More than 30 people have applied for the vice chancellor for government relations job at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, including the director of government relations at eBay, aides for Gov. Mike Beebe and U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, former Lt. Gov. Mark Darr and state Sen. Johnny Key of Mountain Home.
The search committee plans to conduct interviews for the job in late March and could make recommendations to Chancellor G. David Gearhart by early April, said UA-Fayetteville spokesman Mark Rushing.
The UA’s current vice chancellor of government relations, Richard Hudson, announced in November that he would retire on July 31. He’s paid $202,000 a year, according to UA records.
The position involves in part “the development and management of strategies to inform and influence public policy at the county, state, and federal levels on issues of interest to higher education and the university,” according to the job listing on UA’s website.
According to UA records released Monday night in response to public-records requests, the applicants include:
Dustin Brighton, director of government relations for San Jose, Calif.-based eBay, who lobbied the Arkansas Legislature in 2007 and previously was director of state government affairs for Microsoft Corp.
Emily Jordan Cox, policy director for Beebe, a Democrat.
Randy Massanelli, state director for Pryor, a Democrat.
Mac Campbell, deputy staff director and general counsel for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, who was an aide to former U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat, and ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2006.
David Cobb, Washington representative for Minnesota-based Cenex Harvest States Inc. and a former aide to former U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.
Denver Peacock, senior vice president of public affairs for Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods, a Little Rock-based advertising and public relations agency.
Kenneth James, president of the Arkansas Initiative for Math and Science and a former state education commissioner. (James has since withdrawn his application, according to Rushing).
Darr, who resigned as the state’s lieutenant governor on Feb. 1 after he was fined $11,000 by the state Ethics Commission for 11 violations of state ethics laws and regulations for improper spending of campaign funds and taxpayer dollars. Darr, who wrote “Woo Pig Sooie and Go HOGS Go!” in his application letter, said in his job application that he would explain in the interview process his reason for leaving as lieutenant governor.
Former state Sen. Steve Harrelson, D-Texarkana, an attorney who lost a 2012 re-election bid.
Key, who has served in the Senate since 2009 and in the state House of Representatives from 2003-09. He listed state Department of Higher Education Director Shane Broadway, Arkansas State University System President Chuck Welch and the state’s education commissioner, Tom Kimbrell, as references on his application.
Key, who acknowledged Saturday in a written statement that he applied for the job and might not seek re-election to the state Senate depending on the level of consideration given to his application, said Tuesday that he hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll seek re-election.
The filing deadline is noon Monday.
Key, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said it’s unclear whether he’d have to resign from the Legislature if he gets the job. That “depends on the timing. Those are things that would have to be worked out. The job posting says begin July 1, but I don’t know if they would want to do that or if they want to do something different and wait until the end of the year [when his term ends in December].”
Under state law, a state lawmaker is barred from entering into employment with a state agency, including a higher-education institution, after being elected to office and during the term for which he was elected except under certain limited circumstances.
If he’s hired by UA, Key said he wouldn’t spend more than $400 on lobbying in a quarter, so he wouldn’t be required under state law to register as a lobbyist and, thus, he wouldn’t run the risk of violating Act 48 of 2011 requiring a one-year cooling-off period between the end of a lawmaker’s term and when he can register as a lobbyist.
Asked if that’s splitting hairs regarding the intent of the law, he said, “I don’t know if it’s splitting hairs. It’s what the law says.
“I think the focus then was legislators going out and lobbying for businesses,” said Key. “I don’t know that it was contemplated moving to a government role, a state agency or higher ed or nothing like that.”
In 2011, then-state Sen. Gilbert Baker, R-Conway, told a Senate committee that he’s thought for many years that there should be a “cooling-off” period between when a legislator leaves office and when he begins lobbying lawmakers on legislation. Act 48 of 2011 applies to lawmakers elected after it became effective in 2011, so it didn’t apply to Baker.
In November 2012, the University of Central Arkansas announced that Baker would become executive assistant to UCA President Tom Courtway in a $132,000-a-year job that started at the end of Baker’s Senate term in January 2013.
A month after he started work for UCA, Baker registered as a lobbyist after Courtway said he decided that Baker should register “out of an abundance of caution,” though Courtway said at that time that he didn’t intend for Baker to engage in day-to-day lobbying.
At UA-Fayetteville, officials haven’t looked at state law to determine whether Key could engage in lobbying for the university while a state senator or within a year’s period of leaving the Senate, because “Sen. Key is simply one of 32 current applicants for the position,” Rushing said.
“At this first stage of the search process, the committee’s responsibility is to review all applications with equal weight and consideration,” he said.
“After the committee reviews the applications, selects individuals to be interviewed, conducts the interviews, and selects individual applicants for recommendation, any specific situations regarding those recommended would be considered at that point in the search process,” Rushing said.
Act 1453 of 2003 bars legislators from registering as lobbyists before their terms end. That was enacted after then-Sens. Morril Harriman, D-Van Buren, and Tom Kennedy, D-Russellville, and Rep. David Hausam, R-Bentonville, resigned to take lobbying jobs. (Harriman and Kennedy quit in 2000; Hausam resigned in 2002.)
Harriman has been Beebe’s chief of staff since 2007.
Baker was a sponsor of that law, which he’s said was designed to improve the public’s confidence in legislators.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/26/2014