Ripe for Reform: Arkansas As a Model Jayjay Barthbarth for Social Change Ffebruaryebruary 22012012 on the Cover

Ripe for Reform: Arkansas as a Model JayJay BarthBarth for Social Change FebruaryFebruary 20122012 On the cover: Youth from across Arkansas meet with Governor Mike Beebe at the Capitol. Arkansas’s small size makes it easy for grassroots people to access policymakers. Img. 1 The Southern Tenant Farmers Union, formed in 1934 in the Arkansas Delta, was the first racially integrated union in the United States. Img. 2 Commissioned and Produced by Contents: A Record of Progress 1 Arkansas’s Distinctive Political Culture 2 Six in One: The Complex Demography of a Small State 7 ∙ Northwestern Arkansas 7 ∙ Delta 8 ∙ Pulaski County 10 ∙ Suburban Counties 10 ∙ Rural Swing Counties 11 ∙ Policy Diffusion 12 Contemporary Electoral Patterns 14 A Depoliticized Arkansas Judiciary 20 The Public Opinion of Arkansans 21 Progressive Successes in Recent Years in Arkansas Policy-Making 25 ∙ Education 25 ∙ Taxes 26 ∙ Minimum Wage 27 ∙ Agriculture 28 ∙ Social Issues 28 The Success of Progressive Coalitions in a Small State 29 The Challenges to Progressive Social Change in Arkansas 31 Ripe for Reform: a Critical Turning Point 33 Image and Data Sources 34 A Record of Progress In recent years Arkansas has made impressive progress on big challenges that have confounded leaders in other states. Under both Republican and Democratic leadership in the past decade, Arkansas has: • Made a massive overhaul of its education system, including dramatically increased funding and enhanced educational standards; • Avoided cutbacks to social safety net programs through raising revenue to fi ll budget shortfalls when necessary; • Made the tax code more progressive for low-income families, while raising the minimum wage and passing other policies to expand economic opportunities for those in poverty; • Largely avoided the divisive social issues of immigration, abortion, and LGBT- related policies that have dominated many other neighboring state agendas. This document explores the factors creating Arkansas’s record of progress. The history of populism and progressivism in the state, especially compared to its Southern neighbors, serves as a foundation on which modern progressive social change can be built. Moreover, excepting some very recent dynamics that threaten the overall trend, modern electoral success by relatively progressive candidates and for progressive causes on ballot initiatives exemplifi es the openness of the state’s citizenry to such ideals. The surprising success of progressive causes in the legislative arena in the state—despite limited outside support for that work—serves as additional evidence of the opportunities for lasting success in the state. The report fl eshes out this history and modern success stories. It also makes the case that the complex demography of the state that makes it both a “Southern” state and a “Midwestern” state means that political successes in Arkansas could be replicated in a wider array of states in those regions (and in rural America more broadly). In short, while many Southern states have become dominated by ideological polarization, Arkansas remains a more balanced political system that is, therefore, capable of progress on issues that will expand opportunities and social justice. Due to these unique characteristics, with additional investment from outside its borders, Arkansas has an enormous opportunity to continue tackling challenges of poverty and lack of opportunity to transform this small state and have broad ramifi cations beyond its borders. Arkansas’s Distinctive Political Culture “lesser born” and “less fortunate.” Under this con- ception, political power is often inherited as a fam- As political scientist Daniel Elazar and others have ily right and obligation, and the major purpose of extensively documented, the political culture of Ameri- government is to protect and preserve the status quo. can states is rooted, as is all culture, in the cumulative At least throughout the bulk of the nineteenth cen- historical experiences of a people. As white settlers tury, Elazar’s formulations place Arkansas squarely came to America, and then moved westward across within the Traditionalistic pattern. There is a close fi t the nation, they carried with them historical memories between Elazar’s description of the hallmarks of the and ethnic and religious affi liations that were mani- Traditionalistic political culture and the salient char- fested in different orientations toward politics. Thus, acteristics of nineteenth-century Arkansas politics: Both because the landed aristocracy was less numerous in Arkansas and because the frontier with its antiaristocratic influences was much nearer, elitism never reached the apogee in Arkansas that it did, for instance, in South Carolina or