Republicans Surface in Legislature,” Arkansas News Bureau, 24 March 2002. On the machinations through which the committee majority was established in 1999, see John Brummett, “Arkansas gop Caught Being Cagey,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 17 January 1999. On gop success in getting legislation passed in the post–term limits legislature, see Melissa Perry, “The Changing Republican Minority: Impact, Activity, and Success in the Arkansas House,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 2004. Clement Gollier and Art English, “Stability and Change in the Arkansas General Assembly: Case Study of the 1997 Legislative Session” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, 1999). Murphy episode is personal remembrance of Jay Barth. Among others, see Dennis Byrd, “Legislative Divisions Become Apparent,” Arkansas News Bureau, 18 May 2003, on the geography of school reform battle. Diane D. Blair and Jeanie R. Stanley, “Male and Female Legislators: Perceptions of Power” (presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Memphis, Tennessee, 1989); Diane D. Blair and Jeanie R. Stanley, “Personal Relationships and Legislative Power: Male and Female Perceptions,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 16 (1991): 495–507; personal observation of the authors; Kevin Freking, “Women Lawmakers Blast Decision,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 18 January 1997. For a similar, more recent instance of the phenomenon, see Laura Kellams, “Prison Policy Worries Moms in Legislature,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 30 March 2004. Analysis of 2001 session found in Tami Clinkingbeard, “The Role of Women in a State Legislature” (Hendrix College, 2002, typescript); Laura Kellams, “Women’s Caucus Gears Up for 2003,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6 January 2003. For additional earlierArkansas data on women legislators’ behavior and effectiveness, see Kathleen A. Bratton and Kerry L. Haynie, “Agenda Setting and Legislative Success in State Legislatures: The Effects of Gender and Race,” Journal of Politics 61 (1999): 658–79; and Tracy Osborn, “Patterns in Roll Call Voting among Women State Legislators,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, 2003. Osborn found moderate amounts of cohesion in the voting patterns of Arkansas women legislators on women’s issues in the 1999 session. Donald E. Whistler and Mark C. Ellickson, “Measuring State Inﬂuence in a

[431], (49)

Lines: 1094 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [431], (49)

432

37. 38. 39.

40. 41.

42.

43. 44.

45.

Notes to Pages 207–211

Southern State Legislature,” Southeastern Political Review (1988): 155–78; Bratton and Haynie, “Agenda Setting and Legislative Success,” 671; Kerry L. Haynie, African American Legislators in the American States (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 26–37; Barth, “Arkansas’ Juvenile Crime Special Session”; Parry and Miller, “African Americans in the Arkansas General Assembly.” English and Carroll, Citizen’s Manual, 60; Johnston and Storey, “The Arkansas Senate,” 79; Whistler and Dunn, “Institutional Representation,” 54. On bill-grading, see Jake Sandlin, “Capitol Rivals Share Political Single-Mindedness,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 2 March 1997. John M. Carey, Richard G. Niemi, and Lynda W. Powell, Term Limits in the State Legislatures (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000); National Conference of State Legislatures, An Assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly; Moncrief and Thompson, “On the Outside Looking In,” 406; Steve Barnes, “Lawmakers Give Up Prerogatives.” Whistler and Dunn, “Institutional Representation,” 46, 52. Malcolm E. Jewell and Samuel C. Patterson, The Legislative Process in the United States, 3rd ed. (New York: Random House, 1977), 302; student quizzes in authors’ possession; “aetn Viewer Survey on the Special Session” (Histecon Associates, Little Rock, June 1985). On the sporadic inﬂuence of constituents on legislative decision making (in Oklahoma and Kansas), see Donald R. Songer et al., “The Inﬂuence of Issues on Choice of Voting Cues Utilized by State Legislators,” Western Political Quarterly 39 (1986): 118–25. Shannon Hemann, “Legislators Rebuked in Home County for Voting Against Highway Plan,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 March 1999. Figures for 1927 in Thomas S. Staples and David Y. Thomas, “Part II—1865– 1930,” in Arkansas and Its People, 306; ﬁgures for 1951 quoted by the former Speaker Marion Crank (address to annual meeting of Arkansas Political Science Association, Arkadelphia, Arkansas, February 1983); computer ﬁgures in Seth Blomeley, “Legislators to Get Laptops of Luxury at $2,649 Apiece,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 25 August 2000; ﬁgures for 2001–2002 appropriation in Department of Finance and Administration, State of Arkansas Biennial Budget 2002–03. Two slightly different rankings of legislative professionalism are found in James D. King, “Changes in Professionalism in U.S. State Legislatures,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 25 (2000): 327–43; and Peverill Squire, “Uncontested Seats.” Squire, updating previous measures of professionalism, ranks Arkansas fortieth as of 1995. King, using a similar measure but focused more on expenditures than stafﬁng, ranks Arkansas forty-ﬁrst as of 1993–94.

[432], (50)

Lines: 110 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[432], (50)

Notes to Pages 212–214 433

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

Jewell and Patterson, The Legislative Process, 117; Rosenthal, Legislative Life, 142; Sen. David Malone, interview with Diane Blair, 1 August 1985; Bureau of Legislative Research staff member, interview with Diane Blair, 18 July 2002. On ineffectiveness of interim committees, see data included in the National Conference of State Legislatures, An Assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly, 93, 98; Rep. John Lipton’s remarks in “Legislator to Propose Having Annual Session,” Arkansas Gazette, 25 November 1984; and “Panel Votes ‘Do Pass’,” Arkansas Gazette, 9 February 1985, regarding defeat of an antitrespassing law that an interim committee spent eighteen months writing. On self-interested committee memberships, see John Brummett, “Change by Nelson Revealing of the Utilities Lobby’s Power,” Arkansas Gazette, 9 March 1986. See also Johnston and Storey, “The Arkansas Senate,” 72; Don Johnson, “Apparent Conﬂicts of Interest Fail to Part Legislators, Pet Project,” Arkansas Democrat, 14 April 1985; Ernest Dumas, “It’s Hard to Avoid Conﬂicts When a Legislator Is Also a Lobbyist,” Arkansas Gazette, 28 April 1985; Rachel O’Neal, “Entergy Hires State Senator as Lobbyist,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1 February 2000; Doug Thompson, “Sen. Harriman to Be Considered for Top Lobby Job,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 25 July 2000. On the vagueness of Act 570 of 1979, see “Senators Contend ‘Conﬂict’ Inherent in Any Legislature,” Arkansas Gazette, 14 April 1980; and James R. Taylor, “Conﬂict of Interest Issue Is Clearly Uncertain,” Arkansas Democrat, 20 April 1980. Ashmore, An Epitaph for Dixie, 112; Ethan C. Nobles, “University Students Hear Huckabee Heap Praise on arkids First Program,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 18 February 2000. Charles D. Dunn and Donald Whistler, “Citizen Access in the Arkansas General Assembly: Insiders and Outsiders” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Atlanta, Georgia, November 1984). Whistler and Dunn, “Institutional Representation,” 46. Constituent lobbying story recounted by Senator Tom Kennedy in Doug Thompson, “Local Ties Vital, Say Lobbyists,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 17 December 2000. The general phenomenon of potent interests using “grassroots” techniques is discussed in Alan Rosenthal, The Decline of Representative Democracy (Washington dc: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1998), 229–37. Rep. David Matthews, classroom lecture, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 11 November 1985. On importance of colleagues as cue givers in state legislatures generally, see John C. Wahlke, Heinz Eulau, William Buchanan, Leroy C. Ferguson, The Legislative System (New York: Wiley, 1962), 216–35. For a stunning conﬁrmation in the Arkansas senate, see Johnston and Storey, “The Arkansas Senate,” 79.

[433], (51)

Lines: 1136 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [433], (51)

434

Notes to Pages 214–219

52. Arkansas legislator quoted in Rosenthal, Legislative Life, 79; Representative Thompson quoted in “Only Bill of Tyer Supported,” Arkansas Gazette, 24 March 1979. 53. On the often arbitrary exercise of power by past Speakers, see Oakley, “Oldtimers Recall Colorful Legislatures Past”; and Rice, “Wheels of Power Turn Smoother Now.” On the transition in the senate taking away the lieutenant governor’s legislative powers, see Meredith Oakley, “Senate Move Viewed in Foul Light by Republican Ofﬁcer,” Arkansas Democrat, 20 July 1980; and Art English, “Good-Bye to Part Time Louie.” 54. Robert S. McCord, “Revival Time in the Arkansas House,” State Legislatures (July-August 1995): 40–45. On the beneﬁts for the house of the Hogue reforms immediately after the implementation of term limits, see Aaron Steelman, “The Impact of Term Limits on the Arkansas General Assembly: Legislators’ Perceptions of the 1999–2000 Session,” Midsouth Political Science Review 6 (2002): 1–22. 55. Quotation in John Brummett, “Devotion to Jobs, Force of Personalities, Help Give Leading Legislators Inﬂuence,” Arkansas Gazette, 14 January 1985. See also Cary Bradburn, “Howell Bears Reputation Felt Statewide,” Arkansas Democrat, 6 October 1985; and Mike Trimble, “Mad Max: Beyond Blusterdom,” Arkansas Times, October 1985, 98, 100–101, 115–18. 56. Brummett, “Devotion to Jobs”; Carol Griffee, “Pragmatism and Diplomacy Help Senator Gain Power,” Arkansas Gazette, 20 February 1977. 57. On post-1990 reforms see, Mark Oswald, “Seniors on Senate Lose Pull,” Arkansas Gazette, 7 December 1990. On the rise and fall of Nick Wilson, see Rachel O’Neal and Noel Oman, “Senate Move Would Weaken Wilson’s Hand,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 March 1995; John Brummett, “An Old-Fashioned Pol,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 April 1997; and Bill Simmons, “The 10 Worst Arkansas Legislators,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 May 1999. On proposed rules changes in the post–term limits senate, see Elizabeth Caldwell, “Power Changes on State Senate’s Agenda,” Arkansas News Bureau, 1 December 2002. 58. Whistler and Dunn, “Institutional Representation,” 53; Johnston and Storey, “The Arkansas Senator,” 75; Bill Simmons, “Legislators Can Assist, But Not Win Tax Relief,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 15 June 1997; authors’observations; Carey, Niemi, and Powell, “The Effects of Term Limits,” 285–90. For survey data on legislators’ attitudes toward constituency services staff, see National Council on State Legislatures, An Assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly. On the process through which the Constituent Services ofﬁce was originally funded, see Brummett, “An Old-Fashioned Pol.” 59. See Doug Smith, “‘Veto’ Opinion Has Little Effect after 10 Months,” Arkansas

[434], (52)

Lines: 115 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[434], (52)

Notes to Pages 219–223 435

60.

61.

62. 63.

Gazette, 10 July 1983, for the origins and development of legislative “advice” clauses and excerpts from attorney general’s opinion thereon. Also see John Brummett, “Advisory Panel Violating Separation of Powers Doctrine,” Arkansas Gazette, 10 February 1984; Steele Hays, “‘Nitpicking’ Committee One of Most Powerful,” Arkansas Gazette, 14 October 1979; and Bill Simmons, “Legislative Fingers Have Crept into Executive Pie,” Springdale News, 19 September 1982. See “Committee Says Legislature Cannot Follow Sunset Law,” Springdale News, 28 July 1977; Ernest Dumas, “The Sunset Law,” Arkansas Gazette, 27 August 1978; and Jerry Dean, “Legislative Trouble-shooters Aﬂoat on Rough Seas,” Arkansas Democrat, 30 September 1979. The repeal legislation was never transmitted to the governor and did not become law; however, the six-year period elapsed on 30 June 1983. Carol Griffee, “Thompson’s Son-in-law Completes First Week as ‘Landﬁll Specialist’,” Arkansas Gazette, 26 March 1977; “Livestock Poultry Ofﬁcial Resigns,” Arkansas Gazette, 25 March 1977; Seth Blomeley and Michael R. Wickline, “Told to Sidestep Law, Bradford Says,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 27 June 2002; survey results in National Council of State Legislatures, An Assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly, 55. Whistler and Dunn, “Institutional Representation,” 48. National Conference of State Legislatures, An Assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly. Survey results in Seth Blomeley, “Voters for Keeping Term Limits,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 August 2002.

[435], (53)

Lines: 1169 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [435], (53)

10. the power and politics of the judicial branch 1. An excellent bibliographic essay on the politics of the judiciary is in Mary Cornelia Porter and G. Alan Tarr, eds., State Supreme Courts (Westport ct: Greenwood Press, 1982), 201–209. On judges’ role in defeating the 1970 constitution, see Walter Nunn and Kay G. Collett, Political Paradox, Constitutional Revision in Arkansas (New York: National Municipal League, 1973), 153–55. hb 935 of 1985 would have repealed the requirement that judges retire at age seventy or lose their retirement beneﬁts, which was of direct beneﬁt to two Little Rock judges in whose circuit the bill’s sponsor practices. See Doug Smith, “Bill to Repeal Judicial Retirement Law Motivated by Desire to Aid Judges,” Arkansas Gazette, 10 April 1985. 2. State senator quoted in Charles L. Carpenter, “A Need for Judicial Compensation, Disability, and Disciplinary Commissions,” Arkansas Lawyer, October 1985, 145. 3. Calvin R. Ledbetter Jr., “The Arkansas Supreme Court: 1958–59” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1961), 142. Statistics in Statistical Supplement to the

436

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

Notes to Pages 223–228

2000 Annual Report of the Judiciary of Arkansas (Little Rock: TheAdministrative Ofﬁce of the Courts, 2001), 6. For competing arguments on the presence of new judicial federalism along with additional relevant citations, see Lawrence Baum, “Supreme Courts in the Policy Process,” in The State of the States, 3rd ed., ed. Carl E. Van Horn (Washington dc: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1996); and Henry R. Glick, “Courts: Politics and the Judicial Process” in Politics in the American States, 8th ed., 232–60. On the political supreme court of the 1920s and 1930s, see Ledbetter, “The Arkansas Supreme Court,” especially pp. 32–37. Hiram Whittington’s letter in William Woodruff exhibit, Arkansas Territorial Restoration, spring 1986. For the rough justice in Arkansas’s past, see Ashmore, Arkansas, 39–42; Vernon T. Baugh, “The Administration of Criminal Justice by the Scott County Circuit Court, 1883–1939” (master’s thesis, University of Arkansas, 1941); Boyd W. Johnson, The Arkansas Frontier (n.p.: Perdue Printing, 1957), 65–66; and Wilson, The Bodacious Ozarks, 76–85. Co-chair of the Arkansas Bar Association’s committee on the amendment quoted in Mark Waller, “Combine Courts, Jurists Propose,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 15 March 1999; Robert A. Leﬂar, “The Quality of Judges,” Indiana Law Journal 35 (1960): 305. On the structure, jurisdiction, and functions of Arkansas courts, see annual issues of Arkansas Judiciary Annual Report (Little Rock: The Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts). Other details of the consolidation process for district courts and the post–amendment 80 status of courts of limited jurisdiction are based on Jay Barth’s interview with Keith Caviness, attorney for the Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts, 30 July 2002. Statistics derived from Statistical Supplement to the 2000 Annual Report of the Judiciary as well as Web-based data (the Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts’ Web site http://courts.state.ar.us/courts/aoc.html). Arkansas Judiciary Annual Report (Little Rock: The Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts); author’s interview (Jay Barth), Keith Caviness, 30 July 2002; Michael R. Wickline, “Justices Set District Court Guidelines,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 November 2002. See John Woodruff, “nlr Judge Announces Retirement,” Arkansas Gazette, 15 February 1986; Jeff Porter, “Part-Time Judge a Full-Time Conﬂict,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 May 1997; Michael R. Wickline, “Justices Set District Court Guidelines,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 November 2002. Edwin H. Greenebaum, “Arkansas’ Judiciary: Its History and Structure,” in Readings in Arkansas Government, 216–23; Prof. Robert A. Leﬂar, interview with Diane Blair, 27 August 1985. It was in 1903, by which time merged systems

[436], (54)

Lines: 118 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[436], (54)

Notes to Pages 228–232 437

12. 13.

14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19.

20.

of law and equity courts were ﬁrmly established elsewhere in America, that the Arkansas legislature required separate courts of chancery established in every county. The immediate beneﬁciary was Gov. Jeff Davis, who enlarged the political base for his senate race by making all of these prized appointments. See also Michael Dougan, “Amendment on Courts Is Needed,” Arkansas Gazette, 30 July 1990. Arkansas Judiciary Annual Report, 2000 (Little Rock: The Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts, 2001). For an excellent overview of the implementation of amendment 80 see Larry Brady and J. D. Gingerich, “A Practitioner’s Guide to Arkansas’s New Judicial Article,” University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review 24 (2002): 715–26; Traci Shurley, “17 Judges Butt Heads as Time Runs Short,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 19 May 2001; Traci Shurley, “High Court OKs Reform Plans for 19 Judicial Districts,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 June 2001; David Robinson, “Two-Year Transition Needed for Complex Court Changes,” Donrey News, 29 June 2001. James D. Gingerich, “Arkansas’ New Court and Its Effect on the Arkansas Appellate System,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 5 (1984): 34. These major reform goals were adapted by the authors of this book from Henry Glick, “Supreme Courts in State Judicial Administration,” in State Supreme Courts, 109–28; The Question of State Government Capability (Washington dc: Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, 1985), 183–91; and essays in The Politics of Judicial Reform, ed. Philip L. Dubois (Lexington ma: Lexington Books, 1982). Glick, “Supreme Courts,” 120–23. David C. Steelman, “Trial CourtAdministration and Management in State Courts: Viewing Arkansas in a National Context,” Post–amendment 80 Case Management Seminar, Little Rock, Arkansas, 3 May 2002; Shurley, “High Court oks Reform Plans”; author’s (Jay Barth) conversation with individuals involved in the amendment 3 (80) campaign. “Police Say Gilmore Tickets Too Many,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 17 July 1997. For an overview of the administrative challenges faced by the supreme court in the aftermath of amendment 80, see Brady and Gingerich, “A Practitioner’s Guide,” 720–23. On the wide disparities in caseloads and funding resulting from judicial lobbying of the legislature, see Jess C. Henderson, “Why Judges Must Lobby,” Spectrum, 26 November–9 December 1986, 1–3; and Kevin Freiking, “Legislature Calls Tune on Judges’ Pay in Cities,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9 April 1995.

[437], (55)

Lines: 1210 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [437], (55)

438

21.

22. 23. 24.

25.

26.

27.

28. 29.

Notes to Pages 233–236

Quotation from former Chief Justice Holt addressing county and circuit clerks, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 24 July 1985. For insights into aspects of these funding issues, see Jerry Dean, “Verdict on Funds Elusive,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6 February 1995; Elizabeth Caldwell, “High Court Rejects County’s Objection to Paying for Costs,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 March 1996; Arkansas Judiciary Annual Report, 2000, 12–13. Funding data from State Court Organization 1998 (Washington dc: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000); 1985 ranking in Glick, “Supreme Courts,” 120–23. Cary Bradburn, “Who’s to Decide Paternity Cases?,” Arkansas Gazette, 12 June 1988. For the furor involving Circuit Judge Henry B. Means, see articles in Arkansas Gazette, 1 December 1976 and 27 January, 3 February, 1–3 March, 8 March, 19 August, 28 August, 30 August, and 2 September 1977. Chief Justice Holt quoted from address to Arkansas Political Science Association, North Little Rock, 22 February 1986. On the limitations of the Judicial Qualiﬁcations and Judicial Ethics committees, see Carpenter, “A Need for Judicial Compensation, Disability, and Discipline Commissions,” 144–45, and J. Lamar Porter, “Removal and Discipline of Judges in Arkansas,” Arkansas Law Review 32 (1978): 545–69. On the impeachment process, see Stephen A. Smith, “Impeachment, Address, and the Removal of Judges in Arkansas: An Historical Perspective,” Arkansas Law Review 33 (1978): 253–68. Supreme Court Justice John Purtle, charged and then acquitted in 1986 of conspiracy to commit theft in an alleged arson-for-proﬁt scheme, was the ﬁrst Arkansas supreme court justice to be charged with a felony. See Peggy Harris, “Purple Jury to Be Chosen,” Arkansas Gazette, 11 May 1986. For a summary and analysis of the jddc’s early days, see Adam Weintraub, “Watchful Eye Kept on Judges,” Arkansas Gazette, 27 November 1989. Other cases in authors’ﬁles. For the most recent actions of the jddc, see http://www.state .ar.us/jddc/commission.html. Professionalism rankings in Henry R. Glick and Kenneth N. Vines, State Court Systems (Englewood Cliffs nj: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 60. Experience recounted by James B. Blair, classroom lecture, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 11 April 1985. Excerpt from student paper, “The Power in B.,” in possession of authors. Arkansas Judiciary Annual Report, 2000. On the percentages of elected judges, see John Paul Ryan, Allan Ashman, Bruce D. Sales, and Sandra Shane-DuBow, American Trial Judges (New York: Free Press, 1980), 122. For judicial selection methods in the ﬁfty states, see Book

[438], (56)

Lines: 122 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[438], (56)

Notes to Pages 237–240 439

30.

31.

32.

33.

34. 35.

36.

