ROGERS -- State candidate and office holder financial interest disclosure forms are useless, state House hopeful and former bank executive Jene Huffman-Gilreath declared at a Thursday candidate forum.
"It really is a joke," Huffman-Gilreath said. "You could not get a loan from any payday lender with what you fill out." The House District 94 Democratic nominee referred to the forms the state requires reporting finances to reveal possible conflicts of interest. The day before, the last of four defendants reported to prison in a federal corruption case that convicted two former lawmakers of taking kickbacks.
Doing more to clean up corruption in the Legislature was one of the rare areas of strongly expressed bipartisan agreement at the 6 p.m. forum hosted by the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce and at City Hall. Seven candidates in four legislative races showed up and took questions for an hour and a half. The one candidate who couldn't attend sent a spokesman. Almost 100 people attended.
Early voting begins Oct. 22 with election day on Nov. 6.
Incumbent District 96 House candidate Grant Hodges, R-Rogers, reminded the crowd he called for specific ethics reform measures more than a month ago. He promised to seek more state resources for corruption investigators at the state attorney general's office and the state police, to support provision for recall elections, and to revoke the pensions of lawmakers convicted of corruption.
Jon Comstock, Democratic challenger in the Senate District 3 race in Rogers, called efforts at self-policing by the Legislature feeble and insincere. He cited a state Senate rule that only ethics complaints against a senator would only be considered if lodged by another senator. No other profession gets to shield itself from ethics complaints outside its own group, he said.
Incumbent Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, R-Rogers, who is Comstock's opponent, called for making it a violation of ethics rules to fail to report corruption when a public official knows or has grounds to suspect it's taking place even when he or she plays no part in the misconduct.
Huffman-Gilreath called for full credit checks on lawmakers. "You have to have a credit check to get a construction loan," she said. "If you can't run a business, you should not be running the state."
The grants that convicted the four in the kickback scheme were from the state's General Improvement Fund. The Legislature's method of distributing that money in local grants they controlled was found to be unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court last year.
Asked if General Improvement Fund grants steered by legislators in any form should be eliminated, House District 93 candidate Gayatri Agnew of Bentonville, a Democrat, said "Yes." Christie Craig, Hodges's Democratic opponent, concurred. Hodges and Rep. Jim Dotson, R-Bentonville, said they had long opposed such grants and were glad to see the Supreme Court shut them down. Dotson is Agnew's opponent.
All candidates at the forum agreed the state should recover the money awarded in the tainted grants, but several pointed out that's the object of court-ordered restitution in the corruption case.
In other issues, there was unanimous agreement among the candidates Northwest Arkansas needs more government highway spending. Craig pointed out new roads and other infrastructure creates "legacy costs" of maintaining them, something the state needs to factor in more than it tends to do. Huffman-Gilreath, who is a manager at the Rogers Water Utility, said water and sewer utilities need more state spending also.
The candidates split on partisan lines on whether to support the governor's call for a state income tax cut. Republicans supported the measure while Democrats argued the whole panel at the forum agreed there already was not enough money for highways. Republicans supported putting a separate highway measure on the ballot in 2020 to let the voters decide if they supported it. Comstock called that avoidance of lawmakers' responsibilities. Bledsoe said the people ought to have their say.
Agnew said she supported the governor's plan to simplify the state tax code, a part of his tax package plan, but couldn't support the proposed $105 million cut when students cannot get into the nurses training program at Northwest Arkansas Community College. Classes are full and there are no resources for more, she said.
NW News on 10/12/2018