KING: Say ‘NO’ to Asa Hutchinson, Political Illusionist

“I’m often asked about our former governor by people who aren’t familiar with him, and I tell them to find out about his true record and not the political illusion he campaigns on.”

My family has been helping Republicans get elected in Arkansas since the 1960s, and I’ve been personally involved in Arkansas Republican politics for 30 years.

In the 1990’s I financially supported and worked for Asa and Tim Hutchinson when they ran for Congress. I was a county Republican chairman 22 years ago. In 2006, when Arkansas was still controlled by a supermajority of Democrats, I won a race for state representative as a Republican and became the Republican leader of the Arkansas House of Representatives in 2009.

Fast forward to today, when Republicans control Arkansas politics and former Governor Asa Hutchinson announces his bid for the Republican nomination for president in 2024. I’m often asked about our former governor by people who aren’t familiar with him, and I tell them to find out about his true record and not the political illusion he campaigns on.

Webster’s Dictionary describes an illusionist as a person who produces illusionary effects, such as a sleight-of-hand performer or a magician.

I have a list of reasons why Asa Hutchinson can accurately be described as a political illusionist.

Let’s start with his talking tough on crime. Governor Hutchinson took office in 2015, when crime was getting worse after Democratic Governor Mike Beebe’s implementation of a public protection act in 2011. The act actually made crime worse and was mainly a political response to years of overspending and bad budgeting. It was a cost-saving measure that basically reduced sentences for felons. One of Beebe’s strongest allies for the public protection act was State Senator Jeremy Hutchinson, the nephew of Asa Hutchinson.

Don’t take my word for it, though. Arkansas is leading the country with its violent crime rate according to the latest data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. The data is considered the most accurate available to the FBI. It is gathered through the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) from local law enforcement agencies, and seven states were not included in the state ranking because of their lack of participation in reporting to NIBRS. The system received data from 292 out of 311 Arkansas law enforcement agencies for 2021.

They show Arkansas as the leading state for violent crime rate, and fifth for property crime. Violent crime includes murders, of course, and also crimes when someone uses force or threatens force against the victim. What the data do not show is the rate of violent crimes committed by first-time offenders, as compared with repeat offenders.

While the rate of violent crime in Arkansas was going up, Asa Hutchinson relied on his nephew, State Senator Jeremy Hutchinson, to address the crisis.

This was the beginning of a political illusion designed to distract voters, to keep their focus on what he was saying instead of what he was really doing.

The first step in forming the illusion is to form a task force. The task force meets, garners media coverage with dog and pony shows, then produces a report that is supposed to solve the problem.

The task force headed by State Senator Jeremy Hutchinson spent thousands of tax dollars, wasted the valuable time of law enforcement officials, and finally produced “reforms” that did not address the crime problem. Crime continued to get worse.

“Reform” is usually a political illusion, a rabbit pulled out of a hat to deceive the public. Reforms are popular these days among politicians seeking higher office.

Governor Hutchinson bragged about the reforms that his nephew pulled out of his hat. They bragged about how great the reforms were going to improve things.

But crime got worse.

In 2017, Governor Hutchinson and his nephew the state senator continued to introduce reform bills to mislead the public and maintain the status quo that hobbled law enforcement, eased parole eligibility, and failed to address the state’s growing shortage of prison space.

Before Governor Hutchinson took office, the Correction Department was allocated eight percent of the state budget. By the final year of Governor Hutchinson’s eight-year tenure, the budget for Corrections had never increased. It stayed at eight percent of the state’s general revenue budget.

In reality, those eight years of stagnant budgets were cut in public safety when you factor in increased costs for prisons and law enforcement. Crime worsened in part because criminals knew they would be released after serving a fraction of their sentence. Felons released early from prison knew that violating the terms of their parole would merely result in a technical violation. In other words, a mild slap on the hand and not more years behind bars.

In 2017, I filed a public safety bill that would require a four-time convicted felon to serve 80 percent of his sentence. Crimes committed by repeat offenders were spiraling out of control and had to be addressed. Contrary to the political illusion created by the Hutchinsons’ task force, crime had gotten worse.

I was able to win passage of my repeat offender bill in the Senate, only to be opposed and defeated by Governor Hutchinson. He used a variation of the old Bernie Sanders illusion, alleging that my bill would increase costs and harm the state budget, preventing teachers from educating kids and throwing grandma over the cliff.

What he said wasn’t true.

I offered two options to pay for the additional costs of keeping repeat offenders in prison. One option was to increase the Correction Department’s share of the state budget to ten percent. The other option was to dedicate revenue from the internet sales tax to build prisons and increase pay for law enforcement officers.