The Arkansas Project

J.R. Dallas to Seek House District 63 Seat

By David Kinkade - October 24, 2009 2:52 pm

J.R. Dallas of Fort Smith, former head of the Arkansas Air National Guard 188th Fighter Wing, will announce Monday that he’s running for the Arkansas House of Representatives seat representing District 63, according to the City Wire in Fort Smith. Dallas will run as a Republican, so he’ll face Arkansas Sen. Denny Altes, who’s also running for the seat, in a primary.

The seat is currently held by Republican Rep. Frank Glidewell, who is term-limited and is running for the Arkansas Senate seat representing District 13.

Our ever-growing list of 2010 House races is over here.

Ken Cowling, Paul White Join State Senate Races

By David Kinkade - October 5, 2009 8:46 am

Two more updates in our running lists of 2010 campaigns:

Former state Rep. Ken Cowling, a Democrat, is announcing he’ll run for the District 21 Senate seat in southwest Arkansas, which is being vacated by term-limited Democratic Sen. Barbara Horn. House Majority Leader Steve Harrelson is also running for the seat.

Meanwhile, Paul White of Mountain View, a Republican, has announced he’ll run for the District 10 seat currently held by Democratic Sen. Paul Miller, who is term-limited. A couple of Democrats have also expressed interest in the seat.

Full text of both announcements is at the jump. For more on 2010 Arkansas races, click here.

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Robbie Wills Meets His Downfall

By David Kinkade - September 8, 2009 10:40 am

You know, blogger Rett Hatcher’s video skills are showing some real improvement. Here’s his takedown of Arkansas House Speaker Robert “Robbie” Wills‘ propaganda ministry, giving a local political spin to a popular Web meme:

While we’re at it, columnist John Brummett had a fine weekend piece taking apart the “puffed-up” speaker.

And perhaps the best Downfall parody of all is right here. (H/T Reason Hit ‘n’ Run blog)

Hutchinson Plans Formal Senate Announcement

By David Kinkade - September 5, 2009 9:07 am

Former GOP Rep. Jeremy Hutchinson, who’s indicated he’ll run for Arkansas Senate in District 22, sends word that he’ll make the formal announcement on Tuesday, Sept. 8, at 12:30 p.m. at the Saline County Courthouse. Hutchinson will face Rep. Dan Greenberg, an Arkansas Project contributor, in the Republican primary for the seat.

Hutchinson also has a new campaign website for your enjoyment.

Oh, did you think that headline had something to do with the recent “Asa Hutchinson for U.S. Senate” rumor floated by our friend Roby Brock? Guess I really faked you out on that one, didn’t I? Sucker.

Now Let’s Hassle Robbie Wills Some More

By David Kinkade - September 4, 2009 12:06 pm

I don’t mean to belabor this matter about House Speaker Robbie Wills and his newly established taxpayer-funded propaganda ministry in the Arkansas House of Representatives, but let’s belabor this matter.

Rep. Dan Greenberg, who along with House Minority Leader Bryan King and Rep. Ed Garner has been vocal in opposition to Wills’ scheme, has a good post below where he notes that Wills chalks up the whole dang mix-up to a “mistaken paraphrase” of his intentions by a reporter.

Said reporter, John Lyon of the Arkansas News Bureau, has kindly posted the transcript of his recorded interview with Wills, who clearly states in the transcript that the goal of the office is to “advocate the objectives of the leadership of the House of Representatives.” See for yourself.

And by the way, invaluable Arkansas Project commenter ddubb asks below, If the House leadership is so committed to open communication from legislators to the public, why did they try to shut down GOP Rep. Mark Martin from blogging committee hearings just last month? Excellent question, ddubb!

Communication Breakdown: A Note on the Robbie Wills Brouhaha

By Dan Greenberg - September 3, 2009 7:29 pm

House Speaker Robbie Wills

I spent a good deal of time with radio, TV and print journalists Wednesday discussing Arkansas House Speaker Robbie Wills’s proposed changes to the House Information Office. Somewhere in the middle of these conversations, he called me to clarify his plans and his views. So let me help him clarify matters.

