Senator sinks Parole Board appointment

Citing lawmen’s misgivings, Rapert objects to 2012 rival

State Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow, has objected to Gov. Mike Beebe appointing former state Rep. Linda Tyler, D-Conway, to the state Parole Board, so the governor is considering other candidates for the appointment, a spokesman for Beebe said Tuesday.

Beebe intended to appoint Tyler to fill a vacancy created by the departure of Joe Peacock, who resigned earlier this month citing personal reasons, said Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample.

The appointment will run through January, so “whoever takes that position wouldn’t know who will be governor when they come up for reappointment,” DeCample explained.

Tyler showed interest in the opening and “would hit the ground running” with her experience in state government, DeCample said. Members of the Parole Board are paid between $73,116 and $91,395 a year, depending on length of service, state personnel administrator Kay Terry said.

Rapert - who defeated Tyler to win his Senate District 35 seat in 2012 - said he balked at confirming Beebe’s appointment last week after consulting with local officials, including Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland of Conway, Conway Police Chief A.J. Gary and Faulkner County Sheriff Andy Shock.

“I am not going to go against law enforcement when it comes to an appointment like this,” Rapert said, adding his opposition to Tyler’s appointment has nothing to do with their acrimonious Senate campaign in which he likened her to a “a puppet” for President Barack Obama and Beebe.

He said Tyler was one of the primary architects of Act 570 of 2011, which overhauled the state’s sentencing laws and “swung the pendulum too far” toward putting prisoners back on the streets. The overhaul focused on changing the parole and probation system and reducing sentences for drug crimes and theft, channeling offenders into alternative programs.

Hiland and Gary could not be reached immediately for comment Tuesday night. Shock said he opposed Tyler’s appointment because she sponsored Act 570, which he called “the biggest joke that ever made it through the Legislature.”

Tyler said she was “very disappointed” to learn that Rapert blocked her appointment because she hoped Rapert would consider it a good thing to have someone represent the interests of their district on the board. She said Gary told her last week that he wouldn’t have objected to her appointment if he had known about it.

She said Rapert voted for Act 570, and she is proud of her work on the law. The “systemic issues” in probation and parole that the state has grappled with for most of the past year and for which the state needs to devote more resources weren’t triggered by the act, she added.

During their 2012 campaign, Rapert accused Tyler of misrepresenting his record when she said he voted for the bill. Rapert said that he “wasn’t there” when he was recorded as voting for the bill.

Rapert didn’t vote on the bill the first time it cleared the Senate in 2011, but he was recorded as voting for it when the Senate later approved the House’s amended version of the measure, according to the General Assembly’s website.

Tyler said this is the second time that Rapert has blocked an appointment of a woman to a state board and she wonders if that’s Rapert’s “continuing ideology that many people have framed as his war on women.”

In June 2013, Rapert objected to Beebe appointing Kathryn Spinks, a retired nurse from Conway, to the Occupational Therapy Examining Committee because he said he’s “just not comfortable with that appointment.”

Asked about Tyler’s questioning whether he’s conducting “a war on women,” Rapert replied, “That sounds like a cute talking point hanging over from the 2012 election.

“I confirm people all the time in my district,” he said.

DeCample said that since 2007, when Beebe became governor, he’s only aware of one other senator objecting to the appointment to a state board or commission of someone from the senator’s district.

In 2011, then-Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, objected to Beebe’s proposed appointment of former Attorney General Steve Clark’s wife, Suzanne Clark, to the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority.

A state senator generally is allowed to essentially veto gubernatorial appointments if the nominee is from that senator’s district. In the past, when a governor has ignored a senator’s veto, the Senate has intervened.

In 2003, the Senate rejected Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee’s appointment of Bill Ackerman of Fayetteville to the Game and Fish Commission, after Madison objected. Madison had narrowly defeated Ackerman’s wife in the 2002 election. Bill Ackerman served for a time on the commission, but eventually resigned.

Information for this article was contributed by Claudia Lauer of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/26/2014

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