Common Ground, the center-reaching political group established by Sen. Jim Hendren, is making a bit of a splash this campaign season by pointing out, if not some candidates worthy of election, some worthy of defeat.
Its email yesterday highlighted:
Rep. John Payton’s statement that lawmakers have little do in the fiscal session except rubberstamp appropriations. Advice: Get to work and go home.
Then they highlighted the legislature’s leading money grabber, Republican Rep. Jim Dotson of Bentonville, who’s running for Senate.
Then there’s retrograde Sen. Bob Ballinger, who is a leading graspy money grabber but unable to pay his own bills.
Solutions: Better people run for office. Vote.
But also: The fat cats deserve some credit/blame for the likes of Ballinger.
Jim Walton, the Walmart heir and thus a part of a movement in Northwest Arkansas that has lately championed the sort of diversity that Ballinger fights with every fiber of his being, just gave Ballinger the max, $2,900 for this campaign. Immediately before and after him on a recent contribution list were lobbying firms — DBH Consulting, the Bruce Hawkins enterprise that had a cameo in the Gilbert Baker bribery trial testimony, and also one of Hawkins’ signature doppelganger PACs, and Impact Management, the Republican influence machine that contributed a gerrymander advisor to the legislative redistricting plans that discriminated against Black people. Ballinger also had big contributions from a local player in the medical marijuana business (remember how Ballinger’s one-time legal partner was tied up in that regulatory fiasco?) Koch Industries, the tenant-oppressing realtors PAC and no less than five $1,000 contributions from separate PACs established by Shelter Insurance. Smell funny to you?
