Doug Thompson: Loose reins or more rope

Opportunity and danger confront state GOP

Huge majorities in the Legislature won't be nearly as liberating for Arkansas Republicans -- or as risky for them and others -- as the free rein they can now expect from the federal government.

Getting three-quarter super-majorities in both chambers of the Legislature is a heady thing for a party that was in the minority for all of the last century, no doubt. Still, it wouldn't have mattered all that much if the GOP had captured all 100 seats in the state House and all 35 seats in the state Senate if the Democrats had held on to the White House. The state would still have to go to federal agencies and ask permission to do what they wanted on health care, for example. The feds still would have probably said no.

I'd bet the likely response our state leaders will get from the incoming administration on any question they bring will be much more likely to be "Sure. Why not?"

A lot of fences are about to come down -- including fences on the environment and civil rights that should stay up. That's the opportunity and the danger. Loosened reins can easily become enough rope to hang yourself.

I'm not as worried as I would be if I lived in other states. Texas is a prime example. Their official state Republican platform supports "defunding and abolishing the departments or agencies of the Internal Revenue Service, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Interior (specifically, the Bureau of Land Management), Transportation, Security Administration, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and National Labor Relations Board." Parentheses were in the original. Also, a plank supporting the "right" of a state to secede had to be defeated in committee.

Pardon the digression, but it always struck me that citizens of states that saw real fighting in the Civil War seem less prone to engage in succession fantasy. Anyway, back to the point.

I think their super-majority will make Arkansas Republicans, as a whole, more reasonable instead of more extreme. The Republican majority here always seemed on the verge of splitting almost as soon as it formed. Just a few defections would have been enough to prevent the Legislature from passing a budget. That gave leverage to the minority, whoever that happened to be on any given issue. Now there's more of a safety margin, or should be.

It seems like a another era, but as recently as April I was writing columns about how the new Republican majority was its own worst enemy. It lived on the edge, always on the brink of splitting.The budget in the last fiscal session, for instance, was passed only after some pretty quick stepping in which the governor agreed to line-item veto something lawmakers approved. Now the edge isn't so close. The governor may still have to walk a plank but at least it won't be a tightrope.

It's a point I've made before: The price of becoming a majority party is that you have to let people in who aren't as zealous as you are. Many a Republican who worked for decades to bring about a Republican majority aren't too happy that the changes aren't as sudden and radical as they always hoped.

Then there's the factor of the governor himself, who continues to surprise his detractors and frustrate his enemies -- Democrat and Republican -- with his refusal to do something self-destructive. Mike Huckabee was more jovial, approachable and fun, but at least you could count on him for some provocative and unnecessary "environmental wacko" or "they don't drink the same Jesus juice" comment every once in a while.

Hutchinson barely acknowledged any tension within his party when he was campaigning to get some dissenting candidate defeated in GOP primaries. Huckabee called his opponents within the party "Shiite Republicans" and openly complained that his harshest criticism came from his own side.

Commentary on 01/07/2017

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