Arkansas AR

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NO MERRI

see huckabee child labor?

ban books

promoted to 2ndary mebbe prematurely 4/16

see voter suppress

AR tag

AG ~ CPP

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AN 9 26

DARDANELLE — The annual Mount Nebo Chicken Fry, a mainstay of Arkansas politics for generations, saw a break from tradition this year.

In election years, the Democratic and Republican parties usually rent two cabins as their headquarters for the day while they make their case to potential voters lured to the campground by carriage rides, live music and chicken dinners. This year, the Libertarian party rented the Republican cabin.

The problem wasn’t a lack of Republican presence or interest but due to party members having previous commitments, said former Yell County GOP chairman Clay Hooten, who manned a tent the party used instead during the Aug. 29 event.

Even so, the two cabins were surrounded by signs promoting Democratic and Libertarian candidates on the November ballot. Democrat and Libertarian candidates, T-shirts and buttons outnumbered those of Republicans throughout the chicken fry, an unusual sight in the heart of a county where President Donald Trump won nearly 80% of the vote two years ago.

The scene was a small but hopeful sign for Democrats, whose efforts to break Republicans’ lock on Arkansas politics have fallen short for more than a decade. But Trump’s growing unpopularity, a recent poll and national attention surrounding races for the U.S. House and Senate are fueling Democrats’ belief that there’s an opening even in the reddest of states in November.

“I’m tired of people going to the polls to vote against something,” said Kelly Grappe, the Democratic nominee for secretary of state. “I want to give people something to vote for, and I have a vision for this state where the people truly do have a voice.”

The party still faces long odds in Arkansas, where top Republican candidates far outpace their Democratic rivals in fundraising. And at a time when national Democrats and political observers see Senate races in Republican-led states like Texas and Kansas as competitive, Arkansas isn’t viewed the same way. The Cook Political Report classifies the state’s races for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House as “solid Republican.”

But, with less than two months before Election Day, Democrats are trying to capitalize on what could be the most favorable political environment they’ve seen in years.

Quotation

We get people that call in that are Republicans that say, ‘I can’t vote for him. Tell me why I should vote for her.'

– Cindy Henry, a volunteer for Democrat Hallie Shoffner's U.S. Senate campaign

US Senate race heats up

The biggest prize for Democrats would be the Senate seat held by Republican Tom Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee who easily won his second term in 2020 with no Democratic opponent.

He’s seeking a third term against Democrat Hallie Shoffner, a sixth-generation farmer who closed her family’s Jackson County soybean farm last year due to financial strain she attributes to the Trump administration’s tariffs.

An August poll from Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College showed Shoffner with a slim lead over Cotton, within the margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points. Shoffner has also made national headlines for her campaign’s focus on her rural background, the increasing cost of living and portraying Cotton’s policy priorities as against Arkansans’ best interests.

Republicans have pushed back on the poll. Another poll from Washington D.C.-based J.L. Partners showed Cotton with a sizable lead over Shoffner, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

But the Talk Business poll has ramped up enthusiasm for Shoffner, said Cindy Henry, a retiree from North Little Rock who volunteers for the campaign two days a week.

“We’ll get 40 to 50 calls a day [from] all kinds of people wanting to be heard, with all kinds of issues: personal, medical, jobs, farms, you name it,” Henry said.

Cotton’s campaign emphasizes that he “helped pass the biggest middle-class tax cut in American history, cut regulations to drive down energy production costs, secured the border with President Trump, and fights for a stronger military, bringing home billions of dollars to Arkansas communities in the process,” a spokesperson said in a Friday email.

Two super PACs, America One and Arkansans for Democracy and Justice, have spent more than $3 million combined on text messages and ads assisting Cotton’s bid. His campaign portrays Shoffner as too far left for Arkansas, criticizing her for remarks she made this year supporting defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement “as it exists right now.”

Cotton’s campaign has also repeatedly highlighted Shoffner’s past donations to 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

Shoffner said in an interview that her campaign is “all about Arkansas,” accusing Cotton of trying to find a scapegoat for voters’ frustrations.

“I want to be the kind of public servant that looks to the future, a better future, and moves forward to that future,” she said.

Cotton has consistently allied himself with Trump, whose approval rating in Arkansas and nationwide has declined as the costs of necessities and groceries remain high.

Henry said she’s seen this firsthand as someone on Social Security and managing her family’s farm in Lonoke. Her farming income has plummeted while tariffs have raised the costs of insurance and utilities, she said.

The Arkansans that have contacted Shoffner’s campaign headquarters “want solutions, not rhetoric” and are becoming disillusioned with Cotton’s “same old song and dance,” Henry said.

“We get people that call in that are Republicans that say, ‘I can’t vote for him. Tell me why I should vote for her,’” Henry said.

Libertarian Jeff Wadlin, who is garnering single-digit support in polls, is hoping that voter discontent with both parties could help him.

Wadlin’s candidacy is for “politically homeless” Arkansas voters who “feel like we should just be solving problems like neighbors, working together and not getting angry with each other over cultural issues,” he told the audience at the Mount Nebo Chicken Fry’s pie auction.

Central Arkansas House seat considered in play

All four of Arkansas’ Republican U.S. House members face challengers this year, but it’s the Little Rock area where Democrats are once again directing the most attention.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently added the 2nd District seat held by Rep. French Hill to its list of GOP seats it’s targeting. The Talk Business & Politics poll indicates that Chris Jones, the Democrat challenging Hill in central Arkansas’ 2nd District, has a slim lead over Hill within the margin of error.

This isn’t the first time national Democrats have touted the 2nd District as flippable. Past efforts by Democrats, including by state Sen. Clarke Tucker in 2018 and former state Sen. Joyce Elliott in 2020, have been unsuccessful. And a 2021 redistricting plan that moved some Pulaski County voters into other districts made it more favorable to Republicans.

In an Aug. 19 Fox News appearance, Hill said he’s confident he will win reelection because Arkansans “want to support the most conservative candidate in the race.” He denounced the Democratic Socialists of America in the same segment but did not attempt to tie them to Jones, the Democratic nominee for Arkansas governor in 2022.

But, like Shoffner, Jones has attracted national attention. He won Harris’ endorsement, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg headlined a rally for Jones.

Jones said the poll numbers and support from outside Arkansas make him “cautiously optimistic and determined.” He says he often reminds voters that Hill’s voting record has aligned with Trump’s priorities, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, which is expected to cut rural Medicaid spending by $15.5 billion per year over the next decade.

“A lot of independents and Republicans are saying, ‘Okay, this is a bridge too far, it’s too much, and it’s time for a new direction,’” Jones said.

