A few months ago, I told Bryan King that I planned to endorse him in print. He seemed a little surprised at first. Over the past 10 years, I’ve criticized him on a number of issues. But even when I’ve disagreed with Bryan – and we have often disagreed – I always knew exactly where he stood. He never dodged a question, and that means a lot to a journalist.
On one occasion, I tried to pin him down on an especially sensitive issue, and he asked me to email my questions to him. I fussed and fumed while I emailed the questions, but he sent back answers within an hour. By that time, I had already realized that I would have done exactly the same thing in his position.
We need straight answers more than ever, and we won’t get them from someone who has committed himself to making it harder for the media to check up on their legislators. Bob Ballinger crossed over the line when he supported a bill that would exempt some private entities that receive public funds from public scrutiny. He then publicly, and repeatedly, claimed that the Arkansas Press Association did not oppose the bill, although video records from a 2017 committee meeting show that he knew better.
This small space does not permit examining the tawdry business of Ballinger’s steering your tax dollars to a financially shaky religious college outside of his district. You can’t read very much about that situation without feeling a little queasy, though. And you can see why he would rather the media not have the tools to see what your tax dollars bought.
In his early years at the lege, Bryan developed a reputation for not always getting along with governors or other heavy-duty political figures. As the years have gone by, that has become more and more of a compliment. We’re still sorting through the layers of complicity in the 2014 bill that stuck our waste district with the bill for cleaning up after years of failure by a state agency. Bryan voted against it. Ballinger voted to stick the people he allegedly represents with a fee, which will haunt us for a generation.
When the legislature set up a scam that threatened local pharmacies, Bryan made it a media issue, and pointed out the collusion behind the situation. And the money trail, which often explains a lot.
At this distance from Little Rock, we can’t easily keep up with the goings-on in Little Rock. We have to trust our elected representatives to act in our best interests. Only one person in his district benefited from the thousands of dollars Ballinger diverted to Ecclesia College, and that one person continued to perform legal work for Ecclesia. But don’t worry about a conflict, because he gave them a discount. Trust him, he said so.
But if we can trust him, why doesn’t he want us to know how he spends our money?
Mike Ellis
[Eds. Note: Early voting for the May 22 Republican State Senate District 5 primary, State Sen. Bryan King vs. State Rep. Bob Ballinger, started May 7. Democrat Jim Wallace is unopposed in the primaries].