ROGERS — Teresa Oelke and the conservative Americans for Prosperity-Arkansas that she directs are emerging as significant forces in Arkansas politics, according to friends and foes.
Being conservative, Oelke (pronounced okie) said,means being for economic freedom and individual liberty. When it comes to those things she calls herself “a true believer.” The group’s aim is to help conservatives win political offices.
Senate Republican Whip Michael Lamoureux of Russellville, a state House member in 2003-2009 and since December 2009 a senator, is generally considered to be a moderate Republican. He considers Oelke, 40, to be one of the more important voices in state politics today.
“A lot of people talk and talk and talk and never do anything,” he said, “and she spends a lot of time activating grass-roots volunteers.”
Backed by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch (pronounced coke), the group claims 63,000 members in Arkansas, including about 1,000 Arkansas donors. It has a state budget of more than $1 million this year and helped conservatives Bart Hester of Cave Springs and state Sen. Bruce Holland of Greenwood defeat moderates in the May 22 Republican primary.
A factor in those races was printed material the group distributed about the men who were running against Hester and Holland, material the losing candidates said was inaccurate and misleading. Oelke says it was accurate.
Rep. Tim Summers of Bentonville lost to Hester and former Rep. Rick Green of Van Buren lost to Holland.
Those races were among Republicans, but Democrats also watch Oelke warily. In the spring, Americans for Prosperity ran a newspaper ad urging constituents of Democratic state Sen. David Wyatt of Batesville to tell him to vote against accepting $7 million in federal funds for a health-care exchange. The ad included a picture of President Barack Obama, who is not widely popular in Arkansas.
The group ran similar ads aimed at Senate Democratic leader Robert Thompson of Paragould, who is being challenged by Corning Republican Blake Johnson, and Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Tiffany Rogers of Stuttgart, who is taking on GOP state Sen. Jonathan Dismang of Searcy.
Wyatt’s Republican opponent in the Nov. 6 election is state Rep. Linda Collins-Smith of Pocahontas, a former Democrat who changed sides in August.
“I am sure they will try to hammer me all the way they can,” Wyatt said, “but that’s just politics.”
With the state Senate controlled by Democrats 20-15 and the House 54-46, the GOP has its best chance since the Reconstruction era more than a century ago to take over.
But it’s political philosophy, not party membership, that matters to Oelke.
“I hope we have a strong majority [in the Legislature] that focuses on putting Arkansas on a path to more economic freedom and tightening our budget and putting more money in the hands of people to stimulate the economy and create jobs,” Oelke said. “I don’t care what party controls the Legislature, as along as it is a majority of people who are focused on these policies.”
The state Democratic Party has called Americans for Prosperity a “partisan front group for Washington special interests.”
A spokesman for Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, Matt DeCample, said he frequently challenges information the group distributes.
Oelke also has admirers. A frequent ally is Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Darr of Springdale. She’s “a go-getter,” he said. “I don’t want her on my bad side. She is not afraid to tell you what she thinks either. She will get up in your face.”
A lot of people in politics “tell you exactly what you want to hear, but that doesn’t mean they are being honest with you,” Oelke said. “I try to be honest in a very respectful and humble way.”
A few Republican lawmakers declined to talk about Oelke. Some of them said they didn’t want to air their differences with her. Others said they worried about the repercussions of doing so.
U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat from Little Rock, said it’s admirable when a citizen takes on the task of leading a group and getting involved.
“Although we may not agree on every issue, we have been on the same page on several ... like ... severance tax, and extending tax cuts for small business and individuals. I look forward to working with Mrs. Oelke and her group,” he said.
Oelke was born in Commerce, Okla., near Columbus, Kan., where she was raised with six brothers and three sisters. Her father was a miner who helped start Crossland Construction Co. in the 1970s.
Oelke teared up in an interview in her home in Rogers when she talked about her family, referring to her grandparents emigrating from Mexico and their meager belongings.
“In any other country, we’d be stuck, poor forever and never have the opportunity to be mobile,” she said. “That’s what I love about our country. You are not born in a situation. That’s why I do what I do now.”
Crossland Construction Co. received contracts financed by millions in federal stimulus funds. Oelke has sharply criticized federal stimulus funding. The Arkansas Times’ blog branded her in May 2011 as “hypocrite of the day.”
“You and I can disagree with the policies of your government and participate in the system,” she said.
Oelke and her husband, Tim, met while they worked for Crossland. He left the company last year to form his own firm. Married almost 18 years, they have three sons who attend Shiloh Christian School.
A 1990 graduate of Columbus High School in Kansas, Oelke was on the student council, a cheerleader and played in the band. She attended the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, Manhattan Christian College, and Pittsburg State University and fell short of earning her bachelor’s degree in education - she never finished her student-teaching.
She interned for Kansas state Rep. Tim Shallenburger in the spring of 1991. She was his chief of staff when he was the House speaker pro tempore and House speaker, and she ran his successful campaign for state treasurer, serving as his director of administration in 1998.
Her husband moved to Rogers to work on a project in 1998, and she joined him there and worked in marketing for Crossland.
She was a fundraising events coordinator in 2002 for Shallenburger’s unsuccessful campaign for governor against Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, who won and now is secretary of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.
Americans for Prosperity hired Oelke in 2009, and the group organized more than 60 events in Arkansas to educate people on the federal healthcare legislation that year.
Americans for Properity’s state chapter has four staff members. One is Phylis Bell, the wife of state Rep. Nate Bell, R-Mena, Oelke said.
Summers said he feels like he was defeated more by Americans for Prosperity than by Hester, who won 4,506-3,869.
One of the group’s mailers said Summers “voted to advance over $2 billion in tax increases” - proposals to let voters decide whether to authorize sales and diesel tax increases totaling $2.4 billion for highways.
“The message was I raised taxes $2.4 billion and, if that was the case, they probably should have kicked me if I had that kind of power,” Summers said.
Oelke said one reason such proposals get referred to voters is because “they don’t have the votes to pass it in Little Rock. Let’s be honest there.”
Hester said a Summers mailer that sharply criticized Americans for Prosperity, calling it a special-interest group, as well as Crossland Construction and its affiliates’ financial support for Hester’s campaign, “was a strategic fatal error.”
Green said he didn’t have time to respond to the fliers in the waning weeks of his race. Holland won 2,438-2,201.
One flier said Green’s “prescription drug tax burdens seniors,” that he sponsored legislation to tax pharmaceuticals and voted for a drug-tax increase.
Green said he never voted for a bill to raise taxes on prescriptions. He voted for a bill that established a voluntary $25 fee for residents to participate in a program aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs for the state’s uninsured, he said.
He had about 85 calls from senior citizens as a result of the mailer, he said.
Oelke defended the mailer. “Most people, who try to hide taxes by burying them [in bills], would not want to be called out on tax increases,” she said.
The Americans for Prosperity chapter pushes legislative candidates to sign the Americans for Tax Reform pledge not to vote to raise taxes. Americans for Tax Reform says 19 House candidates and 12 Senate candidates have signed the pledge. A list of the pledge signers is available at atr.org/atr-releases-list-statetaxpayer-protection-a6898.
Lamoureux signed it this year for the first time.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/16/2012