Tuesday afternoon, Robbie sent out a news release which said “Information Offices, by their nature, occupy themselves with the distribution of neutral, non-partisan facts … The [new] House Communications Office will take information services a step further by becoming a more effective advocate for the House and its membership.” Wednesday, Robbie said that his use of the word “advocate” had been misinterpreted, and that the office would equally serve all House members, regardless of affiliation.

Wednesday morning, according to the Arkansas News Bureau, Robbie’s new mission for the office was to “advocate the objectives of the House leadership.” Wednesday afternoon, Robbie said that the Arkansas News Bureau story was a mistaken paraphrase, and that concerns that the office would favor the House leadership were unfounded.

I take the speaker at his word. I believe him when he says he will make every effort to make the office work for the benefit of all House members, not for the benefit of any particular member or point of view.

But it seems to me that Robbie must be considerably more careful when he describes new missions for the House Information Office, especially if these new missions might suggest a departure from the office’s traditional mission of serving as a neutral and nonpartisan source of information. (I think Robbie might even agree with me on that.)

I discussed the reasons for this at my press conference yesterday, which include the fact that employees take their cues from the example at the top. I think Robbie also needs to be more careful about his statements about the agreement of “all the Republicans that are in leadership,” given that he apparently was referring only to the committee chairmen that he appointed, as opposed to (say) vice-chairmen of committees like myself or House Republican Leader Bryan King.

Furthermore, it still seems obvious to me that giving the office the job of advocacy in any sense is a large policy mistake, given that it opens the door to a taxpayer-funded office which will express political views without any accountability at the ballot box. If Robbie genuinely feels that there is institutional advocacy that must be made (his example: suppose the House passes a bill, but the Senate is dragging its feet?), I would suggest that the speaker or an individual member could carry that burden, rather than assigning it to a faceless, taxpayer-funded, and politically-unaccountable bureaucratic office.

Each member of the House has interests, and it’s a mistake to pretend that the House’s interests are separate enough from those individual interests that we need to deputize an additional political spokesman, who voters will never be able to confront at the ballot box, for the entire body.

Wills: ‘What We’ve Got Here Is Failure to Communicate’

By David Kinkade - September 2, 2009 1:14 pm

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that Democratic House Speaker Robert “Robbie” Wills’ new plan to set up a new ministry of propaganda communications shop for the state House of Representative has not gotten off to an auspicious start.

Here’s the score: Wills announced yesterday he was changing the name of the “House Information Office” to the “House Communications Office,” and he contracted with a private vendor to provide communication and advocacy services for the House leadership.

Media watchers and House Republicans object to Wills’ high-handedness and have kicked up an uproar. (Arkansas Project contributor Rep. Dan Greenberg’s holding a press conference to discuss what’s wrong with the scheme at the Capitol at 3 p.m.)

Wills is paying the contractor, Craig Douglass, a monthly sum of $5,000 plus a additional 15 percent commission for additional contracting work, plus expenses.

In the interest of cleaning up this mess, I’m going to put myself forth to help Wills out, and I’ll only demand $2,500 per month for my services, which will mostly entail me sitting around the office and smacking Robbie upside the head with a rolled-up magazine every time he comes up with another stupid-ass idea like this.

Krystal Thrailkill Announces Run for House District 22

By David Kinkade - August 27, 2009 9:20 am

Krystal Thrailkill, a Democrat, announced this week that she’ll run for the Arkansas House of Representatives in District 22. The seat is currently held by Democratic Rep. Bill Abernathy, who is term-limited. The full text of her release is below the jump.

For our running tally of who’s running for the House, click here. (Let me know if you see any names missing from the list—it’s a work in progress.)

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Arkansas House of Representative Races, 2010

By David Kinkade - July 28, 2009 11:22 am

Here, let’s try to do something marginally useful for once. With the recent flurry of announcements of candidates for legislative seats in Arkansas, it’s been difficult to keep track of who’s announced for what. So let’s start doing so.

On this page, I’ve compiled a list of all 100 state House seats and their current occupants, along with some names of potential candidates. I intend for this to be a running list that we’ll develop over the coming months.

