Now the real test begins for the new governor and his party's ruling majority.
I think they'll pass, in part because Dick Cheney came to Fort Smith almost 15 years ago.
Yes, the new crew just passed health care and tax cuts. They deserve the praise they got, but those issues were not new. Getting the private option health care plan extended for two years, for instance, was a yes-no question. Getting to "yes" required first-rate leadership, but the policy itself was inherited. Crafting a big tax cut took high-level math. I'm glad they got the answer right, but it was still a matter of correctly doing the sums.
Now our freshmen GOP state government turns to its first big project: fixing prison overcrowding without building a $100 million prison every five years. This puzzle defied solving while Mike Beebe, a master of policy, was governor.
Curbing enthusiasm for sending people to prison would help. Short of that, the answer is to supervise people outside of prison, using drug testing and so forth. Saying that is like saying "All you have to do to solve a jigsaw puzzle is put the pieces together." How much supervision, of whom? Who do you let out and who do you keep? Then there is the bigger problem. Close, enforced parole and probation is not cheap. It's cheaper than prisons, but "cheaper" and "cheap" aren't the same. Nobody was ever going to cut prison spending to pay for something new, either. Beebe tried to go in the right direction but without much support for new spending.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced a multi-faceted plan Wednesday. It includes expanding drug courts, new regional jails, beefed-up probation and a lot more. He'd start this by spending a reserve fund of $32 million that took years to amass. This uses "one-time" money to address an ongoing problem. I can't fault him for that for three reasons.
First, prison costs simply aren't going to be brought under control without a big new investment in a changed system. Spending reserves just after cutting $100 million in state income taxes offends my fiscal sensibilities, but that's a trifle because of my second reason.
Hutchinson is just about the last person to start a big, expensive new program with the plan of getting taxpayers on the hook and raising taxes later. That would go against this man's entire life history. He might do it by mistake, but I don't think so. That's because of my third reason: Hutchinson very likely knows what he's doing and has the political standing to do it.
Hutchinson is a former U.S. attorney and a former head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, clearly the right experience. When he presents a plan and says "It will cost this much," lawmakers should be more inclined to believe it and less inclined to wonder if the plan will work. More important, though, is the political cover Hutchinson offers. Nobody is going to call this governor or lawmakers who back him "soft on crime" when they try new things. Hutchinson won't be asking prosecutors to take risks he wouldn't take, either. He's one of them.
The flip side is, of course, that Hutchinson will be held more directly responsible if something goes horribly wrong.
Now, as for Cheney. The Republican vice presidential nominee stopped by in October 2000. Hutchinson was still a U.S. House member. Presidential candidate George W. Bush had just released his plan for fighting domestic drug abuse. A big feature of that plan was money for something new at the time -- drug courts.
Cheney met with a few dignitaries and press after the rally. Hutchinson just about cornered the guy in praising drug courts. I've seen car salesmen and missionaries go at it with less zeal than Hutchinson did. It's not every day you see Cheney, a man who would come to be known as an advocate for waterboarding, left speechless and a little wide-eyed at clearly unexpected enthusiasm.
I've met a few ambitious politicians in my career. I've only met one, though, who used up a rare meeting with a major figure in his party to cheerlead for sentencing reform.
Hutchinson was a sentencing reform advocate long before it did him any good -- much like his being a Republican. He has the biggest head start on this issue than any governor of ours has had on any issue. He may need all of it, but what he came up with deserves a hearing.
Doug Thompson is a political reporter and columnist for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].
Commentary on 02/21/2015