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Beebe's government by smug Saturday, Mar 1, 2008 By John Brummett There is the principle that democratic government ought to be open and inclusive and accountable. Then there's the way Mike Beebe likes to do it, which can be more efficient. We have the matter of whether to raise the severance tax on natural gas to capture revenue for highways from this new run on natural gas in north-central Arkansas. Beebe favors this. Two legislative leaders were quoted the other day as saying it didn't appear we'd have a special session on the subject because Beebe had discussed a March timetable and nothing appeared to have happened. Beebe, told of the comment, replied, "They don't know what I know." That brought to mind two questions: What did he know? And why was he keeping it to himself? Here's what he knew: He was in vigorous private discussions with the natural gas industry about a pre-emptive consensus to be presented to the Legislature, and these talks were making interesting, if not yet decisive, progress. Here's why he was keeping it to himself: That's always been his way, dating back two decades as a state Senate leader. He likes things worked out privately beforehand by a small, manageable group. To him, legislative enactment ought to be more a rubber stamp of what the smart people have worked out in private than a public exercise in the manufacture of sausage. So I asked the governor's press office to relate to him that I was working on a column about his being smug. I advised that his obsession with neat, tidy, pre-emptive agreements with captains of industry had always been his weakness. I asked that his press office convey to him that all of this reminded me of how Beebe, as a state senator, had been a key figure in getting telecommunications deregulation accomplished by pre-emptive consensus according to the specifications of a corporate member of the telecommunications industry whose lobbyist was his golfing buddy. I asked his press office also to bring up electricity deregulation, which, also as a state senator, Beebe treated as a choice between pre-emptive bills filed by the Entergy Corp. and the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation rather than as an issue to be hammered out in public with consumers foremost in mind. "So you want me to push his buttons for you?" Matt DeCample, the press secretary, asked. "Yes," I said. DeCample called back promptly to say he'd spoken with the governor and that he now wished to push my buttons. He said that Beebe had replied that while it was apparent I compared all of this to utility deregulation, he compared it instead to the special session on education in 1983. That special session lasted six dreadful weeks, and a proposed increase in the natural gas severance tax languished in committee the entire time. That is to say Beebe sees no reason to call a special session unless he knows for certain he can avoid any kind of repeat of that. The way to avoid that, he believes, is to have industry on board for a negotiated agreement that legislators can take up or down. The governor deems his exercise in public accountability to occur if and when he unveils this agreement to the Legislature and public, then endeavors to sell it as the wisest course. "Oh, yes, one more thing," DeCample, said. "The governor said for you to remember, 'Let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good.' " Ah, yes. The compromiser's mantra. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
