OPINION

REX NELSON: 'Legislative crack'

There was no discussion, no debate. It was done quickly, like swallowing medicine with a bitter aftertaste.

On June 15, the executive subcommittee of the Arkansas Legislative Council approved a request from the Bureau of Legislative Research to hire outside counsel to work with federal investigators. The next morning, the full Legislative Council approved the request with no discussion.

It's talked about only in whispers in the halls of the state Capitol, but the bottom line is this: The scope is broadening in the ongoing investigation by the FBI and possibly other law enforcement agencies into legislative abuse of what's known as the General Improvement Fund. This has the potential of becoming one of the biggest Arkansas news stories of late 2017 and early 2018.

I will add this: It's about time. A pox on those legislators who have abused the public trust and misused taxpayer funds.

Former state Sen. Jon Woods and former state Rep. Micah Neal, both Republicans from Springdale, already have been indicted in the GIF scandal. There could be more indictments to come. The GIF consists of unspent state funds and interest earnings.

Prior to the 1997 legislative session, the system generally worked this way: Legislators routinely approved all bills that called for using GIF funds. There often would be three to four times as much spending approved as was actually in the account. The governor would decide what got funded. This provided political protection for legislators, who could tell their constituents: "I got your bill passed. The dang governor is the one who wouldn't fund it. It's his fault."

Everything changed in 1997 because there was a new governor named Mike Huckabee, the first Republican in the Governor's Mansion since Frank White left office in January 1983. The heavily Democratic Legislature couldn't stand the thought of a GOP governor deciding how these funds were spent. Then-Sen. Nick Wilson of Pocahontas, who later would serve time in federal prison for crimes committed while in office, was among those leading the charge to take the fund away from the governor. Even so-called reform legislators were caught up in the feeding frenzy that spring.

The final day of the 1997 regular session was on a Saturday as the Legislature came in to override all of Huckabee's vetoes. I remember seeing two of those who later would be caught up in the Wilson affair high-fiving in the Capitol parking lot that day. What they didn't understand is that they were making a martyr of Huckabee, who would be elected to full four-year terms in 1998 and 2002.

Once legislators became addicted to these funds, it proved impossible for them to break the habit. I worked in the governor's office in those days, and we referred to it as legislative crack. Legislators could fund pet projects and get their photos on the front pages of newspapers in their district as they handed out checks. The GIF soon became a slush fund in the truest sense of the word.

In 2005, a former Democratic state representative from Jacksonville named Mike Wilson (no relation to Nick Wilson) filed suit in state court in an attempt to abolish the fund. Wilson, a lawyer, said the GIF violated Amendment 14 to the Arkansas Constitution, which bans state-funded local legislation. A fiscal conservative who was appalled by the some of the things on which taxpayer funds were being spent, Wilson said at the time: "It's bad business to give money away with no accountability." The case eventually went to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which ruled in Wilson's favor.

Despite the ruling from the state's highest court, legislators were unable to get off the legislative crack (we might call it legislative opioids these days). House and Senate leaders devised a scheme in which money was funneled to the state's eight planning and development districts. Mike Wilson described it as a system in which money for local projects is "dribbled out through the subterfuge of grants . . . at the direction of individual legislators to their pet local uses. Quietly and with no attention from the media, each individual member is allocated a share of the GIF to spend as he or she sees fit, usually in his or her particular district. These shares are zealously guarded and treated as if they were personal property of the individual members."

The planning and development districts cover six to 12 counties each. They were established in 1967-68 when Winthrop Rockefeller was governor to plan and coordinate economic development projects. A couple of years ago, the director of one such district with whom I had worked closely when I was with the Delta Regional Authority called. She was in tears, having been berated by a state senator who was harassing her on almost a daily basis over what he called "my money."

Democrats, then in the majority, took control of GIF funds away from the governor in 1997. Two Republicans, whose party is now the majority party, find themselves indicted for alleged GIF missteps. Greed and stupidity know no political affiliation. Lawmakers authorized $70 million for GIF projects in 2013 and $20 million in 2015.

Scared by the indictments of their former colleagues, they authorized no money for GIF projects this year. It's too late, though. Years of addiction have resulted in a stench that emanates from the state Capitol. If it takes the FBI, grand juries and federal prosecutors to fumigate the place, so be it. A day of reckoning is coming.

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Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Editorial on 06/25/2017

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