The Baker brouhaha

Former state Sen. Gilbert Baker got a little too big for his britches and injected the University of Central Arkansas in Conway into yet another odorous front-page matter.

So Tom Courtway, the UCA president who has generally rehabilitated the place, has had to take Baker down a size or two.

The moral of the story: Lobbyists for public universities shouldn’t also be free-agent political operatives.

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Baker-energetic, pragmatic and a natural leader-spent a dozen years representing the Conway area in the state Senate. During that time he worked to build the Republican Party, helping it achieve historic success and garner legislative majorities as he departed upon being term-limited in January 2013.

While wholly conservative on social and judicial issues, he was a work-the-system guy on budgeting. He formed an alliance with Democrats along the way that got called the Brotherhood. He ended his legislative career as an effective, pragmatic co-chairman of the Joint Budget Committee.

A music teacher at UCA by trade, he confronted several politically related job opportunities upon his term limitation. He ended up executive assistant to Courtway, a position that turned into registered lobbying early in 2013.

Baker was grandfathered against the mandatory one-year cooling-off period before becoming a lobbyist. He was needed by UCA-and by higher education in general-to push his recent Senate colleagues for passage of the private-option form of Medicaid expansion. It freed money for colleges and universities.

As it happened, Baker maintained a separate interest-separate by organizational structure but not necessarily by theme-in political fundraising.

He was the chief registered agent of a political consulting firm whose focus was two-pronged: He wanted to help Republican legislative candidates of more pragmatic inclinations in resistance to the extreme-right movement of his party (which is in the interest of UCA and public higher education, obviously); and, on his more vociferously conservative side, he wanted to help judicial candidates whom he deemed to be “pro-business” and inclined to limit damages.

Courtway initially defended Baker’s right to engage in personal political activity on his own time, even as huffy Democrats-inflamed by a post about Baker’s activity on the Arkansas Times blog-held up the UCA budget for a day or two in the fiscal session.

In one respect, Baker’s political advocacy seemed worthwhile in that he was working for better government within the reality of an inevitable Republican takeover.

Backing Republican state Sen. Bruce Holland of Greenwood, the high-speed supporter of the private option, against the primary challenge from state Rep. Terry Rice of Waldron, an avowed private-option foe, seems reasonable.

But some Democrats aren’t willing to accept a Republican takeover. And taking sides in a Republican primary might not be in UCA’s better interest if the guy whose side Baker didn’t take got elected.

Now we behold the raging affront of Circuit Judge Mike Maggio in Conway. He was forced to withdraw from a race seeking promotion to the state Court of Appeals after the Blue Hog blog’s report of assorted bad behavior.

Subsequently, reporters found that political action committees had sprung up up largely to steer money to Maggio’s campaign from Michael Morton, an owner of a chain of nursing homes, one of which benefited spectacularly from Maggio’s reducing a damages judgment from $5 million to $1 million.

Then last week, this newspaper reported on the front page that a woman working for Baker’s political firm had encouraged Morton to contribute to Maggio. Shortly thereafter, Morton received by mail a list of PACs through which he could get money to Maggio-the list prepared by a lawyer, Chris Stewart, whose services Baker has used over the years.

So there was UCA-post-Lu Hardin, post-Allen Meadors-gummed up in this Maggio messiness.

Courtway told me Thursday that he had advised Baker weeks ago to disassociate himself from the consulting firm, and that Baker had done so.

He said he initially had defended Baker’s right to do politics privately, but had since thought that through.

As the university’s assistant to the president and lobbyist, Baker’s activity was much more reflective on the school itself than, say, a math professor’s holding a fundraising coffee in his home for a local city council candidate.

Baker says he had nothing to do with the Maggio-related solicitation and certainly nothing to do with the formation of the oddly timed political action committees.

He says he accepts Courtway’s edict and agrees with it, though he still hopes for moderate Republican legislators and tort-reforming judges.

In retrospect, Baker told me: “Fortunately, I’m high-profile. And, unfortunately, I’m high-profile.”

He probably can still prove a valuable asset for UCA if he stays within his pant size.

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John Brummett’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com, or his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.