37.

of the States, 2002, 203–4. On the appointment of “elective” judges, see Glick, “Courts,” 241. The most publicized provisions of amendment 29 were those requiring an absolute majority rather than a plurality for primary victory, prohibiting the governor or his relatives from assuming any vacated ofﬁce, and placing restrictions on nomination by party convention. The Bar Association was distressed by Governor Futrell’s appointment of C. E. Johnson as chief justice and supported this amendment along with a 1937 law prohibiting judges from participating in any campaign other than their own. On 16 September 1985, an author mailed questionnaires to sixty-seven circuit and chancery judges and received ﬁfty-nine responses. Questionnaires and tabulated responses, hereafter cited as “Judicial Questionnaire,” in possession of the authors. Data for 2002 calculated from election information maintained by Arkansas Secretary of State Elections Division. The 1936, 1938, and 1958 defeats of incumbent supreme court justices are discussed in Ledbetter, “The Arkansas Supreme Court.” Other data compiled by authors from Arkansas election returns. See ﬁrst edition of this work for data from 1972–84, which is entirely in synch with the 2002 data. On the ﬁerce judicial lobbying for advantageous apportionment schemes, see George Bentley, “Judicial Panel Recommends Rearrangement,” Arkansas Gazette, 12 October 1975; and Ernest Dumas, “Redistricting Plan Dropped,” Arkansas Gazette, 23 September 1976. Raymond Abramson quoted in Anthony Moser, “Lawyer Urges Judicial Reform in Wake of Trafﬁc Judge Scam,” Arkansas Democrat, 31 October 1985. James B. Blair, classroom lecture. Judge Jameson’s advertisement in Northwest Arkansas Times, 25 May 1980. See Ernest Dumas, “The Strange World of Appellate Judgeship Elections,” Arkansas Gazette, 22 April 1984. Data on career paths of district judges collected by authors from the biographical data ﬁles maintained by the Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts. See Stuart Nagel, “Political Party Afﬁliation and Judges’ Decisions,” American Political Science Review 55 (1961): 843–51; and Sidney Ulmer, “The Political Party Variable on the Michigan Supreme Court,” Journal of Public Law 11 (1962): 352–62. On Democratic legislative opposition to nonpartisan elections across several sessions, see: Elizabeth Caldwell and Rachel O’Neal, “Tucker Backs Move to Make Elections of Judges Nonpartisan,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 13 January 1994; Elizabeth Caldwell, “Vote Keeps Judge Races Partisan,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7 April 1995; Elizabeth Caldwell and Kevin Freking, “Sen-

[439], (57)

Lines: 1251 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [439], (57)

440

38.

39.

40.

41.

42. 43.

44.

Notes to Pages 241–244

ate Defeats Bill Amid gop Grumbles,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 January 1997; David Robinson, “Democratic Party Pledges Fight Against Nonpartisan Judicial Elections,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 14 January 1999. On the ﬁrst elections after amendment 80, see Traci Shurley, “Hold the Politics: Would-Be Judges Peruse New Rules,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 November 2001. See, for example, “Court Candidate Blasts Opponent for Refusal to Discuss Key Issues,” Arkansas Democrat, 12 June 1984; Bob Sanders, “Voters Must Know Views of Judicial Candidates,” Arkansas Gazette, 10 July 1984; Stephen Buel, “‘Philosopher’ Johnson Vies with ‘Reformer’ Holt for High Court,” Arkansas Democrat, 7 October 1984; and “Johnson Challenges Holt to Debate,” Arkansas Democrat, 21 October 1984. Also see “Judge Candidates,” editorial, Arkansas Democrat, 15 December 1985. On the relationship between the 2002 ruling and the Arkansas Code of Judicial Conduct, see Austin Gelder, “Ruling Imperils Gags on Judicial Candidates,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1 July 2002. On Griffen’s 2004 statements, see Michael R. Wickline, “High Court Hopeful Sees No Conﬂict in Voicing His Opinion,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 15 May 2004. Doug Smith, “Supreme Court: Short Name Helps,” Arkansas Gazette, 26 October 1977; author (Diane Blair) interview with Leﬂar, who also acknowledges that Robin’s chairmanship of the state Democratic Party and lopsided margins in the machine counties were inﬂuential, as was the fact that most of the young lawyers Leﬂar had recruited among his former students suddenly abandoned the race so as to participate in World War II. The “nickname” theory is advanced by Philip L. Dubois, “The Signiﬁcance of Voting Cues in State Supreme Court Elections,” Law and Society Review (1978– 79): 757–79. J. Bill Becker, president of the Arkansas State aﬂ-cio, telephone interview with Diane Blair, 30 September 1985; Anthony Champagne, “Television Ads in Judicial Campaigns,” presented at the Symposium on Judicial Campaign Conduct and the First Amendment, Chicago, 2002. Williams advertisement in Northwest Arkansas Times, 25 May 1980; Holt advertisement in Arkansas Gazette, 4 November 1984. Supreme court justice biographies found on Arkansas state court Web site (www.courts.ar.state.us); schools of circuit court judges in ofﬁce in 2003 found in The Arkansas Lawyer 38 (2003): 9–28. On money’s role in Arkansas judicial races, see James D. Gingerich and Warren Readnour, “The 1990 Arkansas Judicial Elections: Much Ado About Nothing?,” Arkansas Lawyer (July 1992): 37–41; Adam Weintraub, “Can Justice Remain

[440], (58)

Lines: 126 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[440], (58)

Notes to Pages 244–248 441

45.

46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51.

52.

53. 54.

Blind to Money?,” Arkansas Gazette, 14 May 1990; Adam Weintraub, “Judicial Race Cost Almost $160,000,” Arkansas Gazette, 29 June 1990. Associate Justice Robert Dudley of the Arkansas supreme court, Little Rock, Arkansas, interview with Diane Blair, 20 September 1985; author’s own experience as a campaign manager for a general-jurisdiction judicial candidate. Judge Hendricks quoted in Moser, “Lawyer Urges Judicial Reform.” For the Texas study see Charles A. Johnson, Roger C. Shaefer, and R. Neal McKnight, “The Salience of Judicial Elections,” Social Science Quarterly 59 (1978): 371–78; Henry R. Glick, “The Promise and the Performance of the Missouri Plan,” University of Miami Law Review 32 (1978): 518; Judge Perry Whitmore quoted in “Clark Trial Date Set October 22,” Arkansas Gazette, 13 July 1990. Judicial campaign circulars in authors’possession; Razorback advertisement used by Richard Adkisson in Arkansas Gazette, 9 June 1980. Ledbetter, “The Arkansas Supreme Court,” 201. Quotation from Stuart S. Nagel, Comparing Elected and Appointed Judicial Systems (Beverly Hills ca: Sage Publications, 1973), 39. On the Hunt decree and later failed efforts by white plaintiffs to overturn it, see Ronald Smothers, “Arkansas Plan to Promote Election of Black Judges Brings a Familiar Challenge,” New York Times, 8 April 1996. On the bar’s response to the persistent contribution requests during the 1990 campaign, author’s (Diane Blair) conversation with state senator David Malone, 3 July 1990. However, bar enthusiasm for an appointive process was tempered by the fact that the bar candidate, Bob Brown, succeeded in the race while the loser, Judge Judith Rogers, would have likely been Governor Clinton’s appointee to the post. Supreme court’s “efﬁciency” discussed in Gingerich, “Arkansas’ New Court,” 33. Data from 2000 in Arkansas Judiciary Annual Report, 2000, 8. On the “moderateness” of the Arkansas supreme court, see data included in Paul Brace, Laura Langer, and Melinda Gann Hall, “Measuring the Preferences of State Supreme Court Judges,” Journal of Politics 62 (2000): 387–413. The average ideology of the Arkansas supreme court between 1970 and 1993 ranked twenty-sixth of the ﬁfty-two courts of last resort analyzed. On the four rulings and the reactions to them, see Kimberly Dishongh, “School Funding Unfair, Judge Rules,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 May 2001; C. S. Murphy, “lr Leaders Wrestle with Loss of Funds after Use Tax Ruling,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 31 July 2002; C. S. Murphy, “Ruling Stands in Summit Mall’s Way,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6 June 2002; and Doug Smith, “Big Money in Mena,” Arkansas Times, 7 December 2001; and Mary Hargrove, “Tort Reform: Collision

[441], (59)

Lines: 1294 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [441], (59)

442

Notes to Pages 251–256

of Values,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6 October 2002. On the “populist” role of trial lawyers in the South, see Nicholas Lehmann, “The Newcomer,” New Yorker, 6 May 2002. 11. arkansas in the federal system 1. On facilities constructed under New Deal programs, see Stephen F. Strausberg, “The Effectiveness of the New Deal in Arkansas,” in The Depression in the Southwest, ed. Donald W. Whisenhunt (New York: Kennikat Press, 1980), 102– 16; and Jeannie M. Whayne, “Darker Forces on the Horizon: Natural Disasters and the Great Depression,” in Arkansas: A Narrative History, 327–31; for history and economic importance of Arkansas River project, see Charles L. Steel, “Renaissance of a River,” in Arkansas: Colony and State, 228–47; data on Social Security recipients from Arkansas Statistical Abstract, 2002. 2. Federal aid in the early nineteenth century described in John L. Ferguson and J. H. Atkinson, Historic Arkansas (Little Rock: Arkansas History Commission, 1966), 29, 50–55; southern role in securing early-twentieth-century programs in George Brown Tindall, The Emergence of the New South, 1913–1945 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967), 14, 240–41; federal aid to Arkansas’s centennial in Bob Besom, “‘Poor Folks’ Celebrate Arkansas’ Statehood,” Northwest Arkansas Times, 12 November 1985. 3. R. Lawson Veasey and W. David Moody, “New Federalism: 2nd Edition,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 4 (1983): 22–39; R. Lawson Veasey, “Revolutionary Federalism and Elazar’s Typology: The Arkansas Response to Reagan’s New Federalism,” Publius 18 (1988): 61–77; contemporary data from Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration Web site, http://www.accessarkansas. org/dfa/budget/about.html. 4. Data obtained from U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Consolidated Federal Funds Report for Fiscal 2000 (Washington dc 2003), www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/cffr02.pdf; and from the Northwest-Midwest Institute, “Per Capita Tax Burden and Return on Federal Tax Dollar: Fiscal 2002,” www.nemw.org/taxburd.htm. 5. Morton Grodzins, The American System: A New View of Government in the United States, ed. Daniel J. Elazar (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966), 9. 6. Grodzins, The American System, 171–80. The ﬁles containing Elazar’s 1958 interviews are housed at the Center for the Study of Federalism, Temple University, Philadelphia. 7. John Brummett, “Witt Criticizes Huckabee Plan,” Donrey News, 12 January 2001. 8. On the ﬁrst ladies’ﬂoat trip, see Laura Kellams, “States’First Ladies Soothe River

[442], (60)

Lines: 131 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[442], (60)

Notes to Pages 257–262 443

9. 10.

11.

12.

13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18.

19.

Rift,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 15 June 1999. On the (at least temporary) soothing of the conﬂict, see Laura Kellams, “Oklahoma Gives State 10 Years to Clean River,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 December 2003. Seth Blomeley, “State Ofﬁcials ‘Resent the Devil’ Out of Federally Set Alcohol Limits,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 March 1998. On the 2002 testimony, see Cynthia Howell and Kimberly Dishongh, “Black Students Face Obstacles, U.S. Court Told,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 24 June 2002. For a detailed timeline of the Little Rock school case, see Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 October 2003. Quotation from Ralph Nemir, “A Congressman’s Role in Getting Federal Aid for Rural Areas,” in Readings in Arkansas Government, 302. On Arkansas’s representatives and trade issues, see Paul Barton, “Arkansas Delegation in Spotlight over Trade Policies,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 December 2001. Kay Goss, Governor Clinton’s Aide for Intergovernmental Relations, interview with Diane Blair, Little Rock, 11 July 1985. For an excellent overview of gubernatorial responsibilities in intergovernmental relations, see Thad L. Beyle and Lynn R. Muchmore, “Governors and Intergovernmental Relations, Middlemen in the Federal System,” in Being Governor, 192–203. Northwest Arkansas Times, 15 March 2000. An extensive analysis of the state’s response to President Reagan’s initiatives is found in Diane K. Blair and Joan Roberts, “Acquiescent Arkansas: The 1981 Response to Reaganomics and the New Federalism,” in The Annual Review of Federalism, 1981, ed. Stephen L. Schecter (Philadelphia: Center for the Study of American Federalism, 1983), 163–74. Quotation from Parris N. Glendenning and Mavis Mann Reeves, Pragmatic Federalism, 2nd ed. (Paciﬁc Palisades ca: Palisades Publishers, 1984), 63. Glendenning and Reeves, Pragmatic Federalism, 63. Grodzins, The American System, 173. John Shelton Reed, The Enduring South (Lexington ma: Heath, 1972), 88. Sheldon Hackney quoted by Reed, The Enduring South, 88–89. Quotation from Ernie Dean, telephone interview with author, 6 December 1985. Every Arkansas adult with whom Diane Blair conversed in the early- and mid1980s remembers hearing this “fact” reiterated throughout their school years; and see Tim Bennett, “Center Puts World View in Classroom,” Arkansas Democrat, 3 February 1986. Survey data from the Fall 1999 Arkansas Poll; data on this question reported at http://plsc.uark.edu/arkpoll/fall99/life/page12.htm. For one version of “The Arkansas Traveler,” see Diann Sutherlin Smith, The Arkansas Handbook (Little Rock: Emerald City Press, 1984), 44–47. On the traditional misinterpretation of the Arkansas Traveler tale, see Jake Sandlin,

[443], (61)

Lines: 1341 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [443], (61)

444

20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25.

26.

27. 28.

29.

30.

Notes to Pages 262–267

“Arkansas Traveler No Out-of-Stater,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 July 2002. Senator Miller quoted in George Brown Tindall, The Ethnic Southerners (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1976), 219. Freyer, Little Rock Crisis, 11. On Arkansas’s contributions to the second Gulf War, see Amy Schlening, “3,000-Strong Arkansas Guard Unit Gets Call for Iraq,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 28 September 2003; Lee Hockstader, “A Town’s Leaders Marching Off to War,” Washington Post, 24 October 2003; David Hammer, “Saturday Deadliest Day for Arkansas Soldiers Since 1950,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 28 April 2004. Lester, A Man for Arkansas, 84. For details on Governor Clinton’s dealings with the federal government, see Phyllis Finton Johnston, Bill Clinton’s Public Policy for Arkansas, 1979–80 (Little Rock: August House, 1982), 70–91; and Blair, “Two Transitions,” 98, 108–9, 112–14. Governor Clinton quoted in Johnston, Bill Clinton’s Public Policy, 73. Blair, “Two Transitions,” 112–14. In May 2003, Governor Huckabee opened a new state ofﬁce in the nation’s capital, and no criticism of the decision was voiced. This indicated the growing acceptance and/or undeniability ofArkansas’s connection to the national government. See Kevin Freking, “Huckabee Sees Advantages to Opening Ofﬁce in D.C.,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 May 2003. James Powell, “Clinton Deserves Praise for Restraint,” Arkansas Gazette, 13 November 1985; press release, Ofﬁce of the Governor, 10 September 1985; George Wells, “Clinton Comment Untrue, Federal Judge Responds,” Arkansas Gazette, 13 September 1985; Scott Van Laningham, “Clinton Defends Ads Blaming Federal Court in Settlement,” Arkansas Gazette, 12 September 1985. Blair, “Arkansas: Ground Zero,” 105, 112. On Arkansans’ attitudes during the 1996 campaign, see Barth, “Arkansas: The Last Hurrah for a Native Son.” Business leaders quoted in New York Times, 30 July 1995; and Paul Spillenger, “Clinton ‘Gravy Train’ Has Its Lumps,” Arkansas Business, 28 October–3 November 1996. Charles Babington, “Clinton’s Home State Victory Lap,” Washington Post, 18 January 2001; James Jefferson, “Delta Leaders Say It’s Payback Time for Clinton,” Northwest Arkansas Times, 16 August 1999. Governor Clinton quoted in “Governor Says Pressure Building Not to Enforce New School Standards,” Arkansas Gazette, 22 October 1984. Frank Fellone, “Poll Surveys lr Attitudes on Integration,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 5 October 1997. For other public opinion data in Pulaski County, see Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County (Little Rock: ualr Institute of Government, 2004).

[444], (62)

Lines: 136 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[444], (62)

Notes to Pages 267–272 445 31. The Arkansas Poll, Fall 2000, http://plsc.uark.edu/arkpoll/fall00/INDEX.HTM. 32. Little Rock survey data reported in Max Brantley, “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Clinton?,” Arkansas Times, 6 October 2000. The economic impact of the library is estimated in Andrew DeMillo, “New Library to Pave Way for Tourism, Ofﬁcials Say,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 July 2003. 33. Legislator’s remark overheard by Diane Blair, who was chairperson of aetn Commission (1985–86) at hearing before Joint Interim Education Committee, 10 May 1986. Also see Meredith Oakley, “Lawmakers Cost State One Source of Pride,” Arkansas Democrat, 12 August 1986; and Scott Van Laningham, “Ho to Resign as Head of aetn,” Arkansas Gazette, 12 August 1986. 34. Jim Johnson quoted in Jim Edwards, “Candidate Faults Opponents Views on Court System,” Arkansas Democrat, 2 October 1984; Frank White, State of the State Message, 19 February 1981; Orval Faubus quoted in Joe Schratz, “A Little Advice from the Old Pro,” Arkansas Magazine, 27 January 1985, 6; Berry quotation in “Conspiracy Theory,” Arkansas Times, 28 August 2000. 35. On Arkansas industries’ efforts to impact federal law and rule making, see David Barboza, “Chicken Well Simmered in a Political Stew,” New York Times, 1 January 2002; Paul Barton, “Business Looks to Lobbyists for Help,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 January 2002; Kevin Freking, “Wal-Mart Rubbing Capitol Hill Elbows,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 28 September 2000; Kevin Freking, “Tyson’s Lobbyists Get Ofﬁce in D.C.,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 30 November 2002; Kevin Forsythe, “Wal-Mart Wields heavy Political Clout on Hill,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 14 December 2003; Alison Vekshin, “WalMart Beefs Up Federal Presence,” Arkansas News Bureau, 18 January 2004; Robert E. Klein, “Wal-Mart Widens Political Reach, Giving Primarily to gop,” USA Today, 2 February 2004; Alison Vekshin, “Beverly Enterprises Expands Lobbying,” Arkansas News Bureau, 4 February 2004; Kevin Freking, “Arkansans Tap into Lobby Trend,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 19 April 2004. 36. For an excellent example of the efforts by state lenders to use the “supremacy” of federal law to trump interest rate limits imposed by the Arkansas constitution, see Gwen Moritz, “More Lenders Look to Congress for Relief from Usury Limit,” Arkansas Business, 15–22 July 2002. 12. politics at the grassroots 1. County sales tax data mapped in City and Town, August 2002, 34; also see “1% Sales Tax OK’d in Grant County,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 September 2002. Comparative discretionary power from State and Local Roles in the Federal System (Washington dc: Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, 1981), 262; for additional discussion of the measuring of local government discretionary power, see Dale Krane, Platon N. Rigos, and Melvin B. Hill Jr.,

[445], (63)

Lines: 1398 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [445], (63)

446

2.

3. 4.

