Bitter fights go too far, Senate leader tells group in Rogers

Senate Majority Leader Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, is shown in this file photo.
Senate Majority Leader Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, is shown in this file photo.

ROGERS -- "Slicing and dicing of fellow Republicans" in Arkansas has grown into a serious problem, Senate Majority Leader Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, told a Rogers-based group.

Hendren spoke to Conservative Arkansas, but his presentation cited examples from another group, Fayetteville-based Conduit for Action. Conduit strongly opposed keeping the state's "private option" health care plan.

Hendren is Senate chairman of the legislative task force charged with reforming the state's health care spending. The Legislature decided to keep the "private option" of subsidized insurance going until the task force completes its work before the 2017 regular legislative session, stirring opposition. One post social media online accused Republican leaders of "backstabbing" conservatives, for instance.

"These ads and social media messages are untrue and hurt our party, and the people who make them need to own those words," Hendren told the crowd, which included Joe Maynard, a founder of Conduit for Action.

"State Medicaid spending is five times the size of the state private option," Hendren said. "Yet we're having a big fight about this sliver."

Conduit for Action founders Maynard and Brenda Vassaur Taylor, both of Fayetteville, replied in a joint statement. "It is interesting to Conduit for Action to learn that Senator Jim Hendren is apparently traveling the state to give presentations to local groups during which he spends no small amount of time attacking CFA for allegedly 'attacking' his ideas of 'conservative' policy," the statement said.

"Serious issues that have long-term consequences cannot be resolved in a 15-minute presentation," the statement said. "In all due respect, this presentation has a depth of politics that it seems to lack in conservative policy. CFA believes that perpetuating 'big government' policies in order to end them have greater negative long-term financial and moral consequences than short-term positive benefits.

"It is our belief that the current leadership tactics have little chance of reducing the size of government or dependency on government but assists those who wish to increase government controls and effects on all our citizens."

"Although we concede that provocative words are often not helpful, we did not get the list of words from which we are allowed to choose," the statement said. "And in fact most all attributed to us today were not ours."

Whatever solution the health care task force comes up with will not please everyone, Hendren said. When the final proposal is reached, that will be a risky moment for the state's Republican Party, which gained control of state government for the first time since the 19th Century in the last election, he said.

"What kind of party will we be?" Hendren said. "This is a legitimate policy disagreement within our party, and we need to be honest and truthful about it. We're likely to have another division in our party whatever the task force recommends. We need to be a party that can have a debate instead of drive-by shootings of each other."

"If you want somebody who agrees with you 100 percent of the time, you want a puppet," Hendren told Conservative Arkansas.

The most serious attacks are coming from a vocal minority within the state GOP, Hendren said after the meeting. But a minority can still do damage, he said.

"If Republicans split and a minority of our party decides to hold the budget up over every decision they don't like, we'll have ceded control to the minority party," Hendren said. "If we do that, they can do it too. The minority party [Democrats] can say 'We don't like voter ID, so we'll hold up the budget.' If they don't like an anti-abortion bill, they can do that too."

NW News on 07/26/2015

Upcoming Events