Hutchinson’s honeymoon

It seems as if Asa Hutchinson is enjoying a honeymoon period at the helm of the Arkansas' state government.

Given that a public official’s approval rating is usually rock solid during his/her honeymoon period, public officials often try to hurriedly get the main item(s) on their political/policy agenda passed. In Hutchinson’s case, the fate of the Private Option and his middle class tax cut proposal were at the top of his political/policy agenda and needed to be dealt with urgently and responsibly.

Why and how has Gov. Hutchinson been able to get these two major items on his political/policy agenda passed without a major political resistance? Two factors could help give the answer to the above questions: one factor is exogenous and the other is endogenous.

EXOGENOUS FACTOR
The exogenous factor corresponds to the ambient political environment within which Hutchinson has operated so far. That environment is heavily infused with the honeymoon mood referred to earlier. As such, Hutchinson has been the beneficiary of the automatic level of support that most (elected) public officials often enjoy at the beginning of their term in office.

Thus, the overwhelming majority support that Hutchinson has received in the state legislature for the passage of his middle class tax cut proposal and for the passage of his vision for the Private Option has more to do with the fact that legislators are often compelled to either reserve judgment or support a Governor’s actions during this latter’s honeymoon period. It is in fact difficult for most legislators in the Governor’s party and most legislators in the opposition party to stand in the way of a sitting Governor whose approval rating among the public is sky high.

Speaking of approval rating, according to a Talk Business/Hendrix College poll, Hutchinson currently has a 52% approval rating, a 12% disapproval rating, while 36% of Arkansans are still not sure what to think of the Governor’s handling of his job. Having a 52% approval rating as the baseline (floor) of support and a + 40% approval/disapproval rating differential is quite good for Hutchinson as there is much more room for him to grow before reaching a given approval ceiling.

The 36% of Arkansans who are still not sure of what to make of Hutchinson’s handling of his job as Governor are mostly a mixture of those who may not have been closely following his activities and those who are genuinely just withholding judgment until Hutchinson has had enough time in office.

ENDOGENOUS FACTOR
The endogenous factor supplements quite well the exogenous factor discussed above and corresponds to Hutchinson’s individual prowess and Machiavellian maneuvering skills displayed before and right after his election as Governor. Those maneuvering skills have been more prominently at play on the Private Option issue than on the middle class tax cut issue- which, except for a minor disagreement on some details, wasn’t at all controversial.

Realizing that the fate of his $100 million middle class tax cut proposal was closely tied to the fate of the Private Option, Hutchinson was purposefully as vague as possible on the Private Option issue during the campaign and right after his election as Governor. (The end of the Private Option would have deprived the state of Arkansas of the $1.3 billion dollars that the federal government is slated to give the state of Arkansas for healthcare coverage expansion in fiscal year 2015, which would have made it almost impossible for Hutchinson to find the funds necessary to pay for his middle class tax cut proposal.)

This shrewd tactical move had a dual merit of preventing the erosion that the politically divisive issue of the Private Option would have likely had on Hutchinson’s support in some segments of the electorate (mostly among his conservative base and among some democrats who had warmed up to Hutchinson’s appeal), and of allowing Hutchinson to buy some time until after the election before proposing the details of his plan for the Private Option.

Besides, it seems as if Hutchinson strategically targeted key republican legislators, who have vociferously opposed the Private Option from the beginning, to find a way to assuage them. In the Arkansas Senate where Senate Bill (SB) 1020, the Private Option bill, was first introduced in 2013, only Sens. Cecile Bledsoe, Alan Clark, Jane English, Jim Hendren, and Bart Hester had voted ‘Nay.’ Four of these five Senators – excluding Sen. English who changed her mind after striking a deal with then Gov. Beebe to fund workforce education and reform the Job training mechanism in Arkansas – reiterated their opposition to the Private Option when they joined with 4 additional Senators to vote against funding the Private Option in 2014. Sens. Bledsoe and Clark even took the unusual step of campaigning for the defeat of seating republican legislators who had voted for the Private Option.

So, how did Hutchinson successfully win over the 4 original recalcitrant republican Senators? He first courted, sought, and got the endorsement of Sens. Bledsoe, Clark, and Hester during the 2014 gubernatorial election. It is fair to assume that Hutchinson had shared his thought process on the Private Option with these Senators and expected at least their silence on or at most their support for his position on the issue. As for Sen. Hendren, Hutchinson’s nephew, it would be quite difficult for the current Senate Majority Leader to publicly antagonize his uncle.

Besides, Hutchinson’s decision to appoint Dr. Greg Bledsoe, Sen. Bledsoe’s son and a qualified physician in his own right, as Arkansas Surgeon General might have had an impact on at least temporarily tempering Sen. Bledsoe’s opposition to the Private Option. For, it would be quite untenable for her to publicly criticize an administration of which her son is a member.

Moreover, Hutchinson made sure that Sen. Hendren and Dr. Bledsoe were part of his small delegation to Washington, D.C. that met and discussed his plan for the Private Option with federal authorities at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

It was then no surprise that after Hutchinson’s major policy speech on the Private Option on January 22, Sens. Hendren, Bledsoe, Clark, and Hester were among the legislators who (co) sponsored Senate Bill (SB) 96, the bill that keeps the Private Option alive until the end of 2016 and sets up a task force to propose ways to reform the overall Medicaid system.

The said bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers of the legislature, thanks in no small part to Hutchinson’s use of his honeymoon aura to skillfully mollify the resistance of key legislators, and to focus (at least temporarily) on a bipartisan solutions-driven approach on the Private Option issue.

The Private Option is set to live for at least two more years and Hutchinson has skillfully defused a controversial policy time-bomb, thus temporarily extending his honeymoon period.

But how long will Hutchinson’s winning streak and honeymoon period last once the legislature tackles vexing issues such as prison overcrowding, scholarship lottery, highway funding, etc.

Also, will conservative lawmakers who have voted to keep the Private Option alive until the end of 2016 still stick with Hutchinson when some of them gear up for re-election in 2016 and would want to fend off a challenge in the Republican primaries?

Let’s wait and see.