Hill said in a Friday email that he’s heard some of the same frustrations from voters: “that the cost of living is out of control, houses are too expensive, filling up the gas tank isn’t affordable, and that Washington doesn’t care about what’s going on.”

He said he’s been “working tirelessly to address” the cost of living, mentioning his support for eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay.

Hill also sponsored the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan bill that became law in July without Trump’s signature, removing some of the regulations on housing manufacturing and bank loans for homebuyers.

Libertarian spoilers?

A major question surrounding Arkansas’ midterm elections is the impact Libertarians could have.

The most prominent of the party’s candidates, gubernatorial hopeful Colt Shelby, had the stage to himself at the Mount Nebo Chicken Fry’s pie auction.

Neither Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders nor her Democratic opponent, state Sen. Fred Love of Mabelvale, was present at the chicken fry.

Shelby is from Franklin County, a typically Republican-voting area frustrated by the Sanders administration’s attempt to build a 3,000-bed prison in the county. He told the Mount Nebo audience that he takes “a common-sense approach” to running for office, which he’s never done before.

“You will not find anybody in this race that will work harder, smarter, better,” Shelby said.

Aaron Bratton, a physician from Russellville, said he’s voting for Shelby because “it’s time for an outsider” who isn’t “politically connected” to be governor because “neither major party represents people anymore.”

Sanders, whose campaign has more than $4.7 million in the bank, hasn’t engaged much with either Shelby or Love. She skipped a gubernatorial debate featuring the two at the Arkansas Press Association’s convention this year. Four years after launching her first campaign with a video prominently featuring Trump, her ads this year so far have focused on state issues like tax cuts and healthcare.

Stele James, who has held leadership roles with the Yell County Democratic Party, said he believes Shelby has a real chance of winning as “that moderate candidate right there on the ground.”

“I see my Republican friends and people on my side that are flocking to his campaign because they’re tired of the divisive nature that the two-party system has produced,” said James, the president of the Two Rivers School District board.

James said he’s also excited about Grappe’s campaign for secretary of state.

Grappe’s GOP opponent is state Sen. Kim Hammer of Benton, who sponsored several 2025 laws placing restrictions on citizens’ ability to change laws and the state constitution via ballot measures. Some of those laws were blocked in federal court on First Amendment grounds last month.

The secretary of state’s duties include oversight of the ballot initiative process, which Grappe said is “absolutely rigged against the people.” She also said she’s met many voters who don’t know what the secretary of state does, and she sees this as a failure of the office’s civic education arm.

Meeting with voters at Mount Nebo, Grappe wore a hat emblazoned with the state’s motto: Regnat populus, Latin for “the people rule.”

Arkansas’ voter turnout has frequently been among the lowest nationwide. This might be due to a shortage of choices that invigorate voters rather than “voter apathy,” said Michael Pakko, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Arkansas and the party’s nominee for secretary of state.

The party is also fielding candidates for lieutenant governor, commissioner of state lands, a handful of state legislative seats and the 1st and 3rd U.S. Congressional Districts.

“I hope that we’ve given you enough choices this year,” Pakko told Mount Nebo attendees.

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AN 3 26

Democrats flip GOP seat in deep-red Arkansas after suing Huckabee Sanders to force vote

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The Arkansas Supreme Court denied Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ request to stay two lower court orders requiring her to set earlier special election dates for two legislative vacancies Wednesday evening.

The court also rejected a request by Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office to consolidate the two cases.

The identical orders, which did not explain the justices’ reasoning, granted the state’s motions for expedited consideration of its appeals of the orders handed down by two Pulaski County Circuit judges last month. Associate Justice Rhonda Wood would have granted the request for a faster briefing schedule, according to the order. Associate Justice Barbara Webb did not participate.

“I am disappointed by the rulings and will continue to vigorously defend the Governor and Secretary of State,” Attorney General Tim Griffin said via a spokesperson. Griffin’s office is representing Sanders and Secretary of State Cole Jester in both lawsuits.

Sanders set special elections for the Senate District 26 and House District 70 seats earlier this year, after Sen. Gary Stubblefield of Branch died and Rep. Carlton Wing of North Little Rock resigned to lead Arkansas PBS in September. However, her decision to set the special elections for June 2026 — after the Legislature’s fiscal session in April — immediately generated bipartisan criticism and lawsuits from SD 26 and HD 70 voters, as well as the Democratic Party of Arkansas, who said it would deprive them of representation for important legislative deliberations on issues like education and prison funding.

Under Arkansas law, the governor is required to schedule a special election date to fill a vacancy within 150 days unless she found it was “impracticable or unduly burdensome” to do so. Further, if the election couldn’t be held within 150 days, it had to be held on the earliest practicable date after that statutory deadline.

A June 9 election would be 252 days after Wing’s Sept. 30 resignation — or 152 days after the 150-day mark. The average number of days a special election has been held after the 150-day mark since 2011 is about 25 days, according toan unpublished Senate memo.

Judges in both lawsuits sided with the plaintiffs and ordered Sanders to schedule the elections earlier, finding that the June 2026 dates were impermissible under state law and the U.S. and Arkansas constitutions, though the reasoning varied between the cases. In the HD 70 case, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Shawn Johnson explicitly ordered Sanders to set the general special election for March 3, 2026. In the SD 26 case, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Patricia James said Sanders needed to set it “as soon as practicable” after the 150-day deadline, but did not specify when.

Sanders subsequently appealed those orders to the Arkansas Supreme Court, asking the justices to consolidate the cases into a single appeal and put the lower court decisions on hold.*Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

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APRIL 2025 AN

Arkansas Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders — who was once President Donald Trump's White House press secretary — is now urging him to reverse his administration's denial of her disaster relief request.

Rolling Stone reported Wednesday that Sanders' initial request for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) following severe storms in her state was denied. She's since written a separate letter begging her former boss to intervene and reverse the denial.

“The severe storms and tornadoes that occurred on March 14 and 15, 2025, produced catastrophic impacts across the state. The sheer magnitude of this event resulted in overwhelming amounts of debris, widespread destruction to homes and businesses, the tragic loss of three lives and injuries to many others. Less than three weeks later, Arkansas was once again devastated by a second wave of severe storms, tornadoes, and a generational flooding event,” Sanders wrote.

READ MORE:(Opinion) Wall Street seems to have decided Trump is mentally unstable

“Without the support of a Major Disaster Declaration, Arkansas will face significant challenges in assuming full responsibility and achieving an effective recovery from this event," she continued. "I have determined that the severity and magnitude of these storms exceed the capabilities of the State and affected local governments to respond adequately. As such, supplemental Federal assistance is crucial.”

