Legislative Wasteland (Editorial)

In 2001, lawmakers took the time to designate the Dutch oven as Arkansas’ official cooking vessel. In 2007 they debated whether the possessive of Arkansas should be Arkansas’ or Arkansas’s.

The recent kerfuffle over a resolution congratulating Barack Obama on his election as president was another of those ridiculous distractions that are entirely too common at the Arkansas General Assembly.

The resolution was introduced in the Senate, which was bad enough, but at least it passed without much more time or energy being wasted on it.

Then in the House, an identical time- and energy-wasting resolution collided with more time- and energy-wasting ideology – specifically, a dispute over whether the resolution’s assertion that this country was founded by slave owners was factual even though not every “Founding Father” fit that category.

The House resolution failed in committee, but the aginners seem to be wasting more time and energy trying to craft a replacement bill that won’t offend their delicate sensibilities.

And when it’s all said and done, the people of Arkansas will have what to show for all this legislative effort? Better schools? Better roads? Better law enforcement? More jobs? Access to better medical care? Will Arkansans be better off in any way at all?

You know the unfortunate answer.

And what about President Obama? He became president with no help from Arkansas, and we sincerely hope that he wouldn’t waste any time or energy contemplating the deep meaning of a congratulatory resolution – the original or the sanitized – from the Arkansas House of Representatives.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Legislature, the point we are attempting to make here is this: Stop wasting your time and energy and the taxpayers’ money on make-work legislation.

We aren’t sure there was ever a day when Arkansas could afford this kind of nonsense, but we’re positive that we can’t afford it now. Arkansas, like the rest of America, is facing real issues that require serious people doing heavy lifting.

Feather-weights at the Capitol will always try to justify their existence with such piffle. Serious legislators forced to take time out for these votes should vote no as a matter of principle – no to wasting time, energy and money, no to pretending to govern.