FAYETTEVILLE -- Neither major party candidate for western Washington County's state House District 80 seat favors the proposed term limit amendment on the Nov. 6 general election ballot, they said at a candidate forum Friday night.
That was a rare area of complete agreement during a candidate forum Friday.
Issue 3 on the ballot would shorten term limits to three two-year terms in the House of Representatives and two four-year terms in the Senate and prohibit legislators from serving more than 10 years total. The current limit is 16 years.
"If that passes, the Legislature will lose 80 percent of its members" after 2020, said incumbent candidate Rep. Charlene Fite, R-Van Buren. "Imagine a school losing 80 percent of its faculty. If this passes, state agency heads and lobbyists will run everything."
Lou Reed Sharp, Fite's Democratic opponent who lives south of Tontitown, was no fan of the proposal either. The measure was put on the ballot by petition and may not appear on the ballot if a court challenge is successful. Sharp said the existing constitutional limits on legislative terms was fine.
The Libertarian candidate in this race, Casey Copeland of Prairie Grove, didn't attend. The Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce hosted the forum, which was held in the Fayetteville public library beginning at 6 p.m. About 25 people attended the event and questions were taken from the audience.
District 80 stretches along the state's border with Oklahoma, from Van Buren in Crawford County in the south to Tontitown in the north, almost reaching U.S. 412 at its farthest point north.
"I literally decided to run because of Parkland," the Feb. 14 school shooting in Florida in which 17 students or staff were killed, Sharp said. Students who were new to politics took a stand after that shooting, and if they could speak up for what matters to them so could Sharp, she said.
Fite is running for a fourth term and is chairwoman of the Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs Committee. She is the only woman to preside over a committee in the Legislature, she said.
Fite and Sharp disagreed on raising the minimum wage, they said. "I don't think it is the role of government to set a minimum wage," Fite said. Sharp disagreed, saying that it was wrong for someone working full time to still have to rely on food stamps.
Sharp criticized Fite for voting against the state's health care plan, originally known as the "private option." The plan uses federal money to subsidize insurance policies for the working poor. Fite said she opposed the plan in its original form but approves of the work requirements and greater transparency provided by current Gov. Asa Hutchinson's suggested changes.
Sharp said health care access was too difficult already and making it harder helped no one. Sharp said a neighbor of hers had a daughter who severely injured her knee playing basketball. The girl had to stay in a cast for two weeks, awaiting another paycheck to her parent so they could afford to pay their share of the required surgery.
NW News on 09/22/2018