A few caveats:

1) This list is terribly incomplete. There are certainly candidates who have announced they’re planning to run or are rumored as candidates that I haven’t listed here. I largely put this list together from memory and from pulling together info from other blogs, so it’s not a comprehensive listing at this time.  Let me know in the comments or shoot me a message at david(at)davidkinkade(dot)com and I’ll add them to the list. This will be an ongoing project, so we should be able to develop a reasonably authoritative list in the weeks and months to come.

2) The list is terribly ugly. This is pretty utilitarian stuff—just a long list of seats and names. I might find a way to make it more aesthetically appealing in the future, but for now, let’s just get the information down in one place where it can be easily found. We can worry about making it pretty later, if necessary.

3) The list may include an occasional typo or error. If I’ve misspelled a name or misidentified a party label, let me know. It’s not meant to be perfect right out of the gate—we can clean it up as we go.

If you’ve got information to add or a correction to offer, drop it in the comments, or contact me directly.

We’ll also have pages for Arkansas Senate, constitutional officer races, and U.S. Senate and House races in the next few days, but let’s start with this for now.

(Thanks to Blake’s Think Tank, The Tolbert Report, The Arkansas Times and Under the Dome, as I used info from your blogs as references on several of the entries.)

UPDATE: Thanks to all who have sent in candidate names that were not included on the original list; I’ve been adding new names throughout the day. Keep ‘em coming.

Burris to Seek GOP Minority Leader Post

By David Kinkade - July 16, 2009 4:05 pm

Bryan King and John Burriss

I don’t know I’ve seen this reported anywhere else yet, but word around town is that freshman GOP Rep. John Burris has thrown himself up as a candidate for the minority leader slot in the state House of Representatives. The position is currently held by Rep. Bryan King, who says he hasn’t decided if he’ll seek re-election to the post but will decide later in the year.

King says the minority leader election is typically held in June, but given that the legislature will meet for a budget session in early 2010, he may move the vote to an earlier date. Others may be eyeing the post, as well.

Kevin Holmes To Run for House District 66 Seat

By David Kinkade - June 30, 2009 8:16 am

Kevin Holmes of Van Buren announces he will run for Arkansas House of Representatives in District 66. Holmes, a Republican, is an attorney and member of the Crawford County Quorum Court. The seat is currently held by Republican Rep. Rick Green, who is term limited.

Full news release from Holmes at jump.

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In Defense of Term Limits

By Dan Greenberg - June 9, 2009 8:59 am

Last week I traveled to St. Louis to speak at the Heartland Leadership Conference. One highlight of the conference was lunch with old and new friends Paul Jacob (of Citizens in Charge), Eric Dixon (of the Show Me Institute) and Patrick Tuohey (of Market and Communications Research) at the Millennium Hotel. The cafe there has a remarkable view of the Gateway Arch, which is quite breathtaking.

My presentation was on term limits and why we need them. Perhaps the strongest argument against term limits is that they deprive the public of the institutional knowledge of experienced public officials. I therefore decided to address this perspective in my remarks by arguing that the dangers of losing such knowledge are greatly exaggerated. I have reproduced a portion of my remarks, and links to my other research on term limits, after the jump.
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Nate Bell To Run For House District 22 Seat

By David Kinkade - May 15, 2009 8:29 am

Polk County Republican Nate Bell, a poultry farmer and construction business owner in Mena, confirms he’s planning a run for the Arkansas House of Representatives in District 22. The seat is currently held by Democratic Rep. Bill Abernathy, who is term-limited. Bell will be making his formal announcement Saturday at the Polk County Lincoln Day Dinner. (Typo in original item identified this as the District 21 seat — since corrected.)

UPDATE: Text of Bell’s full news release announcing his candidacy at the jump.

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Stuff From Around Arkansas, May 1

By David Kinkade - May 1, 2009 7:27 am

More gratuitious Bridget, because it's Friday and why the hell not.