5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Notes to Pages 272–276

Home Rule in America: A Fifty-State Handbook (Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2001), 14–17. For additional detail about the issue of “home rule” in the Arkansas context, see Margaret F. Reid and Will Miller, “Arkansas,” in Home Rule in America, 49–57. Arkansas constitution, article 12, section 3, emphasis supplied; State and Local Roles in the Federal System, 262. For an excellent comprehensive overview of the history of Arkansas municipal law and a strong argument for reform, including the adoption of “home rule,” see Charles W. Goldner Jr., “A Call for Reform of Arkansas Municipal Law,” ualr Law Journal 15 (1993): 175–222. Municipal population ﬁgures from “Arkansas Population Continues Growth in Municipalities,” City and Town, April 2001, 14–21. On Little Rock’s lobbying efforts in recent legislative sessions, see C. S. Murphy, “Full-Time Lobbyist Gives lr Edge at State Capitol,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 19 December 2000. For an example of the discord between Little Rock and the Municipal League, see C. S. Murphy, “Mayors Reject lr Idea to Lift Sales Tax Cap,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 31 January 2002. See also Julia Silverman, “lr Again Driving to Set Up Fair-Housing Enforcement,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 22 September 200l; Doug Peters, “Bill Would Take Away Localities’ Authority to Regulate Tobacco,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 February 1997; C. S. Murphy, “Cities Plan Capitol Pitch for More Money, Protection,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 November 2002. 2002 Census of Governments: Government Organization (Washington dc: U.S. Department of Commerce, 2004), http://www.census.gov/prod/estimate02.html. John Gill speaking to the Legislative Joint Interim Committee on City and County Affairs, quoted in Arkansas Gazette, 20 August 1976. See John Brummett, “Running City Hall Makes Life Tough Mayors Assert,” Arkansas Gazette, 7 August 1977, for mayors’ estimates of time spent on seeking federal funds. The Arkansas Plan is analyzed at length in Diane D. Kincaid, “The Arkansas Plan: Coon Dogs or Community Services,” Publius 8 (1978): 117–33. Roland L. Warren, The Community in America (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963), 17. Warren, Community in America, 5. O. P. Williams and C. R. Adrian, Four Cities: A Study in Comparative Policy Making (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963), 291. 2002 Census of Governments: Government Organization (Washington dc: U.S. Department of Commerce, 2002, http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/gc02 1x1.pdf); 1997 Census of Governments: Compendium of Government Finances (Washington dc: U.S. Department of Commerce, 2000, http://www.census.gov/ prod/gc97/gc974–5.pdf; Barbara Coyle McCabe, “Special District Formation

[446], (64)

Lines: 141 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[446], (64)

Notes to Pages 277–280 447

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

among the States,” State and Local Government Review 32 (2000): 121–31. For a discussion of rcas around the country, see “Residential Community Associations: Private Governments in the Intergovernmental System?” (Washington dc Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, 1989). The number of ofﬁcials actually varied from seven to nine because the constitution authorized the combining of the ofﬁces of sheriff and assessor and the separation of the county and circuit clerkships. The male reference is used for the county judge because the 1874 constitution speciﬁed that “He shall be at least twentyﬁve years of age . . . a man of upright character.” The male imperative was eliminated by amendment 55. Additional details on prereform and postreform county government are in Diane D. Kincaid, “Early Effects of County Reform in Arkansas” (paper presented at the annual conference of the American Society for Public Administration, Baltimore, 2 April 1979). To illustrate the judge’s budgetary dominance, Dr. Wilma Sacks, who once headed the public health program, appeared at Washington County’s annual quorum court meeting to request a modest increase for her program. One justice of the peace inquired whether these funds would come from general revenues. “That’s right,” the judge responded, “right off your roads, so it can’t be done” (Wilma Sacks, interview with Diane Blair, 5 March 1979). See also Hugh Earnest, “Washington County Finances,” in Readings in Arkansas Government, 488–505. For a particularly insightful tale of the county government career of the one of these judges who would go on to the greatest prominence, Wilbur D. Mills, and the way in which those experiences shaped his congressional career, see Kay C. Goss, “The Grassroots Politics of Hard Times: Wilbur D. Mills’ Career as White County Judge,” ahq 59 (2000): 186–200. The opposition of county judges to reform is discussed and documented in Walter Nunn and Kay G. Collett, Political Paradox: Constitutional Revision in Arkansas (New York: National Municipal League, 1973), 15, 63, 121, 121, 123, 137. On the importance of salary increases to the reform effort, see Charles DeWitt Dunn, “Reaction to Reform: Arkansas County Ofﬁcials under Amendment 55” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, Conway, Arkansas, February 1979), 12. Art English, “The Transformation of Political Marginals: Quorum Court Evolution in Arkansas” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association, Pine Bluffs, Arkansas, 1999). The powers granted to municipalities vary with classiﬁcation, but population is only a general guide to this classiﬁcation. For these and other details regarding municipal structures and powers, see the excellent summary in Anderson, Government in Arkansas, 57–63; and, for additional updates and detail, see the most

[447], (65)

Lines: 1440 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [447], (65)

448

18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

Notes to Pages 280–284

recent edition of Handbook for Arkansas Municipal Ofﬁcials (North Little Rock ar: Arkansas Municipal League). Anderson, Government in Arkansas, 60–62. These observations are based upon the authors’ observation of local governments as well as discussions with many local ofﬁcials over time. For a colorful description of one of Arkansas’s strongest mayors, see Jim Lynch, “Mayor Laman and the North Little Rock Budget,” in Readings in Arkansas Government, 366–77. The county judge must be at least twenty-ﬁve, and directors in a city administrator or city manager city must be at least twenty-one. Calculated by authors from Arkansas election returns reported in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 May and 4–5 November 1998. For differing amounts of competition for justice of the peace before and after amendment 55, see Charles D. Dunn, “Constitutional Reform and County Government in Arkansas: The Impact of Amendment 55 on Quorum Court Membership” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, Arkadelphia, Arkansas, February 1978). On the persistent absence of competition, see English, “The Transformation of Political Marginals.” Sherrill ofﬁcials quoted in “Sherrill Ofﬁcials Keep Posts without Holding Elections,” Arkansas Gazette, 17 April 1986; Redﬁeld alderman quoted in “Deadline Slips Council’s Mind As Nobody Files,” Arkansas Democrat, 31 July 1990. On the frequency of mayoral resignations, see John Brummett, “Running City Hall,” Arkansas Gazette, 7 August 1977. See also “Cave City Mayor Resigns, Third in 21 Months,” Arkansas Gazette, 14 June 1978; and “Third Ofﬁcial in Bald Knob Resigns Ofﬁce,” Arkansas Democrat, 26 July 1986. Perhaps the most vicious small-town politics in Arkansas in recent times have been in the growing town of Centerton (2000 population: 2,146) where the late 1990s saw physical confrontations between the mayor and council members and ongoing prosecutorial investigations prodded by each side. See Chad Hayworth, “Centerton Inquiry Is Jelling,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 January 1999. On the importance of recruitment practices, see Williams and Adrian, Four Cities, 51. For the success of the Good Government Committee, see Kevin McDaniel, “Trio Elected to City Board Gets Strong Support from West Little Rock,” Arkansas Democrat, 11 November 1984; and Mark Oswald, “3 Winning Candidates Favored among the Business Community,” Arkansas Gazette, 18 November 1984. On the New Party’s efforts in Little Rock, see Michael Haddigan, “Run Right At the Bastards,” Arkansas Times, 16 June 2000; and Jan Cottingham, “KellyGraves Race Reﬂects East-West Duel,” Arkansas Times, 3 November 2000. Madison County judge Charles Whorton Jr., telephone interview by Diane Blair, 14 January 1986.

[448], (66)

Lines: 145 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[448], (66)

Notes to Pages 285–288 449 27. On both parties’ recruitment efforts for justice of the peace in Pulaski County in the mid-1990s, see Tracie Dungan, “38 Seeking jp Seats Reﬂect Image Change,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 12 May 1996. Election data derived by author from results reported in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4–5 November, 1998. 28. Based on responses from a mail survey of county and city legislators in Washington and Madison counties as well as Fayetteville and Springdale, conducted by Diane Blair in January and February 1986, hereafter referred to as “Views of Local Ofﬁcials.” Survey and responses in authors’ possession. For the 1994 data that reinforces these survey results, see English, “The Transformation of Political Marginals.” 29. Joseph A. Schlesinger Jr., Ambition and Politics (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966), 2; W. B. Holliday quoted in Brummett, “Running City Hall.” 30. Data on African American elected ofﬁcials in the state (and comparative data) obtained from the National Conference of Black Mayors’ Web site (www.blackmay ors.org) and from David A. Bositis, “Black Elected Ofﬁcials: A Statistical Summary 2000” (Washington dc: The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 2002). Data on women mayors collected from 2002 Directory of Arkansas Municipal Ofﬁcials (North Little Rock ar: Arkansas Municipal League, 2002). Because the author had to rely on stereotypical masculine/feminine names in the categorization, random errors may have occurred. See also Erik Sanzenbach, “Women Play Big Politics in Small Towns,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 26 April 2001; and Elisa Crouch, “Women to Outnumber Men on Little Rock City Board for First Time,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 31 December 2002. 31. For the nature and outcome of lawsuits after the 1982 Voting Rights Act, see Larry Ault, “Judge Voids Ward System in Marianna,” Arkansas Democrat, 17 May 1986; George Wells, “More Lawsuits Are Filed over Vote District Lines,” Arkansas Gazette, 8 June 1986; and “Mississippi County’s jp Boundaries Called Discriminatory,” Arkansas Gazette, 24 July 1986. On the 2002 Marianna boycott, see Kimberly Dishongh and Cynthia Howell, “School Boycott in 2nd Day,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 August 2002. 32. On the paralysis of city government in West Helena, see Adam Nossiter, “Black Ofﬁcials’ Boycott Paralyzes Arkansas City,” New York Times, 9 January 1997. 33. Stephen Buel, “Government of the Many by the Afﬂuent Few?” Arkansas Democrat, 12 June 1983; Mark Oswald, “Appointments Continuing in Past Pattern,” Arkansas Gazette, 15 December 1985; and Robert McCord, “The Good Ole Boys at City Hall,” Arkansas Gazette, 27 January 1985. 34. Dunn, “Constitutional Reform and County Government,” 7; Rachel Webb, “Hispanic as Planner a First,” Arkansas Democrat0-Gazette, 2 September 2002; English, “The Transformation of Political Marginals”; data on teachers and

[449], (67)

Lines: 1490 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [449], (67)

450

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

Notes to Pages 288–291

superintendents obtained from the Arkansas School Information Site, www.asis.org/directory/index.php. On the background and impact of the runoff requirement, see Carol Matlack and Mark Oswald, “Two Proposals Would Change Local Elections,” Arkansas Gazette, 5 March 1983; Ernest Dumas, “City, County Runoffs Now Required,” Arkansas Gazette, 3 April 1983; and Marie Crawford, “‘Routine’ Mayorality Fell Shy for Chitman,” Arkansas Democrat, 16 March 1986. However, as Charles S. Bullock III and Loch K. Johnson point out in the most thorough analysis yet of runoff elections, when it comes to races’ relationships to runoff dynamics, one should be careful in making any generalizations (Runoff Elections in the United States, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992). Fayetteville meeting described in Northwest Arkansas Times, 30 August 1983. Quotations from “Views of Local Ofﬁcials.” Little Rock city board voter recognition data reported in Max Brantley, “A Roar of approval for Mayor Jim Dailey,” Arkansas Times, 6 October 2000. On these grassroots activities, see Christopher Spencer, “Pet Birth Control Plays Part in New Conway Ordinance,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10 April 2002; Erica Werner, “Carriages Get lr Nod to Clip-Clop,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 12 January 2000; Bob McCord, “nlr Men Vote Against Women,” Arkansas Times, 18 December 1998; Laura Kellams, “Mayor Urges Fayetteville to Join Character Program,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4 April 1999; Laura Kellams, “Groups Sue to Halt Center’s Construction,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 27 May 2000; Don Michael, “A Tree-Tiered Effort,” Northwest Arkansas Times, 31 May 2000. For concept of “public regardingness,” see James Q. Wilson and Edward C. Banﬁeld, “Public Regardingness as a Value Premise in Voting Behavior,” American Political Science Review 58 (1964): 876–87. On sales tax passage rate, see “League Budget Request Seeks 1995 Turnback Appropriation and State Economic Growth Rate,” City and Town, January 1997, 5–6. For Arkansas school ofﬁcials’attitudes toward larger electorates, see Frank Fellone, “South Gives Rise to Primary Plan,” Arkansas Democrat, 16 February 1986. Kincaid, “The Arkansas Plan,” 132. As presented in Kenneth R. Tremblay Jr., “Perceived Quality of Community Life,” City and Town, April 1986, 6–7, in response to a question about the best ways to accomplish improvements, while 43 percent suggested changing funding priorities, and 38 percent suggested increasing state turn-back to local governments. Only minute percentages thought their community should issue municipal bonds or increase the local sales on property tax.

[450], (68)

Lines: 151 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[450], (68)

Notes to Pages 291–297 451 40. Diane D. Blair, “Views of Local Ofﬁcials,” adapted from Williams and Adrian, Four Cities, 185–268.According to the Williams andAdrian typology, Springdale would be classiﬁed as a “Caretaker” community, and Fayetteville as combining elements of “Amenities” and “Arbiter” communities. 41. For a discussion of the important legal underpinnings of cooperation, see Reid and Miller, “Arkansas,” 51–52. On a recent major water merger between Little Rock and North Little Rock, see C. S. Murphy, “Voting’s Done; Water Systems Will Be Merged,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 October 2000. 42. On the battle between Conway and Little Rock for American Management Corporation, see Christopher Spencer and Elisa Crouch, “Company Sticks with Conway, Rejects lr,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1 May 2002. On Act 779’s impact, see James Jefferson, “Lawyer: Law Leads to ‘Municipal Warfare’,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 18 February 2000.

1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

13. the politics of state services For a brief review of this debate, see Thomas R. Dye and John Robey, “‘Politics versus Economics’: Development of the Literature on Policy Determination,” in The Determinants of Public Policy, ed. Thomas R. Dye and Virginia Gray (Lexington ma: Lexington Books, 1980), 3–17. For a more recent and more thorough discussion, see Jack M. Treadway, Public Policymaking in the American States (New York: Praeger, 1985). Virginia Gray, “Politics and Policy in the American States,” in Politics in the American States, 4th ed., ed. Virginia Gray, Herbert Jacob, and Kenneth N. Vines (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983), 4. Gray, “Politics and Policy in the American States,” 5. For historical details on Arkansas’s tax system, see David Y. Thomas, “A History of Taxation in Arkansas,” Publications of the Arkansas Historical Association (Fayetteville: Arkansas Historical Association, 1908), vol. 2, 43–90; A. L. Bramlett and David Y. Thomas, “Part I—1541–1865,” Arkansas and Its People, 52– 53, 103; John Gardner Lile, The Government of Arkansas (Columbus, Ohio: Champlin Press, 1916), 112–14; State Auditor’s Reports (Little Rock: Ofﬁce of Auditor, 1882–1929); Taxes in Arkansas (Little Rock: Arkansas Public Expenditure Council, 1948); and Financial Structure of Arkansas (Little Rock: Arkansas League of Women Voters, 1971). R. Lawson Veasey and W. David Moody, “New Federalism, 2nd Edition,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 4 (1983): 22–39; John Brummett, “Limited Growth, Easing of Inﬂation, Hurting State,” Arkansas Gazette, 16 February 1986. The Rockefeller Foundation’s criticisms are summarized in Matthew Gardner, Rich Huddleston, James Metzger, and Richard Sims, Tax Options for Arkansas:

[451], (69)

Lines: 1533 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [451], (69)

452

7.

8.

9. 10.

Notes to Pages 298–299

Funding Education after the Lake View Case (Washington dc, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 2003). Language describing minimal severance tax taken from a similar 1997 report, Robert S. McIntyre, Michael P. Ettlinger, and Robert G. Lynch, Building a Better Arkansas Tax System: Evaluating the Options (Washington dc: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 1997). For additional analysis and updates to the data in the 1997 and 2003 reports, see reports of Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families, especially Richard Huddleston, “How Fair Are Arkansas Taxes?” Paycheck and Politics (April 2000); and Arkansas data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s 2003 study, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, http://www.itepnet.org/wp2000/ar%20pr.pdf. For a particularly strong and comprehensive critique of the 1997 Rockefeller Foundation report, see S. Keith Berry, “Taxes and Savings in Arkansas”; and Ronald John Hy and R. Lawson Veasey, “Improving Productivity by Reducing Taxes,” Interim Report of the Murphy Commission, 1998, http://www.reform arkansas.org/policy/murphy summary.htm. For an excellent summary of the effects of amendment 19, see Calvin R. Ledbetter Jr., “Arkansas Amendment 19 Is Legislative Overkill,” Arkansas Gazette, 16 November 1983. For the 1983 tax votes, see “Severance Tax Is Defeated by Both Houses,” Arkansas Gazette, 3 October 1983; and “Clinton’s Strategy on Bill Raising Corporate Taxes Stymied by Mathematics,” Arkansas Gazette, 6 October 1983. See Phyllis Finton Johnston, Bill Clinton’s Public Policy for Arkansas: 1979–1980 (Little Rock: August House, 1983), 60–61, for how amendment 19 led to Clinton’s fateful 1979 decision to raise vehicle license fees. On the 1988 efforts on tax reform, see “State Tax Amendment Drive Stalling”; and John Brummett, “Credit, Blame on Tax Effort Fair Either Way,” Arkansas Gazette, 3 June 1988. On the attempt in the next cycle for reform, see “Proponents Say Amendment Would Boost State Revenue,” Springdale News, 29 September 1989. John Brummett, “Pondering Clinton as Governor,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 27 September 1998. On the Huckabee rebate plan, see Kevin Freking and Rachel O’Neal, “Flexibility, Breadth Distinguish Huckabee Rebate Plan,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 July 1996; on the battle for food tax repeal in the 1997 session, see Dennis A. Byrd, “House Pushes Income-Tax Relief Ahead of Cutting Food Tax,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 28 February 1997; on the dynamics of the reform effort in the 1999 session, see John Brummett, “Practical Side of the Food Tax,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10 April 1999. On the strong opposition to the grocery sales tax, see the 1999Arkansas Poll (72

[452], (70)

Lines: 155 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[452], (70)

Notes to Pages 299–301 453

11.

12.

13.

14.

percent approved of removing the tax), http://plsc.uark.edu/arkpoll/fall99/taxes/ sales/index.html. On the successful 2002 campaign against the Axe the Tax amendment, see Seth Blomeley, “Suit Aims to Block Vote on Food Tax Proposal,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 14 September 2002; John Brummett, “Let the Lawyering Begin,” Arkansas News Bureau, 16 September 2002; David Robinson, “ua System Board Votes to Oppose Tax Repeal,” Arkansas News Bureau, 20 September 2002; Michael R. Wickline, “Foes of Chopping Tax on Food Link Move to Political Agenda,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9 October 2002; Rob Moritz, “Axe the Tax Issue to Stay on Ballot, Court Says,” Arkansas News Bureau, 25 October 2002; Laura Kellams, “Rivals on Food-Tax Issue Find Each Other’s Arguments Hard to Swallow,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 2 November 2002; John Brummett, “Tax-and-Spend Gets the Last Laugh,” Arkansas News Bureau, 12 November 2002; Doug Smith, “Local Politics Does in Amendment 3,” Arkansas Times, 15 November 2002. Estimates of the 2000 per capita state and local taxes by the Tax Foundation, reported in Just the Facts 2001 (Albany: Public Policy Institute of New York State, 2001), http://www.ppinys.org/reports/jtf/Table%2018.htm. Data on the relationship between taxes and personal income, 1997 Compendium of Government Finances (Washington dc: United States Census Bureau), http://www.census.gov/ prod/gc97/gc974–5.pdf. 1983 Tax Capacity of the Fifty States (Washington dc: Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, 1986), 1–11, 17, 49, 66–98. For the 1996 update of acir’s analysis, see Robert Tannenwald, “Fiscal Disparity among the States Revisited,” New England Economic Review (July-August 1999): 3–25. On the state/local division of revenue collections, see McIntyre, Ettlinger, and Lynch, Building a Better Arkansas Tax System, 18; this predates the passage of amendment 79, which shifted the structure even more in the direction of state collection. General data on the Arkansas property tax from Wayne Miller, “Arkansas’ Property Tax: A Local Tax Supporting Local Services” (Fayetteville AR: University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, n.d.), found at http://www.uaex.edu/Other Areas/publications?HTML?FSCDC17.asp. For data on tax effort and the property tax, see data analyzed by Tannenwald (cited in note 9 for this chapter), collected by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, and reported at http://www.ripec.org/balance pdf/appendix.pdf. Quotations from Bramlett and Thomas, “Part I—1541–1865,” Arkansas and Its People, 102; Ernest Dumas, “Property Tax Proposal Gutted by Senate,” Arkansas Gazette, 25 March 1983; Tommy Venters, director of State Education

[453], (71)

Lines: 1572 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [453], (71)

454

15.

16.

17.

18.

Notes to Pages 301–304

Department, quoted in “Revision of ’59 Is Unlikely,” Arkansas Gazette, 15 January 1986; and John Fletcher, Arkansas Gazette, 17 September 1948. On early wealth and tax discrepancies between the highlands and lowlands, see also S. Charles Bolton, Calvin Ledbetter Jr., and Gerald T. Hanson, Arkansas Becomes a State (Little Rock: Center Arkansas Studies, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 1985), 32. Quotation from “Schools the Unfortunate Victims of Problems with Property Tax,” Arkansas Gazette, 11 September 1983. For equally grim assessments of amendment 59’s effects, see Richard Yates, “Voters Should Learn Who Is Responsible for Amendment 59,” Arkansas Gazette, 12 November 1985; Jonathan Runnels, “Amendment 59’s Freeze Put Heat on Real Property Owner,” Arkansas Democrat, 24 November 1985; and “Amendment 59: 1980 Supporters Are Now Hard to Find,” Northwest Arkansas Times, 8 December 1985. Public views on property taxes from Arkansans Attitudes toward Taxes (Little Rock: Center for Urban and Governmental Affairs, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 1981), 8. For some of the most critical studies over the decades, see “Report of Superintendent of Public Instruction,” in Report of Arkansas Bureau of Mines, Manufacturing, and Agriculture, 1899–1900, 10–11; “A History of Taxation,” 43–90; Edward W. Reed, Comparative Analysis of the Arkansas Tax System (Fayetteville: Bureau of Business and Economic Research, University of Arkansas, December 1950), 197–206; Improving the Equity of Arkansas Taxes, A Report to the Legislative Council (Little Rock: The Legislative Advisory Committee on Tax Reform, 1971); and School Property Taxation in Arkansas (Little Rock: Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, 1983). The 1999 data reported in Robert McCord, “The Real Property Tax Problem,” Arkansas Times, 2 July 1999. John Lyman Mason and Michael Nelson, “The Politics of Gambling in Arkansas and South Carolina” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 2001). For an excellent extension of Mason and Nelson’s work, see Chris Hathorn, “Exploring the Enigma: Understanding the Failure of Further Legalized Gambling in Arkansas” (typescript, 2004, Rhodes College). On recent polling on the issue, see Seth Blomeley, “51.9% in Poll See State Lottery as the Ticket to Fund Programs,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 August 2002; and David Robinson, “Arkansans Support More Education Spending, Lottery, Poll Says,” Arkansas News Bureau, 2 September 2002. Bill Goodman, “Financing State Programs in Arkansas,” Arkansas Issues 83 (Little Rock: Center for Arkansas Studies, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 1983), 10.

