Speaker-Elect Faces Music

Speaker-elect Rep. Davy Carter, R-Cabot, speaks to constituents on Thursday inside Neal’s Cafe in Springdale.
Speaker-elect Rep. Davy Carter, R-Cabot, speaks to constituents on Thursday inside Neal’s Cafe in Springdale.

— Republican rank and file expressed strong dissatisfaction to state House speaker-elect Rep. Davy Carter, R-Cabot, at a meet and greet Thursday at Neal’s Cafe in Springdale.

“It’s the law of the land, it’s been through the Supreme Court, and Mitt Romney got beat,” Carter said when asked whether the Legislature was going to implement federal health care reform. Carter spoke for almost an hour with about 30 people, mostly Republicans, at the Springdale restaurant. He took questions in an open forum, then met with attendees one-on-one afterward.

Stopping the implementation of “Obamacare” is why Republicans have a 51-seat majority in the 100-member House, said Valerie Biendara of Fayetteville. There are parts of the law that the Legislature can stop, she said, such as expansion of Medicaid.

“The reason you have a majority is for you to reject it outright, and what I’m hearing is that you’re going to work with the Democrats and ‘We’ll see,’” Biendara said.

“If we say ‘No, no, no’ to everything,” Carter said, “the federal government will do it themselves and do it over us.”

Sharon Lloyd of Springdale, chairwoman of the Washington County Republican Women, challenged Carter’s decision to keep former Democratic lawmaker Bill Stovall on the legislative staff and to hire a former Democratic Party executive director, Gabe Holmstrom of Cabot, as his chief of staff.

“Do you think no Republican is smart enough to do that job?” Lloyd asked.

There are plenty of Republicans smart enough to do either job, Carter said, but after 138 years of Democratic majorities hiring staffs, there was no one experienced enough to fully replace Stovall when “the session starts in 30 days,” he said.

“You have to have people who have been there and know what they’re doing,” he said. “Getting rid of them would leave us exposed to procedural screw-ups.”

When the bank he works for takes over a failed bank, “we don’t fire everybody who worked there and take over,” Carter said.

Republican voters didn’t work for a Republican majority to let a veteran, experienced Democratic staff run things, Lloyd said.

“We feel like you’ve turned around and spit in our faces,” she said. “We have morals and convictions and these guys do not.”

Rep. Randy Alexander, R-Springdale, quipped “Welcome to Springdale” at one point in the discussion.

“I’m not the speaker for the Republican caucus,” Carter said earlier in the forum. “I’m not going to let this turn into Washington, D.C., where people can’t talk to each other, not without a fight.”

Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, told the group conservative issues would be fully addressed. He will introduce a bill to allow concealed carry permit holders to keep their guns on college campuses, he said. There will be a bill regarding “fetal pain” that will restrict abortions, he said. There will be legislation on school choice, he said. But these are fights for representatives and the House Majority Leader to carry forward, Collins said.

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