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Obtaining federal disaster relief may be difficult for even ruby-red states like Arkansas during Trump's second term. He has previously floated getting rid of FEMA entirely, following the destructive wildfires in Southern California earlier this year. And a recent report found that his administration's cuts to FEMA have since put hurricane-prone red states like Florida and Texas in a perilous position as hurricane season begins in June.

FEMA found itself embroiled in politics even before Trump's victory last November. After Hurricane Helene devastated much of the South in October, agency personnel found themselves under attack following threats from local residents in North Carolina. Misinformation about FEMA first responders proliferated after the storm, and resulted in aid being temporarily paused while the agency made efforts to keep its employees safe.

The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 manifesto called for FEMA to be gutted and eventually privatized, in addition to privatizing the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) which was authorized by Congress in the 1960s.

READ MORE:'Alito sounds nervous': Even notorious Trump enablers are sounding the alarm

Click here to read Rolling Stone's full report (subscription required).

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Christian Nationalist Jason Rapert Topples The Arkansas State Library Board | People For

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an 12 24

as public libraries throughout Arkansas have come under scrutiny in recent years, some have faced uncertainty about the future of their funding sources, which determine what resources they offer their communities.

The only library system that has seen a funding cut so far is the one in Craighead County, where citizens narrowly voted in 2022 to halve the property tax dedicated to library funding.

Craighead County residents who supported the defunding had previously decried the availability of books they considered “inappropriate for minors.” Their protests started in 2021, in response to an LGBTQ+ book display and a transgender author’s visit to the library.

Other counties saw the same argument over content in the following years, fueled in part by a state law that would change how librarians handle content challenges and criminalize their decisions about materials. Parts of Act 372 of 2023 were temporarily blocked in federal court in 2023 and permanently blocked Monday. Outcry over “inappropriate” books quieted down in 2024.

At the same time, claims that libraries are overfunded have come to the forefront, sometimes in communities where there has been no organized backlash against the books on the shelves. Residents of three counties tried to gather support for ballot measures this year to reduce their libraries’ property tax millage.

The measure to cut Lawrence County’s millage in half failed by a large margin, and officials in Saline and Garland counties declared the measures ineligible for the ballot. Meanwhile, an effort to restore some of Craighead County’s library funding failed.

Northeast Arkansas county voters reject proposal to restore library funding

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Librarians and library advocates have said they are heartened by public opposition to defunding efforts. They have also expressed frustration about the challenge of convincing some local governments and community members to trust them to be financially responsible.

To fend off future defunding efforts, librarians need to educate Arkansans on “how library funding works” and “how libraries operate in general,” said Adam Webb, the incoming president of the Arkansas Library Association and executive director of the Garland County Library.

Libraries in two other counties have not faced active defunding efforts, but county government officials have publicly put the libraries’ finances under a microscope. A judge ordered the Crawford County Library in September to stop separating LGBTQ+ books from the rest of the collection, and county officials want the library to pay the legal fees of the patrons who sought the order. Governance of Marion County’s library is up in the air after the director’s arrest in early December for alleged financial crimes.

Additionally, some Republican state officials have said libraries’ funding should be granted only under certain conditions.

Some critics of libraries have claimed they are left-wing entities. Libraries are nonpartisan, though they cannot be considered neutral “when you have every type of speech that the world can come up with in one building,” Webb said.

“All we’re doing is standing up for First Amendment rights and protecting free speech, so it’s frustrating that when people aren’t getting their way, the natural recourse is to just defund [libraries],” he said.

Local conflicts over library funding

In August 2023, Saline County Judge Matt Brumley fired county library director Patty Hector after the quorum court granted him the power to do so. Hector had refused to relocate books with “sexual content or imagery” out of children’s reach at the quorum court’s urging after Act 372 became law.

Officials in one Central Arkansas county consider shifting library authority to county judge

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Hector’s decision met hostility from some members of the public. Some of those individuals sent the library a series of Arkansas Freedom of Information Act requests, later claiming at meetings that both the financial information they received and the library’s slow FOIA response time were signs of misconduct.

Craighead County saw a similar pattern of FOIA requests and accusations of financial wrongdoing by citizens who wanted LGBTQ+ books moved away from children and later supported defunding the library. Saline County residents who supported the library warned the quorum court that the campaign against Hector and LGBTQ+ books likely preceded a defunding campaign as well.

In October of this year, the Saline Courier reported that Brumley rejected a citizen-led effort to put a measure on the November ballot to cut the library’s funding. Amendment 38 of the Arkansas Constitution requires at least 100 signatures from “taxpaying electors” for a proposal to change the tax levy that funds a local library.

Webb said Amendment 38 is a “criminally low standard” for putting library funding up to a public vote. Codie Crumpton, secretary of the Saline County Republican Women, submitted 171 signatures to Brumley in favor of reducing the county library millage from 1.7 to 0.9 mills.

Concerns about both financial mismanagement, based on the FOIA responses, and children’s access to certain books made circulating the petition “a good option,” Crumpton said. She and her cohorts haven’t seen “any sort of meaningful change” since Hector’s firing, she said, and she expressed disappointment that Leigh Espey, Hector’s successor as Saline County Library director, has “stood her ground” when approached about controversial library content.

Crumpton said she plans to circulate another petition after she “learned a lesson” from Brumley’s rejection of the first one over technicalities.

Petition (alone) to decrease library tax

The Saline County Library Alliance, a nonpartisan organization that formed to support the library in 2023, was prepared for the defunding petition and will be prepared for another one, organizer Bailey Morgan said.

“They were so loud with the content argument that we were able to get ahead of the funding argument,” Morgan said. “Moving forward will be a continuation of that. We will let folks know that the library is not stealing your money, that very little of your property tax actually goes to the library and [defunding] would be a savings of a few dollars at best.”

Some Saline County residents said last year that Hector should be investigated over the library’s finances. There was no such investigation in Saline County, but there was one in Marion County that culminated in the now-former library director’s arrest on Dec. 2.

The county sheriff’s office charged Dana Scott with two counts of tampering with public records and one count of failure to pay or file tax returns, both of which are Class D felonies. Scott pleaded not guilty on Dec. 10. Her attorney, Samuel Pasthing, declined to comment at this stage in the case.

Scott’s arrest came after years of scrutiny and criticism of the library from the Marion County quorum court, which repeatedly declined to include in the county budget the library board’s recommended merit pay raise for Scott.

Quorum court member Claudia Brigham sent the library a series of FOIA requests in August and September asking for detailed financial documents, such as cash logs, the library’s tax ID number and the dollar amount of merchandise the library sold in recent years. The Advocate obtained the requests via its own FOIA query.

