Rep. Duncan Baird said Thursday that his opponent for state treasurer claimed that he had damaging information about the legislator and urged Baird to drop out of the treasurer’s race unless “you want to see this on the 7 o’clock news.”
Baird, R-Lowell, said Dennis Milligan of Benton later told him: “If you call me within a couple of hours, we’ll find you something else to do.”
The damaging information to which Milligan alluded included video of Baird and three other lawmakers walking into the state Capitol with two women around 2 a.m. on Oct. 18. The group wanted to go up to the Capitol roof but were turned away by Capitol Police, according to emails about the visit.
In a written statement to reporters, Milligan described Baird’s recollection of their Nov. 7 conversation as “hearsay” and said it’s “simply a lie” for Baird to suggest that he wanted the legislator to drop out of the Republican primary race for state treasurer.
“It is a lie designed to distract the public from what Baird can’t deny because it is all recorded in security video and emails,” wrote Milligan, who is Saline County circuit clerk.
In a written statement to the Arkansas Times blog Wednesday, Milligan said: “However, at no time in our conversation did I ask him to get out of the race.”
But Baird said he recorded his conversations with Milligan last week “to provide certainty as to what happened during our phone call and meeting.”
The lawmaker provided copies of his tapes to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to show that Milligan had been “untruthful.” He said he didn’t tell Milligan that he recorded their conversations.
On the tapes, a voice that Baird identified as Milligan’s says: “Here’s the bottom line, you’re finding a new career, you’re not gonna run for state treasurer. OK …. you want to see this on the 7 o’clock news.”
The Democrat-Gazette could not independently verify that the voice is Milligan’s. He and his spokesman Jim Harris, could not be reached for further comment by cellphone or email late Thursday afternoon.
Baird, 33, is co-chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee.
Milligan, 56, is a former chairman of the state Republican Party who is backed by former Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Harris, a former Huckabee spokesman, obtained the video and emails about the early morning visit to the Capitol through an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request filed Nov. 4 with the secretary of state’s office.
Republican state Reps. Davy Carter of Cabot, John Burris of Harrison, Micah Neal of Springdale and Baird entered the state Capitol on Oct. 18 between 1:39 a.m. and 2:04 a.m. with “two unknown females” accompanying Burris, according to Capitol Police emails.
Sgt. Eric Thornton reported that “these individuals requested to go to the roof,” state Capitol Police Chief Darrell Hedden said in an email dated Oct. 18 to Kelly Boyd, director of governmental relations for Secretary of State Mark Martin and a former aide to Huckabee.
Carter, 38, is House speaker. Burris, 28, is chairman of the House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee and political director for U.S. Senate candidate Tom Cotton, the state’s 4th District congressman. Neal is 39.
The video shows that one of the women is lobbyist Katherine Vasilos, a former spokesman for the state Republican Party. The other woman is a friend of Vasilos, according to the lawmakers.
Hedden wrote that Thornton told him that “he felt some of the individuals had possible issues of steadiness, and he told them that earlier in the week the freight elevator had malfunctioned st[r]anding two individuals for several hours.”
Thornton told the group that “we did not have a key to access the roof at this time and they could not go to the roof,” according to Hedden’s email. The roof is accessed from the fifth floor.
Baird left about 2:25 a.m., while the other individuals walked around in the building, according to the email.
Hedden said Thornton advised him that the group members tried to ride the freight elevator, although he had advised them that it would not access the fifth floor, and they left about 2:54 a.m.
“The officers were told that Secretary Martin would be contacted to rectify this, and that they [the legislators] would return the next night for a trip to the roof,” Hedden wrote in a separate email dated Oct. 18 to Martin’s Chief Deputy Doug Matayo and Boyd.
Hedden referred questions about his email to Alex Reed, a spokesman for Martin.
Reed said the secretary of state’s office doesn’t have a written or unwritten policy about who can go onto the Capitol roof. The office also has no record of how many people have been allowed onto the roof, or when they were allowed up there, he said.
State Auditor Charlie Daniels, a Democrat who was secretary of state from 2003-11, said he required that he or his deputy for building and grounds consider any requests for accessing the roof.
Sharon Priest, a Democrat and Daniels’ predecessor as secretary of state from 1995-2003, said she required anyone going up there to get her approval first.
Both said they don’t recall many lawmakers asking to go onto the roof.
A spokesman for Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, a former state senator, said Beebe has never been on the roof of the state Capitol. Spokesmen for Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Darr and Democratic Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, a former state representative, said they’ve each been on the roof one time.
Asked to explain what Thornton meant by “some individuals had possible issues of steadiness” and who told the police officers that Martin “would be contacted to rectify this,” Reed said, “I am hesitant to ask someone for their recollection of something from a month ago.”
Thornton could not be reached for comment Thursday night.
Baird said he’s never been on the roof of the Capitol. He went to the Capitol about 1:44 a.m. Oct. 18 from the Capitol Hill Apartments, where he rents a room. The apartments are northeast of the Capitol.
He didn’t request to go on the roof, he said, but “somebody else may have made a request.” He said he doesn’t recall who did.
“I had dinner and drinks with friends that night,” Baird said. “Nothing inappropriate happened, as is reflected by the video.”
Baird, Burris and Carter said they don’t recall anybody threatening to contact Martin about not allowing them to go on the roof.
“I think we all wanted to go [up there],” said Burris, who indicated that he had been on the roof one or two times previously. “It’s a beautiful building and place.”
Carter added, “We had dinner and we were hanging out, and we were going to go on the roof and smoke a cigar.”
Carter said that during this year’s regular legislative session, he went onto the roof once to smoke a cigar.
“There is nothing bad, no big deal,” he said. “The whole thing has been turned and twisted to blackmail Duncan out of the race. I am floored by the whole situation.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/15/2013