HOT SPRINGS — Emboldended by their gains two years ago, several hundred Arkansas Republicans rallied in Hot Springs at their party’s state convention with the aim of ousting President Barack Obama, gaining control of another congressional seat, and stripping majority-party control of the state House and Senate from the Democrats.
During the five-hour meeting Saturday, the state GOP also approved a party platform that calls for replacing the federal health-care law enacted in 2010 with “a well-designed conservative initiative” and “legal reform” through a constitutional amendment approved by voters to improve the environment for business growth and expansion.
For half an hour, the Republicans debated and then rejected a proposed amendment to the immigration plank in their platform. The rejected proposal would have, among other things, eliminated language that states: “We believe that a massive deportation is impractical.”
U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin of Little Rock, who in 2010 became the second Republican since Reconstruction to be elected to the state’s 2nd Congressional District seat, told the GOP faithful that if anyone has Obama’s phone number “you might want to call him and tell him that you have found people clinging to God and their guns.”
He said he wants to be able to stop at the White House the day after the Nov. 6 general election and “knock on the door and say ‘President Obama, I am sorry about your defeat last night, but you didn’t do that. Americans fired you.’”
In 2010, Arkansas Republicans repeatedly linked Democrats to Obama and won the offices of lieutenant governor, secretary of state and land commissioner, 15 positions in the 35-seat Senate, 44 in the 100-seat House and four of the state’s six congressional seats.
“It’s kind of hard not to be just a little bit giddy as you approach this November election,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, a Rogers Republican elected to the 3rd Congressional District seat in 2010.
Tom Cotton, a Dardenelle Republican who is seeking to succeed 4th District Congressman Mike Ross, a Democrat from Prescott, said state representatives and senators must be elected “to make sure we don’t face a funding crisis because we have run head-long into a program like Medicaid because there is free federal money coming from Washington, D.C.”
At the end of June, in a landmark decision on Obama’s health-care law, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not be punished financially for refusing to expand their Medicaid programs to take in poor people who hadn’t previously qualified, essentially leaving the choice of whether to expand the program up to the states.
Arkansas’ Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe has said he’s inclined to accept the increased federal aid, which will cover every dollar of the expansion for three years. The states’ share of the cost gradually rises to 10 percent by 2020.
At the convention, Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, referred to Senate Republican Whip Michael Lamoureux of Russellville as the first Republican Senate president pro tempore, and House Republican leader Bruce Westerman of Hot Springs referred to Rep. Terry Rice of Waldron as the first Republican House speaker — although the Senate and House have elected Democrats to those leadership posts for 2013 and 2014. Democrats are currently the majority party in the Legislature.
“If everybody gets out and works like we think they should, then we will have majorities in both houses,” Key said of the GOP in an interview.
The state GOP’s platform also declares support for replacing the state income tax with “a more equitable method of taxation,” the traditional definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, making English the official language of the United States and Medicaid block grants to states with “no federal strings.”
Among other things, the party’s platform on immigration states that “we believe that enforcement of immigration law by local police will remove the majority of illegal aliens from the state of Arkansas” and “we ... support a concentrated effort to use attrition and enforcement to remove as many illegal aliens as possible without giving any path to citizenship or any other reward to those who enter the state illegally.”
Kenny Wallis of North Little Rock proposed removing from the platform language that states, “We believe that massive deportation is impractical. Therefore, we support focusing deportation efforts on criminal aliens while granting renewable residency status without giving any path to citizenship, to those who have established roots in our society, meeting criteria such as worthiness, family ties and payment of a fine.”
Stuart Soffer of White Hall urged his fellow Republicans to defeat Wallis’ proposal, saying former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee contended that people shouldn’t blame children of illegal aliens for the actions of their parents. The GOP’s platform puts “a human face” on the Republican Party, he said.
But Wallis replied that conservative activists helped defeat Huckabee’s legislation in 2005 that would have made illegal aliens who graduate from Arkansas high schools eligible for cheaper in-state tuition rates and state-funded college scholarships at Arkansas colleges and universities.
The state GOP convention later approved a resolution, proposed by Wallis, opposing a proposed ballot measure, pushed by Little Rock attorney and former Republican gubernatorial nominee Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock, that would increase the state’s severance tax on natural gas to raise money for highways and roads.
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 07/29/2012