LITTLE ROCK — State Rep. Allen Kerr, R Little Rock, faces a Democratic challenger, Carolyn Staley, in his bid for re-election to the House District 32 seat in northwest Little Rock.
Kerr, 53, runs his own insurance and financial-services firm, is a former Pulaski County justice of the peace and has held his current office for one term.
He drew notice by calling attention to the practice of elected officials temporarily taking themselves off payrolls for three months in order to qualify for retirement benefits and then returning to the payroll to collect both the retirement benefits and their salaries. Kerr had requested an attorney general’s opinion on the subject.
Staley, 64, is a high school classmate of former President Bill Clinton, a singer, minister and former state and federal government official. This is her first run for elected office.
Kerr said he is standing for re-election to build upon the experience he gained in his first term.
One term hardly provides a return on investment for the voters who elected him, Kerr said. New lawmakers, once elected, have little more than an orientation meeting before beginning the hustle and bustle of a legislative session in January.
“You’re trying to figure out what [to] do the first session as a new legislator,” he said.
The regular session finishes around April, leaving a month or two before interim legislative meetings begin to prepare for the next session. Now, in even years the Legislature holds a budget session.
“Suddenly, after the budget session is over, you’re in campaign season,” Kerr said.
As a result of his experience, Kerr said he would like to see the limits on the terms of House members refashioned from the three two-year terms they have now to two four-year terms or one six year term.
“It sounds like a lot of time, but it’s not,” he said.
Of Staley, Kerr called his opponent a “nice person. But basically she’s trying to get me fired.”
“So far, she hasn’t found anything I’ve done wrong,” he added. “The people already have two years invested in me and all that money. Now she wants them to waste that time and that money to start all over again on someone who has never held office. To me,that doesn’t have the people’s best interest at heart or the best use of our tax dollars.”
Staley disagrees.
“I looked on the ballot two years ago and saw the incumbent was running unopposed,” Staley said. “I thought this is just not the American way.
“I wanted to make sure there was an alternative for voters to choose from.”
She said she harbored thoughts of mounting a campaign for statewide office as she has made friends all over the state while living in Clarksville, West Memphis, Hot Springs and Arkadelphia, in addition to the state’s capital.
Staley said she finally concluded that it would be better to “start at the state Legislature level, gain the experience and work my way up the ladder, electorally.”
Though a Democrat, she calls herself “fiscally and morally conservative. I am a Christian. A lot of this confounds voters.”
The campaign has been quiet, with both working the neighborhoods. Their signs are sprouting on neighborhood lawns across the district.
Staley has raised a robust $45,000, with help, in part, from a Clinton fundraiser. Kerr has raised about $42,000. He also has loaned his campaign an additional $20,000.
“House races in Pulaski County are always very expensive,” Kerr said.
Staley faults Kerr’s reputation for voting “no, or because the leadership asked him to vote no,” in particular on the establishment of a statewide trauma system and expansion of ARKids, a state-funded insurance program for children.
“There’s a better way to cut taxes,” she said. “I don’t think that was a wise place to cut spending.”
Kerr disagrees with Staley’s take on his votes.
“I didn’t vote against funding the trauma center,” he said. “I voted against raising [cigarette] taxes on people who simply couldn’t afford it.
“You are shifting money from school supplies, shoes, clothing for their kids into cigarettes. That’s all you’re doing. I haven’t seen any statistics where people have slowed down smoking. In fact, it’s picked up a little bit.”
As for the children’s insurance expansion, Kerr said the state is fortunate that it failed.
“I’ve got no problem with ARKids,” he said. “We sell insurance. I think every kid ought to be covered for all their health needs. But when you take a system already stressed and expand it to income levels of $60,000, $65,000 $75,000, I’ve got a problem with that.
“I was voting against expansion of government. I wasn’t voting against not covering kids for health problems. At some point you have to be responsible. Since that session, we’ve had to cut back on government three times. If that would’ve passed, do you know what kind of mess we would’ve been in?”
Staley also faulted Kerr’s handling of the double-dipping elected officials, arguing it “unfairly tarnished the reputation of honorable public servants who were only following the rules.”
“I think his spirit and heart is right in cutting the budget, but I think it comes off as negative and as an attack.”
Kerr said if anyone, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel is the one who should be blamed.
“I am there to ask the questions that the people want to know, that the voters and citizens of Arkansas want to know,” Kerr said. “That’s what a legislator is for. The attorney general made that decision, it was posted and the newspapers went crazy over it.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 09/27/2010