Virginia. important variations express themselves around the Government tries to limit [its] role to securing the continued maintenance of the existing United States in perceptions of what politics should social order. To do so, it functions to confi ne be, of what can be expected from the government, real political power to a relatively small and of the kinds of people expected to become active in self-perpetuating group drawn from an es- politics, and of the actual ways in which government is tablished elite who often inherit their “right” practiced by citizens, politicians, and public offi cials.1 to govern through family ties or social posi- tion.... At the same time, those who do not According to Elazar, the Traditionalistic political have a defi nite role to play in politics are culture, which developed in the Tidewater colonies not expected to be even minimally active as of the southern coast and spread westward across citizens…the traditionalistic political culture the south, developed a paternalistic concept of is found only in a society that retains some of government, with an obligation on the part of the plantation-owning elite to exercise political as well as economic decision-making responsibilities for the 1 It is crucial to note that Rodney E. Hero recently has put for- ward a strong and thought-provoking critique of the Elazar political subculture model in Faces of Inequality. Hero argues that seeing the racial/ethnic diversity of a state as driving the political environment of a state is more insightful than Elazar’s frame- work because categorizations based on social diversity “are clearer, are more precise, and better incorporate change” (10). In Hero’s categorizations, Arkansas remains socially “bifurcated,” The Ozark people preferred taking care of their own needs, a structure that leads to many expectations about political basically believing that government was an inconsequential outcomes in synch with Elazar’s traditionalistic political culture. nuisance. Img. 3 2 the organic characteristics of the preindus- trial social order…unless political leaders are pressed strongly from the outside they play conservative and custodial rather than initiatory roles.2 Both because the landed aristocracy was less numerous in Arkansas (it is estimated that less than one hundred Arkansans ever owned more than one hundred slaves) and because the frontier with its antiaristocratic infl uences was much nearer, elitism never reached the apogee in Arkansas that it did, for instance, in South Carolina or Virginia. Unquestionably, however, the large landowners, because they had the wealth, the skill, the leisure, and the incentives within a The Traditionalistic political culture developed a paternalistic political culture permitting and accepting their natu- concept of government, with an obligation on the part of the elite to exercise political as well as economic decision-making ral dominance, had extraordinary weight in setting responsibilities for the “lesser born” and “less fortunate.” Img. 4 the political agenda and selecting political leaders. According to Elazar’s mapping of political culture, only one small portion of Arkansas, the northwestern Ozarks, does not fall clearly within the Traditional- istic pattern. Both the fi erce individualism of the hill people and their antipathy to elitism suggest that they cannot be fairly placed in the tidewater, paternalistic, Traditionalistic pattern. The aggressively independent and often fatalistic Ozark uplanders seem to have been more anarchistic than anything else, more motivated by a deliberate quest for remote- ness than by any search for community of any sort. These were people who preferred taking care of their own needs, basically believing that government was an inconsequential nuisance. If the elites who controlled the state’s politics wanted to use government as their private playpen, this sim- ply confi rmed the basic belief of the nonpower- 2 Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States, 2d ed. (New York: Crowell, 1972), 99 102. For further analysis—and a defense—of southern traditional- Shirley Abbot said of the Ozark highland culture: “[They were] ism, see Eugene D. Genovese, The Southern Tradition: The the most independent people who ever lived…They did without Achievement and Limitations of an American Conserva- doctors and lawyers and tried every way they could to do tism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996). without tax collectors. Civic-minded they were not.” Img. 5 3 It was the sharpening perception of favoritism for the few and neglect of the many that finally created the beginnings of organization, protest, and demands for change in the form of a populist movement. ful in the state, pinpointed by Shirley Abbott, that rather than widespread

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