[454], (72)

Lines: 158 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[454], (72)

Notes to Pages 305–307 455 19. For detailed descriptions of the budget process, see Goodman, “Financing State Programs in Arkansas,” 7–14; Douglas C. Stadter, “The Arkansas Budgetary System” (M.P.A. internship paper, University of Arkansas, 1980); and Donald E. Whistler, “Budgeting in Arkansas: A Description, Reﬂections, and Speculations” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, Russellville, Arkansas, February 1985). See the Web site of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration for updates on the process (http://www.accessarkansas.org/dfa/). 20. For the pre-1960 purely legislative budget, see Henry Alexander, Government in Arkansas (Little Rock: Pioneer Press, 1963), 233–41. According to Robert F. Johnston and Dan Durning (“The Arkansas Governor’s Role in the Policy Process, 1955–1979,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 2 (1981): 28–29) and Diane Blair’s interview with Janice Snead, administrator of the State Ofﬁce of Budget (1980–84), the Revenue Stabilization Act was written by the governor until 1969; by the Joint Budget Committee through the 1977 session and again in 1981; and by Governor Clinton together with key Joint Budget Committee members during Clinton’s administrations. On the “inner sanctum” of the late 1980s, see Paul Barton, “Budgeting by ‘Inner Sanctum’ Draws Fire,” Arkansas Democrat, 12 March 1989. TheAdvisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations classiﬁedArkansas as having an executive budget in The Question of State Government Capability (Washington dc: acir, January 1985), 134; Goodman (“Financing State Programs,” 7) and Stadter (“The Arkansas Budgetary System,” 60–62) dispute this description; Alan Rosenthal (Legislative Life [New York: Harper and Row, 1981], 207) termed it a “hybrid.” On the variance in actual inﬂuence in the process during this era, see Dan Durning, “Budgeting in Arkansas: Agencies, Governor, and Legislature,” in Readings in Arkansas Government, 204. 21. For a general overview of the impacts of term limits on budget processes in states around the country, see Ronald K. Snell, “The Impact of Term Limits on the Legislative Budgeting Process,” Missouri Legislative Forum, 2001, http://www.moforum.org/2001/pdf/moforum01 snell.pdf. On the Arkansas General Assembly’s disadvantaged role in the budget process, see National Conference of State Legislatures, “Assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly,” 40–51. Quotation from author interview with Janice Snead. 22. See Blair, “Two Transitions,” 95, 97, 99–104. 23. National Conference of State Legislatures, “Assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly,” 19, 46. See also Rob Moritz, “Bill Filed to Change Legislative Session Schedule,” Arkansas News Bureau, 21 December 2002.

[455], (73)

Lines: 1603 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [455], (73)

456

Notes to Pages 307–310

24. Quotation from Richard C. Elling, “State Bureaucracies,” in Politics in the American States, 4th ed., 269. 25. Quotation from Ira Sharkansky, Spending in the American States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1968), 14; Elling, “State Bureaucracies,” 273. For the most authoritative discussion of incrementalism, see Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964), chap. 5. For more recent conﬁrmation of incrementalism in state spending decisions, see David Lowery, Thomas Kouda, and James Garand, “Spending in the States: A Test of Six Models,” Western Political Quarterly 37 (1984): 48–66. 26. T. R. Carr, “An Evaluation of the Impact of the Priority Budgeting System of Arkansas on Budget Outcomes” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Public Administration, New York City, April 1983), 12–13. 27. On the Murphy Commission’s work in this area, see the Murphy Commission, “Making Arkansas’ State Government Performance Driven and Accountable,” http://www.reformarkansas.org/policy/performance driven.htm. On the potential beneﬁts for pbb (assuming legislators are willing to be educated sufﬁciently on the budgeting plan), see National Conference of State Legislatures, “Assessment of the Arkansas General Assembly,” 49–50. On the initial problems implementing pbb, see Michael R. Wickline, “aasis a Burden in State Budgeting, Legislators Are Told,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 13 September 2002. 28. Figures calculated from State Budget (Little Rock: Department of Finance and Administration), relevant years. 29. Private-school student data from various reports of the U.S. Department of Education. 30. Kern Alexander and James Hale, “Educational Equity, Improving School Finance in Arkansas,” Report to Advisory Committee of the Special School Formula Project of the Joint Interim Committee on Education, 1978, 11. 31. The Public School System of Arkansas (Washington dc: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, 6 October 1922), reprinted as “The Arkansas Survey Report,” Journal of the Arkansas Education Association 6 (July–October, 1922). 32. Clara B. Kerman and Evalena Berry, “The Growth of Public Schools,” in Arkansas: Colony and State, 116–18; White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier, 158. The most extensive historical treatments of public education inArkansas are Josiah H. Shinn, History of Education in Arkansas, (Washington dc: U.S. Bureau of Education, 1900); Stephen B. Weeks, History of Public School Education in Arkansas (Washington dc: U.S. Bureau of Education, 1912); and Henry C. Dial, “Historical Development of School Finance in Arkansas, 1819–1970” (Ed.D. diss., University of Arkansas, 1971). For briefer but excellent treatments,

[456], (74)

Lines: 162 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[456], (74)

Notes to Pages 310–314 457

33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39.

40. 41.

42.

see Clara B. Kennan, “The Birth of Public Schools”; and Kennan and Berry, “The Growth of Public Schools,” in Arkansas: Colony and State, 105–24; Sara Murphy, “Education,” in Arkansas: State of Transition (Little Rock: Legal Services Corporation, 1981), 43–51; and Education in the States: Historical Development and Outlook, Arkansas (Washington dc: National Education Association, 1969). Quotation from Dial, “Historical Development,” 191. For some studies comparing Arkansas’s educational “achievements” with those of other states, see The Public School System of Arkansas; Howard A. Dawson and Harry A. Little, Financial and Administrative Needs of the Public Schools of Arkansas (Little Rock: State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1930); Study of Local School Units in Arkansas (Little Rock: Arkansas State Department of Education, Keith Printing, 1937); Public Education in Arkansas: A Survey (Little Rock: Arkansas Public Expenditure Council, 1944); Alexander and Hale, Educational Equity. See Thomas R. Dye, Politics, Economics, and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966), 74–114. Stephen Weeks quoted in Dial, “Historical Development,” 60. See also Kennan, “The Birth of Public Schools,” 105. John L. Sullivan, “Political Correlates of Social, Economic, and Religious Diversity in the United States,” Journal of Politics 35 (1973): 70–84. Jeff Davis quoted in Tucker, Arkansas, 63; The Public School System of Arkansas, 62; Dawson and Little, Financial and Administrative Needs, 21. Figures for 1926 from Dial, “Historical Development,” 180; Arch Ford quoted in Bill and Grace Harwood, School Days, Contemporary Views on Arkansas Public Education (Little Rock: Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, 1978), 85. Views on property taxes in Arkansans Attitudes toward Taxes, 8; attitudes toward compulsory school attendance in Lile, Government of Arkansas, 153; 1978 opinions in Arkansas Attitudes on Higher Education (Little Rock: University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Center for Urban and Governmental Affairs, 1979), 4–8; Robert S. Erikson, “The Relationship between Public Opinion and State Policy,” in State Politics and the New Federalism ed. Marilyn Gittell (New York: Longman, 1986), 154. Treadway, Public Policymaking, 178. According to some observers, Hillary Clinton deserves even more credit for education reform than does her husband. See Paul Greenberg, “Clinton on Education: ‘His Finest Hour’,” Arkansas Times, February 1984, 26–30; and Robert McCord, “Those Who Give Schools Their Vote Deserve One Themselves Election Day,” Arkansas Gazette, 18 May 1986. Feistritzer, The Condition of Teaching, 39–41; Doh C. Shinn and Jack R. Van Der Slik, “Legislative Efforts to Improve the Quality of Public Education in

[457], (75)

Lines: 1646 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [457], (75)

458

43.

44.

45.

46. 47.

48.

Notes to Pages 314–316

the American States: A Comparative Analysis” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, September 1985), 39; report from the Chronicle of Higher Education, 30 October 1985. Quotation taken from remark to author by South Arkansas timber magnate, in Little Rock, March 1983. On the South’s new emphasis on education as an industry attraction, see Christopher Connell, “Schools the New Lure for Attracting Industry,” Arkansas Gazette, 17 March 1986. The political development of the Arkansas Education Association is traced in George S. Hollowell, “The Arkansas Education Association and the General Assembly” (University of Arkansas, 1979, typescript). According to David Davies (“Fund Commitment Lack Leads to aea Request for Legislative Session,” Arkansas Gazette, 6 April 1986), the seventeen-thousand-member aea had a $2.2 million budget for 1986–87. Legislative rankings of most powerful lobbies found in English and Carroll, Citizen’s Manual, 44–45. For changing attitudes on public schools, see “A Report on Public Attitudes to Arkansas Louisiana Gas Company,” prepared by Precision Research, Inc., Little Rock, 31 May 1983; Attitudes on Arkansas (Little Rock: Center for Urban and GovernmentalAffairs, Survey Marketing Research Unit,August 1982); Robert L. Savage and Diane D. Blair, “Regionalism and Political Opinion in Arkansas: An Exploratory Survey,” Arkansas Political Science Journal 5 (1984), 80; Arkansas senatorial polls conducted for Sen. David Pryor, 1984; and “The Bailey Arkansas Poll,” August–September 1985. For lengthy excerpts from and analyses of this six-to-one decision, see extensive coverage in Arkansas Democrat and Arkansas Gazette, 1 June 1983. An overview of the “campaign for educational excellence” is provided in Marvin E. DeBoer, “Governor Clinton and Educational Reform in Arkansas: A Study in Communication” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, North Little Rock, February 1986). Additional details provided in numerous stories in Arkansas Democrat and Arkansas Gazette, March–October 1983, and from Diane Blair’s conversations with Governor and Hillary Clinton throughout this period. For a particularly thorough analysis of the 1983 campaign for education reform, see Dan Durning, “Education Reform in Arkansas: The Governors’ Role in Policymaking,” in Gubernatorial Leadership and State Policy, ed. Eric Herzik and Brent Brown (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991): 121–39. Quotation from Gov. Bill Clinton, televised address, 19 September 1983. According to DeBoer, “Governor Clinton,” 19, a survey taken in September 1983 showed 75.7 percent of respondents strongly supported teacher testing, 11.4 percent supported it, and only 9.4 percent opposed it. For the aea’s viewpoint, see John Brummett, “Deterioration of Clinton-aea Relationship Is Nothing New,”

[458], (76)

Lines: 166 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[458], (76)

Notes to Pages 316–319 459

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

Arkansas Gazette, 6 September 1983. On the details of the tax increase, see Meredith Oakley, “Odds and Ends,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 18 November 2002. For examples of local districts’ increases in millage rates in reaction to the standards, see David Osborne, “Turning Around Arkansas’ Schools,” American Educator (fall 1992): 6–17. On the deteriorating 1986 school ﬁnance picture, see “Education is Arkansas’ Future, School Finance, 1986” (Little Rock: Arkansas Education Association, March 1986); David Davies, “Finances Big Worry of Schools,” Arkansas Gazette, 30 March 1986, and “1.5% Pay Raise for State Teachers Predicted by aea,” Arkansas Gazette, 6 August 1986; and “Schools Get Bad News on Amount of State Aid,” Arkansas Gazette, 4 July 1986. For candidate positions on school standards, see “Candidate Proposes Ranking of Standards,” Arkansas Gazette, 18 May 1986; Pam Strickland, “White Blasts Plan to Implement Education Standards by 1987–88,” Arkansas Democrat, 14 August 1986; and Meredith Oakley, “Clinton Vows No Dilution of Education,” Arkansas Democrat, 25 August 1986. On the fall campaign, see Pam Strickland, “New Standards Deadline to Rocket Taxes” and “Political Wives Differ on Role of First Lady,” Arkansas Democrat, 23 July 1986 and 19 October 1986 (respectively); Dan O’Mara, “White Talks about Quality Education,” Springdale News, 9 October 1986; Maria Henson, “Clinton ‘Sick and Tired’ of Fund Requests,” Arkansas Gazette, 29 October 1986. On the 1987 session, see Ernest Dumas, “School Standards Fill an Elementary Need,” Arkansas Gazette, 1 March 1987; and Scott Van Laningham, “Standards Survive, But Other Goals Fail,” Arkansas Gazette, 5 April 1987. On the 1991 session, see Cynthia Howell, “aea Warns State Nearing Last in Pay,” Arkansas Democrat, 11 January 1991; Mark Oswald, “Teachers Spend Most on Lobbies,” Arkansas Gazette, 16 April 1991; Ruth Wattenberg, “Postscript,” American Educator (fall 1992): 16–18. Senator Nick Wilson quoted in Blair, “William Jefferson Clinton,” 272. John Brummett, Highwire: From the Backwoods to the Beltway—The Education of Bill Clinton (New York: Hyperion, 1994). Dr. Kern Alexander quotation included in internal documents from 1992 Bill Clinton for President campaign. Ernie Dumas quoted in Wattenberg, “Postscript,” 17. For polling data on Arkansans’ attitudes toward education, see Ernie Dumas, “Ofﬁcials Abdicate to Courts,” Arkansas Gazette, 11 August 1989; and the Arkansas Poll, 1999, 2000, and 2001. For additional retrospective on Clinton and educational reform, see Danny Shameer, “History Still Grading Clinton’s School Reforms,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 28 November 1993. “Gov. Jim Guy Tucker’s Proposals to State Legislature,” Arkansas Democrat-

[459], (77)

Lines: 1691 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [459], (77)

460

56.

57.

58.

59. 60.

61.

62.

Notes to Pages 319–322

Gazette, 3 February 1993; Robert S. McCord, “State’s Schools Getting Better,” Arkansas Times, 10 June 1993; Danny Shameer, “‘84 School Standards Pass the Test of Time,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 18 May 1993; Cynthia Howell, “State Ranks 42nd in Teacher Pay, nea Says,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 13 October 1993. Ernest Dumas, “Bureaucrats Did Right,” Arkansas Times, 17 February 1994; Dennis A. Byrd, “Legislature Passes School-Funding Bill,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 3 March 1994. For a succinct overview of the impact of amendment 59 on school funding, see Michael Whiteley, “Taxes, Funding Formula Push Districts to Edge,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 25 September 1995. On Judge Annabelle Clinton Imber’s ruling, see Cynthia Howell, “Judge Gives State 2 Years to Make School Funding Constitutional,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10 November 1994. “Tucker Unveils Revised School-Funding Plan,” Northwest Arkansas Times, 23 February 1995; John Brummett, “School Funding: What a Mess,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 February 1995. On mid-century consolidation in the state, see Ben F. Johnson, Arkansas in Modern America, 96–98. Kimberly Dishongh, “Little Towns Loath to Lose Their Schools,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 18 October 2002. John Brummett, “Dreadful Issue Awaits Amendment,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 14 March 1995; Rachel O’Neal, “Senate OKs School-Fund Hybrid,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 March 1995; Rodney Bowers, “Voters Reject 7 Millages, Will Pay for It,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 September 1995. Tucker quotation from interview on kuar Radio, 15 July 2002. Michael Rowett, “Huckabee Shows Kids Newest Part of State’s Smart Start Program,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 30 October 1999; Cynthia Howell, “State Board Adopts System Holding Schools Accountable,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 15 June 1999. On Huckabee’s views on vouchers and charter schools, see Rachel O’Neal, “Huckabee Backs Away from School Vouchers,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 22 April 1998; and Cynthia Howell and Kimberly Gillespie, “Nonschool Groups in Maumelle, Rogers Get Go-Ahead on Charter Plans,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9 January 2001. The 2000 Arkansas Poll showed that 65 percent of respondents agreed that standardized test results were a good measure of student academic performance. Gubernatorial candidate Jimmie Lou Fisher, for example, critiqued the impact of testing on the teaching/learning process during her 2002 campaign against Huckabee. Rachel O’Neal, “Is State’s School Funding Subverting ’91’s Act 10?,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 July 1999; David Robinson, “Education Share of Budget Pie Has Decreased,” Donrey News, 26 June 2001.

[460], (78)

Lines: 170 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[460], (78)

Notes to Pages 322–327 461 63. Seth Blomeley, “Huckabee Charts Course,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10 January 2001; Michael R. Wickline, “$3,000 Teacher Raise Not Enough, Group Says,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 8 January 2001; Seth Blomeley, “Cuts Deal Education a Setback,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 31 March 2001; Seth Blomeley, “$7.1 Million Cut from hippy Cues Chorus of Protests from Advocates,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 April 2001; Linda S. Caillouet, “Cut in State Money Spurs Library to Trim Hours, Increase Fees,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 25 April 2001; John Brummett, “The Governor and Gutted Libraries,” Donrey News, 18 June 2001. 64. Lake View School District, No. 25 of Phillips County, et al. v. Mike Huckabee, Governor of the State of Arkansas, et al.; Cynthia Howell, “Schools Need $900 Million, Court Is Told,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 27 October 2000; Kimberly Dishongh, “School Funding Unfair, Judge Rules,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 May 2001. 65. Lake View School District No. 25 of Phillips County, Arkansas, et al., v. Governor Mike Huckabee, et al. For overviews of the ruling, see David Robinson, “Arkansas Education System Unconstitutional, Supreme Court Rules,” Arkansas News Bureau, 22 November 2002; Cynthia Howell and Kimberly Dishongh, “School System ‘Unconstitutional’,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 22 November 2002; Elizabeth Caldwell, “What’s Adequate? Education Ofﬁcials Ask,” Arkansas News Bureau, 27 November 2002. 66. Gross spending data from Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (Little Rock: Arkansas Bureau of Mines, Manufacturing, and Agriculture, 1899– 1900), 10–11, 183. The 1900 spending equals just under $27 million in 2000 dollars according to the Columbia Journalism Review’s conversion formula, www.cjr.org/resources/inﬂater.asp. The number of school districts is taken from Statistical Summary for the Public Schools of Arkansas, 1981–83 (Little Rock: State Department of Education, 1984), 35; The State of Education in Arkansas: A Report to the People (Little Rock: Ofﬁce of Governor, August 1986), p. 1; and Philip Besonen, “School District Reorganization Long Past Overdue in Arkansas.” For historical perspective, see also Ernie Dumas, “Schools in Arkansas Don’t Deserve an ‘F’,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 18 January 1998. 67. Sharkansky, Spending in the American States, 16, 148, 151. 68. David Robinson, “Arkansans Split on Education Tax,” Arkansas News Bureau, 29 September 2002; 2003 Arkansas Poll, http://plsc.uark.edu/arkpoll/. 69. Dan Durning, “Education Reform in Arkansas,” 135–36. 70. On Huckabee’s initial response to the Lake View ruling, see John Brummett, “Huckabee Irrelevant on Education,” Donrey News, 6 June 2001. On the com-

[461], (79)

Lines: 1726 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [461], (79)

462

71.

72.

73.

74.

Notes to Pages 328–330

peting education plans in the 2002 campaign, see Seth Blomeley, “Huckabee, Fisher Court Different Voters,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 15 September 2002; Jimmie Lou Fisher for Governor campaign, “reach (Restoring Educational Accountability for Children)”; and Governor Mike Huckabee, “The Next Step: A Blueprint for Continued Education Reform in Arkansas.” On the Blue Ribbon Commission’s proposals, see David Robinson, “Regional High School Plan Depends on School Closures,” Arkansas News Bureau, 4 June 2002; Cynthia Howell and Kimberly Dishongh, “Tab for Improving Schools Put at $716 Million,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 June 2002; Kimberly Dishongh, “School Reform Panelists Asked about Priorities,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 29 July 2002. For a critique of the proposal, arguing that even it was nonrevolutionary, see Ernest Dumas, “Sweeping School Change Unlikely,” Arkansas Times, 26 July 2002. Seth Blomeley and Michael Rowett, “Huckabee: Ruling Guts Power of School Boards,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 22 November 2002; David Robinson, “Loss of Local School Control Is ‘Sea Change’ Huckabee Says,” Arkansas News Bureau, 22 November 2002. Quotations from Governor Mike Huckabee, State of the StateAddress, 14 January 2003. On the unprecedented nature of the superintendent hiring portion of the proposal, see Cynthia Howell, “School Chief Hiring Plan Seen as a 1st,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4 February 2003. John Brummett, “Huckabee as Nixon,” Arkansas News Service, 16 January 2003; Huckabee quoted from radio interview in Seth Blomeley, “Huckabee Rides Herd on Fears Over Plan,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 28 January 2003. On rural reaction to the proposal, see “District to Protest School Plan,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 January 2003; Bill Simmons, “Residents Voice Fears over Plan on Schools,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 January 2003; Seth Blomeley, “Huckabee Gets Earful at pta Rally,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 February 2003; and David Robinson, “House Speaker Uses Radio to Voice Consolidation Dissent,” Arkansas News Bureau, 31 January 2003. On schoolchildren’s letters, see Seth Blomeley, “Other School Plans Discussed as Kids’ Letters Hit a Nerve,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 31 January 2003. On alteration in Huckabee proposals, see Michael B. Wickline, “School Plan Sees Demands Softened,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 February 2003. Huckabee quotation from State of the State Address, 14 January 2003. For excellent synopses of the key events in the 2003 school reform battle leading up to the December special session, see Jennifer Barnett Reed, “Lake View for Dummies,” Arkansas Times, 5 December 2003, and “School Reform Timeline,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7 December 2003. For quotations, see these and Laura Kellams, “Huckabee Takes Sports Shot,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1

[462], (80)

Lines: 174 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[462], (80)

Notes to Pages 330–332 463

75. 76.

77. 78.

79.

80. 81.

82.

