The City Wire endorsement: Jake Files

Editor’s note: The City Wire is endorsing candidates in the Democratic and GOP primaries for the U.S. Senate; the GOP primary for the 3rd Congressional District; and the GOP primary races for Arkansas Senate District 13, Arkansas House District 63 and Arkansas House District 64. Link here for our endorsements in the U.S. Senate primaries, and link here for our endorsement in the 3rd District GOP primary.

Senate District 13 — GOP primary
Former state Representative Jake Files, Rep. Frank Glidewell and former state Representative Jim Medley are facing off in what we think has been the most interesting race for the District 13 Senate seat in the past two decades.

The GOP primary in this election cycle IS the race because no Democrats filed.

Let us first note that the three candidates are all good men. However, we believe the two choices in this race for those seeking consistently effective representation are Files and Medley. And of the two, we best like Files’ approach of favoring doing over dogma.

Files will build collaborative connections between Fort Smith and Little Rock rather than build walls against folks just because they are Democrats. In other words, we find it impossible to endorse candidates so tied to a political philosophy that they ask for your vote simply to guard against tax hikes from a governor who pushed the largest tax cut in state history. In other words, you’ll have to forgive us if we see long-term socio-economic danger for the Fort Smith region in a short-term political effort to out-conservative the most fiscally conservative governor in recent memory.

To be sure, we have other reasons to support Files.

While it may seem like hundreds of years ago, Files was first elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1998 at the age of 26. He served two terms in the House and, when seeking the District 13 Senate seat in 2002, had to drop out of the race because of an unforeseen and unavoidable change in his job status.

During his two House terms, Files was a key legislative AND community leader in the transition of Westark College to the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. This transition included funding for the Health Science building at UAFS.

Files was instrumental in the early stages of Fort Chaffee properties being officially and productively transferred to the supervision of the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority.

To put this in perspective, Files had an active, productive and effective role in the creation of what are now two of this region’s most important socio-economic development assets.

But that’s not all. The next time you drive by the Creekmore Park tennis facility, which is the envy of tennis programs around the state, you should remember that Files played an important part in securing funding for the effort. He also sponsored and pushed a bill — the Arkansas School Children Protection Act — that prevented ANYONE convicted of a sexual offense from working ANY job in a public school system.

It seems more people in the Fort Smith area are demanding or hoping the next generation in this community stands up to lead. Well, Jake Files was a pioneer in that respect, and we are confident this young man (he’s now 38) will be a rational and conservative guard against the unnecessary growth of state government while at the same time protecting and promoting the bests interests of Fort Smith.

We now have a chance to send this (relatively) young man with a proven track record of building positive political and community bridges to be one of 35 in the powerful Arkansas Senate. Let’s make the most of that chance.