Brigham attended several library board meetings earlier this year, and she repeatedly asked the board for financial information and criticized what she saw as a lack of transparency, according to meeting minutes. She did not respond to requests for comment and will not be on the quorum court after Dec. 31.

North Arkansas library director arrested on felony charges after financial misconduct investigation

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Library oversight

The Marion County sheriff’s investigation into Scott began after Alesia Owen filed a complaint with the local prosecuting attorney raising questions about library finances. Owen was a library board member from February 2022 to August 2024, and board meeting minutes from those two and a half years indicate Owen did not publicly express financial concerns to the board. She declined to comment when reached by phone.

Public libraries are required by state law to have five-member administrative boards. Three days after Scott’s arrest, County Judge Jason Stumph dismissed all four library board members, with one seat vacant after Owen’s resignation. Stumph told the board its dismissal was accountability for not supervising Scott more closely.

Quorum courts are responsible for confirming new county library board members after the county judge makes recommendations from a pool of applicants. Brumley reminded the Saline County Library board of this power in May 2023, in light of Hector’s refusal to relocate LGBTQ+ books, and criticized what he saw as insufficient oversight of Hector and library finances.

Brumley urged the library board to hire an accounting firm to audit the library, but the board’s efforts to do so have yielded no results over a year later. Hector said private auditors have been unwilling to engage because the state’s nonpartisan government oversight arm, Arkansas Legislative Audit, already examines libraries as part of required annual audits of all 75 counties.

Patty Hector (right), then-director of the Saline County Library, listens during public comment on a resolution that would restrict children’s access to books that contain “sexual content or imagery” at an April 17, 2023, meeting of the county Quorum Court. Hector was fired on Oct. 9, 2023, and Leigh Espey (left) succeeded her as library director. (John Sykes/Arkansas Advocate)

The state’s audit of Saline County in 2023 found no issues with the library. The same was true of Marion County’s 2022 and 2023 audits.

Hector said it’s unlikely that a state auditor’s “very thorough and professional” examination of library finances would have missed the alleged crimes in the charges facing Scott.

Library finances face “a higher level of scrutiny… than other political subdivisions” due to state audits, library board supervision and local governments’ approval of the budgets, Webb said, creating “more potential for catching errors.”

However, audits are rarely mentioned by libraries’ detractors because “it undercuts the narrative that libraries are fiscally irresponsible,” Webb said.

State funding

The Arkansas State Library Board disburses taxpayer funds to public libraries on a quarterly basis. Jason Rapert, a former Republican state senator appointed to the board in 2023, argued at all four board meetings this year that libraries with “sexually explicit” content within children’s reach should not receive state funds.

Rapert’s defunding attempts have failed due to opposition from the other six board members, including Shari Bales of Hot Springs, who was appointed alongside Rapert.

When Garland County officials were tasked with approving or rejecting the petition to reduce the county library’s funding, Bales was one of many county residents to urge officials at a public hearing to keep the measure off the ballot. She called Rapert’s efforts “an existential threat” to libraries and said “local funding is paramount” to libraries’ survival.

Shari Bales, a member of the Arkansas State Library Board, listens to a speaker during a meeting on Friday, November 8, 2024. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate)

County Judge Darryl Mahoney rejected the proposed ballot measure in September.

Rapert has called for the state Legislature to abolish the State Library Board in response to its rejection of his efforts to keep children away from materials he said are “grooming” them.

Sen. Bart Hester of Cave Springs, one of Rapert’s former Republican colleagues and the Senate President Pro Tempore, agreed that “pornography” should not be allowed in libraries and that “a state board that is intent on sexualizing children” should be dissolved if it doesn’t “get on board.”

Another Republican senator, Dan Sullivan of Jonesboro, was the primary sponsor of Act 372 of 2023 and has also said the state should defund ArLA. The nonprofit advocacy organization receives no state funds.

Sullivan has also said the Legislature should “eliminate all the funding for public libraries that have the American Library Association in their policy” during the 2025 legislative session. ALA is ArLA’s parent organization, and its Library Bill of Rights states that access to libraries should not be restricted based on a person’s age. Far-right conservatives nationwide have claimed this statement is proof that the ALA believes in forcing content about sexual activity and LGBTQ+ topics onto children.

A Democrat-sponsored bill introduced for the 2025 session would repeal Act 372 and require public libraries to have “a written policy prohibiting the practice of banning books or other materials because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval” in order to receive state funding. The 2025 legislative session begins Jan. 13.

Saline County residents worried in 2023 that the library’s state funding would be in jeopardy due to the quorum court granting the county judge power over library staffing and finances. They were concerned that the board would be labeled advisory rather than administrative as required by the State Library. Espey told the Advocate those fears did not come true, and State Library Board minutes show the Saline County Library’s allotted funds have remained consistent.

Brigham, the Marion County quorum court member, proposed an ordinance in February 2022 that would have redesignated the county library board from administrative to advisory. The proposal saw public pushback over potential funding loss. It was pulled from the quorum court’s agenda and never received a vote, county clerk Dawn Moffet said this month.

February 2022 Marion County library board proposal (pulled from agenda)

Another requirement for state funding is a library director with a master’s degree in library science. Suzy McVay, the Marion County Library employee tapped as interim manager after Scott’s arrest, does not have this degree.

The State Library allows libraries in Marion County’s position to form agreements with librarians in other counties that have the requisite education. Those individuals would handle certain aspects of library administration, such as reports to the State Library, and allow the local entity to keep receiving state funds.

Stumph said via email that he is considering this option for Marion County.

Impact on library services

If the Lawrence County millage cut had passed, library director Ashley Burris said, the county’s part-time library branches in Lynn and Imboden would have closed, leaving only the main branch in Walnut Ridge. Cuts to staff and programming would also have been necessary, she said.

Coty Powers, who collected signatures for the ballot measure under Amendment 38, said he believed some of the library’s programs were “redundant.” He does not plan to reintroduce the proposal because “the people have spoken,” he said.

Powers and other Lawrence County residents wanted some of the library’s funding to go toward improving county roads instead. Burris said she spoke to several signers of the petition who were under the impression that tax money taken away from the library would immediately benefit the road department.

“I would explain to them, ‘Actually, no, the only thing on this [petition] is to cut library funding,’” Burris said. “They would be surprised by this and end up with a sign in their yard to support the library.”

In Garland County, the proposed 0.6-mill tax reduction would have cut the library’s budget by $1 million and might have forced it to reduce its hours or limit its more expensive services, Webb said.