August 2003; David Robinson, “Huckabee ‘A Voice Crying in the Wilderness,” Arkansas News Bureau, 18 July 2003; and Laura Kellams, “Huckabee School Plan Nets Rural Enmity, Legislator Says,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 8 July 2003. On Huckabee warnings about urban and suburban tax increases, see David Robinson, “Huckabee Issues Warning in Pitching Education Plan,” Arkansas News Bureau, 22 July 2003, and Governor Mike Huckabee, “Stand by Me,” Arkansas Times, 8 August 2003. On public opinion surveys, see Seth Blomeley, “Consolidation Turns Off 54.5% in Survey,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 12 August 2003; Jeff Smith, “New Poll Shows Arkansans Oppose Consolidation,” Arkansas News Bureau, 29 December 2003; and 2003 Arkansas Poll. For full adequacy report, see http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/data/education/Final ArkansasReport.pdf. Michael Rowett, “Governor: Voters a Backdrop,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7 August 2003; Laura Kellams, “Huckabee: Ballot Plans Under Way,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 12 August 2003; Michael R. Wickline and Seth Blomeley, “2 School Plans to Be on Ballot?,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 14 August 2003. On aea’s opposition to the Huckabee plan, see David Robinson, “Two Powerful Groups Oppose Consolidation Plan,” Arkansas News Bureau, 24 January 2003. Cynthia Howell, “State Business Leaders Asking to File Brief in School Funding Appeal,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 28 September 2001; John Henry, “Pittman, State Chamber See Education as Key to Business Growth, Arkansas Business, 14 October 2002; Rob Moritz, “Education Experts Not Surprised at Lake View Ruling,” Arkansas News Bureau, 22 November 2002; John Brummett, “Steam Rises on Education,” Arkansas News Bureau, 31 December 2002; “Statewide Education Awareness Campaign Begins,” Arkansas News Bureau, 21 December 2002; Rob Moritz, “apex Works to Educate Arkansans on Education Issues,” Arkansas News Bureau, 12 January 2003. Michael Rowett, “Newspaper Gives Group Ads to Tout School Stance,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 12 November 2003; Carl D. Holcombe, “Outtakes,” Arkansas Business, 8 December 2003; Seth Blomeley, “Speak Out, Governor Urges,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 October 2003; David Robinson, “Huckabee Says Chamber ‘Muscle’ a Must,” Arkansas News Bureau, 16 October 2003. John Brummett, “Head in the Sand on the Farm,” Donrey News, 19 December 2001. Laura Kellams, “Rural Educators Establish Fund,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10 July 2003; John Brummett, “Ofﬁcials Missing Point,” Arkansas News Bureau, 15 July 2003; David Robinson, “Small Schools a Big Part of Cleveland Family Life,” Arkansas News Bureau, 11 July 2003. On the capitol protests, see Seth Blomeley, “Students Join Crowd at Capitol Anti-Consolidation Rally,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9 December 2003; and

[463], (81)

Lines: 1764 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Long Page PgEnds: TEX [463], (81)

464

Notes to Pages 332–336

Rob Moritz, “2,500 Rally for Rural Schools at State Capitol,” Arkansas News Bureau, 9 December 2003. On the legislature’s frantic end of year action, see David Robinson, “Legislature Behind Stay-Out-of-Court Plan,” Arkansas News Bureau, 31 December 2003. 83. On the consolidation and tax increase bills and their passage, see Rob Moritz, “Compromise Consolidation Bill Passes House,” Arkansas News Bureau, 16 January 2004; Seth Blomeley, “Consolidation Bill to Be a Law without Huckabee Signature,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 28 January 2004; Michael Rowett and Michael R. Wickline, “House OKs 6% State Sales Tax,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 6 February 2004. On school mergers, including that of Lake View, see Cynthia Howell, “Lake View, 6 Districts Ordered to Consolidate with Neighbors,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 18 May 2004. 84. Dennis A. Byrd and Rob Moritz, “Two Justices to Oversee Education Reform,” Arkansas News Bureau, 4 February 2004; David Robinson, “Session End Doesn’t End School Funding Case,” Arkansas News Bureau, 8 February 2004; Brenda Blagg, Arkansas News Bureau, “Arkansans Trust Supreme Court Most,” 4 February 2004; John Brummett, “Voices of Equivocation,” Arkansas News Bureau, 6 April 2004; Doug Thompson, “Term Limits and Courts,” Arkansas News Bureau, 29 May 2004. 14. continuity and change in arkansas politics 1. North Carolina political scientist’s comment to Diane Blair at Southern Political Science Association meeting, Atlanta, November 1986. Dougan quoted in Arkansas Gazette, 1 May 1986. 2. Of seventy-three press secretaries surveyed by USA Today, nineteen named Bumpers the best speaker in the Senate, Arkansas Gazette, 2 June 1986. 3. Arkansas religious grouping data from the American Religion Data Archive, http://www.thearda.com/arda.asp?Show=Home. 4. On these issues, see several overviews in state media: a four-part series entitled “Northwest Passage,” in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23–26 March 1997; a similar series in Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, beginning 26 October 1997; and Mara Leveritt, “Spanish Spoken Here,” Arkansas Times, 29 September 1994. Also, see Michael Rowett, “Senate News Is Broadcast in Spanish,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 24 January 2003; Jill Zelman, “Hispanic Media Outlets on the Rise inArkansas,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 July 2003; Carl D. Holcombe, “Savvy Marketers Proﬁt from Hispanic Inﬂux,” Arkansas Business, 25 August 2003; Kay B. Hall, “Springdale Policemen Bone Up on Spanish,” Northwest Arkansas Times, 3 March 1991; Michelle P. Todd, “Ofﬁcials Unveil Outreach for

[464], (82)

Lines: 178 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[464], (82)

Notes to Pages 337–338 465

5.

6.

7.

8.

Hispanic Population,” Times of Northwest Arkansas, 10 February 1996; Daphne Davis, “Spanish Speakers Tax School District,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 February 1996; Michelle Bradford, “Cost of Translators Crimping Courts,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 13 September 1999; Chris Berman, “Diversity a Slow Go in Public Work Force,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 May 2003. On the speciﬁc work of Governor Huckabee and the Democrats in reaching out to the Latino community, see John Brummett, “Nuevo Arkansans,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 25 July 2000; Michael R. Wickline, “Governor to Include Hispanics,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 June 2001; Rob Moritz, “Senator’s New Hispanic Liaison Part of a Growing Trend,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 June 2003; and Doug Thompson, “Political Parties Court State’s Hispanic Voters,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 August 2000; and Doug Thompson, “Democrats Hear from Hispanic Speakers,” Arkansas News Bureau, 31 October 2003; and Seth Blomleley, “Political Parties Court State’s Hispanic Voters,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 May 2004. Latino voting numbers from author’s interview with Michael Cook, executive director, Democratic Party of Arkansas, 19 November 2002. On the potential electoral implications for the Latino vote in Arkansas’s future, see Lublin, The Republican South, 226–30. See Hero, Faces of Inequality, especially pp. 11–15, and Suzi Parker, “Hispanics Reshape Culture of the South,” Christian Science Monitor, 10 June 1999. On the limitations of the increases in Latino population in Arkansas, see Brenda Blagg, “Perspective on Hispanic Inﬂux,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 22 September 1996. On the relative absence of diversity in the state, see Morgan and Wilson, “Diversity in the American States.” Some other ethnic diversiﬁcation is also occurring in the state that should be noted. On the Asian growth rate, see Philip Reese, “State’s Asian Population on Roll,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 18 September 2003. Northwest Arkansas is also home to the largest population of Marshall Islanders in the United States (Rachel Webb, “Marshallese Focus of Conference,” 6 December 2003). On non-Mexican Latino growth, see Charlie Frago and Phillip Reese, “Rural Yell County Draws Many Salvadorans,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7 July 2003. Donald Voth, “Impact of Migration on Arkansas” (lecture given in Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies Lecture Series, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 15 March 1984), pp. 14–15, and “Selected Reference Tables.” According to 2000 Census records, approximately one-half of the 10 percent of Arkansans who had lived in a different state in 1995 were residing in another southern state, while just over one-fourth had arrived from a Midwestern state. Bumpers’s quotation is from his speech to Washington County Democratic Rally, Springdale, Arkansas, 22 October 1986. On Blanche Lincoln’s and Mark

[465], (83)

Lines: 1807 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [465], (83)

466

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

Notes to Pages 339–341

Pryor’s conservatism and support for portions of Republican president George W. Bush’s agenda, see Paul Barton, “Lincoln Ranks Third on List of Democrats Backing Bush,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 25 December 2002; David Sanders, “Lincoln Reaches for Conservative Image,” Arkansas News Bureau, 29 January 2003; John Brummett, “Our Republican Senators,” Arkansas News Bureau, 31 January 2003; Alison Vekshin, “Pryor Urges Democrats to Court the Gun Vote,” Arkansas News Bureau, 17 October 2003; and John Brummett, “Guns, God and Mark Pryor,” Arkansas News Bureau, 25 May 2004. Polling data from Jay Barth’s interview with Paul Johnson, senior advisor for Mark Pryor for Senate campaign, 18 November 2002. On Huckabee’s views on restorative justice, see Michael R. Wickline, “Huckabee: Answerable to God on Clemencies,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6 December 2002. On tax increase proposal and the public’s reaction to it, see John Brummett, “Labels Collide in Little Rock,” Arkansas News Bureau, 19 November 2002; Elizabeth Caldwell, “Callers Hot about Huckabee’s Proposed Sales Tax Increase,” Arkansas News Bureau, 5 December 2002; Michael Rowett, “Tax-Angry Callers Give Governor Grief,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 December 2002. On school reform, see Governor Mike Huckabee, “State of the State Address,” 14 January 2002, http://www.accessarkansas.org/governor/stateofstate.html; Jason White, “Conservative Gov Pushes for Higher Taxes, Education Funding Equity,” Stateline.org, 12 December 2003. Quotation by Pat Moran, former Public Service commissioner and administrative aide to Sen. Dale Bumpers, cited in Lamis, Two-Party South, 126. On this point, see also John Brummett, “The Labels Are Upside Down,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 10 April 2003. “Go Home!” Northwest Arkansas Times, 26 January 1985. See also Arkansas Democrat poll on Falwell visit, 21 February 1985; and “Jerry and the Dupes,” Arkansas Times, April 1985. katv Channel 7 poll conducted 30 September–4 October 1996 by Opinion Research Associates, Inc.; Nate Coulter for U.S. Senate campaign ad quoted in Suzi Parker, “Not Your Father’s Arkansas,” IntellectualCapital.com, 14 May 1998. According to Arbitron ratings in November 1986, cited by Paul Johnson (“The Small Screen,” Arkansas Gazette, 8 January 1987), almost all Arkansas households had television service, indeed more than half had more than one television set in the household, and television was viewed 44.3 hours per week. Such connectedness to the rest of the world via modern technology has only increased since that date, of course. “Tucker’s Record Attacked,” Northwest Arkansas Times, 5 June 1978, quoted in

[466], (84)

Lines: 181 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[466], (84)

Notes to Pages 342–344 467

15.

16.

17.

18.

19. 20.

21.

Stephen A. Smith and Jimmie N. Rogers, “Rhetorical Reruns: Cultural Continuity in Southern Political Arguments” (University of Arkansas, 2002, typescript). On the ﬁnal point, see Michael R. Wickline and Seth Blomeley, “Transition between Staffs at Capitol Takes Toll on Constitutional Ofﬁcers,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9 January 2003. Myriad tales of such encounters exist, but see Annie Glenn’s observations cited by Skip Rutherford, “Politics Is Personal in Arkansas,” Arkansas Gazette, 4 April 1984; also, Hutchinson campaign director Richard Bearden on Texas senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s comments during a visit to Arkansas on behalf of Senator Tim Hutchinson in 2002, from Bearden interview with Jay Barth, 13 November 2002; Fenno, Senators on the Campaign Trail, 282. On the 1992 races, see Barth, Blair, and Dumas, “Arkansas: Characters, Crises, and Change,” 173–74. Art English notes that the striking trait of the Arkansas political culture is “intimacy and accessibility.” His comments are found in “The Political Styles of Bumpers and Pryor: Representation in an Evolving Political Culture” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association, March 1996). On a candidate’s failure to become a “ﬁrst name” and its electoral costs (in this case, Nate Coulter’s becoming “Nate” to too few voters, in a race won by “Blanche”), see Michael Leahy, “The Irrelevance of the Political Season,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 24 May 1998. For a discussion of Dale Bumpers’s personalistic campaign style, especially early in his career, see Roy Reed, “Working at the Arkansas Gazette: An Interview with Ernest Dumas,” ahq 60 (2001): 174–202. See “The Most Likely Non-Partisan Event Where Politicians Will Show,” Newsletter of the Political Animals Club, March 5, 1986, for a list and ranking of such events. For a description of the politics of the annual Coon Supper, see Rex Nelson, “Coon’s Age,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6 February 1998. On the Slovak Oyster Supper, see Anthony Moser, “Oysters Lure Politicos to Slovak,” Arkansas Democrat, 28 January 1990. On the differences in political communication in the days of public speeches versus the days of television, see Roy Reed, “The Southern Demagogue: Death of a Breed,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 18 July 1988. “Arkansas,” Congressional Quarterly, 11 October 1986, 2404. Paul Greenberg, “Bethunery and Strange Pryorities in South Arkansas,” Arkansas Times, May 1984, 38. See also Stephen Buel, “Campaigning Styles Obviously Different for Pryor, Bethune,” Arkansas Democrat, 5 November 1984. Jay Barth’s interview with former state Republican Party executive Richard Bearden, 13 November 2002.

[467], (85)

Lines: 1836 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [467], (85)

468

Notes to Pages 344–348

22. John Brummett, “Meet Michael Dale Huckabee,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4 July 1996. 23. Bill Clinton, lecture in class “Arkansas Politics,” University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 12 October 1981. 24. Hays, Politics Is My Parish, p. 142. 25. Ranchino, Faubus to Bumpers, iv, 71. 26. Ernest Dumas quoted in Reed, “Working at the Arkansas Gazette.” Sen. David Pryor, interview with Diane Blair, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 11 April 1986. Excerpt from Tim Hackler, “Gazette Is More Than an Old Friend,” Arkansas Gazette, 17 November 1986. In various settings, David Pryor has also noted the importance of progressive small-town newspapers, including the one owned by his family in Camden, as an important force in promoting progressivism in the state and as a key factor to differentiate Arkansas from neighboring states. 27. For an overview of the newspaper war, see Ben F. Johnson III, Arkansas in Modern America, 236–38; and Lance Turner, “10 Years after Gazette: Is d-g ‘The Best of Both’?,” Arkansas Business, 22 October 2001. On the linkages between editorial-page views and news coverage, see Kim Fridkin Kahn and Patrick J. Kenney, “The Slant of the News: How Editorial Endorsements Inﬂuence Campaign Coverage and Citizens’ Views of Candidates,” American Political Science Review (2002) 96: 381–94. For just one example of the paper’s sympathetic interest in the Confederacy, see Jill Zeman, “Reenactment of Trail Caps Dodd Event,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 January 2004. Circulation ﬁgures from Lance Turner, “Outtakes,” Arkansas Business, 2 July 2001. Associated Press data from Jeff Hankins, “Assessing the Media,” Arkansas Business, 30 June 1997. See also Gwen Moritz, “In Defense of the d-g,” Arkansas Business, 22 October 2001. Finally, for a good overview of the journalistic landscape in the state, see Jeremy Ashton, “Arkansas: Little Rock Sets the Standard,” SouthNow, February 2004, 4. 28. On the general media climate in the state, including the Pine Bluff incident, see John Brummett, “Liberal Media? Surely You Jest,” Arkansas News Bureau, 31 October 2002; on the modern media’s general lack of political coverage, see Ernest Dumas, “The Media Are the Malaise,” Arkansas Times, 22 May 1998; on the katv endorsement, see Bill Simmons, “Democrats Weigh Complaints against katv,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 November 2000. 29. On the Democratic Party’s struggles to ﬁnd a viable gubernatorial candidate, see Doug Thompson, “Man’s Claims ‘Lies,’ Says Wife of Ex-Hopeful,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 September 2001; Michael R. Wickline, “Priest Forgoes Race for Governor,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 2 October 2001; Seth Blomeley, “Head of Road Panel Outlines Conditions on Run for Governor,” Arkansas

[468], (86)

Lines: 186 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[468], (86)

Notes to Pages 348–350 469

30.

31. 32.

33.

34.

35.

Democrat-Gazette, 29 January 2002; Seth Blomeley, “Wynne Steps Aside,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 13 March 2002. David M. Halbﬁnger, “Wedding Ring Is a Millstone in 2 Arkansas Races,” New York Times, 31 October 2002; Dennis Byrd, “Caught in the Middle of Debate,” Arkansas News Bureau, 25 August 2002; Seth Blomeley, “Huckabee, Fisher Give Poll Their Own Spins,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 19 August 2002. Elizabeth Caldwell, “Candidates Debut Ad in Governor’s Race,” Arkansas News Bureau, 16 September 2002. On the clemency issue and its role in the campaign, see Janie Mann, “Huckabee’s Willie Horton?,” Arkansas Times, 13 September 2002; Seth Blomeley, “Slain Man’s Daughter Offers to Help Huckabee Foe,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 19 September 2002; Elizabeth Caldwell, “Huckabee Insensitive to Murder Victim’s Family, Opponent Says,” Arkansas News Bureau, 20 September 2002; Seth Blomeley, “Fisher Takes Rival to Task on Clemencies,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 9 October 2002; Doug Thompson, “DuMond Victim Criticizes Governor,” Arkansas News Bureau, 23 October 2002; Laura Kellams, “DuMond’s Rape Victim Travels State for Fisher,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 23 October 2002. Unidentiﬁed Republican ofﬁcial quoted in David M. Halbﬁnger, “Wedding Ring Is a Millstone in 2 Arkansas Races.” Also see Leslie Newell Peacock, “His-andHer Hufﬁness,” Arkansas Times, 27 September 2002; Doug Thompson, “Divided They Might Fall, Former Clinton Adviser Believes,” Arkansas News Bureau, 18 September 2002; Ernest Dumas, “Soap Making at the Governor’s Mansion Is Over,” Arkansas Times, 13 September 2002; Elizabeth Caldwell, “Democrats Poke Fun at Huckabees with Cartoons,” Arkansas News Bureau, 26 September 2002. Information on Democratic ﬁeld operation from author (Jay Barth) interview with Democratic state executive director Michael Cook, 19 November 2002. Michael R. Wickline, “Clinton at Dinner Helps Fisher Raise Funds,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 25 July 2002. Elizabeth Caldwell, “Governor’s Race Poll Shows Dead Heat,” Arkansas News Bureau, 24 October 2002; David Robinson, “Huckabee’s Approval Rating Takes Nosedive,” Arkansas News, 30 October 2002; Seth Blomeley, “Huckabee Urges ‘Crisis’ Donations,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 24 October 2002; Rob Moritz, “Huckabee Tops Own Record in Fund Raising,” Arkansas News Bureau, 13 December 2002; Seth Blomeley, “Huckabee Outspent Fisher by $1 Million,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1 January 2003; Seth Blomeley, “Huckabee Ad Parodies Challenger,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 25 October 2002. On Huckabee’s work to gain African American support, see Elizabeth Caldwell and Dennis A. Byrd, “Longtime Democratic Black Lawmaker Endorses Huck-

[469], (87)

Lines: 1887 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [469], (87)

470

36.

37. 38.

39.

40.

41. 42.

43.

Notes to Pages 350–354

abee,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 22 October 2002; and Michael Rowett and Seth Blomeley, “Bassett Named to Post on psc,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 September 2002. On additional appointments after election, see Wesley Brown, “Governor Shufﬂes Cabinet; Names Three Blacks to Top Posts,” Arkansas News Bureau, 12 March 2004. Hutchinson campaign director Richard Bearden, interview with Jay Barth, 13 November 2002; for information on spending in the race, see Jay Barth and Janine Parry, “Provincialism, Personalism and Politics: Campaign Spending in the 2002 U.S. Senate Race in Arkansas,” in The Last Hurrah?: Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2002 Congressional Elections, ed. David B. Magleby and J. Quin Monson (Provo ut: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2003), 54–69. Richard Bearden quotation, interview with Jay Barth, 13 November 2002. gop Executive Director Marty Ryall quoted in Doug Thompson, “Mark Pryor to Run for U.S. Senate, Hopes to Oust gop’s Hutchinson,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 24 April 2001; former David Pryor chief of staff Don Harrell quoted on Pryor’s physical appearance, in Paul Barton, “Like Father, Like Son,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5 January 2003. Other quotations from author’s (Jay Barth) interview with Richard Bearden, 13 November 2002. On the “Meet the Press” appearance, see “Pryor Declines ‘Meet the Press’ Invitation,” Associated Press and Local Wire, 30 August 2002. Other quotations from Richard Bearden, interview with Jay Barth, 13 November 2002; state Democratic Party executive director Michael Cook, interview with author, 19 November 2002; and Pryor campaign senior adviser Paul Johnson, interview with Jay Barth, 18 November 2002. Quotation on Republican attacks by National Republican Senatorial Committee’s Chris LaCivita reported in Barth and Parry, “Provincialism, Personalism and Politics,” 58. Other quotations from author’s (Jay Barth) phone interview with Paul Johnson, 18 November 2002. 2002 turnout estimates from Election Nexus. Data located at http://elections.gmu. edu/VAP VEP.htm. Rob Moritz, “Voters Continue to Favor Food Tax Ban, Animal Cruelty Law,” Arkansas News Bureau, 28 September 2002; Joe Mosby, “Game and Fish Commission Opposes Animal Cruelty Act,” Arkansas News Bureau, 27 September 2002; Michael R. Wickline, “Farmers Fight Move to Add to Cruelty Law,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 8 September 2002; Laura Kellams, “Cruelty Law’s Foes Using Fear Tactics, Backers Say,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 17 October 2002. On Huckabee’s efforts in the African American community in 1998, see Matthew

[470], (88)

Lines: 190 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[470], (88)

Notes to Pages 356–359 471

44.

45. 46.

47.

48.

