Ark. Times: Chairmanships Key To House Speaker’s Success

Gerard Matthews with the Arkansas Times takes a look at House Speaker Robert Moore’s committee chairmen selections in the 88th General Assembly.

Moore appointed potential future Democratic leaders as well as Republican House members to head key committees, as noted in this story. He singled out 3 Democrats initially:

At the close of the session on Friday, Moore credited his accomplishments to a decision he made nearly four months ago, the selection of committee chairmanships.

"I don’t know whether it was luck or instinct or if I really knew what I was doing, but to a person, I had the right people in the right places on the chair," Moore said. "I think the three that dealt with the toughest issues were Clark Hall in [House] State Agencies dealing with the redistricting and the constitutional amendments, Linda Tyler in [House] Public Health with a myriad of contentious issues before that committee and Darrin Williams on [House] Judiciary who had the same thing, just a huge agenda with tremendous items of importance to so many people, but items that tended to divide."

Rep. Davy Carter, a Republican from Cabot, says he and Moore had a "very professional relationship," but the two, obviously, didn’t agree on everything.

"I certainly felt more responsibility, having the chair," Carter says. "I was primarily focused on tax cuts and spending, along with a lot of other Republican members. From that standpoint, I’m satisfied on how the math worked out in the end… Probably the most difficult position I was in during the session, was over the diesel tax. The speaker, that was one of his priorities and I did not support that."

Read more on the subject from the Arkansas Times at this link.