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Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ plan for a 3,000-bed prison in Franklin County might, sort of, could be in trouble. If it is — and that’s a big “if” because the governor won her office in a landslide and has made her support for the plan abundantly clear — it’s because the people most likely to be affected by it got loud.
A petition asking state legislators to investigate the project obtained 1,258 signatures, according to Gravel & Grit, a nonprofit that opposes the prison. Another grassroots group, the Franklin County & River Valley Coalition, has also been vocal in its opposition.
And now the Legislature’s Joint Performance Review Committee is scheduled to meet Sept. 9 in Little Rock with an agenda that includes a discussion of the citizens’ complaints. One of those scheduled to speak is Adam Watson, co-founder of Gravel & Grit. Watson told the Arkansas Advocate that the flaws in the prison plans were so obvious that “I think we honestly could have just sat on our hands and not said a thing.”
We respectfully disagree. The lawmakers who represent these citizens are paying attention in large part because their constituents are making their displeasure plain. And as long as lawmakers still need votes, voters’ voices matter.
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