John Burris: Remembering The Fayetteville Finger

Things change quickly. Politics is especially an ever-evolving web of characters. The good ones leave an impact long after they’ve exited their stage. Events, even if important in the moment, can prove to be defining later on.

Such was the case in 2011, the last time the Arkansas Senate seriously considered using the procedure of “extraction” to pass a bill. “Extraction” allows a majority of the Senate to bypass a committee. It favors the majority party and eliminates any significance of standing committees.

In 2011, a few Democratic Senators refused to use the tactic during the intense debate over Congressional maps. But last week, 20 members voted to extract an election cycle re-shuffling bill that enjoyed broad Republican support.

The comparison between then and now is almost surreal. The effects of the decisions made four years ago are unbelievably large.

Then, the Republicans were a minority and we failed to stop the Democrats’ federal redistricting plan, known as the “Fayetteville Finger” in the House. It gerrymandered liberals in Washington County into the Fourth Congressional District of South Arkansas.

Gov. Mike Beebe seemed content to support House Speaker Robert Moore’s obsessive goal of creating a “Delta District,” which was born almost entirely of heart, not math, and is what necessitated the creative map drawing.

That partisan embarrassment now rested on the Senate side. More specifically, the Senate State Agencies Committee, which was evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. More accurately, it was resting almost entirely in the hands of Sen. Larry Teague, a Democrat from South Arkansas. He was being asked to vote for extraction of the deadlocked bill. He was stubbornly refusing to do so, and the Democrats needed his vote to comprise a majority to move forward.

That’s because Republican Sen. Gilbert Baker was working relentlessly to convince Sen. Paul Bookout, a Democrat, to also oppose extraction. Sen. Bookout finally did so, and vocally. So did Sen. Jerry Taylor, who was fond of being predictably unpredictable.

If these Democrats had simply followed their party, “Fayetteville Finger” creator Rep. Clark Hall could have claimed success for his crayon-drawn map. Congressman Mike Ross, boosted by tens of thousands of presumed supporters, might have run for re-election.

For many reasons, in the end, Teague and Bookout both said no or at least opposed the process the Democrats were attempting to use to make it law.

Stalled, Democrats were forced to retreat and re-draw. The compromise that emerged added Yell County to the Fourth district and made it more Republican-friendly. Ross retired, though he says that was the plan all along.

It changed the First District by adding two counties along the Mississippi River and created a “Delta District” that no person from the Delta could win, including Rep. Hall. It also left the Second District virtually unchanged.

But now, back into the present day, where so much has changed.

Only one member of that old cast was in the State Capitol last Wednesday, when the full Senate voted to utilize extraction as the means to pass a bill, the effect of which is far less consequential than many others that have been blocked by divided committees in years past.

I haven’t asked Sen. Teague how he feels about Senate Republicans using a tactic against him that he refused to use against them. I suspect his answer would be clever and short. He might even tell me I’m wrong about a few things, but I don’t think I am.

I’ve no strong opinion on the process of extraction. I’m inclined to be against it, but I’m also not naïve. My opinion might change if four people on a committee stood in the way of something I really wanted. Opinions have a way of changing in times like those.

But four years ago, Sen. Teague said “no” to his party leadership who pushed for the “Fayetteville Finger.” He said Senate procedure should remain unchanged.

Teague forced a compromise that – through not fault of his own – made the Congressional map far more favorable to Republicans, and it moved Tom Cotton’s Yell County out of the Second District and into the Fourth, leading to his quick rise to Congress and the U.S. Senate.

I hope at least one Republican found the senator and shook his hand.

Sen. Teague, I mean. He deserves it.