The Craighead County Jonesboro Public Library cut 13 employees and reduced its hours of operation to adjust to the loss of funding. After the refunding effort in Jonesboro failed in November, director Vanessa Adams said the library’s reserve funds will be necessary to keep the doors open, and she did not anticipate another restoration issue on the 2026 ballot.

Dean MacDonald, who collected signatures for the refunding petition, said county residents should continue to fight the “bad narratives” against the library and highlight its struggles since the defunding.

“If 100 good people want to see [restoring millage] on the ballot in 2026, then it’s absolutely their right and they should do just that,” MacDonald said.

They were so loud with the content argument that we were able to get ahead of the funding argument. Moving forward will be a continuation of that. We will let folks know that the library is not stealing your money.

– Bailey Morgan, an organizer with the Saline County Library Alliance

Meanwhile in Crawford County, the library board and county officials disagree over who is responsible for paying a projected sum of more than $118,000 in plaintiffs’ legal costs after losing the case over the segregation of LGBTQ+ books in “social sections.”

The five-branch library system might have to reduce its broadband internet speed and after-school meal services if it’s forced to shoulder the cost, board chairman Keith Pigg said, but a federal judge has yet to order the payment of the legal fees.

Three parents sued the library in May 2023 over the social sections, saying they violated the First Amendment. Former library director Deidre Grzymala said it was a “compromise” in response to public outcry. The quorum court gave her a $40,000 severance package after her resignation.

Pigg has said the quorum court violated Amendment 38 by paying the severance with library funds without the board’s consent. The amendment states, “No claim against [designated library] funds shall be approved by the County Court unless first approved by the County Library Board.”

Crawford County was also a defendant in the case against Act 372 due to its segregation of books, which ended in October.

Community members have not been complaining about library content since the resolution of the lawsuit, Crawford County Library director Charlene McDonnough said. She and Hector said the citizens of their respective counties that complained about books were usually not library patrons.

“That tells me it wasn’t ever about the books,” said Hector, who plans to take legal action against Saline County for her firing.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

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Finally, unable to get his agenda adopted by the fellow members of the Arkansas State Library Board, Jason Rapert is "of the opinion that the state of Arkansas would be better served if the Arkansas Legislature would abolish the board completely."

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jason Rapert Says Members of the Arkansas State Library Board ‘Probably Should Be Tarred and Feathered’

[ | August 26, 2024 rww

In 2023, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed Christian nationalist activist and a zealously anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice former state senator Jason Rapert to the state library board. Predictably, his tenure on the board has been anything but smooth, with Rapert regularly lashing out at his fellow board members for refusing to support his far-right agenda and complaining that he’s been experiencing a “hostile work environment” because he is “a Christian white male.”

During a recent episode of his “Save The Nation” program, Rapert’s frustrations boiled over as he called on the state legislature to abolish the library board entirely, declaring that his fellow board members “probably should be tarred and feathered.”

“The Bible says, ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,'” Rapert said. “Well, when you have leaders that are not allowing the nation to be blessed of God, they’re not doing godly things, you need to replace them, get rid of them, get them out of office, put people back in there that will. You’ve got schools where they’re fighting over allowing homosexual, LGBTQ material to be utilized to groom children. … There needs to be people that will take up and sue anybody that is allowing that sort of thing to go on in our school districts and in our libraries.”

“I serve on the Arkansas Library Board,” Rapert continued. “I cannot get those other board members to take a stand to stop some of the smut that is in those libraries. It’s ridiculous. I’ve made motions trying to do it, and I am at a point now where it’s going to take so long to get new board members on there, if I were the legislature, I would run a bill just to abolishing the Arkansas State Library Board and let it be reconstituted. Put new people in there, or maybe they just need to call on people to resign if you’re not going to do your job.”

“When you don’t protect children in America, you have no business serving in a public official’s role,” Rapert griped. “You have no business serving on a board, you have no business serving in a state legislature, you have no business being an elected official at any level if you’re not going to protect children. When you get to a point that you’re so confused and you’re so completely jaded that you cannot make a decision to keep smut or pornographic stuff [away from] children, you’ve lost your ever-loving mind and you need to be replaced. You need to be taken out. Some people say, ‘Oh, he’s talking about violence.’ No, I’m not talking about violence. You need to be run out on a rail. You probably should be tarred and feathered. That’s what they used to do in America is they would tar and feather those kind of folks. Get rid of them. Teach them a lesson. Get them out of office.”

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Jason Rapert Says Members of the Arkansas State Library Board 'Probably Should Be Tarred and Feathered' from Right Wing Watch on Vimeo.

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Kate Riga

December 27, 2023

In their endless quest to further defang the Voting Rights Act and gerrymander their way into permanent control, Republican officials have launched a double-headed attack on the landmark civil rights law.

The new attacks emerge as Republican politicians attempt to wriggle out of judges’ orders requiring that they draw additional, majority-minority, likely Democratic districts in their states, which could imperil their party’s thin majority in the House of Representatives.

The attacks on the already-weakened VRA take two forms: arguing that the law doesn’t protect districts controlled by coalitions of multiple minority groups, and that only the U.S. attorney general — not individual voters represented by good government groups, as is most common — can bring lawsuits under the section of the law concerning illegal vote dilution.

Individuals’ Ability To Sue Under Section 2

Arkansas

In perhaps the most stunning voting rights decision this year, a split 8th Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that only the U.S. attorney general can bring VRA lawsuits under Section 2 — a wild break with precedent, decades of VRA cases, legislative intent and Supreme Court writing on the subject.

At least two Supreme Court justices — Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — had telegraphed their skepticism about the validity of suits brought by voting rights groups and other non-Department of Justice actors, called private rights of action. That likely prompted a Donald Trump-appointed district judge hearing an Arkansas gerrymandering dispute to raise questions about the mechanism (which neither party had) in the first place. Two 8th Circuit judges pounced on appeal.

If the 8th Circuit decision stands, VRA litigation would plummet even under Democratic administrations due to the simple reality that the DOJ cannot replace the volume of lawsuits, aimed at protecting the vote, brought each year by civil rights groups around the country. Such litigation would likely end altogether under Republican administrations.

The plaintiffs in that case, led by the Arkansas state conference NAACP, have asked for the case to be reheard en banc, in the hopes that the full circuit will overturn the ruling of two of its judges (both of whom made the Supreme Court shortlist during the Trump administration).

“The full Court should grant rehearing to reaffirm that a private right of action exists to enforce Section 2 of the VRA,” they wrote. “For almost 60 years — across hundreds of federal cases, including in the Supreme Court and this Court — the uniform answer has been ‘yes.’ By a 2-1 vote, the divided panel abruptly fractured this line of unbroken precedent.”