J. Streb, The New Electoral Politics of Race (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002): 96–122. It is important to be wary of Streb’s conclusions about Huckabee’s electoral success with African Americans since he relies upon smallsample exit-poll surveys whose results are not backed up by analysis of precinct returns from that race. Quotations on Bill Clinton’s role in the 2002 campaign from Michael Cook, interview with Jay Barth, 19 November 2002; Richard Bearden, interview with author, 13 November 2002; and Paul Johnson, phone interview with author, 18 November 2002. See also Seth Blomeley, “Blacks Should Support Democrats, Clinton Says,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4 November 2002. Quotations on the scope of the Republican ground campaign forAfricanAmerican votes from Jay Barth’s interviews with Richard Bearden, 13 November 2002, and Michael Cook, 19 November 2002. On radio ads and the issue of gop suppression efforts, see Melissa Nelson, “gop Mounts Radio Effort to Entice Black Voters in lr,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 October 2002; and John B. Judis, “Soft Sell,” New Republic, 11 November 2002. Senator Lincoln quoted in Phillip Reese, “Lincoln Tosses Hat in Ring for ’04,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9 February 2003. See Alan Ehrenhalt, The United States of Ambition: Politicians, Power, and the Pursuit of Ofﬁce (New York: Times Books, 1991). On the issue of antigovernment views by gop activists and candidates, see data from the Southern Grassroots Party Activists project and Jay Barth, “Campaign Messages of the Two Parties’ Gubernatorial Candidates in the Contemporary South” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Atlanta, November 1994). For a thorough account and explanation of the 1837 incident, see Hinshaw, Call the Roll, 20–25. Bob Lancaster, “Some Warm, Pretty Thoughts about the Sesquicentennial,” Arkansas Times, February 1986, 126. The Elaine Massacre of 1919 has been the most analyzed of these events. But also gaining notice in recent years are the racial cleansing of Harrison in northwest Arkansas in the ﬁrst decade of the twentieth century, the last lynching in Little Rock in 1927, and racial violence at the state capitol in 1965, when civil rights activists attempted to desegregate the building’s cafeteria. On the “widowhood” route to political power, see Diane D. Kincaid, “Over His Dead Body: A Positive Perspective on Widows in the U.S. Congress,” Western Political Quarterly 31 (March 1978): 96–104. Importantly, however, according to a Fall 2001 report by the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society, Arkansas ranked forty-ﬁrst of the ﬁfty states in the percentage (28.6 percent) of women appointed as top policy advisors in its executive branch (http://

[471], (89)

Lines: 1924 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [471], (89)

472

49.

50.

51.

52.

Notes to Pages 359–361

www.cwig.albany.edu/ApptPolicyMakers2001Report.htm). Moreover, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research 2002 report, Arkansas ranked forty-seventh in terms of women’s general economic, legal, social, and political equality. See Tracie Dungan, “Survey Sees Slim Gains for Arkansas Women,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 8 December 2002. Also, see the Institute’s more thorough 2000 report, The Status of Women in Arkansas (Washington dc: Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2000). On the teacher associations’ merger, see John Reed, “Union of Black, White Associations More Than Symbolic,” Arkansas Gazette, 17 November 1986. On Cora McHenry’s selection as aea head, see David Davies, “New aea Leader Seeks ‘Consensus’,” Arkansas Gazette, 20 November 1985. On the interesting drama surrounding the aea’s failure to endorse the aft activist Joyce Elliott in her ﬁrst campaign, see Rob Moritz, “aea’s Endorsement Goes to Nonteacher,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 June 2000. On the appointments of the African American police chief and city manager, see Jan Cottingham, “‘Law Enforcement Belongs to the People’,” Arkansas Times, 4 February 2000; and Andrew Demillo, “lr’s Nod to Moore Surprises Few,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 19 December 2002. On the racial history of the university’s athletic program, especially its football program, see Terry Frei, Horns, Hogs, & Nixon Coming: Texas vs. Arkansas in Dixie’s Last Stand (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002). On Nolan Richardson’s selection, see Orville Henry, “Tulsa’s Richardson Named ua Coach,” Arkansas Gazette, 10 April 1985; John Jeansonne, “When Door Opened, Richardson Entered,” Arkansas Democrat, 10 April 1985; and Gene Lyons, “The Winter of Nolan Richardson’s Discontent,” Arkansas Times, December 1986, 33–35, 72–76. On his lawsuit against the university, see Linda Satter, “Richardson Files Lawsuit Against ua,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 December 2002; and Tim Layden, “Hog Fight,” Sports Illustrated, 24 February 2003. On Broyles’s and Richardson’s approval ratings, see “Polling Questionnaire,” at Arkansas News Bureau, http://www.arkansasnews.com/275973181202906.bsp. For some interesting comparisons between Jeff Davis and Tommy Robinson, see Marc White, “A Comparative Analysis of Jeff Davis and Tommy Robinson” (University of Arkansas, 1984, typescript); and Aaron Mitchell, “Tommy Robinson: A Jeff Davis Flashback for Arkansas?” (University of Arkansas, 1985, typescript). On Witt Stephens’s exertions on Fulbright’s behalf, see Kurt W. Tweraser, “J. W. Fulbright, Belief Systems, Models of Representation and Re-Election Strategies, 1942–1962” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Nashville, Tennessee, November 1985). See also Doug Smith, “Is There a New Money Group?” Arkansas Gazette, 11 July

[472], (90)

Lines: 194 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Long Page PgEnds: TE

[472], (90)

Notes to Pages 362–363 473 1978. On the Stephens’s role in the 1986 gubernatorial campaign, see Maria Henson, “White Alleges Clinton Link on Securities,” and “Clinton Sees Bid to ‘Buy’ Ofﬁce,” Arkansas Gazette, 18 September 1986 and 10 October 1986, respectively; Scott Van Laningham, “Paine, Webber, Wright Law Firm Appear Big Winners in Bond Business,” Arkansas Gazette, 12 October 1986; and John Brummett columns, Arkansas Gazette, 10 and 12 October 1986. John S. Jackson III, “The Southernization of National Politics” (address at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, North Little Rock, February 1986). 53. For a good summary ofArkansas’s economic difﬁculties and disparities, seeAssociated Press, “Bleak National Economic News Doesn’t Bode Well for Arkansas,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, 25 September 2002; and University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, “Rural Proﬁle of Arkansas 2001,” http://www.uark.edu/depts/rsocweb/pubs/Rural Proﬁle 2001.pdf. 54. Thomas D. Clark, “Economic Basis of Southern Politics,” Forum 112 (August 1949): 86; Clay Fulks, “Arkansas,” American Mercury 8 (July 1926): 293; Robert A. Leﬂar, interview with author, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 27 August 1985. Clinton quotation from lecture in class “State and Local Government,” University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2 May 1986. 55. John Brummett quoted from “A Sports Column’s Truth-Telling,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 January 2000. Novelist E. Lynn Harris, the ﬁrst African American male cheerleader at the University ofArkansas, explains the importance of the Razorbacks to his home state quite well in “Black + White = Red,” SI.com, 25 November 2003: “To me every Razorbacks win was a victory for my small, misunderstood state.” On these speciﬁc instances of politics and sports intersecting and the more general phenomena, see Michael Rowett, “Panel Favors Bill Making asu, 3 ua System Schools Play Ball,” Arkansas DemocratGazette, 3 March 2001; Brenda Blagg, “Sports Is Politics in State,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 12 January 2000; Ethan C. Nobles, “Huckabee Should Quit Politicizing Stadium Issue, Area Legislators Say,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 15 January 2000; Ernie Dumas, “Silly Stadium War Rages While Education Suffers,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 23 January 2000; Dana Gierenger, “Proposal to Change Requirements for Participating in Extracurricular Activities Draws Mixed Reviews,” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 12 March 1997; David Robinson, “Board Does About-Face on 2.0 Policy,” Arkansas News Bureau, 11 June 2002; Kimberly Dishongh, “gpa Rules for Activities Loosened Up,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11 June 2002; Trey Reid, “Hunters in State Limited to 5 Ducks a Day,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 August 2002. Clinton quotation from inaugural address, 15 January 1985. Excerpt from “I Speak Arkansaw,” Arkansas Times, November 1986, 22.

[473], (91)

Lines: 1964 to ———

0.0pt PgV

——— Long Page * PgEnds: Page [473], (91)

[474], (92)

Lines: 197 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[474], (92)

Index [First Page] [475], (1) Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Abbott, Shirley, 29 abortion, 149, 224, 254, 260, 356 Act 10 of 1991, 318 Act 38 of 1971, 168 Act 590 of 1981, 201 Act 779 of 1999, 292 Acts of Arkansas, 369 Adkins, Homer, 49, 79, 392n3 Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts (aoc), 225, 232, 234 Adrian, C. R., 276 advertisements, 7, 74, 76, 109, 243– 45, 247, 348–52, 356 Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (acir), 299–300 aetn (educational television network), 267 African Americans: advertisements targeting, 350; on amendment 80, 231; on Dale Bumpers, 405n48; Bill Clinton’s relationship with, 87–88, 354; and Democratic Party,

48, 66, 86–89; education of, 312; and Mike Huckabee, 470n43; in judiciary, 246; in local government ofﬁces, 286–88; and political transformation, 48, 49, 51, 59, 345; population of, 85–87, 96; and redistricting plans, 132; and Republican Party, 42; Winthrop Rockefeller’s appeal to, 67–68; in state legislature, 190, 191, 206– 7, 359–60; vote of, 3–4, 32–34, 36, 136, 354–56; voter registration records of, 397n32 Agricultural Wheel, 11 agriculture, 133–34. See also cotton aids patients, 257, 260 Alexander, Bill, 87, 127, 342 Alexander, Henry M., 367 Alexander, Kern, 318 Alexander Report, 309 Allen, Don, 213 Alliance for the Reform of Drug Policy in Arkansas, 153 Alliance for the Study of Arkansas History and Politics, 375–76

Lines: 0 to 73 ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [475], (1)

476

Index

Alltel, 130 American Bar Association, 230 American Civil Liberties Union (aclu), 131–32 American Federation of Teachers, 360 amici curiae briefs, 417n31 animal cruelty law, 353–54, 357 Anthony, Beryl, 342, 376 antigovernmentalism, 151, 155, 156 appellate court, 229, 232, 236–38 Appleton, Andrew M., 110 appointments, 167, 170, 172, 246–47, 441n52 apportionment, 132, 139, 151, 187–88, 190, 194, 197, 379, 388n35, 398n2 Argue, Jim, Jr., 329 Arkadelphia ar, 286 Arkansas: bibliographies and listings for, 367–69; demographics of, 65– 66, 78, 337, 378–79; education, health, and welfare statistics of (1930), 14; ﬁrst boom in, 10; general reference works on, 366– 67; geography of, 18–19, 25; government Web sites, 365; hardships in, 17; history of, 8–17, 375–77; isolation of, 44–45, 57–58, 261– 62, 311, 340–41; knowledge about, 7–8, 385n13; obstacles to political system in, 360–63; political culture in, 334–39, 340–44; politicians from, 335–36; sense of community in, 275–76; state motto, xii, 5; study of, 364–66 Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families, 374, 378 Arkansas Archives of Political Communication, 377

Arkansas Archives of Public Communications, 376–77 Arkansas Association of Counties, 273 Arkansas Association of Travel Agents, 122 Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, 88 Arkansas Board of Education, 172, 315, 319 Arkansas Business, 373 Arkansas Business and Economic Review, 374 Arkansas Cattlemen’s Association, 353 Arkansas Center for Oral and Visual History, 377 Arkansas Code, 369 Arkansas Democrat, 346, 372 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 89, 346– 47 Arkansas Department of Economic Development (aded), 125, 378 Arkansas Department of Education, 371 Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, 371, 378 Arkansas Division of Legislative Audit, 370 Arkansas Documents, 365 Arkansas Economic Development Foundation, 125 Arkansas Education Association (aea), 118, 119, 131, 145, 314, 316–18, 322, 330, 360 Arkansas Election Results (1984– 1982), 379 Arkansas Elections (1976–1982), 379 Arkansas Ethics Commission, 58, 123–24, 381 Arkansas Farm Bureau, 117, 269, 353 Arkansas Fiscal Notes, 378

[476], (2)

Lines: 73 t ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [476], (2)

Index Arkansans for the 21st Century, 146 Arkansas Free Enterprise Association, 126 Arkansas Gazette, 10, 25, 346, 372, 377 Arkansas Gazette Index, 372 Arkansas Highway Commission, 143, 151, 163, 167, 170, 172 Arkansas Highway Department, 130 Arkansas Historical Association, 374, 375 Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 369, 374, 375 Arkansas History Commission, 375 Arkansas House of Representatives, 190, 194, 197, 204, 214–16, 422n8. See also state legislature Arkansas Industrial Development Commission, 7, 16, 67 Arkansas Judicial Council, 230 Arkansas Legislative Digest, 369 Arkansas Library Commission, 364–65 Arkansas-Louisiana Gas Company (ArkLa), 126 Arkansas Municipal League, 231, 269, 273, 373 Arkansas National Guard, 164, 173, 264 Arkansas News Bureau, 372–73 Arkansas Personal Income Handbook, 377–78 Arkansas Plan, 6, 274, 290–91, 450n 39 Arkansas Plant Board, 133–34 Arkansas Policy Foundation, 374 Arkansas Political Science Association, 365 Arkansas Political Science Journal, 365

477

“The Arkansas Poll,” 381, 460n61 Arkansas Poultry Federation, 128, 130, 212, 353 Arkansas Power and Light Company (AP&L), 6, 126, 127, 263. See also Entergy Corporation Arkansas Quick Stats, 378 Arkansas Resources and Development Commission, 6 Arkansas Rural Education Association, 331–32 Arkansas Senate, 190, 197, 214, 216– 17, 422n8, 427n8. See also state legislature Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department, 170 Arkansas State Judicial Department, 225. See also Administrative Ofﬁce of the Courts (aoc) Arkansas State Library, 364–65 Arkansas State University, 4 Arkansas State University-Beebe, 376 Arkansas Statistical Abstract, 377, 378 Arkansas Statutes Annotated, 369 Arkansas Supreme Court: on amendment proposals, 418n6; and constitutional revision, 139, 143, 144, 148; on court system, 227–29, 231– 32, 234–38, 245–46; on education, 315, 322–23, 332–33; ideology of, 441n54; on juvenile justice, 225– 27; politics of, 223–24; on property taxes, 301 Arkansas Times, 373 Arkansas Traveler, 261–62 Arkansas White Citizens Councils, 49, 66, 240 arkids program, 76, 179, 254–55 Arnold, W. H. (“Dub”), 242

[477], (3)

Lines: 156 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [477], (3)

478

Index

Arsenault, Raymond, 24, 44–45 Ashmore, Harry, 11, 32, 212 AT&T, 118 The Atlas of Arkansas (Smith), 367 attorneys general, 169–70, 400n16 Bailey, Carl, 15, 31, 392n3 Baker, Howard, 71 Baker v. Carr (1962), 49 ballot issues, 141–42, 144, 148 ballots, 39–40, 58, 397n34 Ballou’s Pictorial, 10 banking lobby, 130 Barber, James, 192–93 Barnhart, Ralph C., 136 Bartley, Numan V., 79 Bates, Daisy, 3 Battershell, Gary, 390n10 Beebe, Mike, 169 Bell, Joe, 122 Bentley, Wilbur C. (“Dub”), 242 Benton ar, 252–54 Benton County, 83, 84, 351, 354 Bentonville ar, 286 Berry, Marion, 268, 338 Bethune, Ed, 62, 376 Bipartisan Reform Act (2002), 109 Black, Earl, 75, 84 Black, Merle, 75, 84 Blagg, Brenda, 373 Blair, Diane D., 206, 377, 394n13 Blair, James, 121 Blue Ribbon Commission on Public Education (brcpe), 327 Board of Apportionment, 379 Boozman, Fay, 78 Brace, Paul, 102 Brady Act, 338 Bratton, Kathleen A., 206

Bristow, Bill, 93 Britt, Maurice L. “Footsie,” 69, 215 Broadway, Shane, 198 Broder, David S., 153 Brothers of Freedom, 11 Brough, Charles, 6, 31, 152–53, 181, 376 Brown, Barry, 66 Brown, Bob, 247, 441n52 Brown, Charles A. (“Charlie”), 242 Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 49 Broyles, Frank, 360 Brummett, John, 65 Bryan, William Jennings, 140 Bryant, Winston, 109, 341 budget: classiﬁcation of Arkansas’s, 455n20; for education, 308, 309, 314; governor’s authority over, 159, 167, 170–72; and judiciary, 231– 33, 447n13; resources on, 378; and state legislative process, 200, 218– 19, 305–8; structure of, 303–8 Buffalo River, 338 buffer boards, 167, 170–71 Building a Better Arkansas Tax System, 374 Bumpers, Dale: and African Americans, 405n48; on amendments to U.S. Constitution, 338; on appointments, 172; campaign expenditures of, 361; environmentalism of, 338; governor, election as, 334, 335; governor, nomination of, 68; governor, rating as, 184–85; on income taxes, 297–98; Management by Objective plan of, 307; memoir of, 376; papers of, 375; personal touch of, 343; political career of,

[478], (4)

Lines: 244 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [478], (4)

Index 183, 335; relationship with state legislators, 164–66; retirement of, 74; on Winthrop Rockefeller, 46; Senate, campaign for, 61; Senate, reelection to, 69, 141, 188; and state employees, 171; and strength of Democratic Party, 64–65, 73; success of, 412n36; support for, 70, 340; and ticket-splitting, 87; use of television in campaign, 53 Bureau of Legislative Research, 189 Burns, James MacGregor, 43 Bush, George, 7, 61, 71, 92, 265 Bush, George W., 61, 96, 344, 347, 352 Calhoun County, 272 California, 295 Call the Roll, 370 campaigns: contributions to, 380–81, 413n3; costs of, 37–38, 132–33, 210, 243–44, 246–48, 350, 361– 62, 417n33; ﬁnance reform in, 109, 119–24; media in, 53–55, 57–58; personal touch in, 342– 44; transformation of, 53–59; of women, 349 Campbell, Arch, 233 capital improvement, 161–63, 179 Caraway, Hattie, 31, 45, 376, 395n22 Caraway, Thaddeus, 31, 376 Carey, John M., 197, 208, 209, 218 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 314 Carpetbag Constitution, 136–37 Carroll, John J., 132 Carr, T. R., 307 Carter, Fred, 164 Carter, Jimmy, 61, 92, 93

479

Cash, W. J., 22–23 Center for Business and Economic Research (cber), 374, 378 Center for Policy Research and the Council of State Planning Agencies, 263 Centerton ar, 448n24 Central Arkansas Library System, 375–76 Central High School (Little Rock), 1, 44, 173, 257, 267 Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, 257 Chafﬁn, Charlie Cole, 146 chancellors, 228, 230, 232, 237, 238. See also courts, chancery Charleston ar, 3 Cherry, Francis, 16, 53, 126, 264, 400n15 Chicot County, 15, 26 Child Labor Amendment, 14 Children’s Health Insurance Program (chip), 254 Children’s Research Center, 378 A Chronicle of Arkansas Newspapers Published since 1922 and of the Arkansas Press Association, 1930– 1972, 373 circuit courts, 228–29, 232, 236–38 citizens, 184, 209, 217–19, 282, 288–92, 312–13, 315. See also population Citizens’ Conference on State Legislatures, 187 city-administrator structure, 280–81 city councils, 286, 287, 291–92 city courts, 227, 231, 233, 235 city governments: authority of, 272– 73; career progression of judges in,

[479], (5)

Lines: 355 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [479], (5)

480

Index

city governments (continued) 238; competition for positions in, 283–84; and constitutional revision, 148; democratic nature of, 282; and intergovernmental transfers, 274– 75; motivation for seeking ofﬁce in, 285; power of, 273–74; size and number of in Arkansas, 276–77; structure of, 279–81. See also local governments city-manager structure, 280–81 Civil Rights Act (1964), 48, 49 Civil War, 10, 24, 64, 251 Clark, Steve, 174, 245 Clark, Thomas D., 362 Clayton, Powell, 41–42 Clinton, Annabelle. See Imber, Annabelle Clinton Clinton, Bill: and African American vote, 87–88, 354; appointments by, 4, 170; and arkids program, 255; on Brady Act, 338; budget of, 306; on conservatism of Arkansas electorate, 345; contributions to, 121; and Democratic Party, 64–65, 73, 107, 108; on economy, 176, 425n34; on education, 5, 315– 23, 327; and federal government, 176; and Jimmie Lou Fisher, 349; governor, campaign for, 56–57, 59; governor, election as, 68–69; governor, handling of emergencies as, 173–74; governor, rating as, 185; on governor, role of, 158; on governor’s ofﬁce, management of, 182; intergovernmental relations of, 258, 260, 263–66; on lack of knowledge about Arkansas, 7; legislative activities of, 160, 164,

166, 422n6; on Little Rock Nine, 1, 3; on lobbyists, 123–24; vs. Shefﬁeld Nelson, 99–100; personal touch of, 343; political career of, 183, 335; and political party alignment, 115; presidency of, 72, 74, 96, 109, 264–66; publications and speeches of, 375, 377; on Winthrop Rockefeller, 46; and rural voters, 92–93, 102–3, 204; and state employees, 171–72; on state politics as diversion, 363; support for, 61, 90–93, 340–41; on taxes, 298; use of television and radio, 179; veto overrides of, 422n10; and Whitewater investigation, 175 Clinton, Hillary, 5, 121, 175, 265, 315–17, 377 Clinton Presidential Library, 267 Code of Judicial Conduct, 240–41 Columbian Exposition, 6 Committee on Legislative Organization, 188 Common Cause, 123–24, 149 common schools, 10 Community Services Administration, 263 comparative state politics, 294–95 “computer czar,” 163, 219 Connally, John, 71 conservatives, 101–2, 345 constitutional conventions, 143–50, 419n12, 419n13 Constitutional Revision Study Commission, 143, 152 constitution, state: on abortion, 149, 254; and adaptation to 1874 version, 150–51; amendment procedure of, 139–42, 148, 152–54;

[480], (6)

Lines: 444 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [480], (6)

Index amendment proposals to, 418n5, 418n6, 421n25; on budget, 303, 304–5; changes to, 135–36, 138– 55; on counties, 272, 277–79, 283, 447n12; creation of, 135–38; on education, 312, 316–17, 320, 321; on election of U.S. senators, 31, 135; on gambling, 302–3; on governor’s responsibilities, 166; on judiciary, 223–25, 228–32, 236–38, 240, 246–47, 439n30; restrictions on state legislature by, 186–89, 192, 200, 211, 219–21, 439n30; on taxes, 296–98, 301; on term limits, 402n34 Conway ar, 289, 292 cooperative federalism, 252–54 cotton, 12, 17, 20, 47 cotton gins, 219 Couch, Harvey, 126 Coulter, Nate, 72 Council for Better Government, 356 Council of State Governments, 268 counties: competition for positions in, 283; and constitutional revision, 148; democratic nature of government in, 282; and district lines, 398n2; division of responsibilities in, 447n12; elections in, 284–85; functions of, 271–72; and intergovernmental transfers, 274– 75; jobs with, 38, 53; judiciary in, 225, 232–33; political parties in, 394n11, 409n26; political party committees in, 110, 112, 412n33; power of government in, 273–74, 277–79; on property taxes, 301; salaries of ofﬁcials in, 278, 279; size and number of governments

