LITTLE ROCK — U.S. Rep. John Boozman, the Republican Senate candidate, didn’t mention his Democratic opponent, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, during his 10-minute speech to delegates at the Republican State Convention.
Instead he spoke Saturday at the Embassy Suites hotel in west Little Rock against several national programs championed by Democrats and about the Republicans’ chance to gain more power in the state.
“We’re poised to make the inroads the surrounding states have done over the years,” Boozman said, pointing to Republican gains in Louisiana, Missouri and Texas during the past decade.
Boozman said small businesses are harmed by recent laws such as the new financial bill that was sponsored by his opponent or the health-care law, both of which Lincoln helped enact.
He said a business owner told him that the healthcare law will cost him $1 million.
“What he’s trying to do is figure out how he can lay off enough people to meet that mandate,” Boozman said.
He said European lawmakers have bragged to him about cutting deficits and rolling back public programs.
“They’re asking me, what’s happened to you?” Boozman said. “They look to us for leadership and yet we’re going in the other way.”
Boozman said the country is at a crossroads.
“This truly does affect the course of our nation,” Boozman said. “We’re trying to decide which way we’re going. Are we going to be like Europe and do the European socialist-style democracy or are we going to go back to our free-market principles?”
Republican candidate for governor Jim Keet said Saturday that Arkansas is suffering from “o-Beebe-besity.”
Keet told the delegates that if elected he will stop the hiring of new state workers, cut his office budget andhis own salary, and stop the Democrats’ “good old boy network.”
He pointed to changes made since Mike Beebe took office as governor in 2007. He said the governor has expanded state government through the 2007 purchase of a $5 million airplane and the hiring of 4,000 new state employees.
The plane cost the state $4 million, according to accounts at the time of the purchase.
“This state right now suffers from o-Beebe-besity,” Keet said. “We need to be putting that money back into creating private-sector jobs in the state of Arkansas and freeing up the enterprise system. Not just employing more state employees that frankly we can’t afford right now.”
Keet said the number of state employees will not increase during his first four years in office if he wins this election.
“You have to stop the growth of government before you can start reducing the size of government,” Keet said.
Keet said he will immediately cut the governor’s office budget and his personal salary by 20 percent and will enforce the reduction until the state’s unemployment rate drops below 5.5 percent. Beebe turned down a pay raise in 2009 that would have increased his salary to $87,352 from $84,114. The state’s budget is about $24 billion a year. The governor’s office budget for 2011 is $5.6 million. According to the Office of Budget, there were 55,793 state government jobs in 2009.
In June the state unemployment rate was 7.5 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
On Friday in an appearance at another GOP event, Keet said Beebe should reimburse the state for his personal use of a state vehicle while he was attorney general from 2003 to 2007.
“The governor now looks back and says ‘Well, that was just the tradition and practice,’” Keet said. “That was the tradition and the practice of the good old boy network.”
Beebe has said he paid income tax for the personal use.
Keet referred to Amendment 70 of the Arkansas Constitution. It bans constitutional officers, such as the governor, and legislators from receiving, in addition to their salaries, “any other income from the state of Arkansas whether in the form of salaries or expenses.”
Keet said Beebe should prove that the taxes he paid are equal to the amount he should pay for personal use of the vehicle.
Beebe’s campaign spokesman Anne Hughes said it is disappointing that Keet is continuing to use an “already debunked” political attack.
“As a matter of fact, 1993 and 1995 opinions issued by Attorney General Winston Bryant distinguished between income for federal tax purposes and for Amendment 70 purposes, and even a [certified public accountant] political blogger dismissed this politically motivated attack,” Hughes said. “Gov. Beebe did the right thing even when nobody was looking, and he paid his taxes before this became a political issue.”
Hughes was referring to blogger Jason Tolbert.
State and federal tax authorities, as well as Beebe, have said the governor is exempt from paying income taxes for being chauffeured in a state police vehicle by a security detail.
Keet has previously said that he agrees with that.
Keet also urged the delegates to support the Republican candidates because of the potential impact of next year’s congressional redistricting.
Arkansas’ four U.S. House districts are to be redrawn in 2011 because of population changes recorded in the 2010 census. Arkansas will have to shuffle counties when the Legislature agrees on a new map. The districts must have roughly the same number of residents, something that other states have found tough to pull off without dividing some counties into separate congressional districts. Arkansas currently doesn’t divide counties.
Redistricting generally is shaped according to the wishes of the leaders of the majority party, which right now is the Democratic Party in Arkansas.
“If we don’t make a difference in the state this year, shame on us,” Keet said.
Keet called for Republicans to control both chambers of the state House in 2014. The state House and Senate have not had a Republican majority since Reconstruction.
Democrats hold every statewide elected position in the executive branch and five of the state’s six seats in Congress.
Several other speakers talked about the importance of gaining seats in the state House.
Copies of the party platform were not printed ahead of time and delegates initially voted to approve it without reading it. Chairman Doyle Webb joined delegates in voicing frustration that the platform was not finished earlier.
Delegates reconsidered their votes, read the platform aloud and voted on each section.
Webb said he had not read the platform but that he trusted that the 16-member committee had done a good job.
Arkansas, Pages 19 on 07/25/2010