LITTLE ROCK — Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe on Tuesday called statements by three Republican legislative candidates sad and embarrassing for the state but said he doesn’t think the comments should be taken as indicative of what the party or the state believes.
“It’s pretty embarrassing, it’s pretty sad, but you know you can’t blame a whole state for activities or comments from a few. There’s been a lot of comments by Republicans and Democrats that we wish had never been made and embarrass us all or that detract from how we’re viewed by other folks,” Beebe told reporters Tuesday.
The remarks were made by state Reps. Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro and Loy Mauch of Bismarck, both of whom are seeking re-election, and former legislator Charles Fuqua of Batesville, who is challenging a Democratic lawmaker for the District 63 seat.
The statements were all made in writing and became more widely known over the weekend in articles in the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
and other media. They have since been picked up by national news outlets such as Fox News and the Chicago Tribune.
“I would hope the people in the rest of the country wouldn’t think that Hubbard or those other people represent what Arkansas really is, because they don’t,” he said.
On Monday, the chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas and the state’s three Republican members of the U.S. House distanced themselves from the comments, calling some of the remarks racially inflammatory, extreme, offensive and not the party’s views. The Republican Party has said it will no longer contribute to their campaigns.
Beebe said voters should know where the three candidates stand.
“People have a right to run, they’ve got a right to vote, but I would hope people wouldn’t vote for them,” he said. “We all believe in the First Amendment and freedom of speech, but you’d hope the voters would never reward somebody with those kinds of thoughts.”
In Hubbard’s 2009 book Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative, he refers to slavery as a challenge that God set for black people to overcome.
“The institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise,” Hubbard said. “The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of this Earth.”
He is seeking a seat in House District 58 against Harold Copenhaver of Jonesboro.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel called on candidates and people in Jonesboro, his old House district, to condemn Hubbard’s writings, according to his remarks prepared for delivery to the Jonesboro Rotary Club Tuesday.
“The embarrassed Republican leadership of Arkansas knows, as I do, that Jonesboro absolutely does not think the way Jon Hubbard thinks,” McDaniel said. “However, we have heard nothing from the Republican Party of Craighead County. Their silence is deafening.”
Hubbard did not return phone calls or e-mails from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Tuesday. The chairman of the Craighead County Republican Party also did not return phone calls or e-mails from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Copenhaver called the book appalling.
“This is about right and wrong, and this is wrong. This does not represent our community,” Copenhaver said.
Fuqua’s book, God’s Law — The Only Political Solution, published in 2011, states that “the Muslim religion is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution” and “I see no solution to the Muslim problem short of expelling all followers of the religion from the United States. We will either expel them or be killed by them.”
Fuqua’s book also includes a passage about applying the death penalty to rebellious children. It states that any prisoner who cannot be rehabilitated in two years should be executed and that Social Security is the “worst program ever devised” because it causes people to not work hard in their youth.
He also writes that, as a condition of receiving government support for their children, parents should agree to be sterilized so they cannot have more children.
He did not return calls Tuesday from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
His opponent for the District 63 seat, Rep. James McLean, D-Batesville, called the book “dangerous,” “radical” and “unconscionable.”
“To say that I’m outraged by the claims made in the book would be an understatement,” McLean said. “Charlie Fuqua has no place running for office or holding office. The claims that he makes are way beyond any reasonable political discourse.”
Independence County Republican Party Chairman Phillip Finch said at this point the party isn’t taking a stance on whether Fuqua should step down.
“The county party is distressed. We all think highly of Charlie ... we realize it is a provocative book,” Finch said. “Would we agree with everything he said? No. But Charlie wrote a book on some important topics that our country needs to deal with and he wrote it with a Biblical view.”
Mauch’s statements were made in more than 50 letters to the editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette between 2000 and 2011.
In a Feb. 15, 2003, letter Mauch wrote, “Nowhere in the Holy Bible have I found a word of condemnation for the operation of slavery, Old or New Testament. If slavery was so bad, why didn’t Jesus, Paul or the prophets say something?”
The letters also refer to Abraham Lincoln as a “terrorist” and an “indiscriminate war criminal” and the Confederate battle flag as a symbol of “Jesus Christ, biblical government, constitutional government and freedom from tyranny.”
Mauch said Monday that he did not mean to appear to condone slavery in any of his letters. He did not return phone calls Tuesday from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
“I hold a different perspective on history, and my historic views of that time period have nothing to do with what I’m trying to do as a state legislator,” Mauch said Monday.
Darrin Hardy, chairman of the Hot Spring Republican Party, wouldn’t comment.
“I don’t have any comment at this time, I may later,” Hardy said.
Mauch is being challenged for the District 26 seat by David Kizzia of Malvern.
“I’ve always known Mr. Mauch’s views don’t represent the people of the district, I would think Mr. Mauch’s views doesn’t even represent a small percent of this district,” Kizzia said.
He said he is worried about the ability to attract companies to the area.
“It makes our people a caricature,” Kizzia said. “I would hate for folks to come away with a misunderstanding of what people here are like.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/10/2012