481

in Arkansas, 276–77; types of, 79– 82 coureurs de bois, 18 courts, chancery, 437n11. See also chancellors courts, dual, 228, 230–31 court system, 225–35. See also judges; judicial branch Craighead County, 89, 164 Crank, Marion, 68, 87, 399n3 Crawford County, 84 Crittenden County, 69 Cuban refugees, 93, 173, 174, 263–64 Cummins, Bud, 77–78 Davis, Jeff: antitrust law of, 13; and chancery courts, 437n11; on educational funding, 311–12; papers of, 376; and populist impulse, 31; on racial issues, xiii, 359; reason for rise of, 24; terms of service, 15; use of ofﬁce for reform, 178; on voting eligibility, 33 deannexations, 292 “delivering” the vote, 38–39 Delta counties, 79–82, 85–89, 266, 354–56 democracy, 43, 153, 276–82, 288–92, 294 Democratic National Committee, 109– 10 Democratic Party: African Americans in, 48, 66, 86–89; on constitutional revision, 149; domination of, 32– 34, 35, 40–42, 63–72, 338–41, 357–58, 394n11; effect of New Deal on, 46; in election (2002), 349, 354, 356–57; history of in Arkansas, 9; and judiciary, 230–31,

[481], (7)

Lines: 491 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [481], (7)

482

Index

Democratic Party (continued) 239–40; primaries of, 33, 36– 38, 49, 51, 65, 240; racism of, 49; recruitment by, 193–94, 285; relation between state and national, 109–10; resources on, 380; on Winthrop Rockefeller, 400n13; and state legislature, 162–63, 203–4; support for, by labor, 130; support for, factors affecting, 95–100; support for, regional, 78–80, 91– 94; voter alignment with, 101–6, 406n56; weakening of, 60–62, 73– 76. See also political parties Democratic State Committee, 3, 33 DeQueen ar, 286 desegregation, 1–3, 141, 204, 257–58, 264, 267, 360 Diane Divers Blair Center for the Study of Southern Politics and Society, 381 Dickey, Jay, 77, 78, 89, 341, 376 Dillahunty, W. H. (“Sonny”), 242 district courts, 227, 233, 235, 236, 238, 248 district lines. See apportionment Dole, Bob, 87, 96, 341 Domestic Abuse Act, 230 Donaghey, George, 14, 31, 376 “do nothing” bills, 202, 222 Dougan, Michael, 335, 390n9 Drug Enforcement Agency (dea), 257 Drummond, Boyce, 37, 39, 40, 44, 79, 126, 130 drunk-driving laws, 256–57 Duggar, Jim Bob, 104, 351 Dukakis, Michael, 61 DuMond, Wayne, 175, 206 Dunn, Charles, 220

DuPree v. Alma School District, 315 Durning, Dan, 327 Duvall, Leland, 13, 47 Dye, Thomas, 310 the Dynasty. See the Family Eagle, James P., 31 Eagleton Institute of Politics, 188, 220 economy: and Civil War, 24; comparison of with other states, 336; and education, 310–11, 314–16; governor’s role in, 176–77; history of, 5–7, 17; inequality within state, 362; and in-migration, 404n42; and interest-group strength, 126, 128–29, 132–34, 210; and political culture, 29–30; and public policy, 43, 294; resources on, 378; revolution in, 47–49; variables associated with postindustrial, 415n24; and voting behavior, 36, 346. See also socioeconomic environment Educating Arkansas: Public School Funding in the 1990s, 374 education: about evolution, 6–7, 141; budgetary allocations for, 308, 309, 314; Bill Clinton on, 5, 315–23, 327; federal funding of, 253; history of, 1–3, 5, 309–11; improvements in, 314–16, 323– 33; of judges, 233–34; legislation on, 14; neglect of, 15, 16; public policy on, 308–23; racism in, 312; reciprocity arrangements for, 251; of state legislators, 191–92; state ranking in, 12, 295, 323–26; women in public ofﬁces for, 288. See also schools Educational Trust Fund, 317–18, 322

[482], (8)

Lines: 548 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE [482], (8)

Index Education Caravan, 5 Education Commission of the States, 264 Education Standards Committee, 315– 17 Ehrenhalt, Alan, 358 Eisenhower, Dwight, 2, 60 Elaine Race Massacres of 1919, 43 Elazar, Daniel, 26–27, 51, 254, 260, 337, 390n18 Elders, Jocelyn, 265 electioneering, 119 elections: effect of African Americans on, 51; of governors, 92, 105, 115, 221, 347–50, 353–56; history of state, 9–10, 25; institution of primary, 33; of judges, 235–48; local government, 281–88, 290; manipulation and fraud in, 38–40; personalism in, 339–47; of presidents, 60–61, 71, 92; provincialism in, 341–42; signiﬁcance of 1888, 31–32; to state legislature, 105, 126; and strengthening of Republican Party, 71–72; transformation of, 51–59; for U.S. Senate (2002), 347, 350–58; voter turnout for special, 88. See also voter turnout; voting Ellickson, Mark C., 206 Ellis, Clyde, 31, 79 e-mail, 289 employment, 47–48, 176, 177, 378 Energy pac, 121 English, Arthur, 132, 204 Entergy Corporation, 118, 120, 121, 128, 130, 212, 255. See also Arkansas Power and Light Company (AP&L)

483

Environmental Protection Agency (epa), 256, 338 Equal Rights Amendment (era), 4, 114, 129, 145, 200, 384n8 ERArkansas, 129 Erikson, Robert, 313 ethics, 212, 234, 380–81. See also Arkansas Ethics Commission Eureka Springs ar, 281 executive branch, 128–29, 147, 305– 8, 327, 370–71, 420n18. See also governors

[483], (9) Facet, 134 Falwell, Jerry, 340 the Family, 8–10, 311 Family Life America God (ﬂag), 129 Farm Bureau Federation, 126, 130, 331 Farmer, Dalton, 164 farmers, 11–13, 21, 29–30, 39, 192, 336 Farmers’ Alliance, 11 Farmers Union, 140 farming, 47–48 Faubus, Orval: Arkansas Gazette on, 346; defeat by Dale Bumpers, 334; defeat of Francis Cherry, 126; on desegregation, 1–2; gubernatorial campaign of, 67; intergovernmental relations of, 260, 264; on life in Ozarks, 28–29; memoir of, 376; mobilization of National Guard, 173; papers of, 376; party loyalty of, 399n3; political career of, 3, 183; and populist impulse, 31; on public welfare, 16; race relations of, 49; relationship with state legislature, 214; and sales tax

Lines: 616 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [483], (9)

484

Index

Faubus, Orval (continued) increase, 165; and state employees, 171; and ticket-splitting, 87; and transformation of state politics, 45; treatment of African Americans by, 3; veto of party registration bills by, 409n17 Faulkner County, 90 Fayetteville ar, 256, 282, 284, 289– 91, 451n40 Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metropolitan area, 83–85, 362 Federal Emergency Management Agency, 174, 256 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (ferc), 255–56 federal government: contemporary reliance on, 254–66; and future of Arkansas, 266–70; governor’s relationship with, 175–76; history of Arkansas’s ﬁnancial dependence on, 250–54; importance to antebellum settlers, 21; local governments’ dependence on, 274– 75, 292; Republican Party’s reliance on patronage of, 41–42; support of Arkansas schools, 309 Fellowship Bible Church (Little Rock), 351 Fenno, Richard, 342, 381–82 ﬁling fees, 76, 240 Fishback, William, 6 Fisher, George, 373, 376 Fisher, Jimmie Lou, 157, 348–50, 353, 354, 356, 359, 460n61 Fleming, Susan, 4 Flowers, Gennifer, 266 food tax, 298–99, 353–54, 357 Ford, Arch, 312

Ford, Gerald, 71 Fort Chaffee, 93, 173, 174, 263–64 Fort Smith ar, 25, 281 Fouse, James C., 11 Franklin County, 84 fraud, 38, 40, 58 Freedom of Information Act (1967), 58 Freyer, Tony, 262 Fulbright, J. W., 44, 49, 61, 70, 79, 334, 335, 361, 399n3 Fulks, Claude, 362–63 Futrell, Junius, 15, 393n9, 439n30 Gallagher, Richard, 79–82, 85, 89 gambling, 153, 154, 224, 302–3 Game and Fish Commission, 167, 170, 179, 353 Garland County, 40, 89, 329 Gaventa, John, 33 General Social Survey (gss), 102 generational turnover, 95, 96 Georgia-Paciﬁc Corporation, 133 Gibbs, Mifﬂin, 2 gift limits, 122–24 Gingrich, Newt, 341 gi revolt, 45, 47 Goldwater, Barry, 48, 51, 60, 66 Gollier, Clement, 204 Good Government Committee, 284 Goodman, Bill, 303–4 Gordon, Nathan, 214 Gore, Al, 61, 96 Government in Arkansas, 1993, 367 Government in Arkansas (Alexander), 367 governors: attraction to ofﬁce, 184; backgrounds of, 183, 389n7; bud-

[484], (10)

Lines: 689 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[484], (10)

Index getary responsibilities of, 305–8; as chief administrators, 166–73; and constitutional revision, 147, 152, 154; and economic health, 176– 77; on education reform, 312, 327; elections of, 92, 105, 115, 221, 347–50, 353–56; as emergency handlers, 173–75; inﬂuence on state legislators, 207–8, 217; intergovernmental relations of, 258, 260; as legislators, 158–66; length of terms, 156, 172; management of staff, 180–82; as national intermediaries, 175–76, 444n25; power of, 156–58, 182–85; ratings of, 184–85; salaries of, 156–57, 184; selection of judges, 236; supreme court in campaigns of, 224; as symbols of state, 177–80; veto power of, 161–62, 202, 422n10 Graham, Hugh D., 79 Gramm, Phil, 77 Granade, Ray, 11 Grand Gulf nuclear power plant, 255, 264 Grantham, Dewey, 101 grassroots support, 111–13. See also local governments Gray, Virginia, 127, 129, 294–95 Great Depression, 14, 64, 251 Greenberg, Paul, 343 Greene County, 65 Green, Ernest, 3 Griffen, Wendell, 241 Grodzins, Morton, 252–54, 260 Guinier, Lani, 132 gun control, 114, 338, 352 Hackney, Sheldon, 261

485

Hammerschmidt, John Paul, 62, 121, 376 Handbook for Arkansas Municipal Ofﬁcials (Arkansas Municipal League), 373–74 Harding University, 376 Harmon, John, 242 Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), 49 Harris, E. Lynn, 473n55 Harris, Eugene, 242 Harrison ar, 471n47 Harris, Oren, 376 Harville, Vic, 373 Havard, William, 101 Haynes ar, 57 Haynie, Kerry L., 206 Hays, Brooks, 31, 39, 44, 79, 345, 376 Hays, Patrick Henry, 146 health, 12–16 Health Care Financing Administration (hcfa), 255 Heard, Alexander, 41 Heath, Stan, 360 Heiskell, J. N., 376 Hendrix College, 376 Hero, Rodney E., 337, 389n9, 390n18 Hinshaw, Jerry E., 370 Historical Report, 370 History of Initiatives and Referenda 1938–2002, 379 Ho, Raymond, 267 Hogue, Bobby, 164, 214, 215 Holiday, W. B., 285 Holt, Jack, Jr., 242, 243 Holtz, Lou, 360 Hoover, Herbert, 64 Hot Springs ar, 258, 302, 395n22

[485], (11)

Lines: 788 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [485], (11)

486

Index

Howell, Max, 216 Hubbell, Webster, 265 Huckabee, Janet, 73, 93, 349 Huckabee, Mike: and African Americans, 470n43; and Arkansas Democratic caucus, 204; and Arkansas Education Association, 131; and attorney general, 170; on ballot fraud, 58; on board and commission appointments, 172; comparison to Ronald Reagan, 75–76; and constitutional revision, 153; crisis management by, 173; and economy, 5, 176; on education reform, 321– 23, 327–32, 339; on gift limits, 123–24; governor, election as, 74–75; governor, race for (2002), 347–50, 353–58, 361; honoring of Daisy Bates by, 3; and Hutchison brothers, 78; integrity of, 175; and interest groups, 120, 121; intergovernmentalism of, 176, 254–59, 268; and labor, 130–31; and Latino population, 337; as lieutenant governor, 72–73, 169; on Little Rock Nine, 1; on Murphy Commission recommendations, 308; ofﬁce in Washington, D. C. of, 444n25; papers of, 376; and parole of Wayne DuMond, 206; personal touch of, 344; political career of, 183; and political party alignment, 115; public image of, 178; and Republican Party, 108; and Rural Swing voters, 93, 103; on sales tax, 299; and state legislature, 160, 162–66; and storm relief, 256; on term limits, 213; traditionalism and progressivism of, 339; and

urban/rural divide, 204–6; use of media, 179; veto overrides of, 161 Humphrey, Hubert, 51, 87, 399n3 Hunt decree, 246 Hutchinson, Asa, 78, 376 Hutchinson, Tim, 62, 74, 104, 109, 257, 258, 341, 350–58, 376 Hyde Amendment, 254 Illinois River, 256 Imber, Annabelle Clinton, 242 immigrants, 22 Imus, Don, 58 income, per capita, 4, 48, 323–26, 336, 362 individual conversion, 95, 97–99 Individualistic political culture, 27 in-migration. See migration Institute for Economic Advancement (iea), 367, 374, 377–78 Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 378 interest groups, 116–34; amici curiae briefs ﬁled by, 417n31; campaign contributions of, 119–21; categories of, 116–17; government penetration by, 124–25; inﬂuence on judicial elections, 242–43; inﬂuence on state legislature, 194, 210–13, 217, 219; involvement in modern campaigns, 120–21; lobbying by, 121–24; public persuasion campaigns of, 118–19; strength of, 125–32, 361 intergovernmentalism, 251–52, 254– 66, 271–75, 292. See also federal government intergovernmental transfers, 274–75 Interlocal Cooperative Act (1967), 292

[486], (12)

Lines: 889 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[486], (12)

Index Internet, 179. See also media Izard, George, 21 Jackson, Andrew, 9 Jameson, Paul, 238 J. B. Hunt Trucking, 83, 269 Jefferson County, 88 Jewell, Malcolm E., 209 Johnson, C. E., 224, 439n30 Johnson, James D. (“Justice Jim”), 49, 51, 67–68, 87 Johnson, Jim, 240 Johnson, Lyndon B., 48, 51, 60, 87, 399n3 Johnson-Conway-Sevier-Rector cousinhood. See the Family Joint Budget Committee, 218, 304–7 Jones, Daniel, 31 Jones, Earl, Jr., 122 Jones, Guy (“Mutt”), 384n8 Jones, Julia Hughes, 98 Jones, Paula, 266 Jonesboro ar, 164 judges: and budgetary issues, 447n13; campaigning by, 439n30; competition for positions in counties by, 283; education and qualiﬁcations of, 233–34; and general jurisdiction, 228–29, 235, 238, 240, 243, 246, 248; intergovernmental relations of, 259; power of, 277–78; recruitment by, 284; retirement of, 435n1; selection of, 235–48. See also judicial branch judicial branch: appointment system in, 246–47; concepts of strong, 230–35; and constitutional revision, 145, 148; discipline in, 234–35; future of, 247–49; politics of,

487

222–25; professionalism of, 235; resources on, 371–72; salaries in, 232–33; structure of, 225–35, 226. See also judges Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission (jddc), 234–35 Judicial Ethics Committee, 234 justices of the peace, 283, 285, 288 juvenile justice, 207, 225–27, 228, 233, 246 Kennedy, John F., 60, 399n3 Kennedy, Jon, 373 Key, V. O.: on elections, 40, 126; on ineffectiveness of state legislature, 187; on local potentates, 38–39; on one-party politics, 42–43; on presidency, 70–71, 100; on regionalism, 79; on southern political alignment, 101, 140; on statewide factions, 37; on trouble with Arkansas, 15 Kielhorn, Thomas, 42, 96 Kilgore, Collins, 322–23, 327 Kirby, William, 31 Kissinger, Henry, 340 “knockers and haulers,” 88 labor groups, 130–31, 134, 145, 149, 242–43 Lake View I, 319, 322 Lake View II, 322, 326–28, 331, 332 Lake View school district, 320 Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, 131–32 Lancaster, Bob, 358–59 land, 20–21 Laney, Benjamin (“Business Ben”), Jr., 6, 304, 376 Latinos, 85, 267, 288, 336–37

[487], (13)

Lines: 937 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [487], (13)

488

Index

lawsuits, 131–32, 223 lawyers, 192, 227–28, 233, 238, 243– 45 leadership, 43–44 League of United Latin American Citizens (lulac), 337 Ledbetter, Cal, Jr., 178, 245 Lee County, 405n48 Leﬂar, Robert A., 225, 241, 363, 440n39 Legislative Black Caucus, 206–7 Legislative Council, 147, 159, 189, 211, 218–19, 304–7 Legislative Joint Auditing Committee, 211, 218 Legislative Journal, 369 Lewinsky, Monica, 266, 340 liberals, 101–2 libertarians, 102 lieutenant governor, 169, 400n16 Lilie, Stuart A., 101–2 Lincoln, Blanche Lambert, 4, 74, 78, 100–101, 258, 338, 357 liquor stores, 39 A Listing of Research Reports, Information Memos, and Staff Reports, 370 Little, Governor, 13 Little Rock ar: circuit courts in, 229; citizen participation in government in, 289; city government structure of, 280, 281; Clinton Presidential Library in, 267; competition with Conway, 292; description of, 19; desegregation in, 204, 257, 264, 267, 360; diversity of local government in, 4, 287; elections in, 283, 284; independent newspapers of, 373; judicial system in, 227, 247–

48; population in (1900), 25; racial violence in, 471n47; recognition of city board members in, 289; treatment by state of, 273; voting behavior in, 88–90, 95, 105, 356 The Little Rock Crisis (Freyer), 262 Little Rock Nine, 1–3 Livestock and Poultry Commission, 219 lobbyists: inﬂuence on state legislators, 207, 208, 210, 213, 217; information on, 381; interest groups as, 121–24; power of, 127–30; ranking of most successful, 416n30; resignation of seats by, 212; on term-limited legislators, 197–98 local governments, 271–92; democratic nature of, 276–82, 288–92; elections in, 281–88, 290; intergovernmental relations of, 259–60, 274–75; undemocratic nature of, 282–92; volunteerism in, 285–86. See also city governments; counties local political leaders, 38–39, 51–57 Logan County, 84 Long, Huey, 45, 395n22 Lonoke County, 90 lottery, state, 153, 302–3 Louisiana Public Service Commission, 255 Lowery, David, 127, 129 Maddox, William S., 101–2 Madison County, 42, 79 Management by Objective, 307 Marianna ar, 287, 405n48 Marshall, John, 138 Martin, Mahlon, 4 Mason, John Lyman, 302–3

[488], (14)

Lines: 102 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[488], (14)

Index Matthews, David, 214 mayor-council structure, 279–81 mayors, 259, 286 McClellan, John L., 97, 130, 376 McCollum, Sidney, 224 McCord, Robert S., 215 McCulloch v. Maryland, 138 McDougal, Jim and Susan, 74 McGovern, George, 60 mci, 118 McMath, Sidney, 5, 15, 31, 45, 376, 422n8 McRae, Thomas, 14, 146, 312, 376 media, 53–55, 57–58, 165, 177–79, 219, 234, 289. See also advertisements; radio; television Medicaid, 254–55, 260 Mencken, H. L., 7 merit system, 171, 424n27 Meriwether, Robert, 154, 373 methamphetamine, 257 Metroplan, 292 microphilia, 201, 202 middle class, 24, 90 Middle South Energy. See Entergy Corporation Midsouth Political Science Journal, 365 The Midsouth Political Science Review, 365 migration, 82, 95–96, 337, 404n42, 465n7 military, 47 Miller, John, 262 Mills, Wilbur D., 44, 344, 376 Mississippi, 66 Mississippi County, 412n33 Moncrief, Gary, 197 Mondale, Walter, 61

489

Moneyhon, Carl H., 14 Moralistic political culture, 27, 28, 51 Morehouse, Sarah, 103–4 Morley, Dean, 227 Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, 373 Morris, Dick, 72–73, 100 Moses, Hamilton, 126 multiple-purpose improvement districts, 276 Murphy, Isaac, 311 Murphy, “Nap,” 204 Murphy Commission, 168, 308 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp), 2–3, 49, 132, 143 National Association of Attorneys General, 268 National Association of Secretaries of State, 268 National Association of State Treasurers, 268 National Commission on Excellence in Education, 314 National Conference of Lieutenant Governors, 268 National Conference of State Legislatures, 208, 220, 307 National Education Association, 359 National Governors’ Association (nga), 264, 268 natural regions, 85, 86 natural resources, 17 Nebraska, 257 Nelson, Knox, 216 Nelson, Michael, 302–3 Nelson, Shefﬁeld, 98–100

[489], (15)

Lines: 1109 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [489], (15)

