6 Arkansans see speech in a rut

Correction: U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., was not present for President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday. Because of incorrect information from a Crawford staff member, the congressman's location was incorrectly described in this article.

WASHINGTON - Several members of Arkansas’ delegation said Tuesday evening that they feel as if President Barack Obama has been trying to work around Congress for years. Other members said they had heard the themes of his State of the Union before.

During his State of the Union, the president repeatedly talked about bypassing Congress if it doesn’t accomplish things quickly enough.

“Wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do,” Obama told the packed House chamber during his speech.

In the days leading up to his speech, the Obama administration has repeated a refrain that the president will use his pen and his phone to accomplish things through executive action.

U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin said it sounded as if Obama sees Congress as “an annoying speed bump.”

“I think the president sort of feels like Congress just gets in the way of him doing what he wants to do. Unfortunately for him, the founders … would disagree with the president,” the Republican said.

U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton said the president has bypassed Congress all along.

“It’s surprising that anyone thinks the president hasn’t been doing that for the last five years,” the Republican from Dardanelle said. “The president has repeatedly usurped the constitutional authority of the Congress and acted without legal authority. It’s not surprising that he’s doing it; it is surprising that he would suggest he hasn’t done it enough.”

U.S. Sen. John Boozman said the president should have talked more about working together.

“He needs to work with Congress rather than trying to skirt Congress,” the Republican from Rogers said.

Boozman said the speech was “a lot of the same rhetoric we’ve been hearing for the last five years.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Womack said he wants to see the president back up his speech with action.

Obama called for a “year of action” during his speech, playing off the label of a “do-nothing Congress” that had been attached to lawmakers last year.

“Let’s make this a year of action,” he said. “That’s what most Americans want, for all of us in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations.”

The president “beat up on Congress a little bit; yeah,we probably deserved some of that,” Womack said. But he disagreed that the House is to blame, saying bills have stacked up in the Senate.

“The House Republicans have made every year we’ve been here a year of action,” Womack said.

He said he is concerned about Obama bypassing Congress.

“That’s been a constant theme of the last year or so, that this president believes that if he can’t get his way, he’ll just bypass Congress and use his executive authority,” Womack said. “That’s not a winning strategy.”

U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor said in a statement after the speech that he was disappointed by the president’s speech, calling it “heavy on rhetoric, but light on specifics.”

“I had hoped he would strike a more bipartisan tone because, if recent history shows anything, red vs. blue is dead end politics,” the Democrat from Little Rock said.

U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford said in a statement that Obama avoided discussing serious issues like the country’s debt.

“It is sad that President Obama continues to insist that it makes sense to rush ahead with trillions of dollars in new entitlement spending while Social Security and Medicare remain in fiscal distress and the national debt is hurtling toward unsustainable levels increasing economic uncertainty,” said the Republican from Arkansas’ 1st Congressional District.

Arkansas’ entire delegation sat within the same two sections on the right-hand side of the dais where the president stood. Pryor, Boozman, Womack and Griffin sat within the first 10 rows of the president. Cotton and Crawford sat in the back rows.