Rick Rolling: This Rick Crawford fellow in Jonesboro, mulling a GOP challenge to Democratic Rep. Marion Berry, sounds like he’s all in on his new websitebloggything: “YES—I am planning to run,” he writes. What is this declarative statement? Where’s the extended Griffin-like tease? (Via The Tolbert Report)

H1N1Watch: Swine plague may be in Memphis, so we must blow up the bridges. (KAIT)

Fin: Well, so much for the 2009 legislative session, which formally ends today. (AP)

Ballot-Proof: There’s Sen. Gilbert Baker, a rumored challenger to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, heading up a group to fight union-backed card check legislation. What’s his angle? (AP)

Line of Site: Hooray, U.S. Rep. John Boozman has a new website! (John Boozman’s New Website)

Shell Game: Rep. Allen Kerr is taking Gov. Mike Beebe to task for “shell game” on taxes. The governor’s spokesman, he does not like all this backtalk. (Talk Business)

Prissy Hickerson Eyeing District 1 House Seat (Updated!)

By David Kinkade - April 30, 2009 8:54 am

Word comes in that Republican Prissy Hickerson of Texarkana, who chaired the Arkansas Highway Commission under Gov. Mike Huckabee, is considering a run for the state House of Representatives in District 1, the seat currently held by term-limited House Majority Leader and blogger extraordinaire Steve Harrelson. (Harrelson’s running for state Senate.)

Hickerson says she’s been talking to people about a potential run and may form an exploratory committee in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: To clarify on the above, this post does not reflect my typical “rumor-mongering” approach to these matters: In this case, I placed an ACTUAL PHONE CALL to Hickerson and she confirmed to me that she is looking hard at a run for the District 1 seat. There seemed to be some suggestion that I was just speculating on that (cough*Roby Brock!*cough!).

Since I am the laziest blogger in the entire state of Arkansas, I wanted to be sure that I get maximum credit for the minimum effort I expended in pursuit of this nugget. I know, I know, nobody was more shocked than I….

Which Arkansas Lawmaker Is Poised for Party Switch? (Updated!)

By David Kinkade - April 29, 2009 11:16 am

Blogger and Arkansas House Majority Leader Steve Harrelson teases a potential development that will increase the majority he leads: He says to look for an Arkansas state legislator to shift into the Democratic column on Friday.

Any ideas on who it could be?

UPDATE: Early speculation seems to be swirling around lonely Green Party legislator Richard Carroll, and invaluable Arkansas Project commenter nlr2009 reminds us of Carroll’s frustrated attempts to join the Arkansas Black Legislative Caucus, which spurned his membership advances, thus providing us with one of the comic highlights of the otherwise very sad 2009 legislative session.

UPDATE II: It’s Carroll. Well, that was fun. Now what?

Second District Showdown: Greenberg Vs. Wills

By Dan Greenberg - April 28, 2009 11:27 am

Last night Arkansas Speaker of the House Robbie Wills and I were invited to speak to Professor Wekkin’s class in campaign management at the University of Central Arkansas. The students had chosen one Democrat and one Republican as their favorite nominees in a mock congressional campaign. (I can understand why they chose Robbie—he’s a local—but don’t they have any Republicans out there in Faulkner County?)

The students peppered us with questions about our backgrounds and how best to run a campaign. Here are a few samples from the evening’s discussion (written inexactly from memory).

***
STUDENT: When you decided to get into politics, what was your motivation?

GREENBERG: Well, I’ll tell you my motivation for taking my first political job (deputy campaign manager for Congressman-to-be Jay Dickey): I absolutely could not stand one more day of law school.

***
STUDENT: What was the lowest point of your campaigns?

WILLS: Well, obviously, losing my first election. But I can tell you that I learned a great deal from that defeat. It gave me valuable experience about campaigning, it helped me learn what did and didn’t work, and it taught me a few lessons about character and integrity – about how to accept defeat gracefully. In some ways it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

GREENBERG: The lowest point of my last campaign was when I was campaigning in a gated community, knocking on doors and asking for votes, and a woman drove by and beckoned me over. I walked over and she said “What part of NO SOLICITING do you not understand?” You just don’t have a lot of options for a response. There’s actually a Supreme Court case on this very question, but I don’t think she would have found that persuasive.