They noted that since 1982, more than 400 Section 2 cases have been litigated, almost all of which were brought by individuals. “Of the 182 successful Section 2 cases in that time,” they added, “only 15 were brought by the Attorney General alone.”

The court has ordered a response to the petition for the full circuit to hear the case by December 26.

Louisiana

Sensing an opportunity, Louisiana Republicans — perhaps the most energetic of all in their attempts to avoid drawing an additional majority-minority district — quickly glommed on to the Arkansas case. They invoked the 8th Circuit decision in an unsuccessful attempt to get en banc rehearing of their own case, where a 5th Circuit panel upheld a lower court’s finding that the congressional maps likely violate the VRA.

“New and important precedent has been handed down after the panel’s decision was published, which creates a definitive circuit split as to whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Acts (“VRA”) confers a private right of action,” they wrote last month. “Just two days ago, the 8th Circuit ruled that Section 2 does not confer a private right of action. The State tendered the same argument with this Court, but it reached the opposite conclusion.”

They argued that the new circuit split strengthens their case for a more rigorous rehearing.

Voters and the NAACP retorted that a reversal in the Louisiana case would not remedy the circuit split the 8th Circuit created and reminded the court that they’d also brought their challenge under a separate law, covering their bases.

The panel ultimately rejected the Louisiana officials’ bid for a full circuit hearing — a convenient method of delay, the voters and NAACP pointed out — and the legislature is expected to produce a new map during a special session in mid-January.

Multi-Minority Group Coalitions

Georgia

Federal district judge Steve Jones wasn’t coy when he ordered Georgia lawmakers to draw an additional Black-majority district: “The State cannot remedy the Section 2 violations described herein by eliminating minority opportunity districts elsewhere in the plans,” he wrote.

But Republican lawmakers did just that, shuffling Black voters around and decimating Rep. Lucy McBath’s (D-GA) district — where a coalition of Black, Asian and Latino voters typically elect Democrats — in the process of drawing the court-ordered new district. Plaintiffs immediately lodged their objections to the new map, fuming that it “makes a mockery” of the judge’s order.

At a Wednesday hearing, Jones reportedly said that he’d take until late January to decide whether the new maps are in compliance. If he decides that they’re not — ruling that these kinds of coalitions are protected by the VRA the same way single-minority group districts are — he’ll appoint a special master to draw remedial maps. Republican officials would almost certainly try to challenge that finding, hoping to get the question before a VRA-hostile Supreme Court.

Texas

Another case out of Galveston County, Texas pushes on this same question. There, a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals panel reluctantly upheld a lower court’s finding that the county commissioner map was a violation of the VRA. It also asked the full 5th Circuit to overturn its own precedent.

“The court’s decisions in this respect are wrong as a matter of law,” the judges wrote. “The text of Section 2 does not support the conclusion that distinct minority groups may be aggregated for purposes of vote-dilution claims.”

Earlier this month, the conservatives on the Supreme Court allowed the maps — found by two courts to be illegal — to stand without comment. The liberal dissenters were less taciturn.

“In imposing a different map, acknowledged to violate current law — on the theory that the Circuit might someday change that law — the Court of Appeals went far beyond its proper authority,” chided Justice Elena Kagan.

The full 5th Circuit will hear the critical case in May

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Anti-LGBTQ Christian Nationalist Leader Joins Arkansas State Library Board | Right Wing Watch

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writing for the Arkansas Times, Austin Bailey and Lindsey Millar trashed thestate's new "MAGA" governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, once former President Donald Trump's press secretary, and the GOP-dominated state legislature, saying that they "stomped on the poor" and disadvantaged groups without solving any real problems for their constituents.

"Supercharged by a mountain of MAGA money and an even bigger ego, Gov. Sarah Sanders called all the shots," they wrote. "The supermajority Republican legislature raced to do her bidding. Their rubber stamp on all of Sanders’ priorities (vouchers, prison expansion, tax cuts) marked a vast departure from the last administration, when Asa Hutchinson’s pro-gun, pro-life record failed to impress an increasingly insane right-wing extremist legislative branch.Where Hutchinson recoiled from drama, Sanders pursued it, eager to throw Trumpian blows of staggering cruelty if it landed her on Fox News. Her foot soldiers didn’t seem to mind Sanders’ obvious bid to get out of Arkansas and back on the national stage as soon as possible. It wouldn’t have mattered if they did. Republican lawmakers knew to expect a primary challenger to knock them out of office if they dared veer out of lockstep."

"Saying it’s the worst session ever feels trite, too flip to capture the brutality heaped on all but the wealthiest and most insulated," they continued. "Not only did lawmakers do nothing to protect Arkansans from our chart-topping gun death rates, they voted instead to protect the gun companies from us. A new law passed this session bars state entities from investing with firms that eschew the industry profiting off our homicide epidemic. Protecting children got lots of lip service, but no real action. Requiring proof of age and identity to get a social media account or view online porn, laws passed allegedly to protect kids, will be a boon for identity theft but won’t likely shield many innocent eyes. Threatening librarians with jail time if they allow young people to view or check out books about sex is not only a direct assault on free speech, but also a surefire way to maintain Arkansas’s spot as the state with the most teen pregnancies."

Through all of this, they noted, the state also rolled back child labor laws and refused to compromise on one of the most extreme abortion bans in the entire country — while planning to erect a "monument to the unborn" with taxpayer money.

Sanders has faced personal embarrassment throughout the session; previous reporting detailed how a job application to the state required people to describe something they admired about her, which was quickly walked back as soon as it was reported.

"Arkansas’s wealthy and its businesses are safer than ever, having easily secured tax cuts by simply pointing fingers at transgender children and woke librarians, then grabbing the cash when no one was looking," they concluded. "Most of us didn’t get much of anything beyond the insult that the schools we send our children to — schools that anchor our communities — are hotbeds of inadequacy and indoctrination that anyone with the means should flee at their first opportunity. Is this really what Arkansas voted for?"

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

• Sarah Sanders asks applicants to name what they admire most about her while applying for state board job ›
• Sarah Huckabee Sanders signs law gutting child labor protections for minors under 16 years old ›
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an 2 23  child labor

https://www.alternet.org/sarah-huckabee-sanders-2659557134/

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a group of quick-witted teenagers managed to insert their objections to an Arkansas education bill over the repeated attempts by a Republican legislator to shut down their arguments.

The state Senate ultimately approved Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' education bill, known as the LEARNS Act, which would implement school vouchers that opponents say would "usher in a new era of segregation" in Arkansas schools, and students from Little Rock Central High School found a way to speak out against the wishes of state Sen. Jane English, reported the Arkansas Times, which described the students' maneuvering as having successfully "outwitted" the legislator.

