Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: So Much for Democracy

Talk About Suppressing the Vote 

By Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Sunday, April 14, 2013)

A BACKBONE salesman would make a killing at this session of the Arkansas legislature. Sure, when it comes to being anti-feral hog or pro-drug tests, or increasing the sentence of anybody who steals some scrap metal, or exposing a state treasurer who has handled the state’s bond business the strange way state Treasurer Martha Shoffner has, our legislators are brave enough. Bad pigs! Bad thieves! Bad state treasurer!

Who isn’t against pigs running wild and copper thieves raiding historic sites? And these days Martha Shoffner must be about as popular as tomato blight. It takes little judgment and even less courage to go after such easy targets.

But when it comes to reforming a corrupt system designed to keep voters from voting, a lot of our lawmakers-entirely too many-show about as much spine as a jelly doughnut. That’s why, just last Tuesday, a simple, sensible, fair and democratic proposal to move school board elections to, well, election day failed in the state House of Representatives.

Why aren’t school boards elected on the same day in November as other public officials? The answer is obvious to anyone who’s watched how The System is rigged: Because that would mean you’d be more likely to vote, Mr. and Mrs. Arkansas.

It’s clear that a lot of those “serving” on school boards-and the teachers’ unions that back them-would rather you didn’t worry your pretty little head about those particular elections. Just leave it to them. They’ll handle everything. Those who know how to work The System will be sure to get their people to the polls (the unions can help with that), and who cares about anybody else?

It’s just so much more convenient for school boards to hold these elections without all the inconvenience of having to deal with the voting public, or at least the part of it that might not agree with them.

So the teachers’ unions and their proxies on school boards around the state choose to hold their critical but poorly attended elections sometime other than November. That way, the unions can get their people to the polls-something they excel at-and dictate public policy.

SENATE BILL 587 would have changed that. It would have moved elections for school boards to election day. Senate Bill 587 had to die.

Which it did in the House.

The yeas numbered 32. The nays 42. Counting fingers and toes, we noted that 32 and 42 don’t add up to 100. (J-School doesn’t exactly specialize in math whizzes.) Which raised another obvious question: What happened to the other 26 members of the state House of Representatives?

They didn’t vote. Those representatives represented nothing. Except maybe a lack of political courage and an abundance of caginess. So the Spineless Twenty-Six stood on the sidelines, voting present or not voting at all. Which was just as good as voting against SB587.

Twenty-six non-votes. Why, that’s more than the total number of voters in some sparsely attended school elections in this state.

Twenty-six. And who were they?

Well, since you asked:

  • Denny Altes of Fort Smith
  • Eddie Armstrong of North Little Rock
  • Jonathan Barnett of Siloam Springs
  • Ken Bragg of Sheridan
  • Charlotte Douglas of Alma
  • Deborah Ferguson of West Memphis
  • Bill Gossage of Ozark
  • Kim Hammer of Benton
  • Fonda Hawthorne of Ashdown
  • Prissy Hickerson of Texarkana
  • David Hillman of Almyra
  • Lane Jean of Magnolia
  • Stephen Magie of Conway
  • Stephanie Malone of Fort Smith
  • Stephen Meeks of Greenbrier
  • Mark Perry of Jacksonville
  • Terry Rice of Waldron
  • Mary Slinkard of Gravette
  • Nate Steel of Nashville
  • David Whitaker of Fayetteville
  • Tommy Wren of Melbourne
  • Marshall Wright of Forrest City
  • David Branscum of Marshall
  • Kelley Linck of Yellville
  • Jim Nickels of Sherwood
  • (Davy Carter of Cabot, the speaker of the House, didn’t vote, either. That’s normal practice, though he can vote if he chooses.)

THE OTHER representatives voted either yea or nay. They took a stand. Our respects to them even if they voted wrong. At least they’re on record now, and their constituents can decide for themselves how they feel about the kind of legislator who would discourage voter turnout in school elections. Maybe some who voted against SB587 even had a good reason to, though we can’t imagine what it would be.

To the Democrats listed above, we’d ask: Remember how many in your party opposed requiring voters to show ID at the polls to guard against election fraud? The reason, or just excuse, for their opposition was that such a law would suppress the vote. But in this case, the current system really does suppress the vote-by holding elections on a day when only a small minority vote, or even know there’s an election on. So a well-organized special interest can call the shots. What ever happened to your party’s concern about getting out the vote?

To the Republicans listed above, and there were plenty, what were you thinking? Or were you?

The paper said that some representatives worried about the cost that SB587 would have meant for county governments. Well . . .

  1. Elections do cost money. And changing ballots and ballot machines is an expense. But it’s a small price to pay for democracy.
  2. If you’re going to argue that adopting this proposal to move school elections to the same date as all other elections would cost too much, then vote against it-for the record. Don’t just put your heads down and duck the issue by not voting. As if that would be enough to keep your name out of the paper. That’s not responsibility. It’s dodging responsibility.

To go on the record ourselves, we can understand why legislators would vote for this bill and try to keep the electoral process open, inviting and, yes, democratic. We can also understand why legislators would oppose it-because it might offend a powerful interest that supports them, and they would prefer a system that a special interest can control.

What we don’t understand, or maybe understand all too well, is the spineless types who wouldn’t take a stand on this issue. Deciding issues is their job. It’s why they were sent to the state Capitol in the first place. And it’s a job these 26 state representatives didn’t do.

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