HE MIGHT be destined to become this generation’s Martha Shoffner. No matter how much scandal surrounds him, no matter how much legal trouble he may be in, no matter how many public officials beg him to leave office, he lingers. Like a bad smell.
For goodness sakes, the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general of Arkansas—all members of his own party—have asked him to leave. Resign. Quit. But good ol’, arrogant ol’, stubborn ol’ Mickey Gates of Hot Springs still says he has no plans to step away from his position as a state representative. This despite pleading no contest last week to failing to pay state income taxes. A whole lot of state income taxes.
Mickey Gates thinks We the People (and his fellow office holders) are mixing up a no-contest plea with a guilty plea. No, we’re equating a no-contest plea with a no-contest plea. It’s one thing to plead innocent of charges. It’s another to plead no-contest and take the punishment handed down by the court. Which he has.
The terms of Gates’ sentence, according to John Moritz’ story, include six years of probation and an agreement to pay $74,789 in back taxes.
Seventy-four thousand in back taxes! And that’s “significantly less than the $259,841 that investigators said Gates owed in a 2018 charging document,” according to the story.
No wonder his own party is lining up against him.
From the governor: “It is unacceptable for a public official, particularly a state legislator, to continue to hold office after being found guilty of a criminal violation of our tax laws.”
From the attorney general: “By his criminal plea of no contest, Rep. Gates admitted that he did not properly pay taxes for years and owes the state money. Rep. Gates has betrayed the public trust and should not remain in a position to be paid by taxpayers while he still owes taxpayers.”
But the lawmaker says he’s not going anywhere: “Nobody has been found guilty of anything,” he told our reporter. “There is not a verdict of anything because it’s been postponed.” Asked if he thought he broke the law, he said, “I’m not going to get into that.”
Talk about sheer chutzpah, which English speakers had to borrow from Yiddish because we couldn’t come up with anything better to describe this kind of arrogance. Maybe we should try to come up with something to describe such antics on a political level. Like Gatesish. Or Gatesesque.
You’d think that paying income taxes would be a prerequisite for just being an ordinary citizen of the state. And those who spend those taxes should make damn certain their returns are in order. They’ve got to be more like Caesar’s Wife than a corrupt Caesar.
And when our elected “honorables” are caught otherwise, most should have the shame, the honor, to resign. And maybe even consider himself lucky to have walked away with probation and a private job outside government.
Pleading no contest and pleading guilty may technically be different in the eyes of the court system, but for the integrity of our Legislature and the tumultuous couple of years it’s had, voters aren’t going to let this matter slide, no matter how long Mickey Gates might desire for the whole thing to blow over. Remember how long Martha Shoffner held on? Let’s not relive that.
If Mickey Gates won’t resign, the House needs to vote to remove him. He’s already tarried much too long.