“I’m sorry, you just don’t get to talk on the bill," English told the students. "If you want to talk on this amendment, specifically things that are in this amendment, you’re free to do that, but you cannot speak on the bill.”

The students had missed two previous hearings on the measure that were held during school hours, and English told them the bill had already passed both chambers so they could only comment on a six-page amendment that had been sent back to the education committee for debate.

“I’d like to speak on the amendments, and how they do not go far enough to tear down and decimate this bill,” said student Ethan Walker, over repeated interruptions by English. “These petty little wording rearrangements don’t do anything to address how bad this bill actually is."

Another student, sophomore Rhone Kuta, worked around English's objections by referencing a specific line on a specific page, as the Republican chair repeatedly interrupted him.

"Where it deletes ‘and’ and substitutes ‘or,' the reasons I believe this amendment is bad is, this should actually say we are deleting the voucher program on section 63 because the voucher program absolutely reallocates resources from the working class Americans and Arkansans and reallocates it to the upper class," Kuta said.

He was able to work in criticism of a ban on teaching anti-racism content before English sent him back to his seat, and other students who followed managed to roll through English's objections by pointing to specific passages and calling for more sweeping amendments to the bill.

"The amendment that says page 90 line 3, delete ‘and’ and substitute ‘or,’ is insufficient because there’s nothing that amends the clause that is talking about having school choice policies that will make it so that students who are minority groups will be left in public schools while privileged students go to private schools," said senior Gryffyn May.

The adults who followed the students were given their full two minutes of public comment without much trouble from English, and Little Rock School Board member Ali Noland told the committee chair she had inadvertently given the teens a much larger platform by attempting to silence their criticism.

“By talking to them and cutting them off in this way, believe me, you are giving them much more of a platform than you would have if you had just listened to their criticism of the amendment in the first place," Noland said. "They showed up after school on their own time to tell you these amendments do not satisfy their concerns.”

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DeSantis’ critics fear that Sarah Sanders will 'import' his 'bad education' policies to Arkansas

Alex Henderson

December 30, 2022

In Arkansas, Gov.-Elect Sarah Huckabee Sanders is turning to the Ron DeSantis playbook for public education, 

announcing that she will be nominating Florida education official Juan Oliva to head the...

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fox replaces huckabee run for governor

https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/kayleigh-mcenany-fox-news/

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hope?

kos

backers of putting an initiative on Arkansas’ November ballot to create anindependent redistricting commission have announced that they have filed 50,000 more signatures following a 30-day deadline extension by Arkansas’ Supreme Court while it reviews supporters’ appeal of GOP Secretary of State John Thurston’s decision to reject all of their signatures as supposedly invalid. Thurston contends that signature-gatherers for this initiative and a separate one to adopt a form of instant-runoff voting had not “passed” background checks, even though the groups certified that they had “acquired” them.

Redistricting reformers had already submitted nearly 100,000 signaturesbefore the initial deadline earlier this summer, and combined with this latest tranche of signatures, they should have a sufficient cushion to ensure that at least 89,000 are valid statewide and are of a number equivalent to 5% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election in at least 15 of Arkansas’ 75 counties—that is, if the state Supreme Court overturns Thurston’s decision to reject all of their signatures in the first place.

A federal appeals court had recently rejected allowing supporters to gather signatures without being witnessed in person, which a lower court had enabled so that voters could sign the forms at home and mail them in. However, while the plaintiffs haven’t indicated whether they would appeal that ruling, the fact that they just submitted tens of thousands of additional signatures shows that their loss in federal court may not end up defeating the ballot effort.

If this effort does qualify for the ballot and wins voter approval, it would prevent Arkansas Republicans from gerrymandering the congressional and legislative districts for the first time since at least the Reconstruction era, if not ever...

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/reformers-submit-signatures-to-put-a-measure-to-end-gerrymandering-on-arkansas-ballot-this-fall/

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/reformers-submit-signatures-to-put-a-measure-to-end-gerrymandering-on-arkansas-ballot-this-fall/

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/anti-mask-arkansas-senator-who-called-coronavirus-a-hoax-gets-covid-19/

homophobe  christianist

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icn 620

inside Clean Energy: Rooftop Solar Gets a Lifeline in Arkansa

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders: ‘I’ve been called’ to run for office — but ‘I don’t like being called a liar’

David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement

Huckabee Sanders may get a home in the governor's mansion, despite her well-documented lies.

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fac so

Southern legislatures take aim at direct democracy

After voters approved a constitutional amendment restoring the franchise to people with felony convictions, Florida lawmakers are trying to make it harder for citizens to put amendments on the ballot. Legislators in Arkansas, the only other Southern state that allows citizen-initiated amendments, did likewise after voters passed a minimum-wage hike.

[also have to pay any fees/fines to get vote back

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/a-federal-judge-just-struck-a-blow-to-the-trump-administrations-cruel-plot-to-gut-medicaid/

On Wednesday, a federal judge dealt a massive blow to one of the Trump administration’s pet projects.

Washington, D.C. District Court judge James Boasberg struck down work requirements in Kentucky and Arkansas, ruling that the waivers granted by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar were not valid because work requirements do not further the Medicaid Act’s mission of improving public health.

The rules differ in some ways, but both broadly require certain Medicaid recipients to complete a minimum number of work or community service hours each month and provide proof to the state.

Kentucky’s work requirement, known as Kentucky HEALTH, was the first to be approved by the Trump administration but was struck down last year by the same judge, and the newly revised rules were scheduled to take effect on April 1. Arkansas has already implemented its work requirement system, known as Arkansas Works, with disastrous consequences — over 18,000 people in the state have lost Medicaid coverage, many of whom actually were working but couldn’t figure out how to meet the state’s confusing reporting requirements, especially those in rural areas who don’t have easy access to the internet.

Boasberg criticized Arkansas for doing virtually nothing to help Medicaid recipients understand and comply with the new work requirement, saying “the State’s outreach efforts may well be falling severely short.” He further criticized Kentucky, which argued that their work requirement does further the mission of expanding health coverage because Gov. Matt Bevin intended to cancel Medicaid expansion entirely if he didn’t get his way: “The Court cannot concur that … states are so armed to refashion the program Congress designed in any way they choose.”

Several other Republican-controlled states are currently seeking approval for similar work requirement programs.

Medicaid is a joint federal-state program — both Congress and the states provide funding, and the states are in charge of administering the program within their borders. The Medicaid Act sets strict guidelines about how the program can be run, but the Department of Health and Human Services can approve what are called “Section 1115” waivers if a state has a custom-designed plan that would promote health and coverage beyond what traditional Medicaid does. The Trump administration is trying to flip this on its head, encouraging states to apply for waivers that will lead to fewer people being covered.

