by Dan Greenberg: The end of the legislative session is approaching. Time is short, and tempers are a bit frayed. The norm of politeness in the Capitol is now abandoned with some frequency. Take, for instance, two recent conversations with my Democratic colleague Rep. Cheapstunt (his name has been changed to protect the guilty):I. The scene: just after a State Agencies committee meeting, in which one of my ethics bills, HB 2096, narrowly failed to make it out of committee.
ME: Sorry I couldn’t get your vote on the bill. Maybe I could amend it to get your support. Say, didn’t you tell me a while back that you supported my bill?
CHEAPSTUNT: Yeah.
ME: Ah. What happened?
CHEAPSTUNT: (Grins.) Changed my mind.
II. The scene: the Judiciary Committee, just after Rep. Glidewell and I presented his HB 2216 (a bill to require disclosure of higher education admissions preferences) and started to take questions about it. Cheapstunt asks one of the first questions.
CHEAPSTUNT: Because the governor opposes this bill, I’d like to know if either of you have met with any of his staffers to work out your differences on it.
(ME and GLIDEWELL, at the end of the table, look at each other and confirm that nobody from the governor’s office has approached either one of us to discuss the bill.)
ME: This is the first that I’ve been told about this. Obviously I am happy to meet with the governor anytime. Look, if the governor or his staff wants to tell us how he feels about a bill, they can find us. We’re up in Room 350 most afternoons.
III. That wasn’t the only zinger that emerged at the hearing. Another Democratic legislator tried to argue against the disclosure bill we presented that day by asking: “It seems to me that we are here to solve problems. You’ve admitted that we don’t know in this case whether we have a problem or not. Shouldn’t we leave this alone and try to solve the problems we know about?”
I responded “Let me make sure I understand your question. I think you’re saying that since we don’t have enough information to understand the situation, we should therefore oppose a measure that would give us more information about it. Is that correct?”
For some reason, he was unsatisfied by this response.
IV. In our final committee meeting of the week, the head of the state Democratic Party, Mariah Hattah, testified against HB 1247. This bill would have made it easier for third parties, like the Green Party and the Libertarian Party, to field candidates for office. Hattah didn’t really provide substantive reasons for her opposition to the bill, arguing only that the electoral system is working OK as is and that we shouldn't “change the rules in the middle of the game."
This argument struck many committee members as odd. I asked the obvious question: “With respect to changing the rules in the middle of the game, when does the game end?” Hattah started laughing, and said that all of our jobs would be easier if we knew the answer to that question.
“Well, the legislature only gets to look at the election laws once every two years,” I said. “I hope you’d agree that that’s the right time to make sure that the rules are fair.” She agreed with that, although I don’t think she wanted to.
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It’s fun to debate these matters. However, I am afraid it’s even more fun to write these columns and give myself the best lines. I say my share of stupid things in public, too, but I think you’re going to have to go somewhere else to read those.
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Dan Greenberg is an Attorney-at-Law and State Representative (District 31), Arkansas General Assembly. Although he directly represents northern Saline County, he also represents all Arkansans with public stands for limited, transparent and responsible government.
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