490

Index

Newark school district, 320 New Deal, 46–47, 64 New Federalism, 251, 259 New Party, 284 newsletters, 373 newspapers, 25, 26, 89, 120, 207, 234, 245, 346–47, 372–74, 468n26. See also Arkansas Gazette Newton County, 40, 42, 79 Niemi, Richard G., 197, 209, 218 Niswonger, Richard, 394n11 Nixon, Richard, 51, 60 no-party system, 40–45 North Little Rock ar, 89, 90, 289 Norwood, C. P., 31 notch sticks, 39 Nunn, Walter, 141–42 nursing homes, 120, 248, 429n23 Nutt, Houston, 255 Oaklawn Jockey Club, 122 obstructionism, 200 O’Connor, Patrick, 203, 204 Oklahoma, 256 Oliver, Ron, 411n30 “Oprah” advertisement, 76 Optimal Republican Voting Strength system, 193 Ouachita Baptist University, 376 Ozark counties, 79–85, 95, 354 Ozark Mountains, 28–29, 51 Parks and Tourism, 179 Parry, Janine A., 82, 102 partisanship, 161–63 paternity, determination of, 233 Patients’ Bill of Rights, 268 Patrons of Husbandry, 11 Patterson, Samuel C., 209

Performance-Based Budgeting (pbb), 307 Performance-Based Budgeting Act (2001), 308 personalism, 339–47, 351–52, 357–58 Petition Guide for Sponsors & Canvassers, 379 Phillip Morris, 122 Phillips County, 394n11 Pine Bluff ar, 25, 173, 286 Planned Parenthood, 269, 289 Planning-Programming Budgeting (ppb), 307 pluralistic ignorance, 58 political action committees (pacs), 120, 381, 413n3 political culture, 26–30, 33, 334– 39, 340–42, 390n18. See also personalism; provincialism political development, 22–25 political leaders, 146 political parties: in counties, 394n11, 409n26; functions of, 106–15; identiﬁcation with, 98–106, 408n17; insigniﬁcance of, 344; and interestgroup strength, 125–26, 128; in judiciary, 239–40; and political culture, 338–39; resources on, 380; and state legislature, 193–94, 203– 4, 205. See also Democratic Party; Republican Party political process, 25–26 political system, 30–34 politics: attitude toward, 44–45, 362– 63; in judicial branch, 222–25; personal nature of, 341–44; transformation of traditional, 44–59, 345 Polk County, 248 Pollan, Carolyn, 206

[490], (16)

Lines: 122 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[490], (16)

Index polls, 179–80, 291, 379–82, 450n39, 460n61 Pope, John, 5, 310 population: characteristics of early, 20–23, 78; in Delta counties, 85– 89; diversity of, 389n9; of European descent, 18–19; in Ozark counties, 79–85; size of (1900), 24– 25; and state government, xii; in Urban counties, 89–90, 92. See also citizens populists, 11, 31–34, 102–3, 140–44, 353, 357–58 Powell, Linda W., 197, 209, 218 Preface to the Presidency (Smith), 377 Priest, Sharon, 268, 370 primaries, 33, 36–38, 49, 51, 65, 76, 104–5, 240 Priority Budgeting System, 307 private foundations, 125 professionalism, 127–29, 188–89, 210–13, 220, 235, 362, 432n45 progressivism, 334–47, 389n9, 390n9, 468n26 property assessments, 151 property taxes. See taxes, property provincialism, 339–47, 351–52, 357– 58 Pryor, David: and alignment with Ronald Reagan, 100; and appeal to voters, 100–101; on appointments, 172; on Arkansas Gazette, 346; on buffer boards, 171; campaigning of, 57, 61–62, 342, 377; and constitutional revision, 143, 419n12; on management of gubernatorial staff, 181; and mobilization of National Guard, 173; on newspapers, 468n26; papers of, 376;

491

personal touch of, 343; political career of, 183; priorities of, 258; Priority Budgeting System of, 307; and proposal of Arkansas Plan, 274, 290–91; reelection to U.S. Senate of, 69; retirement of, 74; on Winthrop Rockefeller, 46; on Billie Schneider, 56; and strength of Democratic Party, 64– 65, 73; support for, 340; on Jim Guy Tucker, 341; and unions, 130; veto overrides of, 422n10 Pryor, Mark, 74, 170, 258, 338, 347, 350–58 public persuasion campaigns, 118–19 public policy: and campaign contributions, 121; demand for, 313; democracy in, 153; on education, 308–12; factors inﬂuencing, 43, 294; governor’s role in, 159– 61, 166, 184; improvements in Arkansas, 326; and interest groups, 116–25; lieutenant governor and attorney general’s inﬂuence on, 169; and party identiﬁcation, 113–15; and polling, 179; power of judiciary in, 223–24; state legislature’s role in, 219–21 public-regarding, 290 Public School Fund, 322 Public Service Commission (psc), 118, 128, 359 Pulaski County: county committee positions in, 112; Democratic support in, 88; per capita income in, 362; population of, 271–72; quorum court of, 277, 278; Republicanism in, 90; voting behavior in, 89, 105, 356, 406n53

[491], (17)

Lines: 1338 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [491], (17)

492

Index

Purcell, Joe, 93 Purtle, John, 243, 438n25 quorum courts, 277–79, 283–86, 288, 291–92 race: and composition of population, 23; history of in Arkansas, xiii; and Mike Huckabee, 76; Sidney McMath on, 15; national and state views on equality of, 266–67; representation in state legislature, 206; and voting behavior, 346. See also African Americans racism, 1, 33, 48–49, 312, 471n47. See also African Americans Radical Reconstruction, 10 radio, 53, 54, 57–58, 165, 179, 245, 356, 397n35. See also media railroads, 25, 30, 130 Ranchino, Jim, 70 Randolph County, 358 Reagan, Ronald, 61, 71, 75–76, 92, 96, 100, 251, 259, 334, 406n55 Reconstruction, 10–11, 136–37, 311 Reconstruction Act (1867), 136 recruitment, 193–94, 284–85, 411n30 Redeemers, 10–11, 30–31, 137, 311 Redﬁeld ar, 283 Reed, John Shelton, 261 Reed, Roy, 28 regionalism, 78–94, 204–6, 354–57 Rehnquist, William, 269 religion, 22, 141, 190 Remmel, Harmon, 41–42 Representative Tax System (rts), 300 Republican National Committee, 109 Republican Party: on constitutional revision, 149; in election (1888),

31; in election (1980), 401n20; in elections (2002), 354, 356–57; factionalism in, 409n26; factors affecting support for, 96–100; future of, 358; and generational turnover, 96; in judiciary, 239–40; lack of qualiﬁed candidates in, 77–78; progressivism of, 339; recruitment by, 193–94, 285; regional support for, 79–80, 82–85, 89–92, 94; and reliance on federal patronage, 41– 42; resources on, 380; and state legislature, 162, 203–4; strength of, 60–63, 67, 69–77, 109–10; struggle of, 32–35, 63–67; voter alignment with, 101–7, 406n53. See also political parties residency, 291 residential community associations (rcas), 276 retirees, 82–84 Revenue Stabilization Law (1945), 304, 305, 455n20 Reynolds Metals, 122 Reynolds v. Sims (1964), 49 Riceland Foods, 122 Richard C. Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 375 Richardson, Nolan, 360 right to work amendment, 141, 143, 149 R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 122 roads, 13, 16, 21, 170, 304 Roane, John, xii, 5, 6 Robins, R. W., 241, 440n39 Robinson, Joseph T., 31, 44, 263, 376, 392n1 Robinson, Tommy, 97–98, 361 Rockefeller, Jeannette, 42

[492], (18)

Lines: 138 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[492], (18)

Index Rockefeller, Winthrop: and African Americans, 67–68; on constitutional revision, 143; and Democratic Party dominance, 67–72; divorce of, 399n10; election of, 188, 334; on Industrial Development Commission, 16; and inﬂuence of ArkansasLouisiana Gas Company, 126; inﬂuence on John Paul Hammerschmidt’s election, 62; intergovernmentalism of, 264; papers of, 375; and political party alignment, 115; on racial issues, xiii, 49, 51; and Republican Party, 107; and state employees, 171; and state legislature, 162; support for, 92, 400n13; on tax exemptions, 202; and ticket-splitting, 87; transformation of state politics by, 46; vetoes of, 161, 409n17 Rockefeller, Winthrop Paul, 88 Rockport ar, 281 Rogers, Judith, 234, 247, 441n52 roll-call analysis, 202–3 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 44, 87, 262 Rorex, Sam, 393n9 Rosenthal, Alan, 194–96 Ross, Mike, 376 Rural Swing counties, 91–94, 102–3, 355, 356–57, 406n55 Russellville ar, 273 Sacks, Wilma, 447n13 Saline County, 90, 252–53 Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, 374 sanitarian of Benton, 252–53 Savage, Robert, 79–82, 85, 89 Schattschneider, E. E., 132

493

Schlesinger, Joseph A., 285 Schneider, Billie “Momma,” 56 school boards, 287, 311 schools: common, 10; consolidation of, 320–21, 328–32; funding of, 223, 274, 315, 316, 319–23; reform of state system, 247–48; resolutions on alteration of, 331; segregation of, 257–58; voter turnout for elections, 290. See also Central High School (Little Rock); education Schreckhise, William D., 82, 102 “scientiﬁc creationism” law, 201 Scott County, 84 Searcy County, 42, 79 Sebastian County, 84, 89 secession, agitation for, 24 secretary of state, 400n16 segregation. See desegregation self-government, 40 Sevier’s Hungry Kinfolks. See the Family Sharkansky, Ira, 307, 326 Sharp County, 394n11 Shaver, Roy B., 394n11 Shelby, Richard, 77 sheriffs, 283 Sherrill ar, 283 Shields, Todd G., 102 slavery, 9, 23–24, 26, 261, 390n10 Small Business Administration, 263 Smith, Alfred E., 44 Smith, Grifﬁn, Jr., 242 Smith, Lavenski, 246 Smith, Richard M., 367 Smith, Stephen A., 377 Smith v. Allwright (1944), 49 Snyder, Vic, 77–78, 98, 108, 343–44, 356

[493], (19)

Lines: 1472 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [493], (19)

494

Index

social capital, 391n19 socioeconomic environment, 18–26, 137–38, 294, 310–11, 314, 315. See also economy sodomy, 131–32, 224 Sorauf, Frank, 112 South, 47, 66, 69, 95, 96, 101, 104, 261–62 Southern Governors Association, 268 Southern Grassroots Party Activists, 111, 113 Southern Regional Education Board, 12, 251 Southland Racing, 122 Southwestern Bell, 118, 122, 129–30 special districts, 276 Spectrum, 373 Springdale ar, 284, 291, 451n40 Standards of Conduct and Disclosure Act for Lobbyists and State Ofﬁcials (1998), 123 Stanley, Jeanie R., 206 Starr, John Robert, 376 Starr, Kenneth, 340 State Data Center, 367, 378 state government: citizens served by, 21, 157; and governors, 157– 58, 167, 180; intergovernmental relations of, 259–60, 271–72, 292; merit system in, 171; reorganization under Act 38 of, 168; responsibilities of, 16, 51, 158–66 state legislators, 190–98; administrative oversight by, 218–19; allowances and beneﬁts of, 428n13; backgrounds of, 190–92; camaraderie among, 213–14; competition for seats by, 195; education of, 191–92; inﬂuences on, 126, 202–

17; motivation to serve of, 192–97; occupations of, 192; professionalism of, 188–89, 210–13; recruitment of, 193–94; and relationships with judges, 223–24; salaries of, 187, 192; term limits of, 77, 189– 98, 200, 201, 203, 208–9, 213–15, 217, 219–21, 362, 402n34. See also Arkansas House of Representatives; Arkansas Senate; state legislature state legislature: adaptation to 1874 constitution by, 151–52; apportionment of, 139, 151, 187–88, 190, 194, 197, 388n35; budgetary responsibilities of, 200, 218–19, 305–8; committees in, 211, 215, 216; and constitutional revision, 139–40, 142–48; and educational reform, 319–21, 328–31; elections to, 105, 126; functions of, 217–21; and governor, 158–66; ineffectiveness of, 186–88; on judiciary, 232– 34; and local governments, 273–75; partisanship in, 161–63; processes of, 198–202; professionalism of, 220, 362, 432n45; and public policy, 219–21; race and gender in, 190–91, 206–7, 359–60; resources on, 369–70; selection of proposals, 418n5; on state library, 365; voting behavior in, 203–17, 430n31. See also Arkansas House of Representatives; Arkansas Senate; state legislators “State of the State” speech, 139 State Party Proﬁles (Blair and Barth), 380 State Revenue Tax Quarterly, 378 states’ rights, 269–70

[494], (20)

Lines: 156 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[494], (20)

Index Stephens, W. R. “Witt,” 126, 361 Stephens Group, 130 Stokes, Donald, 9 Streb, Matthew J., 471n43 student testing, 321, 460n61 suburbs, 84, 90 Sullivan, John L., 389n9 “sunset” law, 219 taxes: and bills for exemption, 202; constitution on, 137, 146, 147, 150, 154; and defeat of Arkansas Plan, 290–91; distribution of revenues from, 303–4; for education, 311– 12, 315–17, 320; Orval Faubus’s increase in, 165; intergovernmental transfer of, 274; judicial system on, 248; post-Civil War, 24; under Redeemers, 30; resources on, 378; structure of system, 295–303; Jim Guy Tucker on, 166 taxes, federal, 252 taxes, income, 164–65, 296–99, 304 taxes, poll, 32, 33, 36, 39, 49, 51, 139, 397n32 taxes, property: constitution on, 139, 144–45, 148, 154, 223; for education, 311, 312, 316–17, 320; history of, 21, 296, 300–302 taxes, sales, 165, 179, 269, 272, 296– 99, 304, 316, 353–54, 357 teachers, 314, 316–19, 322, 326, 458n48 “TeleTruth Arkansas,” 118 television: ﬁrst station in Arkansas for, 397n35; governors’ use of, 165, 178–79; inﬂuence of, 347; judicial race advertisements on, 245; prevalence of, 466n13; use in

495

campaigns, 53, 54, 57–58, 342–43; in U.S. Senate race (2002), 351–52. See also media Tennessee Valley Authority, 262–63 term limits: on constitutional ofﬁces, 170; effect on lobbyists’ inﬂuence, 127–28; and state budget, 305–8; of state legislators, 77, 189–98, 200, 201, 203, 208–9, 213–15, 217, 219–21, 362, 402n34; and strength of Republican Party, 72, 77; voting on, 141 Terral, Thomas, 400n15 Terry, David, 393n9 Thomas, David Y., 33 Thompson, Joel A., 197 Thompson, Mack, 214 Thompson, Morris, 234–35 Thornton, Ray, 242 Thornton v. Term Limits, Inc., 402n34 3m, Inc., 122 Thurmond, Strom, 60 ticket-splitting, 70, 87, 101 Tindall, George, 47 tobacco, 153, 274 towns, incorporated, 279 Traditionalistic political culture, 27– 29, 45–59, 334–39, 391n19 transactional leadership, 43–44 transformational leadership, 43–44 Treadway, Jack M., 313 Triplett, Frank, 201 Tucker, Jim Guy: on amendment 80, 230; campaign budget of, 53; on constitutional revision, 146–50; contributions to, 121; on education reform, 318–21; federal case against, 73, 174, 175; as governor, 72, 169; on juvenile

[495], (21)

Lines: 1619 to ———

0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [495], (21)

496

Index

Tucker, Jim Guy (continued) crime, 207; legislative activities of, 160, 166; on Murphy Commission recommendations, 308; papers of, 375; political career of, 183; and political party alignment, 115; and promise to depart ofﬁce peacefully, 75; David Pryor’s attack on, 341; and relationship with state legislature, 164; and support for in Rural Swing counties, 91; use of media by, 179; and Whitewater investigation, 74 Turner, Bishop Henry M., 2 Turner, Otis, 243 two-party system, 70, 401n17 Tyer, Arlo, 214 Tyson Foods, 83, 121, 268–69 Unborn Child Amendment, 146 Uniform Classiﬁcation and Compensation Act (1969), 424n27 Union Labor party, 11 Union Paciﬁc Railroad Company, 122 unions. See labor groups United Health Care, 122 United States Congress, 41, 48–49, 262 United States Constitution, 14, 338 United States Corps of Engineers, 250, 253 United States Department of Health and Human Services, 263 United States House of Representatives, 62 United States Senate, 31, 61–62, 135, 347, 350–58 United States Supreme Court, 48–

49, 138–39, 240–41, 256, 269–70, 425n27 University of Arkansas, 2–4, 10, 291, 360, 374, 408n13, 473n55 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 374–77, 378, 381 University of Arkansas, Little Rock, 7, 367, 375–78 University of Arkansas Press, 365 University of Central Arkansas, 376 Unruh, Jesse, 184 Urban counties, 79–82, 89–90, 92, 406n53 urbanism, 84 utilities, 129 Van Buren County, 21 Van Dalsem, Paul, 4, 384n8 vehicle fees, 92–93, 296, 304, 348 violence, 43, 358–59, 471n47 volunteerism, 285–86 The Voters’ Choice, 379–80 voter turnout, 25–26, 35–37, 50–51, 52, 88, 95–96, 104–5, 290, 352– 53 Voth, Donald, 337 voting, 43, 139–45, 262, 379–80 voting behavior: factors affecting, 95–99; for gubernatorial and state legislative elections, 221; Mike Huckabee on, 73; in Little Rock, 88–90, 95, 356; progressivism of, 345–46; regional, 78–94, 204–6, 354–57; in state legislature, 203–17, 430n31. See also ticket-splitting Voting Rights Act, 51, 88, 132, 190– 91, 246 “walking-around money,” 38, 88

[496], (22)

Lines: 169 ———

0.0pt Pg

——— Normal Pa PgEnds: TE

[496], (22)

Index Wallace, George, 51, 60, 70, 92, 334, 406n56 Wall Street Journal, 7 Wal-Mart, 83 Walton, Brian, 26 Ward, Daniel S., 110 Warren, Roland, 275 Washburn, Cephas, 7 Washington County, 83, 84, 89, 412n 33 Waste Management, Inc., 122 Wekkin, Gary D., 150 welfare, 12–16, 46, 102, 253 West Helena ar, 287 West Memphis ar, 286, 288, 302, 395n22 Whigs, 9, 78 Whistler, Donald E., 150, 206, 220 White, Frank: and budget, 306; on Cuban refugee crisis, 264; defeat of, 4; defeat of Bill Clinton by, 68, 337–38; on education, 6–7, 317; papers of, 375; and political party alignment, 115; and Rural Swing voters, 102–3; and state legislature, 162; victory in Republican primary of (1982), 104 White Lights house members, 189 Whitewater investigation, 73, 74, 175, 265, 340 Williams, O. P., 276

497

Wilson, John Lee, 57 Wilson, Nick, 212–13, 216 Wingo, Otis, 31 Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, 297, 374 Witt, James Lee, 174, 256 women: campaigning of, 349; enfranchisement of, 43, 262; equality in Arkansas of, 471n48; history of treatment of, 4; in judiciary, 246; in local government ofﬁces, 286, 288; party identiﬁcation of, 99; in state legislature, 191, 206, 207, 359–60; voter turnout among, 36 Woodward, C. Vann, 11, 70 Workers’ Compensation Commission, 131 workers’ compensation law, 134 Works Progress Administration (wpa), 46 World War II, 47, 395n22 Wright, Betsey, 56, 411n30 Wyrick, Phil, 98 Yell County, 39 Yellow Dogs and Dark Horses (Starr), 376 Young Turks, 143, 188 Zero Base Budgeting (zbb), 307 Ziegler, Harmon, 127 Zogby, John, 361

[Last Page] [497], (23)

Lines: 1786 to ———

89.05602p

——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Page [497], (23)

In the Politics and Governments of the American States series Alabama Government and Politics By James D. Thomas and William H. Stewart Alaska Politics and Government By Gerald A. McBeath and Thomas A. Morehouse Arizona Politics and Government: The Quest for Autonomy, Democracy, and Development By David R. Berman Arkansas Politics and Government, second edition By Diane D. Blair and Jay Barth Colorado Politics and Government: Governing the Centennial State By Thomas E. Cronin and Robert D. Loevy Hawai’i Politics and Government: An American State in a Paciﬁc World By Richard C. Pratt with Zachary Smith Illinois Politics and Government: The Expanding Metropolitan Frontier By Samuel K. Gove and James D. Nowlan Kentucky Politics and Government: Do We Stand United? By Penny M. Miller Maine Politics and Government By Kenneth T. Palmer, G. Thomas Taylor, and Marcus A. LiBrizzi Michigan Politics and Government: Facing Change in a Complex State By William P. Browne and Kenneth VerBurg Minnesota Politics and Government By Daniel J. Elazar, Virginia Gray, and Wyman Spano Mississippi Government and Politics: Modernizers versus Traditionalists By Dale Krane and Stephen D. Shaffer Nebraska Government and Politics Edited by Robert D. Miewald Nevada Politics and Government: Conservatism in an Open Society By Don W. Driggs and Leonard E. Goodall New Jersey Politics and Government: Suburban Politics Comes of Age, second edition By Barbara G. Salmore and Stephen A. Salmore New York Politics and Government: Competition and Compassion By Sarah F. Liebschutz, with Robert W. Bailey, Jeffrey M. Stonecash, Jane Shapiro Zacek, and Joseph F. Zimmerman North Carolina Government and Politics By Jack D. Fleer Oklahoma Politics and Policies: Governing the Sooner State By David R. Morgan, Robert E. England, and George G. Humphreys

[First Page [498], (1)

Lines: 0 to ———

7.272pt

——— Normal Pa * PgEnds: Pa [498], (1)

Rhode Island Politics and Government By Maureen Moakley and Elmer Cornwel South Carolina Politics and Government By Cole Blease Graham Jr. and William V. Moore West Virginia Politics and Government By Richard A. Brisbin Jr., Robert Jay Dilger, Allan S. Hammock, and Christopher Z. Mooney

[Last Page] [499], (2)

Lines: 200 to ———

422.272pt ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [499], (2)