Boasberg’s ruling holds that states cannot use Section 1115 waivers in this manner. “That provision of the Act does not turn the comprehensive Medicaid program into a buffet for states,” he wrote.

Medicaid work requirements are a particular passion of Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. She has claimed that denying low-income people health coverage is actually good for them, insisting that “it is not compassionate to trap people on government programs or create greater dependency on public assistance.” She has also claimed that work requirements do further the mission of Medicaid, pointing to studies that show people with jobs tend to be healthier (when in reality the correlation is probably the other way around.)

Arkansas and Kentucky were early adopters of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, which made the program available to people up to 138 percent of the poverty line. The Affordable Care Act originally required states to expand Medicaid, but a Supreme Court ruling allowed states to decide whether they wanted to or not. Republicans in these states are now intent on chipping away at this progress, and work requirements are one way the Trump administration is encouraging them to do it.

For now, that effort has hit a roadblock.

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ban zinn

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/evidence-mounting-koch-industries-paper-plant-poisoning-people-arkansas-video

he economic pulse of Crossett, a small town of some 5,500 people in west Arkansas, has long been measured through the paper and pulp processing plant owned by the Atlanta-based Georgia-Pacific. A subsidiary of Koch Industries, Georgia-Pacific is one of the world's largest manufacturers of pulp and paper products, including paper towels (like Brawny) and toilet paper (like Angel Soft).

A bulwark of the blue-collar community, Georgia-Pacific has provided generations of families with a steady stream of well-paid jobs replete with health packages and retirement plans. The plant in Crossett employs around 1,200 people, over three-quarters of whom are from the town or surrounding Ashley County. Many speculate that without the plant, Crossett would simply wither and die. But others fear that the plant has already been slowly poisoning those who live there for decades.

“People are afraid—afraid and scared to say something,” said David Bouie, who worked at the plant for about 10 years, his wife for over 25 years. They live in Crossett, and suffer respiratory and sinus problems, sore throats, nausea and allergies—symptoms, he says, that are shared among many of his neighbors.

“They don’t want to be part of something that could see the mill go away,” Bouie, 69, said. “But we don’t want the mill to go away, we just want it to be fixed and to operate within compliance of the law.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory, Georgia Pacific emits approximately 1.5 million pounds of pollutants every year, including highly toxic chemicals like dioxins, formaldehyde and naphthalene. Then there’s the 45 million gallons of wastewater Georgia-Pacific is permitted to release every day....

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2014 election

Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan's bid to defend her seat against Republican challenger Thom Tillis is shaping up to be one of the most expensive U.S. Senate races in history: a flood of more than $103 million in spending from the campaigns and outside groups, according to The Charlotte Observer. This month, the spending spree has translated into about three TV ads every five minutessupporting -- or, more frequently, attacking -- one of the North Carolina candidates.

Yet as money-drenched as the Hagan/Tillis contest may be, voters in Arkansas and other Southern states may be feeling even more battered by the barrage of political spending this election season.

North Carolina is one of five states in the South with Senate races in 2014 that will determine whether the chamber is controlled by Democrats or Republicans. With more than 6.6 million registered voters, North Carolina is also the biggest of the Southern Senate battlegrounds, so the more than $100 million in projected spending has to cover more ground and reach more people.

By contrast, while smaller states like Arkansas, Kentucky and Louisiana are being targeted with less total spending, on a per-voter basis these states are experiencing an even greater deluge of election money relative to the size of their population.

A Facing South/Institute for Southern Studies analysis looked at the money flowing through the five Southern Senate races and compared it to the number of voters in each state. The following chart shows how the states compare in election cash per voter (click on it for a larger version):

...

Rep. Tom Cotton has attracted nearly $58 million, with more than $35 million of that coming from super PACs and other outside groups. While much less than the money total for North Carolina's senate seat, Arkansas has only a quarter of the voters in North Carolina, adding up to more than $34 in election money per voter so far.

Kentucky, where incumbent Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell leads over Democratic challenger Allison Grimes, more than $67 million has flooded into the race. With just over 3 million voters, that means the Kentucky race has attracted more than $21 per voter to date.

Louisiana's battle between Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu and Republican challenger Bill Cassidy has seen nearly $40 million from the candidates and outside groups. With just under 2 million registered voters, that puts it nearly on par with North Carolina's Senate race at $13.56 per voter.

Georgia may be the biggest surprise: With with Democrat Michelle Nunn pulling even with Republican opponent David Perdue in the polls, the race has attracted just under $36 million, according to the latest available reports. That is not only the lowest raw total of any of the battleground Senate races in the South: Given Georgia's more than 6 million voters, it's also by far the lowest in per-voter cost at $5.91.

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exxon pipeline spill  http://grist.org/news/arkansas-tar-sands-spill-was-an-accident-60-years-in-the-making/====

Recently an ag-gag bill died in California, while bills in Arkansas and Tennessee inched closer to approval. No matter, according to Potter and Stepanian — activists still won. In mobilizing to address a common enemy, activists have forged unlikely but powerful alliances.

Stephens Inc.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stephens| |

Stephens Inc. headquarters in downtown Little Rock.

Stephens Inc. is a full-service, privately owned investment bank based in Little Rock, Arkansas.

[edit]History

Stephens Inc. was founded in 1933 by W.R. Witt Stephens. His brother, Jackson T. Stephens joined the firm in 1946 and served as Chairman of the Board and CEO of Stephens Inc. from 1956 to 1986. Since 1986 Warren Stephens, Jack's son, has served as CEO of Stephens Inc. In 1970, Stephens Inc. (along with Wall Street firm White Weld & Co.) brought Wal-Mart public in an IPO.

[edit]Quick facts

• Employs over 700 people.
• Has 24 offices worldwide.
• Since the beginning of 1999, has led or co-managed 50 public offerings, raising over $13.2 billion, and delivered 38 fairness opinions.
• Over the last 5 years, has advised clients on over 120 merger and acquisition transactions with aggregate transaction value in excess of $43 billion dollars.
• The CEO is Warren Stephens.
• Financier of Dickey-Stephens Park, which plays home to the Arkansas Travelers baseball team.

[edit]Businesses

The Stephens building at night. It is one of the tallest in Little Rock.

• Private Client Group
• Capital Markets
• Public Finance
• Investment Banking
• Research
• Capital Management
• Insurance and Mutual Fund Services

[edit]External links

• Stephens Inc. - Official Website
• Arkansas Business - Arkansas Business
• Hoovers - Hoovers Overview & Factsheet
• Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture