Arkansas’ political upheaval picked as top story

On the day before the midterm elections, Republican Senate hopeful John Boozman told a crowd of enthusiastic supporters in West Memphis that he knew voters were frustrated with what was happening in Washington.

“I think you’re going to see a lot of change throughout the country,“ he said. ”People are concerned about the direction of the government and they’re very concerned about the Obama administration and what they see as the route we’re going.“

And right he was. A day later, he easily defeated incumbent Blanche Lincoln, a two-term senator. Elsewhere in the state, voters picked two Republicans to replace retiring Democrats, and GOP candidates picked up major gains in the Legislature and among the statewide offices.

Arkansas’ political upheaval, reflecting voter unhappiness and a strong shift to the right, was picked as the top story of 2010 by Associated Press members and staff, with the deadly Albert Pike flooding coming in second. In 2009, the top story was the start-up of Arkansas’ new lottery.

The entire list for 2010:

1. Arkansas’ political shift

2. Flooding deaths at Albert Pike recreation area

3. Police officers shot at West Memphis

4. Arkansas lottery triumphs and troubles

5. Hearing ordered in deaths of West Memphis boys

6. Doctor convicted in bomb plot

7. Use of state vehicles questioned and changed

8. Arkansas’ budget woes

9. Fight over SWEPCO power plant at Fulton

10. Game and Fish panel tries to restrict FOI

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It was good to be a Republican in 2010.

Candidates once considered big underdogs ousted established candidates, while Republicans made their best gains ever in the state Legislature.

Even Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike Ross — the only congressional incumbent up for re-election who held onto his seat — sought to distance himself from his party.

“There’s a big difference between an Arkansas Democrat and a national Democrat,” Ross said on the day after the midterm election. “That’s what I’m trying to do is bring our party back to the middle.”

The rest of the year’s top stories were:

2. FLOODING DEATHS — A wall of water roared into the popular, rural Albert Pike campgrounds during the pre-dawn hours of June 11, trapping sleeping campers who had no warning of the severe weather passing through the area. The National Weather Service estimated that the Little Missouri River rose eight feet per hour at times, going from 3.5 feet at midnight to more than 23 feet shortly before 6 a.m.

“You couldn’t hear anything. Just lumber and houses being destroyed and trees ripping. We couldn’t even talk to each other when we were in the water,” survivor J.D. Quinn said.

Altogether, 12 adults and eight children died in the flooding.

3. OFFICERS SHOT — On May 20, two West Memphis police officers doing drug interdiction work pulled over a white minivan on Interstate 40. Authorities said 16-year-old Joseph Kane, a passenger in the van, opened fire and killed officers Brandon Paudert, 39, and Bill Evans, 38. Kane and his father, Jerry Kane, then took off in the van. They were later cornered in the parking lot of a West Memphis Walmart, where the father and son were killed in a shootout with police.

Jerry Kane, 45, of Forest, Ohio, traveled the country with his son, giving paid seminars in which he instructed people on how they supposedly could avoid paying their debts. Kane had declared himself “sovereign,” which he claimed made him immune from U.S. laws. He didn’t carry a driver’s license, and said in a seminar posted online that he was willing to kill police officers.

4. ARKANSAS LOTTERY — The first full year of Arkansas’ new lottery had its ups and downs. Sales of the scratch-off, Powerball and MegaMillions tickets largely went off without a hitch, and more than 30,000 students received scholarships for the fall 2010 semester.

But the lottery’s administration — under the guidance of director Ernie Passailaigue — came under intense scrutiny by lawmakers and others who questioned the lottery’s practices. Passailaigue, the former director of the South Carolina lottery, held onto his job but even Gov. Mike Beebe said the lottery’s leadership should be evaluated.

As lawmakers return to the Capitol for their regular session this month, the lottery is sure to loom large among the major topics of discussion.

5. BOYS SLAIN — It was the first major legal victory for the so-called West Memphis Three when the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered that the men deserved new hearings to argue their innocence in the murders of three Cub Scouts.

Damien Echols, on death row for the 1993 slayings of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore, argued that he deserved a new trial because DNA analysis could exonerate him. The high court stopped short of granting a new trial, but said Echols and the two other men convicted of the murders — Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley — deserved evidentiary hearings where they could make their claims of innocence.

A circuit judge in east Arkansas has been assigned to the case, and hearings are expected this year.

6. DOCTOR-GRENADES — It took federal prosecutors nearly a year to charge a Pope County doctor in the bombing that nearly killed the chairman of the state medical board chairman. It took a federal jury in Little Rock a little over two days to convict Dr. Randeep Mann in the bombing, along with several federal weapons charges.

Prosecutors claimed Mann, a licensed firearms dealer, planned the bombing at Dr. Trent Pierce’s West Memphis home in retaliation as the state board considered whether to revoke Mann’s medical license for overprescribing painkillers. Mann’s attorneys emphasized that no physical evidence linked their client to the bombing and that Mann had an alibi on the night the bomb was planted.

Mann faces up to life in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced in February. His attorneys plan to file an appeal after the sentencing.

7. STATE VEHICLES — This spring, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published a series of stories questioning state employees’ use of vehicles paid for with public money. Since then, several constitutional officers have repaid the state for their personal use of the vehicles and vowed to only use the vehicles for work purposes.

In October, the governor issued an executive order requiring state agency heads to re-evaluate use of state vehicles at the departments they supervise. He urged adoption of more restrictive rules about who could use a state vehicle for commuting.

A lawsuit filed by the state Republican Party over the issue is pending.

8. ARKANSAS BUDGET — Compared to other states, Arkansas’ budget woes have been minimal, thanks to a law that requires the state to operate under a balanced budget. But a tight budget forced Beebe to freeze cost-of-living pay increases for state workers. He later reinstated the raises after seeing an uptick in revenue.

The governor has proposed a budget for the coming year that calls for another half-cent cut in the state’s sales tax on groceries.

9. SWEPCO-COAL PLANT — Southwestern Electric Power Co.’s planned coal-fired plant in southwest Arkansas was again beset by legal challenges and delays. The 600-megawatt power plant is under construction near Fulton, but environmental groups have sued to stop the project, arguing that the plant would unnecessarily pollute the area and hurt endangered species.

SWEPCO opted to operate the plant under “merchant” status — meaning it wouldn’t sell power to retail customers and therefore wouldn’t need state regulatory approval. Still, a federal judge late in the year ordered SWEPCO to stop construction on a small portion of the plant site, but that was later overturned by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Construction is expected to be done by late 2012.

10. GAME AND FISH-FOI — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s proposal to keep some matters private turned into a very public debate.

The panel proposed a new plan to create its own Freedom of Information Act policies that would be more restrictive than what’s currently called for under state law. The commission had claimed that it could create its own public records policies because it is set up differently from many other state agencies.

The proposal was quickly dropped after public outcry and criticism from Beebe, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and state lawmakers.