The Leader

Worst legislation so far this session

___Rarely does the Arkansas legislature get into as much mischief as when it goes in search of sins to vanquish.
___ The practice has a common name, demagoguery, and a common result, a sullied reputation for the state.
___ The first two of what will be several demagogic bills in the 2005 session would police all the books used in Arkansas schools to be sure that none defines marriage in an unusual way and bar any kind of public benefit – education, medical treatment, voting rights, nutritional assistance – to anyone who is not a citizen of the United States.
___ In the first encouraging development of this assembly, the House of Representatives stopped the book-censorship legislation and sent it back to the Education Committee for further study.
___ But it will be back.
___Rep. Joyce Elliott, a school teacher, said the government always made a mistake when it lowered itself to censorship. Besides, if the government is going to start sanitizing the reading material of its children, surely it can find something more sinister than an insufficiently conventional definition of marriage.
___ The bill's sponsor, Rep. Roy Ragland of Marshall, had not heard of a textbook used in the schools that defined marriage as something other than the union of a man and a woman but he couldn't be sure there wasn't one somewhere.
___ The state Education Department needs to drop what it's doing and see if it can find it. Never mind that a problem doesn't exist.
___ Ragland wants to tap into the popular discontent that followed an opinion by the Republican chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 2003 holding that people of the same sex had a right under the equal-protection guarantee of that state's Constitution to get married.
___ No matter how utterly insincere the author and silly the legislation, once the roll is called every legislator has to think about whether he or she can face an opponent in the next election who says that the representative tried to destroy the sanctity of marriage.
___ That 49 of them were willing to say "no" is a heartening sign of maturity. The bill aimed at denying any form of assistance to non-citizens has a similar origin, the latent phobia particularly in northwest Arkansas about Mexican workers, whose numbers have greatly increased owing to the abundance of low-wage jobs that American citizens will not take.
___ Sen. Jim Holt of Springdale, the bill's lead sponsor, says it is not fair that alien workers and their children might get educational or medical assistance through some public institution.
___ Although he could not point to a single instance of it, he worried that the same benefits might somehow be denied to real Americans if non-citizens got them.
___ Sen. Denny Altes of Fort Smith, another sponsor, said he had heard that a few poor pregnant women who were not U. S. citizens were getting pre-natal care to insure the health of the newborn. He did not want a dime of his tax dollars going to help such people and he knew that other taxpayers didn't either.
___ He had the same question about that form of assistance as he had about Gov. Huckabee's proposal to make the children of undocumented workers eligible for in-state tuition and merit scholarships if they excelled in school:
___ What message does it send to people in Mexico or other lands where opportunities are limited and the American dream beckons? Denny Altes and Jim Holt and Roy Ragland know a different America from the one we think we know, the one heartless and bigoted, the other big-hearted and tolerant.
___ It is the nature of the news business that all that the country knows so far about the 2005 Arkansas legislature is the marriage and alien bills.
___ The legislature betrays who we are as a people when it answers the roll. ___Pray that it is the America and state that you know.

Editorial>>	Worst legislation so far this session ___Rarely does the Arkansas legislature get into as much mischief as when it goes in search of sins to vanquish. ___ The practice has a common name, demagoguery, and a common result, a sullied reputation for the state. ___ The first two of what will be several demagogic bills in the 2005 session would police all the books used in Arkansas schools to be sure that none defines marriage in an unusual way and bar any kind of public benefit – education, medical treatment, voting rights, nutritional assistance – to anyone who is not a citizen of the United States. ___ In the first encouraging development of this assembly, the House of Representatives stopped the book-censorship legislation and sent it back to the Education Committee for further study. ___ But it will be back. ___Rep. Joyce Elliott, a school teacher, said the government always made a mistake when it lowered itself to censorship. Besides, if the government is going to start sanitizing the reading material of its children, surely it can find something more sinister than an insufficiently conventional definition of marriage. ___ The bill's sponsor, Rep. Roy Ragland of Marshall, had not heard of a textbook used in the schools that defined marriage as something other than the union of a man and a woman but he couldn't be sure there wasn't one somewhere. ___ The state Education Department needs to drop what it's doing and see if it can find it. Never mind that a problem doesn't exist. ___ Ragland wants to tap into the popular discontent that followed an opinion by the Republican chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 2003 holding that people of the same sex had a right under the equal-protection guarantee of that state's Constitution to get married. ___ No matter how utterly insincere the author and silly the legislation, once the roll is called every legislator has to think about whether he or she can face an opponent in the next election who says that the representative tried to destroy the sanctity of marriage. ___ That 49 of them were willing to say "no" is a heartening sign of maturity. The bill aimed at denying any form of assistance to non-citizens has a similar origin, the latent phobia particularly in northwest Arkansas about Mexican workers, whose numbers have greatly increased owing to the abundance of low-wage jobs that American citizens will not take. ___ Sen. Jim Holt of Springdale, the bill's lead sponsor, says it is not fair that alien workers and their children might get educational or medical assistance through some public institution. ___ Although he could not point to a single instance of it, he worried that the same benefits might somehow be denied to real Americans if non-citizens got them. ___ Sen. Denny Altes of Fort Smith, another sponsor, said he had heard that a few poor pregnant women who were not U. S. citizens were getting pre-natal care to insure the health of the newborn. He did not want a dime of his tax dollars going to help such people and he knew that other taxpayers didn't either. ___ He had the same question about that form of assistance as he had about Gov. Huckabee's proposal to make the children of undocumented workers eligible for in-state tuition and merit scholarships if they excelled in school: ___ What message does it send to people in Mexico or other lands where opportunities are limited and the American dream beckons? Denny Altes and Jim Holt and Roy Ragland know a different America from the one we think we know, the one heartless and bigoted, the other big-hearted and tolerant. ___ It is the nature of the news business that all that the country knows so far about the 2005 Arkansas legislature is the marriage and alien bills. ___ The legislature betrays who we are as a people when it answers the roll. ___Pray that it is the America and state that you know.