I agree with Robbie about the value of losing one’s first race. You do learn some important things about character and integrity. However, when I lost my second race, I found that experience to be utterly valueless. I would have been happy to skip it entirely.

***
STUDENT: If you were asked to run for Congress, would you run?

GREENBERG: Look, it’s nice when somebody wants to take you to the prom, but I think the decision depends on who asks you. Several people came up to me and told me I should run for Congress after I spoke at the Tea Party demonstration on Tax Day, and my reaction was “Great! Now all I need is (counts on fingers) 250,000 more votes!”

***
STUDENT: If a potential candidate asked for your advice and wanted to know—what are the pitfalls a campaign should stay away from and what are the must-dos for a campaign—what are your answers?

GREENBERG: Well, of course, I am sure you have heard that, for a campaign like this, fundraising and repeated personal contacts are essential. What are the pitfalls? Well, maybe it’s bad to say this around Robbie, but I would say blogging is a high risk campaign strategy that promises very little return. The prospect of saying something stupid that will be recorded forever is a very real one. I don’t know why he blogs. I don’t know why I blog! It’s a sickness.

***
We discussed some serious matters as well, but I think that may be out of place on this blog. [KINKADE EDITORIAL INTRUSION: Correct.] In any case, I think everybody had a good time. And of course I am very grateful to the students who chose and invited me.

However, when I told my wife that the class had chosen me as the best possible Republican congressional candidate, she for some reason rolled her eyes, sighed and walked out of the room.

Former Rep. David Hausam Dies

By David Kinkade - April 26, 2009 8:05 am

Hausam

Former Arkansas Rep. David Hausam, a Bentonville Republican, died Saturday at his home, Doug Thompson of the Morning News of Northwest Arkansas reports. State Sen. Larry Teague offers a remembrance at his blog.

UPDATE: Also check these testimonies in this nice memorial piece from reporter Gary Lookado in Hausam’s hometown paper, the Benton County Daily Record.

Plus, a fine post-funeral reflection from Thompson:

Hausam laughed more than any state lawmaker I ever knew. Very few members of the legislature worked harder than he did. None enjoyed it more.

Stuff From Around Arkansas, April 16

By David Kinkade - April 16, 2009 1:01 pm

Halter

Gearing Up: Now Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is busy raising money for his 2010 re-election, though his ‘06 campaign owes him several hundred thousand dollars. But will he be able to withstand the TYLER DENTON JUGGERNAUT? (AP)

Salaryman: Arkansas GOP chair Doyle Webb will get $60K per year for his troubles. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

Carrying On: Interesting perspective piece on availability of concealed carry weapon permits, from a concealed carry instructor. (The City Wire)

FroshPit: CapSearch offers video interviews summing up the ‘09 legislative session from freshman legislators. (CapSearch)

Kid Stuff: Blogger Jason Tolbert posts family photos of the new lil baby boy that arrived last week. (The Tolbert Report)

Do NOT Listen To This Man: Blogger Lance Turner lists his picks for “10 Arkansans Who Should Be Blogging,” which is a terrible idea, because at least seven of those listed almost certainly should NOT be blogging, under any circumstances whatsoever. C’mon people, we don’t want another Dustin McDaniel situation on our hands. (This Is My Blog By Lance Turner)

Parasitic: Blogger Blake Rutherford takes apart the latest sad sad reflection on the sad death of newspapers from sad columnist Gene Lyons, who is very very saddened by these latest sad developments in his sad industry, and oh yeah he laments the emergence of all these smug young “bloggers,” too. In other news, I’m taking up a collection to compensate Blake for the agony of having to read a Gene Lyons column, something I hope to never have to experience. Please give. (Blake’s Think Tank)

Barth Rakes In $64K for State Senate Race

By David Kinkade - April 16, 2009 9:27 am

This news release rolled in via e-mail yesterday while I was otherwise occupied with all that other stuff: Hendrix College poli sci prof Jay Barth, a Democrat, pulled down more than $64,000 in the first quarter in his campaign to be the next Arkansas state senator from District 34. He’s already got a campaign website up and running.

The seat is currently held by Sen. Tracy Steele, also a Democrat, who is term-limited.