Arkansas Senate confirms ex-lawmaker to state prison board over one member's objection
The Arkansas Senate confirmed more than three dozen new members to state boards and commissions Tuesday, with the only opposition directed at a Republican ex-lawmaker who now works for a Little Rock lobbying firm.
Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, requested that the Senate vote separately on Grant Hodges' appointment to the Board of Corrections, one of many appointments Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced this month. Hodges represented Centerton for four terms in the House, from 2015 to 2020 and from 2023 to this year.
King said he did not believe Hodges was qualified to be on the seven-member board that oversees the state prison system. He also took issue with Hodges' work as an account manager at JCD Consulting since November, reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
King has regularly objected to the frequent involvement of lobbyists and consultants in state government affairs. In 2023, he sponsored a bill that would have prohibited former lawmakers from employment 'as a consultant or director with a firm, business, association, or other private entity with the primary purpose of lobbying an elected official of Arkansas.' The bill died in the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs.
'You can title yourself whatever, but I say if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck,' King told the Senate on Tuesday.
He added that the Legislature should establish a 'clear line' for affiliates of lobbyists not to cross.
Republican Sens. Terry Rice of Waldron and Gary Stubblefield of Branch also voted against Hodges' appointment, which passed with a voice vote. Rice said in an interview that he shared King's concerns about the influence of lobbyists, because even if Hodges 'is evidently not one right now, he works for one.'
According to JDC's website, the firm is 'the largest Republican campaign shop in the state' and the only Arkansas-based firm Sanders hired for her 2022 gubernatorial campaign.
Sanders is running for reelection next year, and one of her campaign's special advisers is Chris Caldwell, who managed her 2022 campaign. The Senate confirmed Caldwell to the Game and Fish Commission in December. Rice said Tuesday that he voted against Caldwell's appointment for the same reason he voted against Hodges, since Caldwell runs a political consulting firm.
'I just think when you're in and around the executive branch, there needs to be separation for the public,' Rice said.
Hodges is Sanders' third appointee to the Board of Corrections after Brandon Tollett and Lona McCastlain.
Members of both the Board of Corrections and the State Library Board serve staggered seven-year terms. Sydney McKenzie of Rogers, wife of Republican Rep. Brit McKenzie, was confirmed to the library board in a batch of the remaining appointees that the Senate passed with no dissent.
Hodges' and McKenzie's terms on their respective boards will expire in 2031.
McKenzie is Sanders' third appointment to the library board, which oversees the distribution of state funds to public libraries. The Senate confirmed Jason Rapert, a former Republican state senator from Conway, and Shari Bales of Hot Springs to the board in December 2023.
Rapert has called for the state Legislature to abolish the State Library Board in response to other board members, including Bales, rejecting his efforts to withhold state funding from libraries that contain books he considers inappropriate for children.
McKenzie told the Democrat-Gazette that she is 'grateful for this opportunity to advance access to safe learning environments and promote greater literacy for children across our state.'
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