Steve Barnes
This column has been updated to extract Rep. Stephen Meeks of Conway from two sentences.
Nate Bell refers to him as “the little demagogue down in Florida.” Way down in Florida, in Palm Beach, at the resort called Mar-a-Lago. He owns the place, Donald Trump, and lives there, smoldering. And if he does not own outright the Republican Party, he is plainly in control of it. Defeated after a single term in the White House, but still enthroned. Remarkable. Remarkable, and to Bell – who left the GOP and declared himself an Independent while still in the Arkansas House of Representatives –frightening.
Why Arkansas Is a Test Case for a Post-Trump Republican Party
Sarah Huckabee Sanders seems likely to bring the Trump brand to Arkansas politics in a big way. But the state is a testing ground for different possible futures for the party.
A business in downtown Clinton, Ark., in October 2019. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has positioned herself as a Trump loyalist as she runs for governor in a state the former president carried by 27 points last year. Credit.Audra Melton for The New York Times
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. For decades, Arkansas punched above its weight in politics and business.
In the 1990s, it was home to the president and the world’s wealthiest family. In the 2000s, three onetime Arkansans ran for president. A decade later, the state claimed its sixth company on the Fortune 500 list.
Brad Karren resigns as administrative judge of his circuit following parking lot dispute
May 13, 20211:50 pm
Benton County Circuit Judge Brad Karren has resigned as the administrative judge for the seven-judge circuit as a result of his parking lot dispute with former
House Speaker Davy Carter.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that Karren resigned from the unpaid position voluntarily “in response to recent events.”
Judge Tom Smith was elected to replace him. The administrative judge oversees case assignment plans in the circuit among other duties.
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Karren was caught on video April 30 angrily remonstrating former Carter’s son for parking in his parking spot at the county courthouse while eating at a nearby restaurant. The lot is for county employees through 5 p.m., but other signs reserve some spots 24 hours a day. Karren was returning from an event with his bailiff after regular hours on April 30 when he found the vehicle in his spot. Karren, who was
Nate Bell, who’s also now an independent;
Davy Carter, the former Republican House Speaker who, if he’s not an independent, has lately voiced opinions that separate him from the Trump-dominated party, and former Democratic
Sen. Bruce Maloch, a conservative by most definitions who was defeated by a newcomer Republican with a past that included wearing KKK regalia on a Mississippi Halloween outing that terrorized Black students at his high school.
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The document describes the effort as a “rallying cry for pragmatists.”
Our nation’s future should not be dictated by a single person but by principles that bind us together. That’s why we believe in pushing for the Republican Party to rededicate itself to founding ideals or else hasten the creation of an alternative.