The Moral of ‘Jurassic Park’ (Editorial)

The sweetest words we’ve heard coming from the Arkansas State Capitol during this long winter were spoken by Eddie Joe Williams, the Cabot Republican who chairs the Senate State Agencies & Governmental Affairs Committee.

“To be honest, the membership has expressed a concern to me that there’s no compelling reason we change the Constitution every two years,” Williams said.

Therefore, the Arkansas General Assembly will adjourn without referring a single constitutional amendment to next year’s ballot, much less all three that they are permitted to refer.

This despite the fact that some 40 amendments were proposed, with warnings that some of them might be bundled in the same way that ethics reform, longer term limits and higher salaries for elected officials ended up in the same amendment referred out in 2014.

Taking a breather from making the most permanent kind of state law is a spectacular idea. And it suggests the kind of institutional maturity that we had begun to despair of. Deliberative bodies should be very deliberate.

Another sweet piece of non-action in this incredibly active session was Rep. Bruce Cozart’s decision to withdraw his bill that would have let the state’s education commissioner transfer control of troubled school districts to private, nonprofit organizations. And the Hot Spring Republican’s reasoning, as reported, was incredibly sound: “It was too broad and could affect too many people so I started backing off of it.”

Arkansas Business is open to new ideas for improving public education in Arkansas, but abdicating public control of public education sounds like a financial bonanza for someone who would then have a vested interest in keeping control and expanding.