Arkansas Republicans Read & Approve Party Platform Line by Line

By Jason Tolbert, State Politics: The Republican Party of Arkansas had almost wrapped up its 2010 convention with only one order of business to finish. Shortly after noon as delegates began gathering their belongings for lunch, Chairman of the Platform Committee Joe LaBlanc [sic, LeBlanc] came to the podium to recommend passage of the platform as presented. The only problem was that delegates did not have a copy of the final version to review.

Although drafts had been sent out to county committee chairman to distribute several weeks ago, the final proposal from the platform committee had only been drafted on Friday afternoon before the convention. This did not allow time for copies to be made for all the delegates and instead the proposal was shown on an overhead projector.

Several delegates questioned how they could vote on something they had not read; however, Charles Mazander, a delegate for Saline County, called for the immediate consideration of the question without discussion, which requires a two-thirds vote. Delegates voted by standing and Chairman Webb, in a very close vote, ruled the motion passed. This brought the adoption of the platform immediate to the floor that passed with a majority however many delegate voted against.

Several delegates, including one time Senate candidate and tea party organizer Randy Alexander, took the floor expressing that they felt that they needed to read the platform before putting their seal of approval. Some questioned how they could criticize Congress for passing bills without reading them and turn around and do the same. This lead to a delegate making a motion to reconsider the previous vote which also passed on a narrow majority vote.

The result? A three-hour extended session for the convention in which the platform was read in its entirety and voted on one section at the time. However, in the end the platform was adopted and the delegates left feeling much better about the process.

Much of the platform language is similar to the 2008 platform but there were some changes and additions. The preamble adopted a new set of basic principles (power of faith in God, sanctity of life), objectives (reduce the size of government, promote national defense) and strategies (make English the official language of the United States.)

Among the changes was a strengthening on the position against changing the Electoral College saying, “We support the Electoral College process as it presently exists and oppose modifications that would weaken or diminish its role in electing the President.” There is a national movement to change the election of the President to be based on the popular vote. A bill was introduced and defeated in the previous state legislative session, fought largely by state Republican legislators.

The tax reform section of the platform saw major revisions with sections for the national and state level. On the national level, the platform supports drastic tax reduction including complete elimination of the personal income tax and the estate tax as well as the passage of a balance budget amendment. On the state level, it supported a replacing the state income tax with a state sales tax limited to no more than two percent. In the interim, it calls for opposition to any income tax increase and exemption of all the retirement income. It also calls for repeal of the political contribution credit, which it calls “unethical” and “immoral.”

In the criminal justice section, the platform adds a section affirming the sovereignty of the United States and opposing reliance of foreign or international laws within the judicial system. It also supports stricter limits on sexual offenders under the sexual offenders residence law.

The health care section added support for the “repeal of Obamacare.” Read adopted platform.

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