Bill to change symbolism of Arkansas flag fails again; proposals to redesignate star not dead, 2 say

House Minority Leader Charles Blake (left) listens as Loy Mauch of Bismarck, among others, speaks against his bill to redesignate a star on the state flag. The bill failed to get out of committee for the second time, but Blake said he might try to revive it in the Senate. More photos are available at arkansasonline.com/321genassembly/.
House Minority Leader Charles Blake (left) listens as Loy Mauch of Bismarck, among others, speaks against his bill to redesignate a star on the state flag. The bill failed to get out of committee for the second time, but Blake said he might try to revive it in the Senate. More photos are available at arkansasonline.com/321genassembly/.

A second attempt this session to redesignate a star on the Arkansas state flag so that it no longer commemorates the Confederacy failed Wednesday, though two lawmakers said afterward that they'll try again this session to amend the state's flag code before lawmakers adjourn.

The star at issue -- the one positioned above the word "Arkansas" within the white diamond -- has drawn the attention of House Minority Leader Charles Blake, D-Little Rock. Blake has filed a succession of bills that would remove references to the Confederate States of America from the state statutes defining the flag's elements and instead designate one of the four central stars to honor the state's native tribes.

Blake's latest attempt, House Bill 1736, failed when it received only 5 ayes and 10 nays in the 20-member House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday morning. It required 11 votes to get out of committee.

Afterward, Blake said his bill was not dead, and that he might seek to revive it again on the Senate side. Another lawmaker, Rep. Douglas House, R-North Little Rock, filed his own bill to remove all official references to symbolism from the flag statute, leaving it up to individuals to decide what each aspect of the flag represents.

As with an earlier hearing the committee held on the subject, a contingent of men, several claiming Confederate ancestors, accused lawmakers of trying to rewrite state history.

Robert Freeman of Hot Springs took issue with Blake's assertion the bill was intended to honor American Indians.

File Photo
File Photo

[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]

"They were vicious, murdering savages," Freeman said. The tribes that lived in the state at the time of its settling "contributed actually nothing" to the founding of the state, Freeman said.

At an earlier hearing, Rep. Jack Ladyman, R-Jonesboro, was overheard asking a colleague why the committee would vote to honor American Indians "after they fought against us." The chairman of the Quapaw Nation said at the time that Ladyman's comment was historically inaccurate. No representative of the Quapaw Nation was available to comment Wednesday.

Blake, meanwhile, offered additional information about the star for the Confederacy. He said that former state Rep. Neill Bohlinger, a Democrat from Little Rock, was one of the lawmakers responsible for adding that star in 1924, a decade after the original flag was designed and nearly 60 years after the Civil War ended. An article in a 1922 issue of the Arkansas Gazette identifies Bohlinger as one of the candidates endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan that year.

"One could argue that the star was added to the flag not to honor the Confederate States of America, but to only honor the presence and prominence of white supremacy and terrorism in the state of Arkansas," Blake said.

Since filing the first version of his bill, Blake has received the support of Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, who has also said the meaning behind the star should change.

"I continue to support this legislation, and I am certain it will come back up for debate in future legislative sessions," Hutchinson said in a statement Wednesday. "My hope is that someday we can have a flag with symbolism that unites the whole state."

The vote on the committee Wednesday matched an earlier vote against a previous version of Blake's bill in February. The same four Democrats and a single Republican on the committee voted for the bill, while the rest of the Republicans on the committee opposed it.

House had offered to Blake during the first hearing that the star above "Arkansas" should honor the United States. One of the three stars below the state's name now represents the U.S. The others are for Spain and France, in whose territory Arkansas was once part of.

A later version of the bill filed by Blake included that change, and HB1736 was filed later to add Republican co-sponsors. House suggested earlier to reporters that he was receptive to the change.

But on Wednesday, House said he had researched the U.S. flag codes and came to the conclusion that no law should dictate what the various parts of the Arkansas flag symbolize. He voted against Blake's bill.

Blake said he would be open to simply removing all designations from the flag code, but when asked by reporters about House's idea, he questioned why House had not already filed his own bill.

"If you're looking for a way not to vote for something, you wait until all the questions are asked, and then you make a statement to reflect on your vote," Blake said.

House filed his own bill later Wednesday afternoon, House Bill 1895, to remove the symbolism language.

A Section on 03/21/2019

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