The specific legislative problem—which is not to imply even remotely that it rivals in significance the general tragedy of sexual abuse of a young girl—is that state Rep. Justin Harris of West Fork “went rogue,” as one of his colleagues put it.
That happened when Harris called a news conference and blamed the state Human Services Department for the turn of events by which he adopted two little girls and then gave them to another home where the man sexually abused one of them.
Harris happened to be serving by the appointment of House Speaker Jeremy Gillam as vice chairman of the House committee dealing with issues of children. And there he stood hurling serious public charges at the state agency coordinating programs providing services to children.
Beyond that, emails showed Harris had a close and up-and-down relationship with the department. His emails to department officials, scoured by this newspaper, revealed he sometimes held up appropriation bills because relations were in a down cycle.
Obviously, he didn’t need to remain in a leadership role on a legislative committee overseeing the department against which he’d publicly declared war in a highest-of-profiles human debacle.
Harris served in that vice chairmanship solely at the pleasure of Gillam, who could have removed him, but who preferred that Harris come to that conclusion on his own.
People like Gillam are protective of the legislative institution. They don’t like setting potentially dangerous precedents. A speaker’s monkeying with committee chairmanships in mid-session because he didn’t like something or other—well, that wouldn’t be the best of procedural precedents.
So Harris came in to the speaker’s office Monday and relinquished the vice chairmanship, demoting himself to a mere member of the committee, which is less problematic, if still so.
He also resigned appropriately from membership altogether on the Joint Performance Review Committee, an investigative arm that presumably might open a probe after the session into the Human Services Department, children’s issues, adoption generally or even the Harris case specifically.
So that’s something.
For many people, events dictate plainly that Harris should be removed altogether from the state House of Representatives if he lacks the good grace to resign.
It is not comfortable explaining that’s not necessarily so. But the fact is that “rehoming” is not illegal, meaning Harris committed no crime. Another fact is that petitions demanding his resignation contain few if any signatures of his own constituents, meaning people in his district who elected him.
Expulsion for bad judgment—yes, horrible and disgusting judgment—might not be the best option in the long term for the Legislature, where bad judgment is not uncommon.
Harris has surely brought reproach on the House. But if you react to that in the way of the fundamentalist religious sects that “disfellowship” members for bringing reproach, then you risk igniting a culture of raging and primitive judgment and partisanship.
Some people in the Legislature believe it brings reproach to favor permitting abortion or to suggest that a homosexual ought to be able to buy a cake from a baker.
Some Tea Party people might want to “disfellowship” anybody not signing a no-tax pledge.
Ideally, then, Harris would say that the tragic events so distract him—indeed, so haunt him—that his ability to serve is impaired, and that, in the interest of a more positive legislative culture, and in deference to his constituents who warrant more focused representation than he can now provide, he will resign.
Alas, Harris is not behaving ideally.
Meantime, there are those who say Harris should resign or be ousted because the nation is looking askance at our state over his situation.
The nation looks askance at us because we deserve for the nation to look askance at us.
We’re the ones with a crazily irresponsible adoption system. We’re the ones blending church and state by electing conservative religious extremists like Harris who have taken state money to run day-care centers where they operate fundamentalist religious preschools. We’re the ones electing a Legislature leading us backward.
As I like to say, the only way to fix your image is to fix your reality.
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.