FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Media Contact:

Katherine Vasilos

501-372-7301

NEWS RELEASE

Little Rock – After ignoring several unjustified accusations by Governor Beebe claiming Republican House Members are partisan, RPA Executive Director Chase Dugger released the following statement:

“While we respect the Governor and his position, we are growing concerned with his baseless allegations of partisanship against Republican Legislators. To my knowledge, there were only two issues one could label as “party-line” during the past session. Those were the tobacco tax and the elimination of the Electoral College.”

“Our Legislators’ views on these two issues should be understandable. When they ran for office, they ran on conservative Republican principles of lower taxes, less government and traditional values. Likewise, Democrats ran on their Party’s platform and were elected with their constituents believing they would vote and act based on those political positions. It only makes sense that all legislators would vote their values.”

“Republican Legislators didn’t oppose the tobacco tax because it was proposed by a Democrat. They opposed it because they wanted to offset the tax elsewhere and find a more stable revenue source to fund something as important as trauma systems. Republican legislators didn’t vote to eliminate the Electoral College because they felt it would take Arkansas’s voice away. In a state that overwhelmingly voted for Sen. McCain, we would have had to give our Electoral votes to then Sen. Obama. If the results had been different, our position would have remained the same.”

“Our hope is that we can progress away from negative attacks against each party. Our hope is that both sides will realize that just because we have different ideological views doesn’t mean we can’t all get along and find common ground to do what’s best for all of Arkansas.”