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Huckabee defends minimum wage bill, political philosophy Thursday, Apr 13, 2006 By Aaron Sadler Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Gov. Mike Huckabee, a possible 2008 Republican presidential contender, criticized a national conservative group's characterization of him as a liberal Wednesday, calling himself the most conservative governor in Arkansas history. The Club for Growth labeled Huckabee a liberal on its Web site this week while denouncing the governor for signing legislation to raise Arkansas' minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.25 an hour. Huckabee fired back Wednesday that his positions on the minimum wage and a statewide smoking ban, which he also signed, are conservative positions. The governor said he supported the $1.10-per-hour minimum wage increase as a safeguard against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have increased the minimum wage yearly for inflation. The anti-tax, anti-big government Club for Growth said in a Web log entry Monday that Huckabee "is a liberal" who "seems to think government is better at helping the poor than the free market." Huckabee said blog writers could easily fit solutions in a short slogan, but actual governing was much more complex. "I'm going to try to do the job that I was elected to do and not worry about some label a person is going to put on me," the governor said Wednesday. "If they look at my record over 10-and-a-half years, when I walk out this door, there's never been a more conservative governor in the history of Arkansas." Peggy Jeffries, a former state senator from Fort Smith and board member of the Arkansas chapter of the national Club for Growth, said the state's last Republican governor, Frank White, was more conservative than Huckabee. White unseated Bill Clinton in 1980 and lost a rematch two years later. "This governor has had 10 years to plan and promote his agenda, and he has not only not chosen a conservative policy in most areas, but he demeans those who attempt to hold the line on the growth of government and the increase of taxes," Jeffries said. Michael Dougan, a former Arkansas State University history professor and author of the history book Arkansas Odyssey, said expanding government has been status quo for the governor. "The only thing he has managed to cut in his years in office has been his weight," Dougan said. Huckabee has gained national recognition for advocating healthy living after losing more than 100 pounds. According to Huckabee, the state would face economic problems in the future if a minimum wage were tied to inflation. He said his support of a workplace smoking ban is related to the conservative ideal of protecting individual rights, he said. "I would argue with anybody in America that there's nothing conservative about allowing a person with a habit to impose his or her habit on another unsuspecting or unwilling person," the governor said. He acknowledged that his support of the minimum wage increase and smoking ban may damage his presidential hopes. "Oh, they might," Huckabee said. "But I'm governor of Arkansas, and I've got to do what's right for the people here." Arkansas historian Tom Dillard said he doubts history will judge Huckabee as the state's most conservative governor, and he said he was "pretty flabbergasted" by the governor's assertion. Dillard, director of the special collections department of the University of Arkansas library at Fayetteville, mentioned White, along with 1940s Democratic Gov. Ben Laney and Depression era Gov. J. Marion Futrell, also a Democrat, among governors they considered more conservative than Huckabee. "I think he's been a conservative governor, but I think there are many initiatives that take him outside the traditional conservative realm," Dillard said. Among the initiatives Huckabee himself mentions most is ARKids First, a multimillion-dollar government program that provides basic health coverage for thousands of children of Arkansas' working poor. Last year, the governor supported failed legislation that would have made the children of undocumented immigrants eligible for state-funded scholarships. |
