I refuse to buy or read the D-G. So I asked someone who had a copy to forward over the article where Lt. Gov Mark Darr and Rep. John Burris made complete buffoons of themselves standing up for corruption in our politics.
First there was Darr:
Darr, who has said he’s considering running for governor in 2014, said he loves the provision requiring lawmakers to have a two-year cooling-off period before they become lobbyists.
But he has concerns about the donation-restrictions provision, especially as it pertains to “some retired Democrats” who are supporting it but who aren’t going to run for office anymore.
“When you see the state about to, in my opinion, switch to where it would be a Republican majority [in the Legislature], … yeah, let’s make it where you can’t take corporate contributions,” Darr said.
“I want to learn a little more about it before I either totally stomp on it or support it,” he said.
In other words, Republicans want their turn at the trough. Give them the legislature, and you can expect them to keep the status quo in place because as they see it it’s their due. Let us all be grateful to Mark Darr for having that rare honest moment there.
Burris, a Republican state representative from Harrison, said the proposed ballot measure is “flawed legislation.”
He said he doesn’t think that barring corporations from making direct contributions to candidates is constitutional.
“I think it is a freedom of speech issue,” Burris said, adding that the existing law limiting corporations and others to contributions of $2,000 per candidate per election is sufficient.
“Corporations are people my friend!” This is absurd. Corporations can’t make contributions at the federal level and that’s exactly the model that Regnat Populus follows.
Republicans have stepped in it big on this and Democrats now have a huge opening to exploit. We need to make ethics reform central to the 2012 campaigns in Arkansas, and we need to be hammering Republicans on this on TV and through every other medium we can.
